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Supporting the development of the bilingual lexicon through translanguaging: a realist review integrating psycholinguistics with educational sciences
Abstract
access: https://netherlands.openaire.eu/search/publication?pid=10.1007%2Fs10212-021-00586-6
In this review, we evaluate the claim that translanguaging in the classroom supports the development of the bilingual lexicon by enhancing cross-linguistic transfer. To address this issue, we integrate findings from psycholinguistics and educational sciences in order to identify how effective pedagogical practices for monolingual children can be extended to pedagogical practices for bilingual children. We show that both monolingual and bilingual children benefit from teaching strategies that strengthen the mental connections between semantically and phonologically related words, and that for bilingual children, these strategies should support both within- and cross-language connections. We argue that by stimulating the use of the home language in the classroom, translanguaging strategies like multilingual label quests and multilingual reading and writing can strengthen cross-language connections and, thereby, facilitate cross-linguistic lexical transfer. For closely related languages, stimulation of the home language has the additional benefit of implicitly facilitating the transfer of cognate vocabulary. Explicit instruction about cognates could further stimulate the development of cognate awareness, but whether it also enhances vocabulary learning is still an open question.
... Koda's (2005) crosslanguage transfer facilitation model suggested that bilingual children tend to employ metalinguistic abilities acquired from their L1 learning in their L2 learning. Recent research has also highlighted bilingual children's automatic interconnection between the two languages even in the monolingual contexts (Baoqi et al., 2020;Bosma et al., 2023). Nevertheless, in the field of cross-language transfer, linguistic threshold theory suggests that L1 reading performance may not significantly predict L2 reading performance if learners have not achieved adequate L2 linguistic knowledge (Alderson, 1984;Villacanas de Castro, 2016). ...
... When self-regulated learners encounter identical types of academic tasks, they are more likely to opt for similar types of SRL strategies to effectively deal with these tasks, thus the strategies employed by readers in L1 reading tend to exhibit similarities in L2 reading (Khaghaninejad, 2020;Zimmerman, 1989). Research also shows that bilingual children in Hong Kong can successfully transfer L1 reading skills to L2 reading (Bosma et al., 2023;Siu & Ho, 2015;Tse et al., 2022). ...
... The inconsistency of the result can be understood through " Koda's (2005) cross-language transfer facilitation model", which asserts that bilingual children tend to automatically employ "metalinguistic" abilities acquired from their L1 learning in their L2 learning (Baoqi et al., 2020, p. 657). This is because bilingual children can interconnect the two languages in their brains; even if they are in monolingual contexts, the other language can be activated automatically and cannot be suppressed selectively (Bosma et al., 2023). Drawing on the comparison between the Hong Kong and mainland China contexts, it becomes evident that Hong Kong students have more chances to be exposed to a bilingual Chinese and English environment at home and school. ...
This extension study investigates the relationship between self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies and first language (L1) Chinese and second language (L2) English reading test performance among 190 primary six students in mainland China, building upon the findings by Tse et al. (2022). Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the acceptable construct validity of the SRL strategy use questionnaire used by Tse et al. (2022). Structural equation modeling was then conducted to examine the direct relationships between variables. The results reveal a direct and positive relationship between L1 Chinese planning strategies and L2 English planning strategies, as well as between L1 Chinese monitoring strategies and L2 English monitoring strategies. Furthermore, L1 Chinese SRL strategies directly and positively predicted L1 Chinese reading test performance, while L2 English SRL strategies had a direct and positive effect on L2 English reading test performance. However, L1 Chinese SRL strategies did not have a significant predictive effect on L2 English reading test performance. Additionally, the performance on the L1 Chinese reading test had no significant effect on L2 English reading test performance. These findings underscore the importance of integrating L1 Chinese and L2 English curricula in mainland China and fostering communication and collaboration between L1 Chinese and L2 English teachers. Additionally, the study suggests several directions for further research in this area.
... Regarding educational implications, the fact that emerging learners in this study were able to benefit from cognateness not only between their L1 and the L2/L3 but also between the two later acquired languages suggests that facilitatory effects between foreign languages could be capitalized on for language learning by explicitly drawing children's attention to cognate status in the classroom (for a recent review of the effectiveness of such educational strategies, see Bosma et al. 2023). Multilingual immersion programs could strive to actively promote awareness of lexical similarities between different languages by implementing learning activities that encourage children to make connections between languages. ...
... Multilingual immersion programs could strive to actively promote awareness of lexical similarities between different languages by implementing learning activities that encourage children to make connections between languages. This idea has been actively pursued by advocates of translanguaging practices in the classroom (e.g., Günther-van der Meij et al. 2020; see also review by Bosma et al. 2023). The rationale in the context of cognate facilitation is that enhanced cognate awareness could lead to increased cross-linguistic interaction and facilitated lexical transfer from the L1 to the L2/L3, which in turn is expected to boost L2/L3 vocabulary learning. ...
... There is some empirical evidence that cognate awareness training by explicit instruction may indeed promote heightened levels of cognate awareness (Dressler et al. 2011;Otwinowska et al. 2020), as evidenced by increased cognate identification rates. Nonetheless, research to date has not conclusively established whether such enhanced cognate awareness can indeed boost lexical learning (see review by Bosma et al. 2023). The empirical evidence on the link between awareness and learning benefits is mixed. ...
