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In:TBLT for Young Learners: Challenges, opportunities and goals
Edited by Sima Khezrlou
[Task-Based Language Teaching 21] 2026
► pp. 108–129

Chapter 6
Metalinguistic explanations as a mediating force for reflection on form by young EFL learners during a dictogloss task

 | University of the Basque Country
 | University of the Basque Country
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
This quasi-experimental study aimed to investigate whether metalinguistic explanations can raise accuracy and promote form-focused discussion during a dictogloss task interaction. For this purpose, 35 Spanish speaking learners of English (aged 11–12 years old) from two intact classrooms were assigned into a control (N = 16) and an experimental (N = 19) group. Following a pre-test/post-test design, the experimental group received two 45-minute sessions of explicit metalinguistic instruction about two problematic target features (his/her and -s). Results indicated significant short-term gains for the experimental group regarding oral accuracy, improved performance on an untimed grammaticality judgement task, and more discussions about the target forms. However, most of these gains were not retained at the delayed post-test stage, suggesting the need for longer interventions.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Literature review
    • Explicit grammar instruction with young learners
    • Explicit grammar instruction in task-based language teaching
  • Method
    • Participants
  • Materials
    • The dictogloss task
    • The metalinguistic explanations
    • The untimed grammaticality judgement task
    • Procedure
    • Data analysis
  • Results
  • Discussion
  • Conclusion
  • Author queries
  • References
  • Suggestions for further reading
  • Appendix
References (66)
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Suggestions for further reading
Guerrero-Gómez, J., Orcasitas-Vicandi, M., & Kopinska, M. (2024). Enhancing young EFL learners’ written skills: The role of repeated pre-task planning. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
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