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University of Essex homepage Research Projects Relationships Between Form and Meaning
Research Project

Relationships Between Form and Meaning

Principal Investigator
Dr Adela Gánem-Gutiérrez

How can we help adult learners develop knowledge of tense and aspect in a second language?

Do you teach L2 English or L2 Spanish to adults?

A suite of innovative teaching materials and tasks have been designed which have the potential to help with the development of adult L2 learners' tense-aspect system in L2 English and L2 Spanish. A grammar pedagogy project led by Dr Adela Gánem-Gutiérrez and informed by sociocultural theory is investigating the potential of these materials.

Principal Investigator

Student writing in a lecture
Do you teach L2 English or L2 Spanish to adults?

Would you like to try out our teaching materials? Download an example below or contact Dr Adela Ganem-Gutierrez for more information.

Download our PDF example teaching materials

Key publications

Enhancing metalinguistic knowledge: Preterite and imperfect in L2 Spanish

This article investigates the potential of a suite of pedagogical materials for enhancing metalinguistic knowledge in a foreign/second (L2) language context. We reveal interesting insights into metalinguistic and strategic resources used by the participants to describe contrasts between the Preterite and Imperfect.

Read or download the full article from our research repository.

Verbalisation as a mediational tool for understanding tense-aspect marking in English: An application of concept-based instruction

This paper reports on a pilot study framed within the principles of Concept-Based Instruction (CBI). The study involved six L2 advanced English learners doing postgraduate courses at a British university. Drawing on tests and protocols obtained by transcribing individual (think-aloud) and dyadic (pair-work) activity, our findings revealed that the CBI process helped most of our participants gain a deeper understanding of the concept of tense-aspect marking in English.

Read or download the full article from our research repository.

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