62 CHAPTER 4 METHOD PARTICIPANTS For this study, 133 learners at the same school in the North of the Netherlands were tested at the end of six years of instruction (at age 18). e SB group consisted of 55 students who had started high school in 2009 and 2010. e DUB group comprised 78 students who had started in 2011, 2012 and 2013. At age 12, all 128 students had a high scholastic aptitude, as measured on the basis of the national curriculum test designed by the Dutch national testing agency (Cito). Dyslexic students and those who took more than 6 years to complete their secondary school were excluded from the dataset. SB AND DUB INSTRUCTION e SB program in Year 1-6 was designed on the basis of two CLT coursebooks: “Grandes Lignes” (Bakker et al., 2003) for the rst three years and “Libre Service” (Breek et al., 2003) for the nal three years. ese frequently used coursebooks consisted of di erent, thematically organized units. Class time consisted of approximately one third of reading and listening activities, one third of explicit grammar instruction and practice, and one third of speaking and writing activities. Each unit contained source texts which students had to read and listen to in class and exercises to develop each of the four skills, starting with receptive skills and working towards productive skills. Before actually reading, or listening to the texts, one or two introductory activities such as vocabulary exercises were done to sca old for comprehension. Exercises started with global comprehension questions, followed by detailed comprehension questions and explicit instruction on comprehension strategies, mostly in the L1. e L2 was used primarily during speaking activities. Each chapter also o ered exercises where grammar rules could be put to practice and a list of new vocabulary was presented to be memorized. In addition to the lessons in the coursebook, the teaching program in the nal three years consisted of two supplementary components providing receptive skills training to comply with curricular demands. e rst one was a French literature course that was structured on the basis of extensive reading activities at home. e second one targeted the national standardized reading and listening exams and provided strategy-based training drills for both exams and extensive practice with exam formats. e DUB program in years 1-3 was operationalized as the Accelerative Integrated Methodology (AIM3). is method consisted of storytelling in the L2 with lots of authentic exposure, imitation and repetition. e L2 was exclusively used; the emphasis was on oral production, and there was no explicit grammar instruction. e DUB program in years 4-6 was an extension of the AIM method, labeled AIM extended (AIMe), which also provided extensive L2 exposure at home and active use of the L2 3 See Arnott (2011) for more details
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