Locating the learning: A comparison of text-analysis tools in the foreign language writing of adolescents

Abstract

The small‐scale pilot study reported in this article was pedagogical in purpose: it trialled five text‐analysis tools to evaluate their potential usefulness to teachers of languages when used as complements to the holistic rubric used in New Zealand’s standards‐based national qualification. The five tools were adapted to the research context and employed to analyse texts written by four adolescents in a French language classroom. The analytical tools were compared for pedagogical usefulness and practicality using the categories of time taken, focus, scope, defining attributes, and benefit to users. One of the tools, frequency analysis, was deemed overly time‐consuming and did not supply the type of information useful for daily teaching and learning. However, the other four tools: error analysis, obligatory occasion analysis, functional analysis and complexity, accuracy and fluency analysis, are potentially useful to secondary school foreign language teachers who want to locate and track learning in order to differentiate practice and so improve outcomes for learners.