Article

INPUT FACTORS, LANGUAGE EXPERIENCES AND METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS IN BILINGUAL CHILDREN

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Abstract

Previous studies have examined either the input factors predicting language proficiency in bilingual children or the relationship between bilingualism and metalinguistic awareness. This thesis takes a novel approach exploring the two areas simultaneously. A study was conducted to investigate, first, the input factors that may cause variation in bilingual language proficiency and, secondly, the effects of differing levels of bilingualism on metalinguistic awareness. The participants were 38 French-English bilingual children aged six to eight, of middle to high socio-economic status, attending an international school in France. Data on the children’s language experiences and family background were collected through questionnaires given to parents and children. Language proficiency was measured using the standardised French and English versions of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. Metalinguistic awareness was assessed through seven metalinguistic tasks each given in both languages. The findings are discussed in relation to Bialystok’s (1986a) analysis and control framework and Cummins’ (1976) threshold hypothesis. The results indicated a strong association between language exposure estimates and language proficiency measures for each language. Furthermore, the child’s stronger language was shown to be a reliable predictor of variables related to language use, including the language used with peers and the language the child finds easier to speak. The results for metalinguistic awareness were generally consistent with Bialystok’s and Cummins’ predictions. High level balanced bilinguals outperformed dominant bilinguals on high control tasks and on certain analysis tasks, but only when the child’s best score, sometimes coming from the weaker language, was considered. A strong relationship was found between the language proficiency measures and the analysis tasks. Likewise, children scoring above the median on each of the Peabody tests generally outperformed those scoring below on analysis tasks. Overall, the results indicate that proficiency in each language, as well as degree of bilingualism, impact on metalinguistic awareness.

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... Otro aspecto a destacar en las Pruebas de Juicio de Gramaticalidad es la metodología, ya que normalmente estudios previos (Ben-Zeev, 1977a, b;Bialystok y Majumder, 1998;Bialystok, 1986a, b;Bialystok, 1988a, b;Campbell y Sais, 1995;Cohen, 2011;Cromdal, 1999;Feldman y Shen, 1971;Galambos y Goldin-Meadow, 1990;Galambos y Hakuta, 1988;Hakuta, 1987;Ianco-Worrall, 1972;Ricciardelli, 1992a, b) evalúan a participantes monolingües y bilingües de educación básica o incluso de media superior de forma individual con pruebas previas y posteriores al tratamiento. En consecuencia, autores como Diao (2014) sugieren que futuras investigaciones deberían prestar especial atención al desarrollo de la conciencia metalingüística, pero a un nivel superior, no solo porque el dominio de la lengua meta es una herramienta fundamental para el aprendizaje sino también porque los estudiantes universitarios deben saber cómo funciona el lenguaje mientras se profesionalizan. ...
... Estas tareas de conocimiento gramatical, centradas en la forma, complementan la instrucción formal en el sentido de que abordan las preguntas de los estudiantes para explicar el uso del lenguaje cotidiano cuando es necesario acceder, estructurar y manipular la estructura del lenguaje para atender aspectos formales (Cohen, 2011). ...
... Anteriormente se mencionó que el mismo tipo de tarea metalingüística se puede manipular para proporcionar diferentes niveles de análisis y control. Por ejemplo, una tarea metalingüística que requiere la detección de errores en oraciones significativas no gramaticales impone mayores exigencias al análisis, mientras que uno que requiere la detección de errores en oraciones gramaticales anómalas tiene mayores exigencias de control (Cohen, 2011). De igual modo, Lefrançois (2000) ratifica el hecho de que unas tareas requieren más análisis (por ejemplo, juicios de gramaticalidad, la identificación de elementos no gramaticales, corrección de dichos elementos, y la explicación de la corrección) que otras (por ejemplo, uso de rimas y sinónimos del elemento objetivo). ...
