Agnieszka Otwinowska-Kasztelanic

University of Warsaw | UW · Institute of English Studies Faculty of Modern Languages

We explored the acquisition of three types of second language (L2) words in a paired–associates learning task. Seventy–six Polish participants were presented with 24 nonwords paired with pictures; they completed 8 interleaving test blocks of form production and meaning recognition, both followed by feedback. The nonwords included “cognates” (nonwor...

In this study we explored factors that determine the knowledge of L2 words with orthographic neighbours in L1 (cognates and false cognates). We asked 150 Polish learners of English to translate 105 English non-cognate words, cognates, and false-cognates into Polish, and to assess the confidence of each translation. Confidence ratings allows us to e...

Some second language (L2) acquisition researchers have suggested that learners should be made aware of cross‐linguistic similarity for them to benefit from cognateness. To test this assumption, we ran two longitudinal classroom quasi‐experiments with Polish learners of English. We chose 30 Polish‐English cognates, 30 false cognates, and 30 non‐cogn...

L3 acquisition is influenced by L1-L3 typology, learners’ proficiency in those languages, and metalinguistic knowledge. However, the precise patterns of cross-linguistic influence (CLI) in L3 acquisition are still unclear. This study aimed to examine how the abovementioned factors affect learners’ sensitivity to subject placement in L3 Italian. We...

Studies investigating the relationship between phonological short term memory, phonological awareness and vocabulary in L2 child learners yield mixed results. Those differences may be caused by the vocabulary assessment tools used in research. Tailor-made vocabulary tests based on the input the L2 learners receive may deliver different results than...

Dwujęzyczność jest normą, choć wiąże się nie tylko z korzyściami, ale i z wyzwaniami! Zwracamy się do wszystkich osób, które w swojej pracy zawodowej stykają się z dziećmi dwujęzycznymi. Jesteśmy świadomi, że funkcjonowanie dzieci dwujęzycznych w kontekstach edukacyjno-społecznych ma swoją specyfikę. Dzieci te mogą wymagać wsparcia odmiennego niż d...

On 9th December 2021 a group of 23 Polish researchers working in the areas of multilingualism, child development, language acquisition and learning, speech & language disorders, and related topics, announced an appeal to all professionals working with bi- and multilingual children. The appeal points to the basic facts about bilingual development th...

Multi-word expressions (MWEs) are fixed, conventional phrases often used by native speakers of a given language (L1). The type of MWEs investigated in this study were collocations. For bilinguals who have intensive contact with the second language (L2), collocational patterns can be transferred from the L2 to the L1 as a result of cross-linguistic...

Using a pretest-posttest design, we compared the vocabulary learning potential of sentence writing tasks and essay writing tasks (60-minute essays). The vocabulary knowledge scale and a free association test were used as measures of lexical learning. To check for increase in cognitive load, first participants wrote a 60-minute timed control essay...

The involvement load hypothesis (ILH), which predicts the lexical learning potential of tasks, assumes that writing sentences (SW) and compositions (CW) using novel target words (TWs) lead to similar lexical gains. However, research on the issue is scarce and contradictory. One possibility is that the higher cognitive load of CW hinders learning re...

This paper describes in detail the development of the Polish version of the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (LITMUS-MAIN). We first describe its two earlier versions, the unpublished version and the published version, developed in 2012, as well as the revised version. We also justify the differences between the unpublished Polish...

Polish and English differ in the surface realization of the underlying Determiner Phrase (DP): Polish lacks an article system, whereas English makes use of articles for both grammatical and pragmatic reasons. This difference has an impact on how referentiality is rendered in both languages. In this article, the authors investigate the use of refere...

We examined factors determining parental success in transmitting heritage language (HL) and literacy in Russian-speaking migrant families of comparable socioeconomic status (SES) in Cyprus, Ireland, Israel and Sweden. A total of 345 Russian speakers completed a questionnaire about their language use and home language practices. Of those, we chose 1...

Bilingual language development might be characterized by transfer, deceleration, and/or acceleration, the first two being relevant for the language impairment diagnosis. Studies on bilingual children’s productive phonology show evidence of transfer, but little is known about deceleration in this population. Here, we focused on phonological transfer...

Abstract Aims and Objectives/Purpose/Research Questions: The study examines bilingual children’s prosodic competence, specifically the ability to correctly assign word stress in both languages, and contrasts it with participants’ segmental competence. To this end, we estimated and compared the magnitude of prosodic and segmental transfer in L1 and...

Knowing academic words is essential to achieving success at university, so reliable tests are needed to estimate students’ academic vocabulary. Recently, attention has been drawn to how cognates may overestimate vocabulary test results, making such tests unsuitable for placement. Here, we investigated whether a combination of results from two tests...

Multilingual learners: where do they belong in Polish schools? The article aims to draw attention to bilingual and multilingual learners in Polish schools. It briefly defines bilingualism and multilingualism and then focuses on selected linguistic and cognitive features of bilingual and multilingual children, juxtaposing research findings with sens...

Using FLP as the theoretical framework (King et al., 2008; Spolsky, 2004, 2009, 2012), this study explores linguistic, extra-linguistic, external and internal factors (Stavans, 2012) that determine parental success in Heritage Language (HL) transmission. Migrant speakers of Russian to four different countries (Israel, Sweden, Cyprus and Ireland) ar...

We investigated the speech patterns and accentedness of Polish–English bilingual children raised in Great Britain to verify whether their L1 Polish would be perceived as different from that of monolinguals matched for age and socioeconomic status. To this end, Polish-language speech samples of 32 bilinguals and 10 monolinguals (a 3:1 ratio, M Age =...

