Thorsten Piske

Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg | FAU · Department of Didactics

This study presents productive L2 French grammar data obtained at the end of grade 1 from 186 elementary school children learning French in bilingual (CLIL) or in regular school programs in Germany. The children completed a picture description task to assess their productive oral L2 French grammar skills and two standardized cognitive tests on nonv...

This paper introduces a non-native speech corpus consisting of narratives from fifty 5- to 6-year-old Chinese-English children. Transcripts totaling 6.5 hours of children taking a narrative comprehension test in English (L2) are presented, along with human-rated scores and annotations of grammatical and pronunciation errors. The children also compl...

Bilinguale Züge haben in Bayern an öffentlichen Realschulen und Gymnasien schon eine längere Tradition. An öffentlichen Grundschulen wurden seit dem Schuljahr 2015/16 aber auch bilinguale Angebote an Grundschulen eingerichtet, die bereits in der 1. Jahrgangsstufe einsetzen und die zunächst nur deutsch-englische Angebote umfassten (vgl. Böttger & Mü...

Die dem Schulversuch „Lernen in zwei Sprachen – Bilinguale Grundschule Englisch“ folgende Anschlussuntersuchung, die an über 120 weiterführenden Schulen in Bayern durchgeführt wird, hat zum Ziel, in den Jahrgangsstufen 5 bis 7 Erkenntnisse über den weiteren Bildungsverlauf ehemals bilingual unterrichteter Grundschülerinnen und -schüler (SuS) zu gew...

Many studies have shown that most pupils attending bilingual programmes develop much higher levels of foreign language proficiency than pupils in regular foreign language lessons. In this paper, we will first illustrate similarities and differences between teaching strategies used in regular English lessons and in bilingual programmes. Then we will...

Since foreign language (FL) teaching has been firmly anchored in the subjects taught at primary school in Germany, numerous results of studies have shown very good results regarding the FL performance of young learners. It is, therefore, surprising, that some federal states in Germany moved back the start of FL lessons from class 1 to class 3, alth...

This volume examines interactions between second/foreign language acquisition and the development of cognitive abilities in learners who acquire an additional language in preschools, primary or secondary schools. The different chapters do not only address possible links between linguistic and cognitive development, but they also examine effects of...

Since the beginning of the 20th century, a large number of studies have examined cognitive abilities such as metalinguistic awareness, intelligence, mental flexibility and cognitive/executive control shown by learners learning more than one language at home or in different educational institutions. The results of many of these studies suggest that...

This paper examines the role of non-verbal intelligence of children attending either a partial immersion (IM) programme or a regular foreign language (FL) programme in a school in Germany, with a focus on grade 1 and grade 4. Using Raven’s Progressive Matrices tests as an index of non-verbal intelligence, significant differences between the childre...

Dieser Beitrag beschäftigt sich vor allem mit dem Phänomen der Fremdsprachenangst, einer situationsspezifischen Angst, die sich auf das Empfinden von Beunruhigung bzw. Anspannung in spezifischen Situationen, etwa beim Sprechen einer Fremdsprache, dem Verstehen von Äußerungen in einer Fremdsprache oder allgemein beim Erlernen einer Fremdsprache bezi...

In vielen Studien wird daraufhingewiesen, dass Kinder mit Türkisch als Erstsprache (L1) in Tests zum Deutschen und Englischen schlechter abschneiden als ihre Altersgenossen mit Deutsch als L1. In diesem Beitrag stehen die schriftsprachlichen Leistungen von türkischsprachigen ViertklässlerInnen im Deutschen und Englischen im Vordergrund. Die 154 Gru...

This volume focuses on the teaching of English as a foreign language to young learners at primary school. The volume features an introduction that covers essentials of teaching English to young learners from a theoretical, empirical, and neuroscientific perspective while also discussing the notion of a principled mindset, competence development, tr...

This paper focuses on the reading and writing skills of two groups of learners: a) minority language children learning to read and write in the L2 German and the L3 English in elementary school and b) fully or partially illiterate adult refugees using a digital tool in order to develop first literacy skills in German as a second language (L2). In...

