Effects of allocated time on foreign language proficiency in elementary school foreign language programs

As early foreign language learning programs have proliferated in the United States, a need has emerged to answer questions related to the best type of language program models available. Such questions lead very quickly to the issue of how much time is provided for instruction. This study outlines the current situation of elementary school foreign language programs and poses the questions that program planners must face when initiating such programs. The study looks specifically at the issue of allocated time within those programs and examines the general educational scholarship related to time and specific foreign language scholarship related to time and proficiency. The study attempts to answer the question of how differences in amount of allocated program time and frequency of instruction affect program outcomes The study also examines the way that the amount of time the teacher actually uses the foreign language during instruction might affect the outcomes.;Several areas of scholarship shed light on this study. From general educational research there is scholarship reporting that educational achievement is highly dependent on time, and further scholarship discussing the importance of how this time is actually used. While there is as yet little scholarship about language outcomes in foreign language programs, research about foreign language proficiency does suggest that time is an important factor in proficiency outcomes.;The subjects of this study were English-speaking elementary school students in schools with Spanish programs beginning in grades kindergarten, one or four. The research involved an achievement test administered to 515 fifth grade students attending eight different schools in three school districts. An oral proficiency test was also administered to 114 of these students. Other data collected were standardized group achievement tests and teacher comments using a semi-structured teacher interview.;The study then presents the results of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of how three early language learning programs with differing time allocations fared on measures of language achievement and language proficiency. The study ends with a discussion of how time affected outcomes in these three programs and how the findings relate to elementary school foreign language programs in general.;The data were analyzed using multivariate parametric and nonparametric procedures. When significant multivariate differences were found, post hoc univariate tests were performed to identify where the differences resided. The overall hypothesis that time in the classroom is directly related to student foreign language proficiency outcomes was supported in part. Several of the tests performed did indicate such differences, but the test of overall differences among the three programs was not significant.