English as a foreign language: The role of out-of-school language input

This chapter investigates to what extent the process of second language acquisition is influenced by amount and type of input. After a brief description of the place of English in the lives of secondary school students in the Netherlands, the article reports on a semi-longitudinal study comparing students whose out-of-school contact with English is quite limited and a group of students who have regular access to English popular media. Both groups were tested in a high-input condition (bilingual education) and in a low-input condition (monolingual education). The findings show a complex relation between the role of out-of-school and in-school input and developing proficiency that can only be discovered through a semi-longitudinal approach.