This study examines the English productive vocabulary used by 40 primary school students in Germany who attend two German-English bilingual (immersion) programmes with varying degrees of English input intensity. The students were asked to narrate a story and their vocabulary was analysed in terms of types, tokens and type-token ratio as well as lex...

This paper describes two different approaches to teaching French as a foreign language currently followed by 11 elementary schools in the federal state of Bavaria, Germany. Children aged six years or older either learn French in about two 45-minute lessons per week or they start to learn French in a German-French bilingual program starting in grade...

The present study examined English spelling skills of fourth-graders attending a bilingual German-English primary school programme in Germany. English texts produced by monolingual and multilingual children were examined with regard to orthographic error types and their causes. The results of the English writing test showed that the children reache...

Laut Autorengruppe Bildungsberichterstattung (2018) besitzen 20 % der unter 3 bzw. 30 % aller über 3 Jahre alten Kita -Kinder einen "Migrationshintergrund" (mindestens ein Elternteil ist zugewandert). In durchschnittlich 2,7% (in Berlin sogar in 8,3%) aller Kitas in Deutschland sprechen mehr als 75 % der Kinder in der Familie nicht Deutsch (Länderm...

Der Faktor "Migrationshintergrund" korreliert mit einer Reihe von Faktoren, die die Leistungen von Schülerinnen und Schülern deutlich beeinflussen können: So zeichnen sich Familien mit Migrationshintergrund in Deutschland oftmals durch einen vergleichsweise niedrigeren sozioökonomischen Status und ein geringeres Bildungsniveau aus. Insofern muss im...

This study explores parallels and differences in the comprehension of wh -questions and relative clauses between early foreign-language (FL) learners and monolingual children. We test for (a) effects of syntactic first-language (L1) transfer, (b) the impact of input on syntactic development, and (c) the impact of individual differences on early FL...

The present study deals with the English pronunciation of majority and minority language children attending a German-English elementary school immersion program in Germany. In this program, 50% of the teaching time was conducted in English. By using a reading aloud task, we assessed phonemic accuracy as well as reading fluency in English and relate...

Das Ziel dieser Studie war es, die Englisch- und Deutschleistungen von Schüler(inne)n mit und ohne Migrationshintergrund zu untersuchen, die entweder einen Immersionszweig oder regulären Fremdsprachenunterricht an derselben Schule besucht haben. Im Immersionsprogramm fanden sich keine Unterschiede in den Testergebnissen zwischen Schüler(inne)n mit...

Dieser Beitrag fasst verschiedene Erkenntnisse der Spracherwerbsforschung, insbesondere der Zweitsprachenerwerbsforschung zusammen und diskutiert sie bezüglich ihrer Relevanz für den Fremdsprachenunterricht. Für Lehrkräfte ist es unabdingbar, dass sie sich mit den Phänomenen vertraut machen, durch die der Zweitspracherwerbsprozess gekennzeichnet i...

This book examines key issues in theories of what language is and what happens in the mind during second language acquisition (SLA), inspiring readers to think in new and exciting ways about language learning and teaching. Chapters, written by both established and rising star scholars, provide cutting-edge insights and new empirical findings on maj...

“Why don’t learners learn what teachers teach?” (Allwright, 1984: 3). As all teachers will know, this classic question remains an ongoing puzzle across any paradigm of second language development. It remains a mystery why some language rules - such as the 3rd person singular -s in English - are easy for the teacher to present but difficult for lear...

Die in diesem Kapitel diskutierten Forschungsergebnisse weisen darauf hin, dass Mehrsprachigkeit und ein Migrationshintergrund an sich nicht zu schlechteren Leistungen bezüglich bestimmter sprachlicher Teilkompetenzen wie dem Lesen in einer Majoritätensprache wie Deutsch und einer Fremdsprache wie Englisch führen. Bilinguale Angebote und insbesonde...

