Abstract:

We present here an analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data collected for a study of the impact of World Wide Web use in Elementary French and German courses (first and second semester) in Fall 1998 and Spring 1999. Specifically, the control groups attended class with the instructor four days per week. The treatment groups attended class with the instructor 3 days per week and completed a web activity each week on their own time to "replace" the fourth class meeting. The main research question was: would the treatment group's performance in the areas of reading, writing, listening, speaking and cultural understanding be similar to that of the control group in French and German, over two semesters of first year language study at the university level? We found that there was no pattern of statistically significant differences between the treatment and the control groups in any of these areas.

Author: Anne Green, Bonnie Earnest Youngs