Abstracts - Earli

minority language course at school has a positive effect on the language competences in the firstlanguage. Secondly, a high correlation between motivation/SES and language achievement isassumed.English in primary school: Assessing speaking skills of young learnersAndrea Haenni Hoti, University of Teacher Education, SwitzerlandSybille Heinzmann, University of Teacher Education, SwitzerlandThis contribution presents the research project concerning English in primary schools in CentralSwitzerland (Haenni Hoti, 2006a; 2006b). The study investigates the model (L2 English, 3rd grade/ L3 French, 5th grade) which was introduced in several cantons at the beginning of the 2005/2006school year. The effectiveness of English instruction at primary schools is investigated by meansof a quasi-experimental design, including a randomised test and control group (pupils in 3rd gradeof primary school with and without English; N=1008). The first data for this three-yearlongitudinal study were collected in April/Mai 2006. Quantitative instruments (written and oralachievement tests for pupils) were used in order to assess children’s listening, reading andspeaking skills. This contribution aims at addressing the following questions: which Englishspeaking skills are acquired in the 3rd grade of primary school? Which socio-demographic(literacy of family, gender) and learner-related factors (motivation, learning strategies) have animpact on English speaking skills of young learners? Additionally, the achievement of bi- andmultilingual children with a migration background is compared to that of monolingual children inorder to find out if the former can benefit from their previous experiences of second languagelearning. As an illustration, video extracts from the English speaking test will be shown to theaudience. The insights gained from this study will be compared to those of other research projectsconcerned with early foreign language learning carried out in Canada (White & Turner, 2005),Germany (Werlen et al, 2001-2005) and Switzerland (Býeler et al, 2001; Schaer & Bader, 2005)and discussed with reference to theoretical approaches to second/third language acquisition.N 631 August 2007 16:00 - 17:20Room: 0.87 MarxPaper SessionMathematics educationChair:Lieven Verschaffel, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, BelgiumEfficiency and flexibility of adults’ strategies on multi-digit sumsJoke Torbeyns, K.U.Leuven, BelgiumLieven Verschaffel, K.U.Leuven, BelgiumPol Ghesquiere, K.U.Leuven, BelgiumThis study aimed at analyzing the adaptive nature of adults’ strategy choices in the domain ofmulti-digit arithmetic, using the choice/no-choice method. In line with recent theoretical modelson adaptive strategy choices (e.g., Cary & Reder, 2003; Siegler, 1996), strategy adaptiveness wasdefined on the basis of both item and strategy performance characteristics. Twenty-five universitystudents were offered three-digit subtractions in one choice condition, wherein they could use their– 734 –