Wird in den Medien über das Erlernen von Fremdsprachen berichtet, trifft man häufig auf recht pauschale Aussagen wie „je früher, desto besser“, „Mädchen lernen Sprachen besser als Jungen“ oder auch „Schüler mit Migrationshintergrund zeigen Schwierigkeiten beim Sprachenlernen“. Dieser Beitrag fasst Ergebnisse der Spracherwerbsforschung zusammen, die...

This chapter examines the role of an early start in second/foreign language (L2) learning. It will first discuss the so-called 'Critical Period Hypothesis' (CPH) for L2 learning, because this hypothesis appears to have been one of the reasons why early foreign language programs were met with rather high expectations when they were first introduced...

Im deutschsprachigen Raum mangelt es bisher nicht nur an konkreten Untersuchungen zu der Frage, wie sich die sprachlichen Fähigkeiten von bilingual betreuten Kindergartenkindern entwickeln, sondern auch an Erfahrungsberichten darüber, wie bilinguale Angebote möglichst gewinnbringend in den Kindergartenalltag integriert werden können. Dieser Sammelb...

Der vorliegende Beitrag präsentiert Untersuchungsergebnisse zur fremdsprachlichen Entwicklung deutsch-englisch bilingual betreuter Kindergartenkinder im Alter zwischen 3 und 6 Jahren. Die Daten der Kinder wurden an drei Kindertageseinrichtungen in Baden-Württemberg erhoben, die sich u.a. in Bezug darauf unterschieden, wie lange die Kinder täglich K...

Fragt man Eltern oder ErzieherInnen nach ihren Erfahrungen mit bilingualen Kita-Programmen, so wird häufig berichtet, dass es den Kindern in solchen Programmen viel Freude bereitet, eine neue Sprache zu lernen. Zwei Hauptziele des vorliegenden Bandes bestehen deshalb darin, a) zu untersuchen, inwieweit Kinder aus Kitas mit bilingualen Angboten im V...

According to Genesee & Fortune (2014, 196), children from an "ethnically and linguistically diverse background […] including minority ethnic groups" are often considered 'at-risk' students. This is also the case in Germany, where an immigrant status in conjunction with a first language (L1) background different from the majority language German has...

Der Band „Wortschatzlernen in bilingualen Schulen und Kindertagesstätten“ präsentiert Forschungsergebnisse zur Wortschatzentwicklung bei Lernern in Kindertagesstätten, Grundschulen und weiterführenden Schulen mit bilingualem Unterricht bzw. bilingualer Betreuung. Der Band verdeutlicht, wie sich bilingualer Unterricht/bilinguale Betreuung auf das Wi...

Dieser Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit möglichen Zusammenhängen zwischen der Entwicklung des L2-Wortschatzwissens und des L2-Leseverstehens bei Kindern in einer bilingualen Grundschule, in der alle Fächer außer Deutsch, Mathematik und Religion auf Englisch unterrichtet werden. Der Fokus liegt dabei insbesondere auf einem Vergleich von einsprachig deut...

Der Fokus dieses Beitrags liegt auf Forschungsergebnissen, die in Deutschland erzielt worden sind, wo sich CLIL-Angebote teilweise sehr deutlich von Schule zu Schule unterscheiden können. Da CLIL-Programme in Deutschland auch im Grundschulbereich immer stärker zunehmen, werden zunächst die Ergebnisse einiger Untersuchungen vorgestellt, in denen die...

This paper had two aims: a) to provide a review of studies investigating how children with migration backgrounds perform in tests examining their skills in the majority language of a country as well as their skills in a 3rd language learnt either in regular language-as-subjects lessons or in bilingual programmes such as those following the immersio...

James Emil Flege was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1950. He obtained a PhD degree in linguistics from Indiana University in 1979. His PhD dissertation, supervised by Robert F. Port, was entitled “Phonetic Interference in Second Language Acquisition.”

The ELIAS Grammar Test II is a picture pointing test for L2 English grammar reception. It contains 72 items for 12 grammatical phenomena. The test represents an extended version of the ELIAS Grammar Test developed within the EU Comenius Project 'Early Language and Intercultural Acquisition Studies' (Kersten et al. 2010, www.uni-hildesheim.de/elia...

