English language teaching in secondary education [601326]

English language teaching in secondary education
and the use of English outside school
A comparison of the Basque Country and
Friesland

RESEARCH REPORT

Eli Arocena
Jildou Popma

The contents of this publication may be reproduced in print, except for commercial purposes,
provided that the e xtract is proceeded by a complete reference to the Mercator European Research
Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning.

First published in 2014

Copyright © 2014 Eli Arocena and Jildou Popma

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements …………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………. …… 3
1 Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. ……………….. ….. 4
2 Theor etical considerations and methodology ………………………………………… …………………………. …. 5
2.1 Foreign language didactics …………………………………………………………. ………………………… 5
2.2 English outside school ……………………………………………………………. …………………………. .. 7
2.3 Methodology …………………………………………………………….. ………….. …………………………. . 8
2.3.1 Lesson observation instrument ………………………………….. …………………………. . 8
2.3.2 English outside school diary ……………………………………….. …………………………. 10
2.4 R esearch questions ……………………………………………………….. ………………….. ……. ………… 1 0
3 Participating schools and students ……………………………………………………………………………………… 1 2
3.1 The schools ……………………………………………………………………………. …………………………. 12
3.2 The stud ents …………………………………………………………………………. …………………………. . 14
4 Results …………………………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………… . 17
4.1 Characteristics of the didactics ………………………….. ……………………. ………………………….. 1 7
4.1.1 English lessons in the Basque Country …………………………………………….. ……… 1 7
4.1.2 English lessons in Friesland ……………………………………………………………………. 2 9
4.2 Characteristics of the learning materials …………………………… …………………….. …………… 3 9
4.2.1 Learning materials in the Basque Country ……………………………………………….. 3 9
4.2.2 Learning materials in Friesland ………………………………………………………………. 40
4.3 English use outside sch ool …………………………………………………………….. …………… ………. 41
4.3.1 Listening ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 42
4.3.2 Speaking ….. …………………………………………………………………………………………. 44
4.3.3 Reading ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 46
4.3.4 Writing …. ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 48
5 Summary and conclusion ………………………………………………………………………. ………………………… . 51
5.1 English language didactics ……………………………………………………… …………………………. .. 51
5.2 English outside school ………………………………………………………….. …………………………. … 55
5.3 Future research ………………………………………………………………….. …………………………. …. 57
6 Literature ………………………………………………………………………………. ……… …………………. ………. ….. 59

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Acknowledgements

Since 2007, the Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language
Learning of the Frisian Academy and the University of the Basque Country have been working
together on a comparative research project on The added value of multilingualism an d multilingual
education . This research is carried out in two different European regions where a regional language is
spoken: Friesland in the Netherlands and the Basque Country in Spain. In this project , the Mercator
Research Centre cooperates with the Un iversity of the Basque Country with the aim of analysing
bilingualism and multilingualism for the in dividual and society, and analysing bilingualism and
multilingualism as resources in school. Part of the analysis involves a comparison of the ways in
which languages and multilingualism are dealt with in both regions.

The authors wish to express their gratitude to the Basque Ministry of Education for funding
and supporting this project, for their confidence in the research qualities of Mercator, and the
cooperation of the University of the Basque Country.

A word of thanks is due to colleague s Professor Durk Gorter at the University of the Basque
Country – Ikerbasque and Professor Jasone Cenoz for their ongoing support.

And last but not least , our Merca tor colleagues Mirjam Günther -Van der Meij and Truus de
Vries, who also work ed on and contributed to this project, and to Cor van der Meer, Head of the
Department of Social Sciences at the Fr yske Akademy.

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1 Introduction

This comparative report is part of the comparative research project entitled: “The added
value of multilingualism and multilingual education”. Six reports have been published so far as part of
this project: Languages and Language Education in Friesland. Th e role and position of Frisian in the
province of Friesland and in Frisian Education (Dou wes, Hanenburg & Lotti, 2010), Frisian and Basque
Multilingual Education: A Comparison of the Province of Friesland and the Basque Autonomous
Community (Aroc ena, Douwe s & Hanenburg, 2010) , Trilingual Primary Education in Europe; some
developments with regard to the provisions of trilingual primary education in minority language
communities of the European Union (Björklund, et al. 2011), Multilingualism in Secondary Educ ation:
A Case Study of the Province of Friesland and the Basque Autonomous Community (de Vries and
Arocena, 2012) and The Multilingual Classroom in Primary Education in the Basque Country and
Friesland: beliefs of teachers and their language practices (Aro cena and Gorter, 2013). A seventh
report is to be published in 2014, which is an analysis of Basque and Frisian secondary school
students’ language proficiency in writing, entitled Written language competence in three languages
in the school context: A Com parison of the Province of Friesland and the Basque Country (Popma &
Arocena).

Through these reports, m uch has been learned already about the similarities and differences
between the two contexts ; in terms of minority languages, Basque has a relative ly strong position at
school but is weaker in society , with the Frisian case being almost the opposite. Frisian has a weak
position at school and a relatively strong position in society (at least as a spoken language). In both
regions the majority language h as a strong presence inside and outside education.

This current report comes as a continuation to the previous reports and findings, and it
focuses solely on English; English inside and outside school, with a particular focus on the didactics of
English language teaching in secondary education and on the exposure to, and use of, the English
that students in those grades experience outside of the school environment.

Chapter 2 includes a general background on the theory behind the principles of the didac tics
of second language teaching and also on the exposure to and use of English outside school. It also
presents the method used to collect and analyse the data and the research questions on which this
study is based. Chapter 3 consists of a description of the schools and students who participated in
this current research and from whom data was collected.

Chapter 4 presents the results and findings of the analysis conducted with the data collected
on English language teaching didactics and the use of Engl ish that teenage students experience in the
Basque Country and in Friesland.

Chapter 5 consists of the conclusion and suggestions for further research and finally, Chapter
6 is a list of reference of the literature used for this study.

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2 Theor etical considerations and methodology

In this chapter we describe the theory and previous studies done on the didactics of
foreign languages (2.1) and on the use of English outside school (2.2). We also present and
describe the methodology and instruments used for collecting data for this study (2.3). And
in the last part of this section, we present a summary and the research questions (2.4).

2.1 Foreign language didactics

Everyone remembers his or her own education in a foreign language, in which there
was usually a heavy focus on grammar, syntax and spelling. Chomsky (1965) claims that
language competence is exclusively associated with rules of grammar. The grammar –
translation method was replaced by the audio -lingual method, and the underlying
assumption wa s that foreign language learning was basically a mechanical process of habit
information and automatization (Rivers, 1964). This meant that students were presented
with language patterns and dialogues which they had to mimic and memorize. The belief in
this method was so strong that traces of audio -lingual materials can still be found in today’s
methods. But at the time, the audio -lingual method did not create speakers who were able
to communicate in the target language. A broader notion of competence , that of
communicative competence is also proposed and is intended to include not only
grammatical competence (using the grammatical rules), but also a contextual or
sociolinguistic competence (using the rules of language use). In other words: knowing a
languag e includes much more than the knowledge of rules of grammar. This claim had an
enormous impact on the field of second language teaching and learning. This division in
language teaching is called formal vs. functional, by many educationalists, but there is also a
lot of confusion (cf. Stern 1978 for discussion). Practically everyone agreed that previous
approaches to second language teaching which focus on presentation and practice of
grammar in an isolated way had not been very successful. A didactic approa ch which
emphasizes the opportunity for the learners to express ideas and to communicate and to
interact spontaneously and naturally would lead to more successful learning. This
communicative language teaching reached a peak in the early 1980s, in North Am erica and
Great Britain. Canale and Swain (1980) make a general distinction between grammar -based
and communication -based approach to second language teaching. Grammar -based, or the
grammatical approach is organized on the basis of linguistic, or grammatic al, form
(phonological and morphological forms, syntactic patterns and lexical items) and emphasizes
the way in which these forms may be combined to create grammatical sense. A
communicative approach is organized on the basis of communicative functions (for example
apologizing, describing, inviting, promising) that a learner needs to know and emphasizes
the ways in which particular grammatical forms may be us ed to express these functions
appropriately. There is a third approach made earlier by Morrow (1977) called the
situational approach. But this approach can be either grammatical or communicative, so we
assume, like Canale and Swain, two approaches. Althoug h the communicative approach is
approved, learning a foreign language also requires knowledge of formal aspects like
grammar and syntax. So both approaches are important in language teaching. For example,
Allen (1983) made a distinction between meaning -based, form -based and form – and

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meaning -based instructions, suggesting that both approaches (‘form’ and ‘meaning’) are
important in education.

In the last few decades, numerous methods have come and gone. What has emerged
from this time is a variety of comm unicative language teaching methodologies, in which
(from some to all of) the principles of CLT can be recognized: Communicative Language
Teaching. The principles are: Use tasks as an organisational principle; Promote learning by
doing; Input needs to be r ich (materials need to be authentic and to reflect real -life
situations and demands), meaningful, comprehensible and elaborated; Promote cooperative
and collaborative learning; Focus on form; Provide error corrective feedback; Recognize and
respect affecti ve factors of learning (Brandl, 2007). The use of tasks has become known as
Task -Based Instruction (TBI). A well -known definition of a task is offered by Nunan (1989):
“Any classroom work which involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing, o r
interacting in the target language while their attention is principally focused on meaning
rather than form.”

This part of the research focuses on the didactics. Looking at the final exam standards
of a foreign language, pupils have to show reading ski lls, viewing skills, listening skills,
conversation skills ( conversing and speaking), writing skills (linguistic skills and strategic
skills) and knowledge of the literature. These are the statutory objectives of secondary
education in the Netherlands (Min isterie van OC&W, 2007).
A general trend in foreign language teaching in the Netherlands is the increase of
working independently and cooperative learning (Kwakernaat, 2010) . Cooperative learning is
a teaching strategy in which small teams, each with students of different levels of ability, use
a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject. Each member of a
team is responsible not only for learning what is taught but also for helping teammates
learn, thus creating an atmo sphere of achievement. Students work through the assignment
until all group members successfully understand and complete it.
However, comparative European research has shown that the use of English as the
target language and as the medium of instruction in The Netherlands was most used during
traditional situations, lesser during independent study activities and the least during group
work (Bonnet, 2002). A decrease of classical time is disadvantageous for speaking in the
target language. With using the English language as medium of instruction, cooperative
learning can be a successful didactic principle in foreign language teaching. Cooperative
learning fits also the Common European Framework of Reference. In Spain the CEF R is called
´Marco Común Europeo de Referencia para las Lenguas´ , and is abbreviated to MCER or ‘ el
Marco’ . The exams are not yet linked to the European Framework of Reference.

Knowing this, we have to find a way to compare the state of affairs inside th e
classrooms in the Basque Country and Friesland. We have to select an observation scheme
which is meaningful and useful in both regions, and that will cover the didact ic principles in
both regions. We are interested in an observation scheme that provides a combination of
form and meaning. In the next section we will explain the use of the method.

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2.2 English outside school

Nowadays, English is the first foreign language taught at school in both the Basque
Country and in Friesland. In Friesland most pup ils start to learn English by age of ten,
whereas “most schools in the Basque Autonomous Community start teaching English (…) at
the age of four” (Cenoz, 2009: 119). During these years, English language teachers have little
influence on what happens outs ide the school. Yet, for developing productive skills – like the
written proficiency tested by Popma & Arocena (2013) – it seems to be important that pupils
do not merely use a language inside school. Thomas & Roberts (2011: 91) state that it is in
the chi ld’s social use of a language that multilingualism becomes a reality.

Research done in the Basque Country shows that English is hardly used in everyday
life in the Basque Country (Cenoz, 2009: 114). Cenoz (2009: 115) writes: “(…) there are very
few oppo rtunities to use English outside the classroom. Spanish and Basque television use
dubbing and not original versions with subtitles and (…) in most cases the only exposure to
English is at school.” She also speaks about the lack of proficiency of the Englis h teachers
because of the lack of exposure: “Proficiency in English among primary and secondary
teachers in the Basque Community is not high, because English is not used in everyday life
(…)” (Cenoz, 2005: 48).

Many parents send their children to privat e classes of English (English Academies),
because they want their children to learn more English. According to Cenoz (2009: 116), the
situation will change in new generations. Because of internet and computer games, people
will be more exposed to English.

In Friesland the situation is different somehow to the Basque Country because
English television programmes or movies contain the originally spoken language with Dutch
subtitles. In this way, English penetrates the daily life of Frisian pupils more than is the case
with their Basque counterparts.

In 2002 already, the TV and the internet were stated to be important sources of
contact with English. For a report by the European Network of Policy Makers for the
Evaluation of Education Systems the outside school exposure to English was studied in
several countries. This report states that among Dutch pupils between the ages of 12 and 15
(N = 1515) “an average of 205 minutes was spent daily on TV/video/radio. Also on internet
(…) English holds a strong posi tion.” Regarding the exposure to English on TV, the same
report says that “ On average, Dutch TV consumers will get at least one hour of English every
day.” Furthermore, the report adds that “English is remarkably present in various forms of
advertising in the Netherlands” ( European Network of Policy Makers for the Evaluation of
Education Systems, 2002: 47).

