Wim Gombert

CHAPTER 8. Summary, discussion and conclusion 127 SUMMARY OF THE STUDY e aim of the current dissertation was to compare how L2 French di erentially develops as a function of a weak version of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), realized by means of an SB approach and a strong version of CLT on the basis of a DUB approach. We targeted all four language skills-- reading, writing, listening, and speaking—following a six-year instruction period. e study and data collection were situated in a pre-university program for French at a secondary school in the North of the Netherlands, and spanned ve years, testing students in their nal year of secondary school in di erent cohorts. e SB group consisted of 55 students divided over two cohorts: 26 students started secondary school in 2009 and sat their exam in 2015, and 29 students started secondary school in 2010 and sat their exam in 2016). e DUB group, by contrast, comprised 78 students divided over three cohorts: 35 students started secondary school in 2011 and sat their exam in 2017, 23 students started secondary school in 2012 and sat the exam in 2018, and a nal batch of 20 students started their secondary school trajectory in 2013 and nished by sitting their exam in 2019. All students were absolute beginners when they started learning French in their rst year of secondary school. Figure 1 below visually presents these di erent cohorts. FIGURE 1. Distribution of participants in research groups and cohorts

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