Construction learning in the second language classroom

This study investigates the second language (L2) development of wh-questions in English and French under a usage-based linguistic framework. It draws on two longitudinal corpora documenting spoken production data from different groups of classroom-taught learners; the French Progression Corpus, tracking twenty-four learners over three years, and the Barcelona English Language Corpus, tracking nine learners over seven years. Learners’ earliest wh-questions appear as similar prototypical multiword units and lexically specific constructions used in predictable role-play interactions. Progression-level differences across the datasets are found to be dependent on a learner’s ability to interact with lexically specific material and schematize related constructions from this. The paper discusses the implications of these findings for construction-grammar-informed pedagogies and highlights the value of teaching constructions as form-function pairings to accelerate early productive abilities in foreign language classrooms.