In the above -mentioned report, four major categories of contact with English are
given: contact through (1) spoken language, (2) written language, (3) interaction with peers
and family members, and (4) computer use. It is not completely clear what category contact
through music and television comes under, but the report affirms that “m usic, radio, TV and
computers/internet are the most important types o f contact. English is the language of
music for this group and the number of hours spent listening to music is considerable, even

8
more than 4 hours a day for some groups.”1 About the television the report states that
“English spoken programmes are common. This is not surprising given the dominance of
English spoken programs on Dutch channels and the popularity o f music channels for this
group ”. More surprising still is that more than 30% indicate “having watched BBC programs
that are typically not subtitled ” (European Network of Policy Makers for the Evaluation of
Education Systems, 2002: 140 -141).

2.3 Method ology

This section details the method used to collect the necessary data to describe what
happens inside the classroom and the exposure to and use of English the students in the
Basque Country and in Friesland experience outside the school. First of all, the ins trument
used to collect the data is defined and then, the manner in which data was collected in both
regions. Afterwards, the process of analysing the data is recounted.

2.3.1 Lesson observation instrument

A lesson consists of innumerable interactions; first there is the interaction between
teacher and class (whole group), teacher and pupil, pupil and pupil, and pupil and material.
Then the work forms: individual, in groups, pairs, speaking, listening, writing, reading,
combined or not, typ e of material, working independently, or controlled by the teacher,
explaining, correction of tasks, working on tasks, and so on. Therefore, and in order to build
up a rich and meaningful set of data, an extended scheme that allows a close look at what
happens inside the classroom is essential. COLT (Communicative Orientation of Language
Teaching) observation scheme (Spada and Fröhlich, 1995) serves that purpose. One of the
assumptions to design the COLT -scheme was that instruction which provides a combinat ion
of form and meaning to be a predictor of better learning, although, at the time, the
acceptance of exclusively meaning -based teaching was very strong. Nowadays, the role of
form -focused teaching has changed. It is one of the aspects of CLT (Communicati on
Language Teaching). COLT consists of two parts: Part A gives a description of what happens
inside the classroom and Part B focuses on the interaction. We have used Part A to collect
our data in the Basque Country and Friesland. This part consists of sev en main features2:

1 Time
Time is the length in minutes of the instructional period and its components.

2 Activities and episodes
Activities are separate units that constitute the instructional segment of the
classroom. An activity consists of episod es or is divided into episodes. In this study, we
identified nine types of episodes and labelled them as follows:
 Management
 Introduction to task
 Work on task
 Check task

1 The study was conducted eleven years ago, so we may assume that the time spent on the internet has
increased in the meantime.
2 For further detail see Appendix I.

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 Review task
 Instruction/explanation
 Homework assignment
 Closure
 Interruption by anoth er teacher/student

3 Participant organisation
This refers to the way in which students are organized: Class (a central activity led by
the teacher, one central activity led by a student, or choral works by students), Group (doing
the same task or different tasks) and Individual (students work on their own on the same
task, or on different tasks).

4 Content
This refers to the subject of activities what the teacher and students are
talking/reading/writing about or listen to. Content consists of three different categories;
management, language, and form. Each category is further analysed as:
 Management:
o Procedure (procedural directives)
o Discipline (discipline statements)
 Language:
o Form
o Function
o Discourse
o Sociolinguistics
 Form: (Other topics)
o Narrow ( topics referring to the classroom and the student’s immediate
environment and experiences)
o Broad (topics going well beyond the classroom)

5 Content control
This refers to who selects the topic or task that is the focus of instruction: Teacher
and/or text determines the topic, Teacher and students jointly decide the topic, or the
student (s) has decided on the topic.

6 Student modality
The focus is on the students and indicates which skill (s) occur (in combination):
Listening, Reading, Writing, Speaking, Other (drawing, acting etc.)

7 Materials
This feature describes the used materials. In terms of type: Minimal (written text:
captions, isolated sentences, word lists etc.), Extended (writ ten text: stories, dialogues,
connected sentences, paragraphs etc.), Audio (recorded material for listening) or Visual
(Pictures, cartoons etc.). In terms of source: Not Native Speaker (material especially
designed for second language teaching), Native Spe aker (originally intended for native
speakers), Native Speaker Adapted (native speaker materials which have been adapted for
second language teaching purposes) or Student made.

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Once the instrument for the analysis of the characteristics of the didactics of English
language teaching was selected, two teams of researchers, one in the Basque Country and
the other in Friesland, proceeded to select the participating schools and groups. For
comparison matters, same -age students were selected in both regions. T he teams of
researchers observed and took notes for a period of a whole week in each of the schools and
they observed and collected data from English language lessons and lessons of content
subjects taught through the medium of English. Two researchers in the Basque Country were
involved in observing, taking notes and filling in the COLT scheme in two Basque schools, and
two other researchers in Friesland proceeded to do the same in their region.

The data collected was then labelled and entered into the S PSS programme for a
quantitative analysis of the didactics and materials used in those English lessons observed.

2.3.2 English outside school diary

Collecting data for the analysis of English outside school is not an easy task, taking
into consideration that it is not a process the researcher can do directly. We decided that the
most appropriate method was to use a diary.

The purpose of the diary was to record whether the pupils were exposed to English
or used English, and to what extent, during the course of a whole week. We gave each
student a handout in the form of a check -list. This form was divided into seven days
(Monday to Sunday) and each d ay had a list of activities grouped by skills; listening,
speaking, reading and writing. To help students fill in the diary, we included different
activities such as listening to music, watching TV, and speaking face -to face – to mention
some – and there w as also the choice “other” included. The students therefore marked with
a check (√) if they used English in any of those media. The students were also encouraged to
add information on whom they used English with, and where they used English. We also
asked them to tell us how long they had spent on any of the activities. Therefore, they had
to jot down the length of time spent on watching television in English or the time spent on
speaking in English with a friend, for example.

When analysing the collecte d data, a check mark means that the students have used
English or were exposed to English in that manner. In some cases, students are exposed to
English or use English through an activity more than once per day. For example, they can
listen to English thro ugh TV and radio on the same day. Therefore, when we present the
amount of times they listen to English in a week it does not mean how many days per week
they listen to English but rather how many times per week they do so.

The language diary was filled in at home over an entire week period, and then
collected by the researchers the following week. Appendix II shows the diary scheme that
was used to collect this data.

2.4 Research q uestions

In 2005 Cenoz wrote: “Traditionally students in the Basque Autonomous Community
have achieved relatively low levels of proficiency in English at school” (Cenoz, 2005: 46).

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Popma & Arocena (to be published) have studied the written proficiency level of Basque and
Frisia n secondary school pupils in English. Their conclusion is that the Frisian pupils
outperform their Basque peers in writing in English. This is despite the fact that since 1991
Basque pupils began learning English at the age of four while Frisian pupils sta rted at the age
of ten (Educational Inspectorate, 2006: 110).

It is a fact that Frisian and Dutch (Germanic languages) are linguistically closer to
English than Basque (an isolated language) or Spanish (a Romance language), but there are
more factors that can be of influence, such as the attitude towards English, the motivation to
learn English, the outside school exposure to English, the English lesson materials, the
didactics, et cetera. For this study we have selected the last two factors: the English lesson
materials and the didactics, and the outside school expos ure to, and use of, English.

As mentioned before, until 1980, the practice of grammar provided the main content
of the lessons. Nowadays, communicative strategies are seen as more important. We expect
to recognize this strategy in the data we have colle cted in both regions. We will try to
narrow down the characteristics by identifying the small units which form a lesson. We want
to observe the characteristics of the manner in which lessons are structured, of the focus on
the four language skills, of the activities of the pupils (listening, writing, talking, group wise,
individual, et cetera), of the origin of the materials, of the subject of the assignments, and so
on. The COLT -scheme (Part A) assists in observing the lessons and determining the units. Due
to the trends in foreign language teaching, we expect this to be reflected in the materials
used. We expect to see the use of English as language of instruction and we expect to find
more emphasis on communication skills than grammar in both regions. The use of English as
medium of instruction is seen as valuable and necessary, therefore we will analyse the use of
the languages in the materials also. This study is explorative: we have no strong indications
about the nature of the differences between the t wo regions.

The research questions are thus formulated as following:

 “What are the characteristics of the didactics of English language teaching and of the
materials used?”
 “What is the amount of use and exposure to English that secondary -school studen ts
experience outside school, and in what manner do they obtain that exposure and
use?”

The next chapter is a description of the schools and students that participated in this
research study.

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3 Participating schools and students

The data were collected from two schools in the Basque Country: Udarregi Ikastola
and Orioko Herri Ikastola and from three schools in Friesland: CSG Gaasterland , Zuyderzee
College and OSG Sevenwolden . A total of seven teachers took part in the study: three in the
Basque Country and four in Friesland. We observed 43 lessons where English was taught as a
subject, or where Social Sciences were taught through the medium of English. The 43 lessons
comprised a total of 37 hours: 21 lessons in Friesland (17 hours and 12 minutes) and 22
lessons in the Basque Country (20 hours and 10 minutes).

All classes observed were in secondary education and the grades varied between 8, 9
and 10: DBH -2, DBH -3 and DBH -4 in the Basque Country and comparable to those vmbo -t-
2/havo -2/vwo -2, vmbo -t-3/havo -3/ vwo -3 and havo -4 in Friesland. A footnote is that
because we left out the graduating classes, the comparison of DBH -4 with level -4 grades in
Friesland is not entirely balanced.

3.1 The schools

We will first briefl y give the main characteristics of the two schools in the Basque
Country and thereafter of the three schools in Friesland.

Udarregi Ikastola is a school located in the town of Usurbil, in the province of
Gipuzkoa , in the Basque Country. It is a member of the network of Ikastolas (Ikastolen
Elkartea, the Federation of Basque Schools) which are schools that promote the use of
Basque in all spheres of life. The instruction in all subjects, except the language subject s
Spanish and English, is done through the medium of Basque, and the school only offers the
linguistic model D3.

In this study we observed the 2nd and 3rd grades of secondary education, where all
students were between 13 and 15 years old. The English la nguage lessons observed were
taught by one teacher. This teacher had an extensive teaching experience and used a quite
traditional teaching style in which she led the lesson from the front of the classroom. The
teacher used the textbook Subject Projects published by the Ikastolen Elkartea and she
sometimes used additional photocopies or worksheets from other instructional books. The
teacher only uses English for the instruction of the language and expects and encourages the
students to also use English duri ng the lesson time. From time to time some Basque can be
heard, but its presence is minimal, used mainly by the teacher to clarify the meaning of a
word, to communicate with an individual student or about an extraneous topic. The lessons
in this school las t for 55 minutes each.

Orioko Herri Ikastola is located in the town of Orio, also in the province of
Gipuzkoa. It is also a member of the network of Ikastolas and thus promotes the use of the

3 There are three linguistic models in which instruction is done in the Basque Country: Model A (instruction in
Spanish), Model B (instruction in Spanish and Basque), and Model D (instruction in Basque).

13
Basque language and all subjects, except Spanish and English, are taught through the
medium of Basque. A characteristic of this school is that there is no bell or any other device
to announce the beginning and end of the lessons. We observed the 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades
8, 9 and 10 (years 2, 3 and 4 of obligatory seco ndary education) and the students were
between the ages of 13 and 16 years. The lessons observed were English la nguage as a
subject and Social S ciences in English.

The lessons were given by two teachers. The first teacher taught English as a subject
in the 2nd grade and the other English and Social Science in the 3rd and 4th grades. The
number of years of teaching experience was different. The first teacher was a relative novice
teacher with only a year and a half’s experience, and the second teacher had an extensive
teaching experience of more than 15 years. Th e novice teacher was doing a long -term
substitution. Both teachers use a fairly traditional teaching style in which they lead the
lesson from the front of the classroom. The two teachers also us e the instructional material
published by the Ikastolen Elkartea as the basic texts and they also use additional material
when needed, mainly for grammar practice. The language of instruction both teachers use is
English, with very few exceptions, such as when a clarification is needed. The lessons at this
school are also 55 minutes long.

CSG Gaasterland is located in the Frisian town of Balk, in the south -western part
of the province, and it is a school based on the Protestant faith.

There was one tea cher whose lessons were observed at this school. We observed the
8th and 9th grades and the pupils were between 13 and 15 years old. These students were
distributed into three different levels according to their ability (from high to low). The
lessons obse rved were English language and they were taught by only one teacher. This
teacher followed the Stepping Stones method. The teacher used Dutch during the English
instruction. The teachers in this school use mainly Dutch as the instruction language,
sometime s Frisian but never English. In this school each lesson is scheduled for 70 minutes.

Zuyderzee College is located in Lemmer , a town in the very south of Friesland.
This school is at the forefront of modern teaching approaches in the Netherlands. The
teachers do not use any textbooks, but rather Moodle, an Electronic Learning Environment
(ELO), and they design their own teachin g materials. The English teacher does the same and
every pupil receives a laptop from school that they use in the classroom.

We observed grades 2 and 3 (from three different levels, from high to low) where
students were between 13 and 15 years old. The l essons observed were English language as
a subject and although the teacher uses Dutch as the basic language of instruction he tries to
use as much English as possible in the higher -level class (3 -havo -vwo).

