Linguistic Development Corpus
Learners
Three groups of twenty learners in each of years 9, 10 and 11 (i.e. in their 3rd, 4th and 5th year respectively of learning French in the UK educational context; age 13-14, 14-15, 15-16 respectively) in a local secondary school have been tested.
A gender balanced sample from the three year groups, and containing pupils of all the ability range, as judged by the teachers and the pupils’ school grades, is being used in the study. The sample is however slightly biased towards the top ability pupils, as they are more likely to show signs of further development.
In selecting and involving informants in the research, the project followed the Recommendations on Good Practice in Applied Linguistics of the British Association of Applied Linguistics (1994) on the responsibility of researchers in respecting the privacy of participants, ensuring confidentiality of personal details and in maintaining openness about the goals of the research.