Work placements boost immigrant language fluency but risk grammar skills
A Swedish study of adult immigrant language students found that combining classroom instruction with paid work placement significantly improved writing fluency and complexity—but came at a cost to grammatical accuracy. The finding challenges assumptions about how best to integrate immigrants into the workforce while developing language skills.
Originaltitel: Utveckling av komplexitet, korrekthet och flyt hos sfi-elever med och utan språkpraktik
<p>The present paper reports on an intervention study investigating the development of complexity, accuracy and fluency in written texts collected longitudinally, under controlled conditions, from two groups of adult immigrantsenrolled in Swedish for Immigrants (SFI). The students in the intervention group spent two days per week in a work placement, while the students in the control group had language classes each day. In addition, measures of complexity, accuracy and fluency are also related to the texts’ general quality, which was assessed by five experienced teachers of Swedish as a second language, using the method of comparative judgement. Quantitative analyses reveal that general text quality correlate positively with complexity, fluency and accuracy to some extent. Ge neral text quality, complexity and fluency (but not accuracy) developed positively over time. W ork placement did not affect the development of generaltext quality but had a significant, positive effect on the development of fluency and complexity a s well as a significant, negative effect on the development of grammatical accuracy. Pedagogical and theoretical implications of those results are discussed.</p>