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Five-week FS-focused task-based course with weekly topic conversations and graded production

Design · All designs
Evidence · no claims cited

Description

A unit-level instructional pattern in which each week centers on one recorded native-speaker conversation about a conversational topic. Session one builds listening comprehension identically for all learners; session two diverges, with the treatment group mining the transcript for FS and exploring usage; session three centers on production, with students expected to use learned FS while speaking. About half of course time was given to speaking practice, and explicit grammar was not taught at all.

Design Implications

Context

Requirements

  • Voluntary class meeting 30 minutes three times weekly over five weeks
  • Different instructors per group following agreed-upon lesson plans
  • Pretest and posttest dialogic conversations on the same topic

Constraints

  • Attrition was high: only 19 of 40 initial students completed; two sessions were cancelled due to instructor illness, so students could attend at most eight hours of class

Target Learners

  • mid-intermediate to advanced ESL learners in an intensive university preparation program

Learning Goals

  • spoken fluency in dialogic tasks
  • noticing and producing formulaic sequences

Claims

Examples

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Key Sources

  • Michael McGuire & Jenifer Larson-Hall. (2017). Teaching Formulaic Sequences in the Classroom: Effects on Spoken Fluency. TESL Canada Journal/Revue TESL du Canada, 34(3), 1–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.18806/tesl.v34i3.1271
Page metadata
Field Value
type design
id fs-task-based-weekly-course-pattern
title Five-week FS-focused task-based course with weekly topic conversations and graded production
description A unit-level instructional pattern in which each week centers on one recorded native-speaker conversation about a conversational topic.
status review
generated by process:settle-candidates on 2026-11-02
trust unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources 1 — michael-mcguire-jenifer-larson-hall-2017

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