The chosen article for analysis is called “Second-Language Acquisition Through

Subject-Matter Learning” by Philip C., Hauptman Marjorie, B. Wesche, Doreen

Ready in University of Ottawa. It describes the second- and third-year results of a
three-year study of second-language acquisition in university-level subject-matter
classes. This article follows the IMRaD format and is structured by four main
sections: introduction, materials and methods, results, and discussion.
In introduction section, the authors describes a study of second-language
acquisition in which Anglophone and Francophone university students took
“Introduction to Psychology”, “Introduction a la psychologie in their second
language” in a special class taught by regular psychology professors. The
questions serving as a basis for this study are:
1. Did the experimental subjects successfully master the psychology subject
matter?
2. Were there measurable improvements in the second-language proficiency of
the experimental subjects?
3. Did the self-confidence of the experimental subjects increase as reflected in
their self-reported gains in proficiency, second language use anxiety and intention
to use the second language outside the classroom?
Then, authors describe the aims of this study, and how the experiments have
been done. It is written that the groups of Anglophone and Francophone students at
the University of Ottawa, an English-French bilingual institution, have, since 1982,
taken Introduction to Psychology llntroduction a la psychologie in their second
language (French and English, respectively) in sheltered classes.
The purpose of the present study was to replicate, in as broad a context as
possible, the earlier study of subject matter language teaching as compared to
traditional second-language teaching at the university. In so doing, the earlier
research questions were considered: Did the students learn psychology? Did the
students improve their second-language skills? Did the students increase their self-
confidence in using their second language?
Methods section
As we know, the methods section describes how the study was conducted. This
article describes the procedures that authors have taken and which materials they
used to find an answer to your research question and contains all necessary
information to repeat the study. Authors say that in particular, research on informal
versus formal learning environments (cf. Newmark & Reibel, 1968; d’hglejan,
1978) and the French immersion programs operating in Canada since the late
1960s (cf. Swain & Lapkin, 1982; Genesee, 1987) have provided important
insights. The rationale for the study has been most clearly formulated by Krashen
(l981,1984a, 19851, who has claimed that language will be acquired providing two
key requisites are fulfilled.
In addition to that, authors provide instruments showing which parameters were
measured using which method. The instruments used to determine the second-
language proficiency levels for selecting experimental or comparison group
subjects were the English Proficiency Test and the Test de compdtence en
franCais, developed by the Centre for Second Language Learning at the University
of Ottawa.
Results section
Results of this study provide an affirmative answer to the first two questions that
have been mentioned in introduction section. In addition, comparison with control
groups in language and psychology suggest that sheltered classes are at least as
effective as traditional psychology and language classes, and sometimes even
better. Results did not provide a definitive answer to the third question although
experimental subjects consistently perceived improvements in their second
language skill and those in the FSL study showed a decrease in French use anxiety
Discussion of Language Results
In the discussion section or chapter, we are given interpretations of the results by
relating and comparing them to each other. As reported above, with only one
exception, the experimental groups in both FSL and ESL showed significant
second-language gains on all measures, whereas the control groups did not (i.e.,
1984-1985 ESL total proficiency, translation subtests, and the composition
measures). These results therefore provide an affirmative answer to the second
question of the study: that there were measurable improvements to L2 proficiency
in the sheltered classes. The results provide an affirmative answer to the first
question of the study: Did the students successfully master the psychology subject
matter? Again the study gives firm evidence to support the idea that for high-
intermediate second-language students, sheltered classes are a good means of
learning language and subject matter at the same time.
Conclusion
In conclusion section, authors summarize main points and results of this study
again. As we know, we had three questions that have been mentioned in
introduction section, so in this section, authors give answers to the questions in
general.

The article is available here:

https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/j.1467-1770.1988.tb00419.x