Reading and telling stories to children improves their narrative skills, which is well-documented for monolinguals, but not for bilinguals. We investigated whether bilingual narratives improve when the child is provided with a model story. We studied the narratives of Polish-English bilingual children (n = 75, mean age 5;7 years; months) raised in...

The training of language teachers still follows traditional models of teachers’ competences and awareness, focusing solely on the target language. Such models are incompatible with multilingual pedagogy, whereby languages are not taught in isolation, and learners’ background languages are activated to enhance the process. When teaching bilinguals/m...

Most studies on bilingual language development focus on children’s second language (L2). Here, we investigated first language (L1) development of Polish-English early migrant bilinguals in four domains: vocabulary, grammar, phonological processing and discourse. We first compared Polish language skills between bilinguals and their Polish non-migran...

Laufer and Hulstijn (2001) suggest that the motivational-cognitive construct of involvement may explain and predict different levels of effectiveness for vocabulary-learning tasks. Drawing on their original work and on later research on the involvement load hypothesis (ILH), this study set out to compare the effectiveness of carefully-designed task...

In E. Babatsouli & D. Ingram (eds.), Proceedings of the International Symposium on Monolingual and Bilingual Speech 2015 (pp. 207-213). ISBN: 978-618-82351-0-6. URL: http://ismbs.eu/publications

This book brings together linguistic, psycholinguistic and educational perspectives on the phenomenon of cognate vocabulary across languages. It presents a large-scale, long-term research project focusing on Polish-English cognates and their use by bilingual and multilingual learners/users of English. It discusses extensive qualitative and quantita...

Making use of cross-linguistic similarities and activating prior linguistic knowledge can greatly ease the language learning burden. Multilinguals are known to recognize such similarities more readily, being aided by their well-developed metalinguistic awareness. For a given person using crosslinguistic influences and activating other languages kno...

Description: This book brings together linguistic, psycholinguistic and educational perspectives on the phenomenon of cognate vocabulary across languages. It discusses extensive qualitative and quantitative data on Polish-English cognates and their use by learners/users of English to show the importance of cognates in language acquisition and learn...

CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning), is a teaching method, in which learners develop linguistic competence and problem-solving abilities by learning content-subjects in another language. However, learners’ cognitive gains may depend on their affectivity. Negative affect hampers complex cognitive processing essential for problem-solving,...

CITE AS: Marecka, M., Wrembel, M., Zembrzuski, D., Otwinowska-Kasztelanic, A. (2015) Phonological development in the home language among early Polish-English bilinguals. In The Scottish Consortium for ICPhS 2015 (Ed.), Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. Glasgow, UK: the University of Glasgow. Paper number 714. Retr...

Full volume available online: http://jows.pl/wydania/201502

It is clearly illogical to search for one good, universal solution for multilingual education when educational contexts differ so widely due to demographic and social factors. The situation is further complicated by the motivations of learners and teachers, and by attitudes towards multilingualism and ‘otherness’. The studies in this volume seek to...

The present paper discusses the components of language teachers' awareness, which should differ qualitatively and quantitatively from that of language learners and users. It is argued that especially teachers of English, the European lingua franca, should develop plurilingual awareness to train learners to become multilingual citizens. This awarene...

Otwinowska, A. (2013) CLIL lessons in the upper-primary: the interplay of affective factors and CALP. In: D Gabryś-Barker and J. Bielska, (eds.) The Affective Dimension in Second Language Acquisition (pp. 211-225). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Abstract Content and Language Integrated Learning is a powerful new approach to education. When carefull...

Using several languages has become a norm for those who want to learn and work in the European Union. However, teaching for plurilingualism is also a challenge. The present paper first clarifies the notions of plurilingualism and multilingualism, then discusses the role of crosslinguistic similarity in language learning in the case of European lang...

The article presents a reflection on the ways multilingual language users perceive their L2 and L3 learning experiences in retrospect. Emphasis is placed on sequential learning of foreign languages in classroom settings for learners/users homogenous in terms of their learning histories, with L1 Polish and L2 English (advanced), but at two different...

The paper describes a Polish research project which aims at creating a cognitive and linguistic profile of the Polish-English bilingual child at the school entrance age. With the increase in the number of bilingual children due to economic migrations, researchers, educators and practitioners are often faced with diagnostic dilemmas which arise from...

The present paper aims at showing the relation between the theory of affordances and cross-linguistic similarities in the area of lexis. It argues that the presence of cognate vocabulary between L1, L2 and Ln may constitute a set of affordances for language learners. It also discusses the key typological and psychotypological factors in noticing th...

European languages share a number of cognate words and expressions. Awareness of such words may enhance vocabulary acquisition by triggering positive transfer from the native language. However, as research shows, access to this lexicon depends on the psychotypological distance between the learner's L1, L2 and Ln, the number of languages known and t...

The educational policy of the European Union stresses the need for special treatment of culture in the school systems. European citizens should be aware of their national identity, but also open and tolerant towards other cultures. However, teaching cultural content on English language courses involves decisions related to the choice of topics and...

Full text downloadable from http://jows.pl/sites/default/files/jows_6_2010.pdf

Polish and English, like most European languages, share numerous cognate words and expressions which can be easily understood even by those Poles who do not speak English. A seemingly obvious classroom implication of this fact is that these vocabulary items should be used in teaching English to Poles. When presented with cognate words, even a begin...