In this school, each lesson is scheduled for 45 minutes but we also observed one
‘double lesson’ of 90 minutes.

OSG Sevenwolden is located in the town of Heerenveen, in the south -eastern part
of the province. The teaching style of this school is traditi onal, where the teacher leads the

14
lesson from the front of the classroom. A characteristic of this school is that there is no bell
to announce the beginning and end of each instructional period.

The observed group is Grade 4 (havo) and the students are between 15 and 16 years
old. We observed the instruction of English as a subject, where the teacher follows the
method Stepping Stones . The English teacher uses English as the language of instruction but
sometimes uses Dutch to explain vocabulary or gramma r.

The lessons in this school are scheduled for 45 minutes but we also observed one
‘double lesson’ of 90 minutes, which the teacher marked as two separate lessons.

3.2 The students

In this section we briefly describe some of the main characteristics of the students.
We already remarked that they are in grades 2, 3 and 4 of secondary and thus between 13
and 16 years old. The average age was 14.2 years for the Basque students and 14.3 for the
Frisian students, as we deduced from the back ground data included in the language diary
part of the study.

We only collected data from the students who attended the English classes.
However, the number of students whose language diaries were analysed is lower than the
number of students in those c lasses. This is because some students only partially filled in or
did not return the English language diary. In the analysis , only fully completed language
diaries were included , a total of 290 diaries: 113 from Basque students and 177 from Frisian
student s.

The gender divi sion is balanced in both regions too: in Friesland the participants are
50% male and 50% female and similarly, in the Basque Country they are 54% male and 46%
female.

The mother tongue of the students is presented in Figure 1.

15
Figure 1: Students’ mother tongue

As can be seen in the figure, the mother tongue of the students varies: while in
Friesland the number of students whose mother tongue is Frisian and the number of
students whose mother tongue is Dutch is quite balanced, in the Basque Country there are
more students whose mother tongue is Basque than whose mother tongue is Spanish. This is
probably because the schools are located in predominantly Basque speaking areas.

We also asked these students to state the languages they used most in four different
situations: at school, while going out, while practising sports, and at home. We ranked the
results and those rankings are presented in table 1.

TABLE 1: Rank of languages used
Language Use
Friesland Basque Country
At school DL>ML> EL ML>DL> EL
While going
out DL>ML> EL ML>DL> EL
While
practising
sport DL>ML> EL ML>DL>X
At home ML>DL> EL ML>DL>X

According to their responses, as can be observed in the table, the Frisian students use
mainly Dutch, for them the dominant language (DL), in most of the four situations, except at
home where they use mainly Frisian, the minority language (ML), and they report a limited
use English (EL) in all situations. The Basque students, on the contrary, use Basque, the
minority language as main language in all four si tuations, followed by Spanish, and do not
use English either at home or while doing sport -related activities.

We were also interested to learn from the students themselves as to how many
hours of English language instruction they received. The results a re presented in Figure 2.

72,2
7,4 19,1
1,2 34,3 36,3
25,5
3,7
01020304050607080
Minority Dominant Both OtherBasque Country
Friesland

16
Figure 2: Hours per week of English language lessons

Half of the Frisian students receive between one and two hours of English instruction
per week, the other half receives more than 2 hours per week, equally distributed over the
categories 2 -3, 3-4 and more than 4 hours per week. In the Basque Country, in contrast, half
of the students have more than four hours of English instruction per week and the minimum
is at least 2 -3 hours per week, as can be seen in Figure 2.

0 0 30,2
19,8 50
2,3 49,1
18,5
16,7
13,4
0102030405060
< 1 hour/week 1-2 hours/week 2-3 hours/week 3-4 hours/week > 4 hours/weekBasque Country
Friesland

17
4 Results

In this chapter we will discuss the results of the analyses . We will distribute them into
three separate parts. First, we discuss the features related to instruction in the subsection
Characteristics of the didactics (4.1) and next the features of the instructional material that
is used will be presented in the subsection Characteristics of the materials used (4.2), in the
final section (4.3) English use outside the school will be discussed .

4.1 Characteristics of the didactics

In this section we discuss the results of the instructional features of teaching English
we found for each separate region, first the Basque Country and then the province of
Friesland. A short comparison will be presented in chapter 5 Summary and conclusio n.

The seven features of the COLT -scheme that we will discuss are the following:
1) Activities and episodes, 2) Time , 3) Participant organization , 4) Content 5 ) Content control,
6) Student modality and 7) Materials.

Taken together these features comprise the main general characteristics of the
didactic approach used in the classrooms we observed. The more specific aspects related to
the teaching of English are not included, but as a whole they represent a good idea of what
goes on during the Engli sh lessons.

4.1.1 English lessons in the Basque Country

We observed 22 lessons in the Basque Country, and because each lesson is scheduled
for 55 minutes, the total observed amounted to 1,210 minutes. However, it turned out there
that we only recorded 1,073 minutes of ´instruction time´. That means that about 6 minutes
of each lesson was lost for different reasons – for example when the students were not ready
to begin or the teacher arrived late from the previous lesson (because in the Basque Country
each group has its own classroom and teachers go from classroom to classroom).

To describe general aspects of instruction in English we use the seven features of the
COLT scheme (see section 2.3 for the details). We will present the results of the analy sis
following the COLT scheme, step by step to describe the characteristics of the didactics of
English. We begin with the feature ´activities and episodes’ . This feature is used in the COLT
scheme to describe a range of different aspects of instruction. A n activity can include one or
more episodes, where ‘episodes’ are a smaller unit than activities. An example of an activity
could be a writing task, and its episodes can comprise the introduction to the writing task,
the discussion of the topic aloud, orga nization of the writing, the writing itself, and the
reading aloud of the written production.

Next we will present an overview of the number of activities per lesson that we
observed in the Basque Country. During the observation of 22 English lessons a total of 87
different activities were identified – about four activities per lesson on average. These
activities consisted of 201 episodes, hence 2.3 episodes per activity (or 9.1 per lesson). In

18
Figure 3 belo w we look at it from the perspective of the activity, where the number of
activities per lesson is indicated.

Figure 3: Distribution of activities per lesson

Figure 3 shows that there is only 1 lesson with 10 activities which is the lesson with
the m ost number of different activities and on the other side, there are 2 lessons with only
one activity each. We can also see that there are only 4 lessons out of the 22 observed that
include 5, 7, 8 or 10 activities. The rest of the lessons, with the excepti on of two that include
6 activities each, include 4 or fewer activities. Thus, on average, an English lesson in the
Basque Country consists of 3 .9 activities.

In the following figure we show the number of episodes those activities consist of. As
said, episodes are smaller units of the activities.

Figure 4: Distribution of episodes per activities

Figure 4 shows that there are 39 activities of 1 episode each and on the other side
there are 2 activities of 7 and 6 episodes each. There are 14 activities of 2 episodes and 16 of
3 episodes. And there are 7 activities of 4 episodes and 9 of 5 episodes. Thus on average, an
activity consists of 2 .3 episodes.
10
8
7
5
1 6
3
2 4
024681012
1 1 1 1 2 2 3 5 6
No. of lessonsNo. of activities
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
012345678
39 14 16 7 9 1 1
No. of activitiesNo. of episodes

19
The episodes are of different types. We were able to identify nine types of episodes
(see section 2.3). In figure 5 the distribution of the types of episodes is given (in absolute
numbers).

Figure 5: Distribution of type of episodes

The figure shows that the two most frequent types of episodes are Introduction to
task (47 occasions), and W ork on task (48 occasions). These two types of episodes are
carried out during almost half of the activities.

There are three episode types that have a frequency of 22 or 23 occasions:
Management, Check task, and R eview task, which means that those occur in about one
quarter of the activities, or about once each lesson.

Less frequently we observed the type of episodes Instruction or explanation of a
linguistic aspect (13 occasions), Homework assignment (9 occasions), and Closure (11
occasions) which refers to an explicit wrapping -up of the lesson. It means that specific
attention to linguistic aspects occurs only in about half of the English lessons we observed. It
also implies that homework is not always given and that lessons are not always clearly
resolved (but came more abruptly to an end).

The least observed type of episode is Interruption by another teacher or student (5
occasions), where another teacher or student opened the door to the classroom, usually
with an announceme nt or question. Overall, we can see that the lessons we observed were
task-oriented.

We also analyzed the length of each episode in minutes. It will be obvious that not all
the episodes are equally long. Figure 6 shows the distribution in time of all episodes.

23 47 48
23 22
13 9 11
5
0102030405060

20

Figure 6: Distribution of the length of episodes in minutes

In figure 6 we can see there were 53 episodes of one minute, 34 of two minutes etc,
with the longest episode lasting 50 minutes. This las t one was an almost complete lesson
where the episode was work on task in which the students worked in groups on writing a
script for a video project. Most of the episodes lasted for less than ten minutes. The avera ge
length of an episode was 5.3 minutes. Therefore, a lesson of about 49 minutes (scheduled
for 55 minutes) usually consisted of a series of short episodes (9.1 per lesson).

In order to estimate the place (or weight) of the different types of episodes in all
lessons, we wanted to know how much time was dedicated to each type. In figure 7 below,
we have taken the sum of the time dedicated to each episode type (in minutes), and
expressed this as a percentage of the total observed instruction time (the total was 1.073
minutes).

Figure 7: Distribution of time allocation per type of episode

53
34
27
10 16
7 6 6 5 8 6 3 5 3 3 3 1 2 1 1 1
0102030405060
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 19 21 23 27 39 50
2,9 14,3 48,1
14,9
9,4
4,7 2,1 1,6 1,6
0102030405060

21
The result gives another insight into what goes on in the lessons. The Work on task is
the type of episode that not only happens most often (48 occasions, see figure 5 ) but it is
also the episode type to which most time is dedicated, as it takes almost half of the
instruction time (48.1% in figure 7 ). The Introduction to task has about t he same frequency
(47 occasions) but it only takes up 14.3% of the instruction time. Of course, it also makes
sense that introducing a task takes less time than working on it , except when there is a
complicated task that needs extra explanation .

A simila r percentage of the time, 14.9%, is dedicated to Checking task (i.e. correcting
the activities or exercises the students have done). This type of episode was observed as
often as Introduction to task, which implies that not all tasks are checked, but as of ten as
Review task (i.e. a revision of a previously learned aspect), but with somewhat less time,
9.4%. The Management episodes (23 occasions) only take up 2.9% of the instructional time.

From the point of view of teaching English it is interesting to s ee that the Instruction
or explanation of grammar or other linguistic aspects take up almost 5% of the time, more
than Homework assignment , closure or interruption, each of which take up approximately
2% of the time. Therefore, in general, we can observe t hat about half of the instruction time
is spent on work on task .

The next feature is participant organization – the manner in which the students are
organized when working. There are three basic patterns of organization: class, group and
individual. We show the results here describing first the frequency in which they occur
during the English lessons, in Figure 8, followed by a description of the time allocated to
each pattern in Figure 9. The analysis allows us to see which pattern of participant
organi zation is most preferred or most common among the teachers.

Figure 8: Distribution of Participant Organisation

Explanation:
T-S/C: teacher to student or to class
S-S/C: student to student or student to class

22
The analysis of frequency of episodes sho ws that working as a whole class happens
more often (157+11= 168 occasions) than working in groups (35 occasions) or individually (7
occasions). Notice that here the sum of all episodes (210) is slightly more than the number of
observed episodes (201) beca use during an episode more than one type of participant
organization can occur. This is known as a ‘combination’ and how this happens can be
explained by an example: Episode number 170:

Group work: “Students are working in groups, they read quotes and need to
identify the person who might have uttered it (parent, doctor, young
person,…). Students take turns to read and then they discuss their opinion”.
Class work: “The teacher interven es by asking what they have learned up till
then on “viewpoint””.

Episode 170 is a clear example of a combination of the categories group work and
class work where the primary focus is on group work.

In Figure 8 we can also see that when the students are working on task as a whole
class, there are 157 episodes when the teacher leads the activity (T -S/C: teacher to student
or to class) and 11 episodes when a student, or students, lead(s) the activity (S -S/C: student
to student or student to class; e.g. presentations by students). We observed that more group
work occurs than individual work, but that the students always work on the same task, and
that there is no differentiation according to task. We only observed one episode of working
on different tasks (Episode 33). In that case there were 4 groups of 4 students each and 2
groups had to make a list of vocabulary while the other 2 groups had to make a different list.
Although the aim of the activity was the same for all students the different groups had to
write different lists of words during that episode.

Figure 9: Distribution of time allocation per type of participant organisation

The analysis of the participant organization according to time i n minutes brings about
a very similar outcome. We see that the type of organization where the students work as a 54,1
10,1 31,7
1 7,2
0
0102030405060
T-S/C S-S/C Same Task Diff. Task Same Task Diff. Task
Class Group Individual

23
whole class and are led by the teacher gets the most time allocated (54.1%), while classes
led by students gets less time (10.1%). This figure also shows that group work by students on
the same task represents almost a third of the total instruction time (31.7%). Finally,
students working individually and on the same task only represents 7.2% of the time. From
those percentages we can conclude th at teachers prefer to work with all students together –
most of the time as a whole class but, also in groups.