Thesis
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Las Pruebas de Juicio de Gramaticalidad se consideran un método estandarizado para medir el uso del idioma de los estudiantes porque se les pide que hagan un pronunciamiento intuitivo sobre la precisión de la forma y estructura de oraciones individuales y descontextualizadas. Por lo tanto, existe una investigación limitada sobre las reflexiones metalingüísticas detrás de la emisión de un juicio de gramaticalidad. En este estudio se busca que además de emitir juicios gramaticales, los estudiantes detecten reglas subyacentes de uso para para corregir y justificar errores gramaticales de manera colectiva; ya que esto podría tener un impacto positivo en su aprendizaje del inglés como L2. Apoyada del marco de la Teoría Sociocultural para el desarrollo de la Conciencia Metalingüística entre pares y de la verbalización de los procesos reflexivos involucrados en la cognición mediante tareas gramaticales y la evocación estimulada como técnica metodológica, la presente investigación explora el proceso por el que dieciséis universitarios mexicanos pasaron al crear, editar y aplicar sus propias reglas gramaticales para tratar de entender cómo funcionan los complementos infinitivos y gerundios en inglés; uno de los temas más complejos de adquirir por estudiantes del inglés como L2, por carecer de reglas de uso. El objetivo es el de contribuir al campo de la investigación empírica en el desarrollo de la conciencia metalingüística en la que se atiende al proceso de aprendizaje de estructuras que los estudiantes normalmente memorizan. Los hallazgos señalan la existencia de posibles factores cognitivos que vinculan el aprendizaje de estos complementos con la reflexión metalingüística y el andamiaje cognitivo entre pares. Las actividades que fomentan la reflexión metalingüística, tal como las entrevistas de evocación estimulada, pueden conducir a los estudiantes de nivel intermedio - avanzado a que desarrollen sus propias reglas gramaticales las cuales son generadas con un fundamento sintáctico y posteriormente, semántico; como sucedió en este estudio. Aunado a lo anterior y a partir de un cuidadoso análisis microgenético de los procesos de desarrollo metalingüístico y metacognitivo en los estudiantes, se generó el modelo REBUCREA, en el que se observa la revisión, búsqueda, creación, evaluación y aplicación de las reglas gramaticales. Palabras clave: complementos infinitivos y gerundios, conciencia metalingüística, inglés como L2.
... Within the bilingual family, practices (re)produced are influenced by forces from inside and outside its perimeters, namely school and wider social spheres (Ghimenton & Riley, 2020;Kanagy, 1999;Luykx, 2003;Nandi, 2018). Thus, caregivers' practices may reflect attitudes of favour towards one language (Cohen, 2011;Ghimenton, 2015) which may influence educational choices (De Houwer, 1999), including school selection (Cohen, 2011;Cohen, 2016;Siguán & Mackey, 1986) and access to media and social networking (Cohen, 2011). ...
... Within the bilingual family, practices (re)produced are influenced by forces from inside and outside its perimeters, namely school and wider social spheres (Ghimenton & Riley, 2020;Kanagy, 1999;Luykx, 2003;Nandi, 2018). Thus, caregivers' practices may reflect attitudes of favour towards one language (Cohen, 2011;Ghimenton, 2015) which may influence educational choices (De Houwer, 1999), including school selection (Cohen, 2011;Cohen, 2016;Siguán & Mackey, 1986) and access to media and social networking (Cohen, 2011). ...
... Within the bilingual family, practices (re)produced are influenced by forces from inside and outside its perimeters, namely school and wider social spheres (Ghimenton & Riley, 2020;Kanagy, 1999;Luykx, 2003;Nandi, 2018). Thus, caregivers' practices may reflect attitudes of favour towards one language (Cohen, 2011;Ghimenton, 2015) which may influence educational choices (De Houwer, 1999), including school selection (Cohen, 2011;Cohen, 2016;Siguán & Mackey, 1986) and access to media and social networking (Cohen, 2011). ...
Article
Full-text available
We investigate bilingual habitus and socialisation in 49 French-English bilinguals (aged 5;9-11;00) attending a French school with a bilingual programme in France, from three family profiles: two Anglophone parents (EE); one Anglophone and one Francophone parent (EF); two Francophone parents (FF). Data come from parent questionnaires and child and parent interviews. Quantitative analyses explored current declared language practices between children and mothers, fathers, siblings and peers in each profile. Qualitative analyses of one representative sample case per profile honed the socialisation trajectories from birth. Findings showed that international mobility impacted the relation between language and place in the three profiles differentially, yet all valued English maintenance. Moreover, the language which felt "natural" contrasted in EE and FF families. Using French at home felt unnatural for EE parents whilst for FF parents, using English in family interactions felt natural and necessary for family socialisation in the Anglophone host country. We analyse the factors accounting for children's bilingual habitus and question the contribution of English prestige, children's school and families' strong affective attachment to English as a heritage language or a language acquired through mobility. New insights into the complexity of bilingual habitus and socialisation are discussed within the French school system.
