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Development of writing abilities across languages and school-levels: Room descriptions produced in three languages at primary and secondary school

Abstract This partially longitudinal study focussed on the ability of pupils to write descriptive texts in English and French as foreign languages and German as language of schooling. The teaching of two foreign languages from primary school onwards is compulsory in Switzerland, where this study is situated. The study responds to the urgent need for empirical research on cross-linguistic and cross-level development as a foundation for the improvement of language teaching. Current curricula do provide for the coherent fostering of the plurilingual repertoires of learners, across languages and school levels. But this still stands in sharp contrast to the multiple compartmentalisations and discontinuities induced by the educational system. Letters with spatial descriptions were collected in a quasi-experimental design in the canton of St. Gallen at the end of primary school (Year 6, N=185) and in the first year of secondary school (Year 7, N=218). The texts were analysed in terms of spatial organisation and text length. Moderate but statistically significant correlations between languages were found for both variables. The analysis revealed continuity of the development in the foreign languages, but stagnation in the language of schooling. The benefits of fostering transversally accessible textual patterns through a genre-based approach, in particular for the second foreign language (L3), are discussed.