Resumen de Time Distribution and the Acquisition of English as a Foreign Language
The purpose of the present dissertation is to investigate the effect of time distribution of practice (or instruction hours) on the acquisition of English as a foreign language. The general objective is to have an overall picture of the learners' language gains in English according to the type of program they attended (intensive or non-intensive), focusing on all the different language areas: listening, grammar, vocabulary, reading, writing and speaking. Additionally, another main objective of analysis is the relationship between the students' initial proficiency level and the effect of time distribution on learners' L2 gains. While there is general agreement that more hours of foreign language instruction (the same as more hours of practice in any skill) leads to more advanced levels of performance, there is not such consensus about how the hours of classroom instruction should be distributed. Traditionally, most institutions providing second language teaching design programs which offer a limited amount of contact hours with the L2 spread over long periods of time (usually years in the case of most L2 classes in primary or secondary school). The present study will analyze data from intermediate and advanced EFL learners in intensive and non-intensive English programs in order to provide some evidence for the optimal distribution of instruction hours in English classes depending on the students' initial proficiency level. Considering previous studies on the effect of time distribution on L2 learning, the first hypothesis predicts that intensive instruction should have a positive effect on the acquisition of English grammar and vocabulary, as well as reading, writing and speaking skills. The second hypothesis states that time distribution should have different effects according to the learners' initial proficiency level. The results of the tests which assessed the students' L2 skills (including a listening activity, a sentence transformation exercise, a cloze activity and a reading) demonstrate that the students in intensive courses seem to make more progress in certain L2 areas (such as listening or grammar), but not in others (reading). However, such advantage was only observed for the students in the intermediate course. Moreover, the analysis of the learners' writing and speaking skills also suggests a certain advantage for the students in intensive courses in some measures of written and oral production, but not in all of them. Similarly, such advantage is only obvious for intermediate learners. These results are interpreted in light of Anderson's ACT model of skill acquisition (Anderson, 1993), which considers that, before a skill is completely acquired the knowledge required to perform such skill moves through several stages, including a declarative stage, a procedural stage and an automatization stage. It will be argued that intensive instruction seems to be more beneficial when learners are proceduralizing their L2 knowledge (as is the case of the intermediate learners), since the type of input received in intensive classes promotes the acquisition of such knowledge. Advanced learners, on the other hand, need to either acquire new nuances about rules which they have already proceduralized, or eradicate non-target-like productions which have been automatized. It appears that intensive instruction (or at least a short intensive course) does not necessarily help in the acquisition of the knowledge which advanced learners need to acquire. This dissertation concludes by suggesting that the distribution of instruction hours is an important factor in the acquisition of English as a foreign language and should be considered when designing EFL programs.