... Il s'agit d'un processus au cours duquel des représentations mentales implicites sont réorganisées en représentations explicites de la structure. Cette composante regroupe les habiletés de structuration, de réorganisation et d'explicitation des connaissances linguistiques (Cohen, 2011). Les connaissances implicites sont peu à peu transformées en connaissances explicites, qui sont conscientes et verbalisables (Simard et al., 2017 ;Karmiloff-Smith, 1986). ...
... Le contrôle 5 des traitements langagiers a été défini par Bialystok (2001a) comme la composante qui permet de diriger l'attention intentionnellement sur la sélection et l'intégration des informations pertinentes et appropriées (Bialystok, 1988, p. 561) et la capacité de s'occuper sélectivement d'aspects spécifiques d'une représentation, particulièrement dans des situations trompeuses ou ambigües, et qui nécessitent une solution (Bialystok, 2001a, p. 131). Certaines tâches métalinguistiques mobilisant des capacités de contrôle plus élevées peuvent exiger des sujets qu'ils concentrent leur attention sur certains éléments linguistiques, tout en ignorant ou en inhibant une compréhension du sens ou d'informations entrant en contradiction avec le but de la tâche et le construit visé (Cohen, 2011). https://journals.openedition.org/educationdidactique/8810 ...
... De tels rapprochements, d'ordre théorique, entre tâches et activités, méritent maintenant d'être passés à l'épreuve de l'expérimentation concrète et à la réalité du terrain, pour estimer leur effet sur les apprentissages des élèves. Bialystok (2001a, p. 16, tiré de la traduction de Fortier, 2013, p. 22) URL Fichier image/jpeg, 158k Titre Figure 2. Le modèle de Bialystok (2001a) avec projection des tâches psycholinguistiques (issues de Besse et al., 1999 ;Simard et al., 2017 ;Cohen, 2011 ;Lesaux et Siegel, 2003) URL Fichier image/jpeg, 281k ...
... Although the tasks were meant to be used with English speaking monolingual children, in a PhD study by Cohen (2011) the tasks were used to measure MA of 38 French-English bilinguals aged between six and eight. In order to access MA in the participants' two languages, the tasks had to be translated to French. ...
... Interestingly, unlike the participants in Ricciardelli's study (1993) whose performance on this task was somehow interfered by the similarity of the previous task, Ute's performance on this task was highly successful. This result proved to be consistent with the results reported by Cohen (2011). The English-French bilinguals participating in Cohen's (2011) study scored worse on the symbol substitution task loading on the control of linguistic processing than on the same task loading on the analysis of linguistic knowledge. ...
... This result proved to be consistent with the results reported by Cohen (2011). The English-French bilinguals participating in Cohen's (2011) study scored worse on the symbol substitution task loading on the control of linguistic processing than on the same task loading on the analysis of linguistic knowledge. Furthermore, for the English measure the control version of the symbol substitution task proved to be the most difficult one, and the analysis version one of the tasks where the bilingual participants scored the highest. ...
Chapter
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Multilingualism is receiving increasing interest in contemporary second language acquisition research (e.g. Hoffmann & Ytsma, 2004; Singleton, Fishman, Aronin, and Ó Laoire, 2013). The importance of developing multilingualism from an early age has been recognized by national policy stakeholders (e.g. Croatian National Framework Curriculum, 2011) as well as international policy makers (e.g. European Commission, 2004; Johnstone, 2002). The existing research studies on child multilingualism have looked into its various aspects and dimensions, and have considered it from different perspectives (e.g. educational, sociolinguistic, third language acquisition, dynamic systems theory). The finding of research carried out to date (e.g. Chevalier, 2011; Dewaele, 2012; Faingold, 1999; Kazzazi, 2007) which is the most relevant to our study refers to the key role of the interaction of individual and social factors in multilingual development. The aim of this paper is to present the findings of a case study carried out with Ute, a 6- year old native Estonian speaker of English and Croatian. Ute’s metalinguistic awareness, motor and language development milestones, attitudes to foreign languages and beliefs about language learning, motivation for learning English and Croatian, her self-perception of competence in her two non-native languages, contexts in which she was acquiring her languages, her family’s socio-economic status, and parents’ knowledge of foreign languages as well as their attitudes towards learning foreign languages were the variables included in the study. Data on these variables were collected by means of a metalinguistic awareness test (Ricardelli, 1993), Ute’s self-reports and interviews with her parents and preschool teachers. The results of this case study provide valuable insights into the complex and dynamic trajectory of child multilingual development.
... In the study conducted by Nicoladis et al. (2016), it is stated that there is no conflict in second language acquisition. Similarly, Cohen (2014) states that the probability of language conflict is very low in individuals who know and speak both languages at a certain level. ...
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