The next feature is content , which describes what the episode/activity is about, the
subject matter or theme of the activity, but always in relation to the language being taught.
It is one of the most important characteristics of the activities and episodes , it “was
developed to measure the extent to which a focus on meaning and/or form may contribute
to differences in L2 development” (Spada, 1995) . There are three major content categories:
Management, Language and Other Topics . Each category and its subcategories can be the
exclusive focus of an activity or episode but in most cases they co -occur with others. We ca n
give an example to make this clear. In the case of Episode 94 it was described as: “Activity
Compare and Contrast; Episode Introduction to grammar task”

Content: Management: Procedure : Teacher says: “Get your notebooks
because I’ll explain grammar and y ou need to copy it down”
Content: Language: Form: Grammar : The teacher goes over, explains and
writes on the board expressions to compare and contrast (both, and, too, but,
whereas,…).
Content: Language: Function : Explanation.
Content: Language: Discours e: How to construct sentences to compare and
contrast ( Whereas rich people had glass windows most people could not
afford them).
Content: Other topics: Broad : The topic is on the 1300’s and 1900’s in
England.

In the example of this episode we can see how the three categories of content and
five subcategories co -occur in one episode. Therefore, the total frequency of these
categories does not add up to the total of 201 episodes that were observed. The frequency
here means the number of occasions in which these (sub -)categories were observed during
the 22 lessons.

We present in Figure 10 the frequency of the content categories and in the next Figure 11
the percentage of instruction time dedicated to each catego ry.

24
Figure 10: Distribution of Content

In Figure 10 we see that the management category (98 occasions), is mainly
procedural sub-type (95 occasions). This means that on 95 occasions the students listened to
the type of utterance as “open your books”. On only 3 occasions was the management
language used actually related to discipline, with utterances such as “be quiet and start
working”. All these utterances of management were usually short directives or statements.

Included in ` language as content ´ there are seven sub -types. On the one hand, four
focus on form, and on the other there are three regarding function, discourse or
sociolinguistics. The teaching or practice of vocabulary is the category most often identified
(44 occasions), followed by grammar instruction (24 occasi ons), pronunciation (12 occasions)
and spelling (2 occasions). The instruction of two or more of these forms of language can
happen simultaneously. We can illustrate with the example of E pisode 132 how grammar
and pronunciation are instructed at the same t ime. In this episode groups of students are
doing an oral presentation on Egypt:

Student: “He don’t going to resigned ”
The teacher goes over the grammatical error with the whole class (will
not = won’t) and tells them the correct pronunciation of “resign”.

Among the other types of language use we most frequently observed was discourse
(37 occasions), where the teacher uses a combination of sentences to create coherent and
cohesive sequences and utterances. We observed less frequently function (26 occasions)
which is the use of sentences or utterances as communicative acts (e.g. requesting,
apologizing) and we only observed the category sociolinguistics as a type on a few occasions
(8). This refers to styles appropriate to particular contexts (e. g. formal/informal).

Content is divided into broad and narrow themes of the subject. A narrow subject
theme is related to the classroom, familiar topics (e.g. school topics, everyday routines, 95
3 24 44
2 12 26 37
8 81 115
020406080100120140
Procedure
Discipline
Form; Grammar
Form; Vocabulary
Form; Spelling
Form; Pronunciation
Function
Discourse
Sociolinguistics
Narrow
Broad
Management Language Other topics

25
family life,…) while a broad subject theme goes beyond the classroom (e.g. international
events, geography, science,…). Most often the theme is broad (115 occasions) while a
narrow theme was observed less often (81 occasions). There were five episodes without a
theme e.g. an interruption by another teacher or a n interruption where the teacher directly
interacted with one of the students. For example, Episode 16 does not have a theme
because the teacher interacted with a student, who was working on a group activity, about
an off -task matter.

Figure11: Distribut ion of time allocation per Content

When we look at the same distribution of episodes over content, we see that the
sum of all percentages adds up to over 100%. This is because more than one content
category and subcategory can co -occur simultaneously a s explained with the example of
Episode 94 when talking about frequency. In terms of amount of time (minutes) we see in
Figure 11 that procedural language (as part of management) occupies over a quarter of the
total instruction time (27 .7%). Although in Figure 10 we observed on 95 occasions , the time
dedicated to procedural language is minimal , disciplinary language is used very little (5 .0%)
because there were only three short disciplinary episodes in the 22 lessons. Focusing on
language instruction we s ee that teachers dedicate the most time to vocabulary (28 .7%),
followed by grammar (14 .4%), pronunciation (7 .9%) and spelling (1 .9%).

The amount of time dedicated to each type of language use during instruction shows
us that discourse is present for longer than the other two types. Discourse language takes up
25.7% of the total time of instruction while function takes 18 .8% and sociolinguistic language
accounts for 6.1% of the total time.

The time allocation to content theme, broad or narrow, indicate s that most of the
language instruction is about broad themes related to topics that go beyond the classroom
(79.9% of the time) whereas narrow themes are discussed much less (19 .1%). This is in part
because the Social Science lessons taught in English.
27,7
5 14,4 28,7
7,9 1,9 18,8 25,7
6,1 19,1 79,9
0102030405060708090
Procedure
Discipline
Form; Grammar
Form; Vocabulary
Form; Pronunciation
Form; Spelling
Function
Discourse
Sociolinguistics
Narrow
Broad
Management Language Other topics

26
The next feature is content control and refers to who selects the topic or task that is
the focus of the instruction. Content can be selected by the teacher and/or the text , jointly
by the teacher, students and/or the text , or by the students .

Figure 12: Distribution of Content Control

We can see in Figure 12 that the content is controlled almost always by the teacher
and/or the text (175 occasions) in selecting the topic to work on. Only on a few occasions
(17) is the topic decided jointly by the tea cher, the students and/or the text. During the
observations, we only saw the students select the content of the task in 6 cases. Although it
is uncommon for the students to choose the topic or content of the task, we did observe, for
example, in Episode 14 0, which was part of a larger activity that had been selected by the
text and the teacher, that this episode’s content was completely of the students’ choice: “In
this episode, which was part of a larger activity where the students had to record a TV
progr amme, they had to write a script in groups. First of all, they had to decide each group
member’s role, and then write the script. It was the students’ decision to choose the topic,
divide up the roles and design the script”.

The next dimension to look a t is the time spent on the different types of content
control. Given the results above, the distribution of the time as given in Figure 13 does not
come as a surprise.
175
17
6
020406080100120140160180200
Teacher/Text Teacher/Text/Student Student

27
Figure 13: Distribution of time spent on types of Content Control

In figure 13 we can see that content is controlled by the teacher and/or text during
almost 71% of the total instructional time. What stands out is that the episodes controlled
by the students alone are relatively longer, obtaining slightly more time (13.7 %) than the
episodes where the content is decided by teachers, students and/or text (13.3%), even
though there were almost three times fewer episodes by students in absolute numbers. The
reason is that the episodes controlled by the students alone were 50, 39, 27, 15, 14, and 2
minutes long (see episode length above, page 16) which means that this type of student
controlled episode (or task) accounts for a substantial amount of the instructional time.

The feature Student Modality identifies various langua ge skills involved in a single
episode. This focuses on what the student does, given that the aim is to indicate whether the
student is listening, speaking, reading or writing during the episodes. The skills can also occur
in combination as we can see in t he example of episode 197, where the teacher and
students are reviewing the “Present Continuous” form. In this case, the students use all the
skills in combination:

Student modality: Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing : The teacher asks “when
do you use the present continuous?” The students answer, he asks for some examples
and then he writes them on the board. Then the teacher goes over the grammar rules
(verb construction) with the help of the students. Students copy those examples and
then the teac her hands out worksheets for the students to work on.” 70,9
13,3 13,7
01020304050607080
Teacher/Text Teacher/Text/Students Students

28

Figure 14: Distribution of Student Modality

In the Basque schools, listening was the modality most often practiced during the
observations (181 occasions), followed by speaking which was also don e frequently (114
occasions), then reading (83 times) and finally writing (48 times). Since we noted before that
whole -group work led by the teacher was the most frequently used participant organisation,
it is unsurprising that listening is the skill most practiced. The students listen to the teacher
who instructs, gives directions and feedback, guides, corrects,… and even when one student
speaks they also listen to their peers. The students also have the opportunity to speak the
target language (English) on many occasions. Reading and writing are done less frequently,
but still more than once per lesson.

The final step is to present the time allocation of the different language skills (student
modality). The results are presented as graphs in figure 15.

Figure 15: Distribution of time allocation of Student Modality

181
114
83
48
020406080100120140160180200
Listening Speaking Reading Writing
72,9
68,1
58,5
40,1
01020304050607080
Listening Speaking Reading Writing

29
Since different student modalities can happen at the same time , they can co -occur.
For example, during one episode , as we saw with the example of E pisode 197 above, the
addition of percentages adds up to over 100%. Figure 15 shows the percentage of time each
modality occupies, based on the total time of instruction (1,073 minutes). Listening skills are
practiced during almost three -quarters of the instructional time (72.9 % of total time).
Speaking skills were practiced on fewer occasions but still occupied a large part of the
instructional time (68.1%) which means that the students practise speaking in the target
language (English) for more than half of the instructio nal time. Reading and writing skills
were observed frequently and the time spent practising both skills is about half of the total
instructional time. The students read for 58.5% of the time and write for 40.1%.

It is important to understand that when d iscussing the length in time of the listening,
speaking, reading and writing production of the students, the exact length of time of a
sentence uttered by a student was not measured, nor was the time it took a student write a
sentence, for example. The len gth of time was measured using duration of the whole
episode. The following Episode 7 explains how the length of the four language skills was
measured.

Episode 7 is described as “Type of episode: Review Task”, it consisted of the teacher
asking questions on the vocabulary and concepts previously learned on the topic “Natural
Disasters”. In this particular case, they were reviewing synonyms and opposites.

Episode length: 14 minutes.
Student Modality: Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing.
Description of episode: The teacher asked questions such as “What is ‘mere steps’?”
the students gave answers such as ‘very close to’, sometimes after reading from their
notebooks. Anytime the teacher wrote something on the board the students copied it dow n.

Obviously, the students were not writing and reading for 14 minutes, and even if they
listened to English for most of the 14 minutes it was not exactly for all 14 minutes.

4.1.2 English lessons in Friesland

We observed 21 lessons in Friesland. The lessons were scheduled for either 45
minutes in two of the schools or for 70 minutes in one of the schools. The total time
observed should have been 1,170 minutes [(70×9) + (45×12)], however, the actual time
observed totalled 1,032 minutes. On average, there are 6.6 minutes of instruction lost in
each lesson due to a variety of reasons.

In this section, we will describe the general aspects of instruction of English in
Friesland. As we did with instruction of English in the Basque Country (section 4.1.1), we will
describe the characteristics of the didactics of English by using the seven features of the
COLT scheme (see section 2.3 for details). We see that the feature activities and episodes in
Friesland identifies 80 activities distributed differently throughout the 21 lessons observed.
An activity consists of one or more episodes, which are smaller units, and we identified 184
episodes.

30
In the next fig ure we present an overview of the number of activities per lesson
observed in Friesland. Since there were 80 activities identified during the 21 lesson
observati ons, that gives an average of 3. 8 activities per lesson. In figure 16 we give the
number of act ivities per lesson.

Figure 16: Distribution of activities per lesson

In figure 16 we can see that there is only 1 lesson with only 1 activity. This is the
lesson with the least number of different activities and on the other end we can see that
there is also only 1 lesson with the most number of activities which is 7. The rest of the
lessons consist of 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 activities. On average, a lesson consists of 3 .8 activities.

In the next figure we show the number of episodes per activity. As we said, there are
184 episodes in the 80 activities we identified.

Figure 17: Distribution of episodes per activity

We can see in Figure 17 that there are 39 activities consisting of only one episode, 16
activities consisting of 2 episodes, 12 activities of 3 episodes, 3 activities of 4 episodes and 3
others of 5 episodes. There is one activity that includes 10 episodes and another with 12
episodes. The average number of episodes per activity is 2.3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
012345678
1 3 7 3 3 3 1
No. of lessonsNo. of activities
1 2 3 4 5 6 10 12
02468101214
39 16 12 3 3 5 1 1
No. of activitiesNo. of episodes

31

We can say, therefore, that the English lessons observed in Friesland consist of, on
average, 3.8 activities (80 activities / 21 lessons) and 8.8 episodes (184 episodes / 21
lessons).

In the next figure, we show the frequency (in absolute numbers) in which the nine
types of episodes were identified. And then, in figure 19, we present the instructional time
dedicated to each type of episode (in percentages).

Figure 18: Distribution of type of episodes

The episode -type analysis shows that the most frequently occurring episode is work
on task (64 occasions). Management (37 occasions) and instruction or explanation of a
linguistic aspect (31 occasions) are present quite frequently an d on similar occasions. Review
task (16 occasions) and introduction to task (10 occasions) are quite often present in the
lessons. The remaining episode types appear on less than 10 occasions.