It is often assumed that a strong degree of foreign accent has negative effects on the intelligibility and social acceptance of utterances produced by second language (L2) learners. The degree of foreign accent perceived in the speech of L2 learners is not only determined by segmental errors i.e. by errors in the production of L2 consonants and vow...

This volume bridges the knowledge gap between second language acquisition researchers and second language pedagogy professionals in its focus on a topic of mutual interest: Input. The reader-friendly contributions from seasoned researchers including Stephen Krashen, Bill VanPatten and new voices offer a wide range of existing and new perspectives o...

The LL&LTmonograph series publishes monographs as weil as edited volumes on applied and methodological issues in the field of language pedagogy. The focus of the series is on subjects such as classroom discourse and interaction; language diversity in educational settings; bilingual education; language testing and language assessment; teaching metho...

This study used two methods to assess bilingual dominance in four groups of 18 Italian-English bilinguals, who were selected on the basis of age of arrival (AOA) in Canada (early: 2-13 years; late: 15-26 years) and percentage use of the first language (L1), Italian (low L1 use: 1-15%; high L1 use: 25-85%). Ratios were derived from the bilinguals' s...

This study examined the influence of the L1 phonetic system on the acquisition of Swedish quantity distinctions. The aim was to test the hypothesis that difficulty in acquiring an L2 contrastive category is related to the role in the L1 of the phonetic feature upon which the L2 category is based. Twenty native speakers each of American English, Lat...

The primary aim of this study was to determine if fluent early bilinguals who are highly experienced in their second language (L2) can produce L2 vowels in a way that is indistinguishable from native speakers' vowels. The subjects were native speakers of Italian who began learning English when they immigrated to Canada as children or adults ('early...

This study examined the production of English /b/ and the perception of short-lag English /b d g/ tokens by four groups of bilinguals who differed according to their age of arrival (AOA) in Canada from Italy and amount of self-reported native language (L1) use. A clear difference emerged between early bilinguals (mean AOA= 8 years) and late bilingu...

The main purpose of the experiments reported here has been to test a hypothesis about the influence of L1 phonology on the acquisition of contrastive L2 phonetic categories. This hypothesis holds that an L2 contrastive category will be difficult to acquire if it is based on a phonetic feature not exploited in the L1. Twenty native speakers each of...

This article had two aims: to provide a thorough review of the existing literature examining overall degree of foreign accent in a second language (L2), and to present a new foreign accent experiment. The literature review suggested that a wide variety of variables influence degree of foreign accent. These variables include age of L2 learning, leng...

This study examined the perception and production of word‐initial tokens of English stops (/b d g/ and /p t k/) by native speakers of Italian. The native Italian subjects were assigned to one of four groups based on their age of arrival (AOA) to Canada from Italy and percentage of self‐reported use of the native language, Italian. The results obtai...

This work addresses an important current issue in the field of second language speech acquisition. The main purpose of the experiments reported here has been to test a hypothesis about the influence of L1 phonology on the acquisition of contrastive L2 phonetic categories. This hypothesis holds that an L2 contrastive category will be difficult to ac...

The aim of this study was to determine if native speakers of Italian can ever learn to produce accurately English vowels not found in Italian. A recent study [J. E. Flege, I. R. A. MacKay, and D. Meador, J. Acoust. Soc. Am., under review], in which native Italian subjects were asked to repeat real words presented via a loudspeaker, showed that earl...

Introduction Much of the recent research that has been done on the acquisition of second language phonology and phonetics has been concerned with the concept of foreign accent. In Crystals A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics accent is defined as ... The cumulative auditory effect of those features of pronunciation which identify where a perso...

The present study investigates on the basis of which units and strategies children initially organize their speech. Transcribed longitudinal data from children acquiring German as their L1 are presented. The data were obtained in weekly recording sessions, which began when the subjects were between seven and thirteen months old. All the material wa...