Web-based second language grammar development: Researching the options

Abstract

This article describes the work completed after one year of a three and a half year research project designed to study the effects of purposeful interaction on the Internet on the grammatical accuracy of French immersion students in two Australian high schools. The two schools adopt different approaches to the teaching of grammar, one integrating it with the immersion subject-matter content, while the other teaches it as a discrete subject. To date, one of the schools has been linked with schools in France and Canada to produce a web magazine containing articles written collaboratively in French (by the Australian and Canadian students) and English (by the French students). The other school is to be linked in 2000. A number of web tools have been developed which allow the researchers to monitor the students' interactions during the process of arriving at publishable articles. This article describes the use of a range of research instruments developed to gather project data and explains how the data will be used to address the research question: What is the effect of purposeful interaction via the Internet on the grammatical accuracy of foreign language learners?