Next, in Figure 19, we present the length in minutes of each episode.
37
10 64
6 16 31
8 7 5
010203040506070

32
Figure 19: Distribution of the length of episodes in minutes

Figure 19 demonstrates that there are 42 episodes that last for only one minute,
these being the shortest episodes in length, while the longest episode lasts for 65 minutes.
This was the episode where the students took a test that lasted for the whole period. The
majority of episodes last less than 10 minutes. The average length of the episodes is 5.6
minutes long. Thus a lesson consists of different activities with a variety of episodes. (There
are 14 episodes that were not timed – thus not shown in Figure 19).

75 minutes of the total time of instruction (1,032 minutes) have been lost due to not
recording the time of 14 episodes. The analysis of the length of the episodes provides an
estimate of the weight of each type of episode in all lessons (the total time of instruction).

Next we will look at the time each type of episode is allocated in the total time of
instruction to est imate the weight of them during the teaching -learning process. The
percentages are drawn from the total time of instruction, 1,030 minutes.

Figure 20: Distribution of time allocation per type of episode
42
22 22
12 22
8
5 9
3 10
2 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 2 1 1
051015202530354045
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 13 15 16 19 20 22 24 29 60 65
11,2
4,6 50,3
2,6 6,7 11,1
1,7 0,8 3,6
0102030405060

33

In Figure 20, the percentages of the time spent on each type of episode show that
the five most frequent types are also allocated the greatest amount of the instructional
time. As seen in Figure 18, work on task – which is identified most frequently (64 occasions) –
is also the type of episode to which most time is dedicated, namely half of the instructional
time (50.3%). Management is slightly more frequent (37 occasions) than instruction or
explanation (31 occasions) but they are both allocated the same instructional time (11.2%
and 11.1% respectively) . Review task takes up very little time (6.7%) and introduction to task
is allocated even less (4.6%).

The types of episode that were identified on fewer than 10 occasions are allocated
less than 4% of the instructional time. Homework assignment was identified on 8 occasions
but only takes up 1.7% of the total instructional time. The same occurs with closure , which
despite being observed on 7 occasions only takes up 0.8% of the instructional time. Check
task and interruption were the least observ ed types of episode but are allocated slightly
more time than the previous two types, albeit very little (2.6% and 3.6% of the total time
respectively). So the most frequently occurring type of episode, and that which is allocated
half of the total instruc tional time, is work on task .

The next feature, namely the analysis of participant organisation, describes the
manner of the students when they work. First we describe the frequency in which each of
the three patterns of organisation (class, group and individual) happen, and next we show
the instructional time dedicated to each of those patterns.

Figure 21: Distribution of Participant Organisation

We can see in Figure 21 that in 184 episodes (181+3)4 the students work as a whole
class. Those occasi ons are led by the teacher (T -S/C Teacher to Student or Class) on 181
occasions while on only 3 occasions the work is led by the students themselves, and directed

4 In Friesland, all episodes (184) were considered as students working as a whole class in collaboration with
another pattern of participant organisation. 181
3 49
3 175
8
,020,040,060,080,0100,0120,0140,0160,0180,0200,0
T-S/C S-S/C Same Task Different Task Same Task Different Task
Class Group Individual

34
to their peers (S -S/C Student to Student or Class). When the students work in small groups,
the majority of the time (49 occasions) they all work on the same task, and when they work
individually the same phenomenon happens (175 occasions). However, there are a few
occasions on which the task is different for the students, regardless of whether th ey work in
small groups or individually. The sum of all episodes exceeds the number of episodes
identified during the observations (184 episodes), due to a combination of participant
organisation during one episode.

We describe next the analysis of the participant organisation according to the time
dedicated to the three manners of organisation. In this case, the total of the percentages
exceeds 100% because more than one organisational pattern can occur in the same e pisode.

Figure 22: Distribution of time allocation per type of participant organisation

As far as the time allocated to each manner of work is concerned, Figure 22 shows us
that most time is dedicated to students working individually and on the same task (95.5% of
the total observed time). They also work together as a whole group and led by the teacher
for a substantial part of the total instructional time (90.2%). Less than a fifth of the
instructional time is dedicated to students working in small g roups on the same task (17.1%).
Thus the most common manner of working is either as a whole group led (or not led) by the
teacher, or individually and on the same task.

The nex t feature to b e analysed is content . It describes the subject matter or theme
of the activity and episode in relation to the language taught. It consists of three categories
and five subcategories, and they can co -occur in one episode Thus frequency is the number
of occasions in which each category and subcategory of content was identified during the
observations. First we present the frequency of the content categories and then the
percentage of instructional time dedicated to each category.
90,2
1,9 17,1
0,8 95,5
2,1
,020,040,060,080,0100,0120,0
T-S/C S-S/C Same Task Different Task Same Task Different Task
Class Group Individual

35
Figure 23: Distribution of Content

In the a nalysis of frequency shown in Figure 23 we can see that when the language
used is of the management category, it is more frequently of the procedural type (49
occasions). This includes language such as “take your workbooks out” rather than of the
discipline type observed on fewer occasions (26), where the language features include
phrases such as “stop chatting”. When the content is of the language category, where the
teacher refers explicitly to language features, we can see that grammar and vocab ulary are
similarly present (47 and 45 respectively). The instruction of pronunciation was observed on
fewer occasions (19) and of spelling a few more times (33).

The type of language, referring to the style of sentences and utterances, can be of
the typ e function , discourse or sociolinguistic . During the observations, we identified the
type function most often (32 occasions), followed by discourse (24 occasions) and finally
sociolinguistics (16). This means that the language type most present is the use of sentences
and utterances for requests, apologies and other short communicative acts.

When the content describes the topic, we can see that it is mainly broad (53
occasions), where the theme goes beyond the classroom (e.g. international events,
geograp hy, science) , but also often narrow (49 occasions) where the topic is related to the
classroom and/or the students’ personal experiences related to the school environment. In
the English lessons in Friesland both broad and narrow themes are present on similar
occasions. However, there were 82 episodes for which the theme was not recorded.

In figure 24 we show the time allocated to each content category. Here again the sum
of the percentages exceeds 100% because we can find more than one category combined in
one episode.

36
Figure 24: Distribution of time allocation per Content

The distribution of the time allocation of content – Figure 24 – shows us that although
the procedural type of language was more frequent (49) than the discipline -related type
(26), the latter occupies more of the instructional time (23.3%) than does the p rocedural
type (18.4%). The time dedicated to different parts of language shows no significant
differences from that observed in the frequency analysis. So grammar remains the part on
which most time is dedicated (44.3%), followed by vocabulary (38.6%), sp elling (35.4%) and
pronunciation (16.4%). The same can be seen with the type of sentences and utterances
used; function takes up more time of the total instructional time (34.3%) than discourse
(29.5%) and sociolinguistics (21.5%). And the two topics, narr ow and broad , take up similar
percentages (29.3% and 30.2% respectively) of the total time of instruction.

The analysis of the following category content control tells us who selects the topic
or task that is the focus of instruction. We first present th e frequency in which the three
types of content control ( teacher and/or the text , jointly by the teacher, students and/or the
text, or by the students alone) were observed and after that the percentage of the total time
that each category obtains during in struction. (Content control was not recorded for 9
episodes therefore the sum of frequency does not match the number of episodes observed
nor does the sum of the percentages reach 100%).
18,4 23,3 44,3
38,6
16,4 35,4 34,3
29,5
21,5 29,3 30,2
05101520253035404550
Procedure
Discipline
Form; Grammar
Form; Vocabulary
Form; Pronunciation
Form; Spelling
Function
Discourse
Sociolinguistics
Narrow
Broad
Management Language Other topics

37
Figure 25: Distribution of Content Control

Figure 25 shows us th at on 174 occasions the teacher and/or text was responsible for
the topic and task selected, and that on only one occasion were the students actively
responsible for the selection of content. We can also see that the teacher, text and students
in combinati on never select the topic or task.

Figure 26: Distribution of time allocation per Content Control

The analysis of the time allocation, in Figure 26 shows us that the topic and task
selected by the teacher or determined by the text takes up the majority of the instructional
time (88.6%) whilst the time taken by the topic or task selected by the students is minimal
(0.9%). Thus in the English lessons the task or topic is predominantly selected by the teacher
or dictated by the textbook.

The foll owing category, the analysis of student modality, indicates the skills
(listening, speaking, reading and writing) that are most practiced in the classroom. The focus
is on the students and on what skills they are practising during an activity or episode. M ore
than one skill can be practised during the same activity or episode. We present next the
frequency in which each skill was involved in an episode (in absolute numbers). 174
0 1
020406080100120140160180200
Teacher/Text Teacher/Text/Students Students
88,6
0 0,9
0102030405060708090100
Teacher/Text Teacher/Text/Students Students

38
Figure 27: Distribution of Student Modality

Figure 27 shows us, the skill listening is the most practiced modality by the Frisian
students in the English lessons (124 occasions), this is because participant organisation is
most frequently work as a whole group and led by the teacher, therefore, the students listen
to the teacher and other peers use the target language (English).

The analysis also shows that reading and writing are practised quite frequently by the
students too; reading was identified in 80 occasions and writing in 72 occasions. On the
other hand, speaking is the lea st practised skill (26 occasions).

In the next figure we present the analysis of the time spent, in percentages, on each
student modality during the instruction of English.

Figure 28: Distribution of time allocation of Student Modality

When we look at the time allocated to each modality in Figure 28 we can see that the
modality of listening, which was observed the most frequent (124 occasions), is allocated
almost half of the total time of instruction (47.8%). The modality of speaking wa s only 124
26 80
72
020406080100120140
Listening Speaking Reading Writing
47,8
10,6 49,9
46,6
0102030405060
Listening Speaking Reading Writing

39
observed on 26 occasions and received very little instructional time (10.6%). The reading
modality was practised for almost half of the instructional time (49.9%) and writing during
less than half of the instructional time (46.6%). (Because more tha n one student modality
can occur in one episode, the sum of all percentages exceeds 100%).

Thus the Frisian students speak little in English and practice mainly listening, reading
and writing during the English lessons.

4.2 Characteristics of the learn ing materials

In this subsection we present the results for the second part of the first research
question, the characteristics of the learning materials used in the English lessons. First we
present the characteristic in the Basque Country and then in F riesland.

The feature material describes classroom materials in terms of text type and source.
According to the COLT scheme, the type of material can be minimal, extended, audio or
visual. And the source of the materials can be:
 L2-Non Native Speaker: Created for L2 learning where the language is for non -native
speakers.
 L2-Native Speaker: Created for L2 learning but the language is for native speakers.
 L2-Native Speaker -Adapted: Created for L2 learning where the language is for native
speakers but has been adapted for non -natives.
 Student -made: Created by L2 students.

Notice that there is no option to record the material source as L1. Therefore we were
not able to distinguish th at difference with the scheme. These types and sources describe
the mater ial used during an episode therefore more than one category occurs during the
same episode.

4.2.1 Learning materials in the Basque Country

We will describe here the characteristics of the materials (textbooks, photocopies,
CD’s…) used for teaching E nglish in the Basque lessons we observed. We present the analysis
in the next figure.

40
Figure 29: Distribution of Material Type and Source

Looking at the results (Figure 29), it is clear that in the Basque Country there are
more minimal materials (on 100 occasions) used than extended materials (in 13 occasions)
Thus in the English lessons the written texts are captions, isolated sentences and word lists
(minimal) rather than stories, dialogues or paragraphs (extended).

Audio -visual materials do not seem to be used very often (on 5 occasions only),
according to the episodes analysed.

Most of the time, the materials used are for second lan guage teaching and aimed at
non-native speakers (L2 -NNS), where the language has been adapted to the non -native
learners’ ability. In 2 occasions the material used was created for second language learners
with native speaker language (L2 -NS). One of these cases is episode 168 in which the
students were using computers to do a web search activity in English. In reality, the web
pages that the students were using were not created specifically for L2 learners but for any
reader.

In 3 occasions the material used was created for L2 learners and although the
language was aimed at native speakers it had been adapted for L2 learners (L2 -NSA).

Very seldom are the materials created by the students ( on 8 occasions ) – only on the
occasions when they create posters , stories, and presentations that are used to instruct
other students.

4.2.2 Learning materials in Friesland

The characteristics of the learning materials used in Friesland are also drawn from
the analysis using the COLT sch eme. We present the results in F igure 30. 100
13
5 100
2 3 8
020406080100120
Minimal
Extended
Audio
Visual
L2-NNS
L2-NS
L2-NSA
Student-made
Type of Material Source of Material

41
Figure 30: Distribution of Material Type and Source

Figure 30 shows that, in Friesland, the material used is minimal and extended in
almost equal amounts (on 63 and 64 occasions respectively). The materials used comprise
both isolated sentences from lists of words as well as longer stories, dialogues and
paragraphs. However, more audio is used (11 occasions) than visuals (3 occasions). As
regards the sources, it is mainly material created for second language learning which is
aimed at non -native speakers. However, on 9 occasions the material used was identified as
being aimed at native speakers, meaning that although it is created for second language
learning the language is authentic and written for native speakers without adap tation. The
material used for the instruction of English in Friesland is mainly traditional.

Material for L2 learners with native speaker language adapted was not observed, nor
was material created by the students.

