Abstracts - Earli

study. Then, we analyze how task familiarity and frequency of task type use relate to performanceson tests and participants’ self-assessment. Finally, we build a model showing how macro variablescontribute to outcomes. Findings indicate that the type of school students attend has a strongrelationship with their achievements. However, the correlations between weekly hours and yearsof study show a controversial picture for English and German. A strong relationship was foundbetween frequency of task types and familiarity with them and achievements. A similarrelationship characterizes students’ perceptions of task difficulty and their performances on them.As for the major argument for early start programmes, the length of language study, correlationswith outcomes and year of language learning indicate modest relationships. The strongestrelationships were found between school grades and performances, and students’ socio-economicstatus and their achievements on proficiency tests. As regression analyses indicate, parents’educational level and number of weekly classes explain about one third of variance in languageachievements in both languages.Coursebooks’ contribution to young learners’ English vocabulary size growthAndrea Orosz, University of Szeged, HungaryThis paper aims to describe results of a study that investigates the frequency level, the vocabularysize and re-occurrences in English language coursebooks for young learners. The study comparesvocabulary in teaching materials with what students retain. Investigating re-occurrences wasessential as new vocabulary fits into students’ depth of knowledge by repetition. Repetition shouldoccur very soon after it was first studied and then several times on a regular basis. It is calledspaced repetition and it results in depth of knowledge, but masses repetition does not. The researchwas conducted by counting the words in the books and analyzing their distances from each other.After that 490 pupils (age 9-11) from three average primary schools in Szeged, Hungary wereasked at the end of the 2005/2006 academic year to fill in the paper and pencil version of theSwansea X_lex vocabulary levels test (Meara & Milton, 2003). The test is in widespread use andhas been shown to give reliable results. It is suitable to measure vocabulary size from beginner tointermediate level. Results show that participants’ vocabulary size grows gradually and at the endof the 5th form (age 11) it is around 1,000 words. It is bigger than the indicated vocabulary size inthe National Core Curriculum (2003), but if we compare this size with the vocabulary offered inthe books the results are less favourable. The research revealed that coursebooks do not giveenough opportunities for spaced repetition. Therefore, it is not surprising that even if teachersteach and students learn new vocabulary, learners retain only a small portion.Can young learners of English in Poland benefit from the Common European Language Policy?Mariola Bogucka, University of Gdansk, PolandCommon European Framework of Reference, European Language Portfolio, ‘can-do statements’or ‘intercultural awareness’ have become buzz words in Poland. However, the key question is howthese terms affect teacher training and eventually classroom practice in young learner languageeducation. The research project carried out at Gdansk University attempts to answer the followingquestions: What is the attitude of young learner teachers to the new concepts? What changes canbe introduced in the teacher training programme in order to facilitate the implementation of thenew educational policy? To what extent can young learners of English benefit from the commonEuropean language policy? The study involves a group of twelve teachers from primary schools.The purpose of the study is to identify the level of knowledge and understanding of the ideasadvocated in the European documents and to explore their practical implementation in theclassroom. The study uses the multimethod approach: data were collected with a questionnaire,– 302 –