This study investigated how to present grammatical structures to intermediate‐level French college students. It compared the effects of a guided inductive and a deductive approach on short‐ and long‐term learning of 10 structures. A mixed‐methods design was adopted to assess learning of the structures and to investigate preference of approach. Performances in both conditions were measured through a within‐subjects design featuring a pretest/posttest and immediate posttreatment tests. A questionnaire assessed students' preferences and relationships between preferences and performance were examined. Findings indicated a significantly greater effect of the guided inductive approach on short‐term learning. The long‐term findings and the relationship between preferences and performances were not significant. Analyses indicated that students who preferred explanations of the rules performed better with a guided inductive approach.

This study compared a story-based video instructional package, with a feature-length film as its focus, to a text-based program. It explored the effectiveness of each approach to enhance the listening and grammar performances of intermediate-level college French students. Twenty-seven students at two institutions participated. A pretest-posttest design assessed long-term gains in listening performance and grammar performance. Results indicated that students significantly improved their listening skills and grammar knowledge when exposed to the story-based video package. For the text-based group, students did not significantly improve in listening, but they significantly improved in grammar. For grammar only, the increase in mean scores for the video-based group was significantly higher than the increase in mean scores for the text-based group. The video-based curriculum used a narrative approach to teach grammar and foster listening. Results support using a film with an engaging storyline and with embedded targeted structures as effective input to enhance linguistic performance.

The present study compared student retention of information in foreign language (FL) videos in 2 advance organizer conditions. The participants were 67 college students enrolled in 5 sections (4 experimental sections and 1 control section) of a beginning-level French course. In the advance organizer declarative (AO.) condition, the teacher read aloud 6 sentences that summarized, in chronological order, major scenes in the upcoming video. In the advance organizer interrogative (AO?) condition, the teacher began by reading aloud the same 6 sentences, but this time each declarative sentence had been transformed into a question. For each question, the teacher suggested 3 possible answers, making no indication as to which one was correct. The control condition consisted of a group of students who watched the same videos as in the AO. and the AO? conditions, but had no advance organizer before the video viewings. Student performance with 10 videos introduced in each of these 3 ways was examined on tests of information in the videos. Results indicated that although there were no significant differences in scores between the two AO experimental groups, students in both the AO. and the AO? conditions scored significantly higher on the tests than did the control group. The researchers interpreted these findings as supporting the premise that it is significantly better to incorporate an advance organizer with video than not, and as indicating that both declarative and interrogative AOs can facilitate extensive listening in the FL classroom

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