4.3 English use outside school
In th is section we will present the results from both regions together. The second
research question of this study was:

 “What is the amount of use and exposure to English that secondary -school students
experience outside school, and in what manner do they obtain that exposure and
use?”

In order to collect data for this study, the students were asked to fill in a check -list
style language diary (Appendix II). Of all the students who filled in the diary, few wrote down
how long they spent on each activity and therefore the results cannot be regarded as
conclusive. However, this information is used to illustrate and understand the data when
necessary.
63 64
11
3 125
9
0 0
020406080100120140
Minimal Extended Audio Visual L2-NNS L2-NS L2-NSA Student-made
Type of Material Source of Material

42
For better understanding of the amount and different types of exposure to English,
we present the results of the analysis in four sections. First, we present the activity of
listening, the second activity is speaking, the third is reading, and the final one is writing.

4.3.1 Listening

The first step in the analysis was to look at the total number of times the students
were doing an activity related to listening in English, and to compare the two student
groups. The results are presented in Table 2. We made a fourfold division: 0 times p er week,
1-5 times per week, 6 -10 times and more than 10 times per week.

Table 2: Percentage of students versus amount of times per week
0 times 1-5 times 6-10 times >10 times
Listening BAC 9.7 34.5 36.3 19.5
FRY 0 6.8 28.3 65

Comparing the times of exposure per week with the number of students, Table 3
shows that all Frisian students listen to English at least once per week while there are 9.7%
of Basque students who never listen to English in a week. We can see that over a thi rd of the
Basque students (34.5%) listen to English between one and 5 times per week in contrast with
6.8% of the Frisian students who listen to English between one and 5 times per week. A
similar amount of Basque students (36.3%) listen to English between 6 and 10 times per
week and fewer Frisian students (28.3%) listen to English between 6 and 10 times per week.
The big difference here is that 65% of Frisian students listen to English more than 10 times
whilst only 19.5% of Basque students listen to Engli sh for more than 10 times per week.

The second step in the analysis was to look at the activity of listening in more detail.
We wanted to see which activities these secondary students used in order to listen to
English.

Table 3: Times per week listening to English through a variety of activities per region
Area N Mean SD Sig. (1 -tailed)
Music BAC 113 4.1 2.6 ,053
FRY 177 4.6 2.4
TV BAC 113 0.9 1.6 ,000
FRY 177 4.5 2.1
Internet5 BAC 113 1.2 1.9 ,000
FRY 177 2.4 2.4

Looking in more detail at the type of activity through which the students listen to
English (Table 3), it is clear that in both regions listening to music is the main type of
exposure. On average, the Basque students listen to music 4.1 times per week and the
Frisian students 4.6 times. In Friesland, the second type of activity through which the

5 We have excluded the activity “Other” because the analysis shows that the occurrence is so low that it is not
representative of a general trend.

43
students listen to English is while watching TV. This activity is done 4.5 times per week on
average, almost as often as listening to music. In contrast, listening to English through TV is
hardly ever done by the Basque students (0.9 times per week). This is unsurprising since
foreign programmes are usually dubbed into Basque or Spanish on the local TV channels.
Listening to English on the internet (e.g. YouTube, gam es, music…) is reported much less
often. In both regions the students listen to English a few times per week, on average, 1.2
times per week in the Basque Country and 2.4 times per week in Friesland.

The standard deviation (SD) is high in all the typ es of listening activities, and the last
column in Table 3 indicates whether the difference between the averages in the two regions
is significant. As far as listening to English through music goes, there is no statistically
significant difference in the m ean scores for Frisian and Basque students. However, for the
responses for listening to English on TV and on the internet, there are statistically significant
differences between the two groups of students (shown in bold).

We said at the beginning of t his section that although the students were encouraged
to add information regarding the length of time they do an activity, very few included that
information. However, the information added by some helps to illustrate the exposure to
English they have. So here we include additional information regarding listening to English
activities, first listening to English, then watching TV and then listening through internet.

We have seen that both Frisian and Basque students listen to music in English for a
similar amount of time per week. When looking at the information added by some, we see
that they also do it in similar ways. According to their diaries, they listen to music on a
variety of devices, such as on the radio, PC, and the mobile phone. Some students report
listening at home, others do not provide information, but both Frisian and Basque students
report listening to music in English when they are alone. Some students added the titles of
the songs or of the artists they listened to. Some Frisian studen ts say that they listen to
music for “2 hours” (student 626) or “all morning” (student 659) whilst some Basque
students say they listened to “various songs”, and others that they listened to “just one
song”. Taking into account that an average song might l ast for 3 or 4 minutes, it represents a
small amount of exposure.

As regards listening to English while watching TV, we saw in Table 3 that the quantity
of listening to English through television differs between both groups of students (4.5 times
per we ek in Friesland and 0.9 times per week in the Basque Country). This is mainly because
the Frisian students can watch series, films and other programmes in English on TV because
foreign programmes are shown in their original language with subtitles in Dutch on the local
television channels. As some students informed, they watch films that last for 1.5 or 2 hours,
which is a more extensive exposure to the language. For example, student 514 wrote “a film
for 2 hours at home” and student 609 said “a movie for 2 ½ hours in the house” . They also
watch series and other programmes such as “CSI for 1 hour and MTV6” as reported by
student 670. By contrast, the information provided by some Basque students shows that
although some report listening to English on TV, the exposure time is not extensive. For
example, students 4, 13 and 14 (to mention three) report having watched a “Coca Cola”
advertisement whose exposure might have been between 30 seconds to 1 minute. Some

6 Mus ic Television Channel.

44
others report having listened to English on MTV. Alt hough many do not clearly state what
they have seen on that channel, student 55 and a few others say that they have watched
“Teen Mom” , “Parental Control” and “MTV Ink” which are 30 minute programmes. It is
important to bear in mind that MTV Spain dubs mos t of its programmes into Spanish, and
although those programmes mentioned by the students are dubbed using the “voice over”
technique, this technique does not allow them to hear English clearly because the Spanish
translation is over the back -grounded Engl ish original.

Listening to English through the internet happens in both regions mainly through the
website YouTube, as the following students wrote: “YouTube for 1.5 hours” – student 606 in
Friesland and “in YouTube” from student 58 in the Basque Country, for example.

There is one more manner of exposure to English through listening in Friesland that
does not happen in the Basque Country: the cinema. For example students 606 and 587
reported having watched a film at the “bios(coop)” (=cinema) that lasted for at least 90
minutes. Basque students are not usually exposed to English when they go to the cinema as
films are rarely shown in the original version .

We excluded the activity of listening to English through “other” ways from the
analysis because the occurrence was minimal and only in the Basque Country. However, this
is what they reported as other ways to listen to English:

 using technology: “Playstation” (student 8) and “computer game” (student 36)
 by chance: “listening to o ther people speaking on the street” (student 24)
 school or academy: “in the academy” (student 29) and “with my English teacher”
(student 36)

So the main source for listening to English for the Frisian students is through music
and television, but only t hrough music for the Basque students.

4.3.2 Speaking

First, we are going to present the analysis of the total number of times the students
were speaking in English and then re -consider the analysis in more detail regarding the
activities of speaking in English.

Table 4: Percentage of students versus amount of times per week
0 times 1-5 times 6-10 times >10 times
Speaking BAC 33.6 55.7 7.2 3.6
FRY 63.8 32.2 3.5 0.6

The Frisian and Basque students do not often speak in English outside school,
according to their language diaries. We can see in Table 4 that 33.6% of the Basque students
and 63.8% of the Frisian students never speak in English in a week. Just over half of the
Basque students (55.7%) and 32.2% of the Frisian students speak in English between 1 and 5
times per week. Only 7.2% of the Basque students and 3.5% of the Frisian students speak in
English between 6 and 10 times per week. And few Basque students (3.6 %) and almost none

45
of the Frisian students (0.6%) speak in English more than 10 times per week. This latter is
student 519 who reported speaking 14 times during that week.

The second part of the analysis is a more detailed description of the different
activities related to speaking that gives these students the opportunity to use English outside
school. As mentioned in the method section (section 2.3.2), the students had to account for
the type of speaking they did; face to face, on the phone, using the internet (e.g. Skype), or
other (excluded from the results). The Basque students were given the option of speaking at
the English academy since many of them go to English lessons outside their regular school
hours. The Frisian students were not given the o ption of the English academy because it is
not a common phenomenon in Friesland.

Table 5: Times per week speaking in English through a variety of activities per region
Area N Mean SD Sig. (1 -tailed)
Face to face BAC 113 0.7 1.6 .002
FRY 177 0.2 0.6
Telephone BAC 113 0.2 0.9 .090
FRY 177 0.1 0.6
Internet BAC 113 0.5 1 .416
FRY 177 0.5 1.4
English academy BAC 113 0.9 1 N/A

According to the diaries, on average both groups of students participate in any
English -related activity less than once a week. The Basque students speak in English most
often at the English academy, on average 0.9 times per week. But comparing both region s,
we can see in Table 5 that the Basque students speak face -to-face 0.7 times per week and
the Frisian students 0.2 times. Both groups of students speak 0.5 times per week using the
internet. They almost never speak in English on the telephone, with the B asque students
recording a mere 0.2 times per week and the Frisian students 0.1 times.

The standard deviation shows that while some students speak face -to-face or at the
English academy quite often during the week, others never do. Speaking face -to-face and on
the internet show a statistically significant difference, indicated in bold.

Now that we have seen the frequency with which these students participate in an
activity related to speaking in English, we are going to look next at these activitie s in more
detail. In the Basque Country, speaking in English at the English academy is the most
frequent activity in which the Basque students speak in English. When we analysed the
information the students added, we saw that they usually attend those acad emies twice per
week and for one hour each time. For example, student 58 reports speaking at the academy
“with my teacher” on Tuesday and “talking to our teacher” on Thursday. Student 24 wrote
next to the English academy section “ 1 hour” on Tuesday and “1 hour” on Thursday.

We have also seen that the internet is the medium most often used to speak in
English by the Frisian students, but is the third choice for the Basque students. Nevertheless,
they use it less than once a week (0.5 times per week for b oth groups). Students tend to use
programmes such as ‘Skype’ and ‘Messenger’ and speak with their friends. In the Basque
Country student 22 reports “ (I spoke) with my friend joking” and student 30 says “with my

46
friend from the Netherlands” . The Frisian students also reports speaking to their friends
when they have spoken in English through internet; for example student 566 says “Skype
with a friend, 6 minutes” and student 533 says ” with a friend that comes from Finland” .

Speaking in En glish face -to-face is done slightly more often in the Basque Country
(the second most frequent activity) than in Friesland but in both regions less than once a
week. According to their diaries, the Basque students spoke face -to-face in situations such as
“I spoke with an English friend in the street” (Student 2) or “with American friends” (Student
31). However, some students reported speaking face -to-face when they were interacting at
the academies – as can be seen from the following quotes:
– With the teacher at the academy (Student 8 on Thursday)
– At the English academy with my friends (Student 15 on Monday and Thursday)
– At the academy (Student 11 on Tuesday and Thursday)
– In the academy (Student 29 on Tuesday and Thursday)
– With my teacher (Student 30 on Tuesday and Thursday)

These responses strengthen the idea that the Basque students attend academies at
least twice per week and that those are the places where they speak in English when they
are outside school. In Friesland, speaking face -to-face is t he second most common manner
of speaking in English , reportedly done “with a friend for 3 minutes” (Student 514), “with my
brother for 5 minutes (Student 649), and “with my mother for 10 minutes and my friend for 5
minutes” (Student 650).

As far as spea king on the phone is concerned, very few students said that they did
this in English. The few who did said that they spoke with friends or relatives who live
abroad. Basque student 31 reported “talking with American friends” and student 17 said “I
talk wit h my cousin” but they did not add information on the length of these conversations.
Frisian student 519 claimed to have spoken in English on the phone for one hour every day
“with Ulla” and student 569 said that he had spoken on the phone “with Kelly for 1 second”
on Monday (of that week). It is a common thing among these youngsters to intertwine single
words or short sentences in English into their conversations.

So the Basque and Frisian students do not speak in English often; the Basque
students spea k mainly at the English academies and through the internet and the Frisian
students mainly through the internet.

4.3.3 Reading

First, we are going to present the total number of times the students were doing an
activity related to reading in English, and second, we are going to look in more detail at
those activities and the frequency with which they read in English.

Table 6: Percentage of students versus amount of times per week
0 times 1-5 times 6-10 times >10 times
Reading BAC 40.7 35.3 18.6 5.4
FRY 36.7 48.6 11.9 2.8

47
Looking at Table 6, we see that many students never read in English outside school;
40.7% of the Basque students and 36.7% of the Frisian students reported never having read
in English during that week. More Frisian students ( 48.6%) than Basque students (35. 3%)
read between 1 and 5 times per week, and more Basque students (1 8.6%) than Frisian
students (11. 9%) read between 6 and 10 times per week. 5.4% of the Basque students and
2.8% of the Frisian students read more t han 10 times per week.

Next we are going to see in more detail the times per week that these students
engage in different activities related to reading in English.

Table 7: Times per week reading in English through a variety of activities per region
Area N Mean SD Sig. (1 -tailed)
Digital media BAC 113 1.6 2.3 .253
FRY 177 1.5 2.1
Printed media BAC 113 0.6 1.3 .039
FRY 177 0.4 1
Signs and posters7 BAC 113 0.6 1.4 .043
FRY 177 0.3 1

The students were given the options of reading digital media (e.g. sms, chat, e -mail,
Facebook, Tuenti/Hyves, websites) , printed media (e.g. magazines, newspapers, books) , signs
and posters, and other . Table 7 shows the number of times that Frisian and Basque pupils
read any type of writing in English during the week. Basque pupils read significantly more
often English signs and posters and printed texts than Frisian pupils. The Basques (1.6 times)
and Frisians (1.5 times) read some through digital media, but the difference between the
two groups is no t significant. The standard deviation shows once more that there are
students who do not read in English and that there are others who read more often. Again,
the significant differences are shown in bold in the last column.

So these students read in En glish mostly through digital media. In their diaries, some
students added information concerning the type of texts they read. Again, there is not much
information on the amount of time spent reading in English, but based on what some
students added in thei r diaries, what they read through the digital media seems to be short
texts, in some cases, and a few words in others. According to their diaries, what they read
digitally are messages received through e -mail, MSN (messenger) social networking services
(Tuenti in the Basque Country and Hyves in Friesland), posts on Twitter and Facebook, and
other information on internet pages:

– MSN everyday (Student 13) and MSN for 15 minutes (Student 607)
– Some words on Tuenti (Students 15, 17, 20, 36) and In Hyves with a f riend (Student
607)
– In Google (Student 17) and Reading internet sites for 20 minutes (student 674)
– In the chat section of Facebook (Student 36) and A chat on Skype with a friend
(Student 566)

7 We have excluded the activity “Other” because the analysis shows that the occurrence is so low that it is not
representative of a general trend.

48
The students also have other opportunities to read digital te xts. For example, when
playing digital games they report reading a game title (student 23) and the information in
the game (students 515, 571, 609, 646, 669…). They also read titles of television
programmes and of films in English (students 23 and 36).

So, it would seem that the digital reading that these students engage in is not very
long, only involving some words or short sentences. But they also read some printed
material as well as posters and signs. On the one hand, those Basque students who say they
have read printed material in English, report having read newspapers, magazines and books,
but two students also added that the reading was “the book of the English academy”
(student 15), “the exercises of the academy” (student 36), “in the class” (student 38) and “I
read the exercises in the academy” (student 39). On the other hand, few Frisian students
claimed to have read printed texts, but one mentions “a manual” (Student 590) and another
says the book “Breaking Down” (669). In both regions the st udents are exposed to English
through signs and posters, sometimes in the street as one Frisian student reports “T-shirts in
the street” (student 86) and “a Festival poster in the street” (Student 646), other times in
their bedrooms “in my bedroom” (student 31), at restaurants “Pan’s is the Best” (student
160) and “poster at McDonald’s” (student 607) and once again “at the academy” (student
11) and “in the academy” (student 82) in the Basque Country.

So, the Frisian students do not read much in E nglish; however, even if the Basque
students seem to read in English slightly more, the English academy appears to be a strong
source outside school. We have been told by the Basque students that they read printed
material and signs and posters at the acad emy but if we excluded the times they read at the
academy, the times the Basque students read in English would have been considerably
fewer. Therefore, both groups of students do not read much in English outside of the school
environment.

4.3.4 Writing

We will present the findings of writing outside school in two parts: first, we will show
the times the students write in English in a week, comparing both regions, and second, we
will show the times they write in English using different types of activit ies, again comparing
both regions.

Table 8: Percentage of students versus amount of times per week
0 times 1-5 times 6-10 times >10 times
Writing BAC 45.1 38.1 16.9 0
FRY 63.3 30.5 6.2 0

Writing in English outside school is not done very often by these students, according
to their diaries. Table 8 shows us that a large group of students never write in English
outside school. 45.1% of the Basque students and 63.3% of the Frisian students re ported
never having written in English during that week. 38.1% of the Basque students and 30.5% of
the Frisian students told us that they wrote between 1 and 5 times. 16.9% of the Basque

49
students wrote between 6 and 10 times and 6.2% of the Frisian student s wrote between 6
and 78 times. None of the Basque or Frisian students wrote in English more than 10 times.

Next, we will present the different activities related to writing in English, and the
frequency with which these students used said activities to write in English.

Table 9: Times per week writing in English through a variety of activities per region
Area N Mean SD Sig. (1 -tailed)
Digital texts BAC 113 1.5 2.3 .029
FRY 177 1 1.8
Handwritten texts9 BAC 113 .5 1 .000
FRY 177 0 0.2

When filling in the diary, they were given the options of writing digital texts (e.g. sms,
chat, e -mail, Facebook, Tuenti), handwritten texts (e.g. letters, notes, essays) , and other10.
We can see in Table 9 that the activity of writing digitally is the mos t frequent. On average,
the Basque students write digitally 1.5 times per week and their peers in Friesland write
once per week. As far as writing by hand is concerned (handwritten texts), it almost never
happens; on average the Basque students write 0.5 t imes per week and the Frisians never (0
times).

The Basque pupils wrote significantly more digital and handwritten texts in English
than the Frisian pupils (resp. P=.029 and P=.000). The standard deviation shows that the
differences among individual stu dents are once again high.

Although not much information was collected in the Basque Country on the length
and type of writing these students do in English, the information added by some students
does give us an idea of what it is like. For example, the y seem to prefer digital writing to
handwriting, tending to use services like Facebook, Tuenti or Hyves, e -mail and MSN
(messenger), as one of them summarises: “chat and Tuenti, email, Messenger” (Student 24).
Once again, the length is not stated on many o ccasions but a few of them say that they only
write single words in English: “some words in Tuenti” (Student 15) and “some words with my
friends” (Student 39).

As far as handwriting in English is concerned, the Basque students’ responses show
that they only use that activity when they are not communicating in writing with their
friends, preferring for that purpose to use a digital device. According to their diari es, the
place of the academy once again stands out as very important, since in this case it is the only
place where they write by hand in English outside school:

– In the English academy ( Students 5, 12, 18, 29, 30, 35,…)
– Doing the writing at the academy (Student 15)

8 None of the Frisian students wrote in English more than 7 times.
9 We have excluded the activity “Other” because the analysis shows that the occurrence is so low that it is not
representative of a general trend.
10 We have excluded the activity “Other” because the analysis shows that the occurrence is so low that it is not
representative of a general trend.

50
– I wrote a letter in the academy (Student 16)
– My school homework and the activities of the academy (Student 36)
– I wrote the exercises in the academy (Student 39)

The Frisian students also write digitally usin g chats and social networks, “writing for 6
minutes with a friend in a chat” (student 566) as one said. We saw in Table 9 that on average
the Frisian students do not write by hand in English but there is one student who reported
that he “wrote a letter in English” (student 652).

So the Frisian students write very little in English outside school and usually by digital
means only. The Basque students write very little in English too, and also more digitally than
by hand. However, if we take into account that handwriting in English only happens at the
English academy, then the situation in which both Frisian and Basque students write in
English outside school is the same for both groups – only by digital means.

51
5 Summary and conclusion s

This chapter c onsists of three sections: in the first section we are going to present a
summary of the findings and of the conclusions we have drawn from the analysis of the
didactics of English. In the second section we are going to present a summary and
conclusions as to the use of English outside school. And in the third section, future research,
we are going to present the research topics for a follow -up to this study.
5.1 English language d idactics

The first research question this study aimed to answer was:

 “What are the characteristics of the didactics of English language teaching and of the
materials used?”

It must be remembered that two groups of researchers, one in the Basque Country
and another one in Friesland, collected the data. Although we tried to be consistent, there is
a possibility that different researchers labelled and identified aspects of didactics differently.
Thus conclusive decisions should not be taken.

After we have done the analysis of each region with the COLT -scheme
(Communicativ e Orientation of Language Teaching), we conclude that the didactics of
teaching English and the type of teaching materials used have similarities and differences in
the Basque Country and in Friesland. We are going to present those similarities and
differe nces one by one.

We must note that lessons in both regions are similar on the surface; we observed 22
lessons in the Basque Country and 21 in Friesland and similarly, on average, a lesson in the
Basque Country consists of 3.9 activities and 9.1 episodes and in Friesland it consists of 3.8
activities and 8.8 episodes. So, superficially, there are hardly any differences. Also, the length
of the episodes is similar; in both regions, the majority of the episodes are up to 5 minutes
long. 69.6% of the episodes in the Basque Country and 65.2% of the episodes in Friesland are
of 5 or less minutes in length. So, English lessons in the Basque Country and in Friesland are
dynamic with different episodes and activities.

Nevertheless, when we look deeper, we see tha t the content of the lessons are not
the same in the Basque Country and in Friesland. We have found that the teachers in both
regions do not always agree in their didactics, language use and the learning materials used.
We will summarize and discuss these aspects in that order; first the didactics, next the
language use, and then the learning materials.

As far as didactics is concerned, we saw that the time allocated to the different types
of episodes differs, that the manner in which the students are org anised when working also
differs and that so do the treatment content and its modalities get during instruction. In
Table 10 we summarize the time allocation to the different types of episodes in each region.

52

Table 10: Time allocation to each episode in both regions
% of the observed time
The Basque Country Friesland
Management 2.9% 11.2%
Introduction to task 14.3% 4.6%
Work on task 48.1% 50.3%
Check task 14.9% 2.6%
Review task 9.4% 6.7%
Instruction/explanation 4.7% 11.1%
Homework assignment 2.1% 1.7%
Closure 1.6% 0.8%
Interruption 1.6% 3.6%

Table 10 we conclude that working on task is the most relevant episode in the English
lessons in both regions and closure and homework assignment the least. However, the
lessons in both regions differ in that the Basque teachers spend more time introducing tasks
(introduction to task episodes) and checking them ( check task episodes) and that their
colleagues in Friesland spend more time on instruct ion or explanation of grammatical or
linguistic aspects related episodes and on management . The reason for this difference might
be that Basque instruction of English is more communicative oriented than Frisian
instruction of English. As told in the theory section, the Communicative Language Teaching
principles focus on task -based learning thus the Basque teachers of English do not spend
much time explaining new grammatical or linguistic aspects; they are introduced through
activities and tasks. The Frisian teachers also focus on Communicative Language Teaching
principles but as Allen (1983) suggested that both form and meaning based instruction are
important, the Frisian teachers also focus on and spend time teaching grammar and other
linguistic aspects. Th us the Basque teachers focus on introducing tasks and checking them
and the Frisian teachers focus on introducing and explaining linguistic aspects.

The analysis of the participant orga nisation (the way students work) shows some
interesting aspects also related to the communicative approach of teaching English. On the
one hand, students in both regions work predominantly as a whole group (the whole class
working together) and led by the teacher, this type of instruction limits students in their use
of th e target language and their opportunity to engage with more than a few words. But on
the other hand, the Basque students work sometimes individually but more often in small
groups and the Frisian students work sometimes in small groups but more often indiv idually.
This latter fact agrees with Kwakernaat’s study (2010) that suggested an increasing general
trend to work independently and cooperatively, in small groups, in the Netherlands. And the
former fact is important because group work allows students to communicate and focus on
expression rather than on accuracy. This feature is consistent with a more communicative
approach of the English lessons in the Basque Country.

When the content of the episode is language instruction, the teachers in both regions
also tend to focus on vocabulary and grammar instruction. However, it happens more often

53
in Friesland, where the instruction of vocabulary was observed on 45 occasions (44
occasions in the Basque Country) and the instruction of grammar on 47 occasions (24
occasions in the Basque Country). Frisian teachers also spend a considerable time on spelling
and pronunciation in contrast to their Basque colleagues. The focus on grammar, vocabulary,
pronunciation and spelling instruction is stronger in Friesland (144 occasions in total) than in
the Basque Country (82 occasions in total), again, because in the Basque Country English
didactics are more communicatively oriented. We conclude that the Frisian teachers focus
more on form while the Basque teachers focus more on communication.

Regarding language use, we saw that the Basque students have more opportunities
to speak in the target language (English) than the Frisian students (114 versus 26 occasions).
With the COLT scheme we did not record the exact length of t ime the students spoke,
listened, read or wrote in English, we only recorded the length of time of the episodes in
which the students used those modalities. Therefore, we are going to use the occasions in
which those modalities were used in order to summar ize and draw conclusions. The analysis
of the student modality, or the skills practiced by the students, also shows that the Basque
students practice more often their listening skills (181 occasions) than the Frisian students
(26 occasions). Reading and wr iting are practiced less often than the other two modalities in
both regions. Reading is done more often in the Basque schools (83 occasions) than in the
Frisian schools (80 occasions). But writing is done more often in the Frisian schools (72
occasions) t han in the Basque schools (48 occasions). Thus the Basque students speak, listen
and read more in the target language than the Frisian students and the Frisian students
write more in the target language than the Basque students. The reason why the Basque
students practice more often speaking and listening is that they do more group work and the
didactics of English have a more communicative approach.

We found that the type of language used in both regions also differs; it is more often
discursive in the Basque Country (37 versus 24 occasions) while it is more often functional in
Friesland (32 versus 26 occasions). Therefore we find a more cohesive and coherent
sequence of sentences and utterances (such as describing a process) in the Basque Country,
versu s shorter sentences and utterances (such as apologising, requesting and explaining) in
Friesland. This fact also shows that the Basque lessons of English have more emphasis on
communicative skills than the Frisian lessons of English.

Another aspect of language use and English didactics that we observed and the COLT
scheme does not show is the use of the target language (English) during instruction. In the
theory section we saw that cooperative learning can be successful in foreign lang uage
teaching with the use of English as medium of instruction, because otherwise the students
do not use the target language when working in small groups. We saw that the language of
instruction in the Basque Country is English, this is the language used by the teachers and
the language expected to be used by the students. In Friesland we saw that the teachers try
to use English as much as possible but also use Dutch during instruction. We conclude that
the reasons why we saw that the Basque students pract ice the listening and speaking skills in
English more often than the Frisian students are that the language of instruction is English
and they work more often in collaboration either as a whole group or in small groups.

54
And the third aspect we want to c omment on is the learning materials used for
teaching English in the Basque and Frisian schools. According to the analysis done with the
COLT scheme, they are similar. One similarity is that the learning material is traditional in
both regions. So it is ma inly a textbook that includes different activities for learning and
practising the language. Digital material is seldom used – just for occasional video and audio
activities, web search activities and Power Point presentations. According to the
observation s, more visual activities (Power Point presentations and web searches) were
included in the Basque lessons (5 versus 3 occasions) and more audio activities in the Frisian
lessons (11 versus 0 occasions). Another similarity is the type of language included in the
textbook and in other resources, such as photocopies, is minimal in both regions. This means
that the language consists of short paragraphs, lists of vocabulary words and it is material
created specifically for L2 learners. Thus the language is simp lified, or adapted, for non –
native speakers in order to increase the learners' comprehension ability. However, there
were a few occasions where although the material used aimed at L2 students , the language
was of native speakers ’ levels (2 occasions in the Basque Country and 9 occasions in
Friesland).

Through the observations we saw that in general the teachers in both regions follow
the textbooks and the content they include. When we analysed the content and the content
contro l of the lessons with COLT, we saw that in both regions the tasks and the content of
the tasks are selected by the teacher and/or the textbook. Reality is that the teachers select
the content but following the textbooks, in a few occasions, we saw that the teachers
expanded the content with the addition of other activities. The difference we found is that
there are more cases in the Basque Country when the students, either in combination with
the teacher or the book, or by themselves, select the content of the task.

In relation to the materials used, the observations gave us a different picture from
that described by COLT. In the Basque Country, all the schools observed had a textbook
while in Friesland, two schools used a textbook and one school used th e ELO (“E lektronische
LeerOmgeving” ) or “electronic learning environment” platform which does not include a
textbook. With ELO each student has a laptop each and the teacher creates her/his own
material or borrows from other sources. An additional aspect n ot registered with the COLT
scheme is that textbooks in the Basque Country are monolingual English while textbooks
used in Friesland were bilingual Dutch/English. The exception was the monolingual English
textbook used in grade 411 in Friesland but the text books from the same series used in
grades 2 and 3 include grammar explanations and other instructions in Dutch12.

The textbooks used in the Basque schools have a communicative approach. There are
texts and audios to introduce the students to a topic and then different activities to develop
around that topic using the four skills. The textbook Subject Projects13 used in the secon d
and third grades of secondary does not include sections aimed at grammar and other
linguistic aspects; the instruction and pract ice of different linguistic aspects is done through

11http://epub00.publitas.com/Noordhoff_Voortgezet_onderwijs_Groningen/ProefkaternSteppingStonesTweed
eFase4havo/
12 http://epub00.publitas.com/Noordhoff_Voortgezet_onderwijs_Groningen/SteppingStones_1vmbo –
thv_textbook_H4/#/spreadview/0/
13 Published by Ikastolen Elkartea.

55
different activities and tasks. And the textbook Social Sciences14 used in Grade 10 (4th year of
secondary), as the name suggests, is on social studies and includes neither grammar
instruction nor other li nguistic aspects’ instruction of an explicit manner. In Friesland, on the
other hand, the textbook used in two out of the three schools visited, Stepping Stones , does
include clear grammar and other aspects of explicit linguistic instruction, done mainly b y
using explanations in Dutch. Therefore, although the analysis of the material used in both
regions (using the COLT -scheme) shows certain characteristics of the materials used, it does
not give a very detailed description. In reality, the materials used i n both regions differ more
substantially than indicated by the COLT -analysis.

To sum up, according to our study, the Basque didactics of English has a more
communicative approach than the Frisian didactics of English. We saw that Basque teachers
spend mo re time correcting and reviewing tasks than their Frisian colleagues who spend
more time introducing and explaining grammar and other linguistic aspects. We also saw a
more communicative approach when the Basque students work more often in small groups
and have more opportunities to speak and listen using the target language (English). The
Frisian didactics of English also have a communicative approach but focus on form too. We
saw that the Frisian students work collaboratively as a whole class and also ind ividually, and
the didactics focus more evidently on linguistic aspects. In general, the instruction of English
in the Basque schools is done through English with little use of Basque or Spanish and the
learning materials used are in English. In Friesland, the instruction of English is done using
Dutch and the materials are bilingual in Dutch and English.

5.2 English outside school

The second research question that this study aimed to answer was:

 “What is the amount of exposure to and use of English secondary school students
experience outside school and in which manner do they get that exposure and use?”

After analysing the data collected from the student diaries, we conclude that the
students in the Basque Country and in Friesland use very littl e English outside of the school
environment. In order to summarize the content of section 4.3, we include below a table
that shows all the data together.

Table 11 : Average times per week
Basque Country Friesland
Listening 6.3 11.9
Speaking 2.4 0.9
Reading 3 2.2
Writing 2 1

14 Published by Ikastolen Elkartea.

56
Table 11 shows the average times per week these students use English in the stated
four manners (listening, speaking, reading and writing) outside of school. We found that
listening is the manner in which these students are most often exposed to English outside
school. In general, the Frisian students listen to English 5 more times per week more than
the Basque students do. As explained before in the results section, this is mainly because the
Frisian students can watch TV in English.

What we discovered about the Frisian students agrees with what we said in the
theory section; the 2002 report by the European Network of Policy Makers for the
Evaluation of Education Systems stated that music, radio, TV and computers were the most
important type of contact with English that Dutch teenagers had. This current study shows
that music, TV, and computers (used for communicating as well as for listening and reading)
are still the main source of English exposure for teenagers in Friesl and. In the Basque
Country, it is music and computers. That same report also stated that the Dutch students
watched at least one hour of programmes on TV in English and our study shows that Frisian
students do indeed watch one to one -and-a-half hours of pr ogrammes on TV in English, in
contrast to the half -hour programmes some Basque students watch. The amount of music to
which the students listen in English also shows that the Frisian students still listen for quite a
long time, as stated in the European Ne twork of Policy Makers’ report (2002) on Dutch
students. Both groups of students, Basques and Frisians, listen to music with similar
frequency and in a similar manner; they listen to music about 4 times per week and they do
it on the radio, on TV, on their mobile phones, or using other digital devices.

We found that the second most frequent manner in which these students use English
outside school is reading. The Basques read 3 times per week while the Frisian students read
2.2 times. These students read mainly digital media, such as chat messages on social
networking services using computers, and text messages on the phone, usually with their
friends. The reading is not extensive; it appears to be short phrases or single words
intertwined within another l anguage. Reading in English while playing computer games is
also another means of exposure to digital texts in English, as well as reading the subtitles of
films in English. According to these results, we can conclude that digital media is the main
source of reading for both the Basques and the Frisians, that the reading is not extensive,
and that both groups of students read in a similar manner and with a similar frequency.

The third most common manner in which these students use English outside school i s
speaking for the Basque students (2.4 times per week) and writing for the Frisians (1 time
per week). However , the Frisian students speak 0. 9 times per week, almost as often as they
write in English. As far as speaking is concerned – as we explained in t he results section –
many Basque students claim to speak in English twice or three times per week, information
which matches with the times they attend the English academies. Many of them also clearly
stated that the academy is the place they speak in Engl ish outside school. So if we took away
the academies, the Basque students would have the same opportunities to speak in English
outside school as the Frisian students, less than once a week. Thus we can conclude that
both groups of students do not speak mu ch in English outside school, but that when they do,
they do so using the internet to communicate with friends or relatives who live abroad – and
in the case of the Basque students, face -to-face with the teacher at the English academy.

57
As far as writing in English is concerned, it is the least -used manner in which the
Basque students use English outside school, and it is the third -placed manner for the Frisian
students. The Basque students write in English twice per week and the Frisian students once
a we ek. After analysing the results, we said that the Basque students also wrote some
handwritten texts in English, but this happened either in the English academy or during
homework for school or the academy. Therefore, excluding those times the Basque studen ts
write by hand in English, we can conclude that these students do not write very much in
general in English outside of school, and that when they do write it tends to be through a
variety of social networking services on the internet, mainly to communica te with friends.

To conclude with this section on English outside school, we can say that the Basque
students use English in the form of reading, writing and speaking mainly at the English
academies and listening more in their spare time. They do not y et really have other
opportunities to use the foreign language outside school, as Cenoz’s study in 2009
suggested. Cenoz (2009) also stated the possibility for an increasing amount of exposure to
English through the internet and computer games “in new gene rations”, and this current
study shows that internet is actually a good source of exposure to English for Basque
students.

We can also conclude that the Frisian students use English outside school mainly
through listening. They listen to English through music and television. They hardly speak,
read, or write in English and if they do so they do it using the internet and the social
networking services.

To finish, we can say that computers, the internet and other digital devices such as
the mobile phone, are the means by which these students use English outside school.

5.3 Future Research

This study has looked at the characteristics of English language didactics, as well as at
the use of English outside school that secondary students experience in the B asque Country
and in Friesland. On the whole, this report shows that secondary school students in the
Basque Country and in Friesland do not use the foreign language (English) very extensively,
either at school or outside. English is for them, at least in most cases, the foreign language
they learn at school. The study of the didactics carried out for this report shows that the
Basque students have the chance to use more English in school than their peers in Friesland,
but that the situation changes slightl y outside of school where the Frisian students seem to
be more exposed to English than their Basque counterparts (not taking into account the
exposure and use the Basque students accrue at the English academies).

We saw that the didactics and the materi als used in both regions for the instruction
of English are similar in many aspects, but that they also differ in several others. We reached
this conclusion after we analysed the data collected with the aid of a scheme. This scheme
permitted us to identify the characteristics of the didactic practice and of the material used,
although the analysis is a descriptive study. This description of the didactics and materials
does not go deeply into the study of the language used, and therefore, for a better
unders tanding of how the language is both used and learned, a more thorough study of the

58
use and allocation of the languages involved in education in the two regions would
constitute a good follow -up to this current study. Together with this, a more detailed stu dy
of the materials would be necessary to better understand and learn the characteristics of the
didactic practice in each of the regions involved.

Within the topic of language didactics, another aspect that has not been studied is
that of the challenges that teaching in third language creates for the teachers involved in the
process. There are challenges specific to language teachers that have consequences, if not
addressed, related to the learning success of the students. Certain needs arise for the
teachers as a result. Therefore, a study of the challenges and needs of language teachers in
multilingual schools would be necessary to understand the current situation in the
classrooms of the Basque Country and of Friesland. A study of the progression from the
language classrooms (English classrooms especially) in primary schools into the language
classrooms in secondary schools would also give a good insight for school administrators,
teachers and language -policy makers when designing their language curricu la.

This study also shows that the Basque and Frisian students seldom use English
outside school, and that they rarely use it in an extended way. The diary used for data
collection proved to be a good instrument for the purposes of this study, but not al l students
returned them complete. It also proved to be a good means for collecting illustrative data,
but a poorer means for gathering narrower and more specific details. It allowed us to obtain
an idea of the type of exposure to English and of the opport unities to use English that the
students have at their disposal. For future studies, another instrument, or a variety of
instruments, could widen the possibilities of a more detailed analysis. It would also be
interesting to research into whether the expos ure and use of English outside the school
really helps the students to learn the foreign language more easily or extensively, and
whether this is reflected in their proficiency levels. Another future study could be to analyse
whether the use of English out side school increases motivation to learn the foreign
language.

59
6 Literature

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Appendix I: COLT scheme, part A

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Appendix I I: Student Diary for Exposure to and use of English outside school

15 Asked only in the Basque Country.
16 Asked in the Basque Country, in Friesland it said “Hyves”. Monday Tuesday

√ Description
(What, Where, Who,
How long?) √ Description
(What, Where,
Who, How long?) Listening Listening to music
Watching TV/movies
Through Internet
Other: ………………………………… Speaking Talking face to face
Talking on the phone
Through Internet (e.g. Skype)
At an English Academy15
Other: ………………………………… Reading Digital media (e.g. sms, chat,
e-mail, Facebook, Tuenti16,
websites)
Printed media (e.g. magazines,
newspapers, books)
Signs and posters
Other: ………………………………… Writing Digital (e.g. sms, chat, e -mail,
Facebook, Tuenti)
Handwriting (e.g. letters, notes,
essays)

Other: …………………………………