Research has established cognate facilitation effects as a robust finding in bilingual adults and children. Recent studies suggest that cognate facilitation also occurs in highly proficient trilingual adults and can even accumulate across languages. The evidence for multilingual children is scarce and inconclusive. This study examines whether and in which direction cognate effects arise in 35 ten-year-old unbalanced trilingual children, who, in addition to their L1 Italian, acquired L2 German and L3 English in a three-way immersion class in the multilingual region of South Tyrol in Italy. We manipulated cognate status, comparing naming accuracy and latencies in both the L1 and the L3 across double, triple, and non-cognates. The results reveal cognate facilitation effects in naming accuracy, but not in naming speed, for all cognate conditions relative to non-cognates. Furthermore, cognate facilitation was restricted to the L3, replicating previously attested asymmetric effects in unbalanced speakers. In sum, the results indicate that cognate facilitation may boost lexical learning in unbalanced trilingual children who acquire the L2 and the L3 in mainly instructed settings. We discuss these findings in relation to the potential role of language proximity, the L2 status factor, and implications for lexical learning in diverse multilingual environments.
... Verschillende onderzoeken in het voortgezet en universitair onderwijs hebben aangetoond dat het inzetten van de thuistalen van meertalige leerlingen kan leiden tot een verbeterd begrip van academische taal en teksten (Duarte, 2019;Makalela, 2015) en algehele verbeteringen van de schoolprestaties (García, 2008;Sierens & Van Avermaet, 2014). Ook heeft empirisch onderzoek uitgewezen dat een meertalige pedagogiek verbonden is aan een uitgebreidere woordenschat (Bosma et al., 2023) en toegenomen zelfvertrouwen in het gebruik van alle talen die de leerlingen beheersen (Cenoz et al., 2022). Verder laat een meta-analyse van verschillende studies naar de effectiviteit van tweetalig onderwijs in Europa (in zowel primair als voortgezet onderwijs) zien dat, vergeleken met onderdompelingsprogramma's, tweetalig onderwijs een klein positief effect heeft op leesniveaus van meertalige leerlingen (Reljić et al., 2015). ...
... Een relatief grote woordenschat en daaraan gekoppelde kennisontwikkeling in de thuistaal kan een positieve invloed hebben op begrip in andere talen (Melby- Lervåg & Lervåg, 2014). Zo kunnen leerlingen profiteren van hun achtergrondkennis door gebruik te maken van gedeelde cognaten: woorden in verwante talen die vergelijkbaar klinken en een vergelijkbare betekenis hebben (Bosma et al., 2023;Bruggink et al., 2022, Hoogeveen & Bonset, 2018. Dit lijkt gemakkelijker te gaan bij leerlingen die een taal spreken die dicht bij het Nederlands ligt, dan bij leerlingen die een thuistaal spreken met minder cognaten of met een ander schrift (Vanhove & Berthele, 2013). ...
... Ook leerlingen met thuistalen die verder van het Nederlands af staan, kunnen profiteren van hun talige kennis. Recent onderzoek heeft aangetoond dat begrippennetwerken in alle talen die je kent onderling zijn verbonden (Bosma et al., 2023). Dit betekent dat alle kennis over het concept 'een voertuig op vier wielen, aangedreven door een motor' in meerdere talen beschikbaar is voor meertalige leerders. ...
https://www.lezen.nl/publicatie/meertalige-leerlingen-ondersteunen-in-het-leesonderwijs/
... Onderzoek op het gebied van meertalig onderwijs heeft aangetoond dat de sociaal-affectieve en cognitieve ontwikkeling van meertalige leerlingen bevorderd kan worden, als hun thuistaal de ruimte krijgt en wordt benut in het onderwijs (Bosma et al., 2022;García & Curry-Rodríguez, 2000). Ondanks het groeiend aantal studies dat positieve opbrengsten van meertalige onderwijsaanpakken laat zien (Agirdag & Kambel, 2017;Cummins, 2019;García & Wei, 2014), zijn meertalige onderwijsaanpakken nog nauwelijks in de onderwijspraktijk terug te vinden. ...
... In deze studie is gekozen voor een translanguaging benadering, omdat dit een veel belovende benadering is waarvan zowel eentalige als meertalige leerlingen kunnen profiteren (Bosma, et al., 2022). Leerlingen die worden blootgesteld aan meerdere talen en gestimuleerd worden om connecties te maken tussen talen, krijgen de kans hun metalinguïstisch bewustzijn te ontwikkelen (Bosma, et al., 2022). ...
... In deze studie is gekozen voor een translanguaging benadering, omdat dit een veel belovende benadering is waarvan zowel eentalige als meertalige leerlingen kunnen profiteren (Bosma, et al., 2022). Leerlingen die worden blootgesteld aan meerdere talen en gestimuleerd worden om connecties te maken tussen talen, krijgen de kans hun metalinguïstisch bewustzijn te ontwikkelen (Bosma, et al., 2022). Ook kunnen leerlingen door de toepassing van translanguaging beter vakinhoud leren (Duarte & Günther-van der Meij, 2019). ...
Het benutten van de meertaligheid van leerlingen wordt verondersteld bij te dragen aan betere onderwijsresultaten, zowel in termen van sociaal-affectieve als cognitieve uitkomsten. Echter, het is onduidelijk hoe leerkrachten de meertalige achtergronden van hun leerlingen goed kunnen benutten en wat daarvan de effecten zijn. Deze studie onderzocht de effecten van een meertalige aanpak via een mixed-methods design. Leerlingen van drie experimentele scholen (N =106) en vier controlescholen (N =107) vulden in de periode februari – juni/juli 2021 een vragenlijst in (als pre- en posttest) over hun sociaal-affectieve resultaten (motivatie, self-efficacy en welbevinden). Verder werden diverse LVS-toetsresultaten verzameld als pre- en posttest. Tenslotte werden semigestructureerde interviews gehouden met leerkrachten (N =12), ouders (N =13) en leerlingen (N =12) om de ervaren effecten te meten. Voor de sociaal-affectieve ontwikkeling werden geen significante verschillen gevonden tussen de experimentele en controlescholen. De kwantitatieve resultaten toonden wel een significante verbetering van de spellingscores) van leerlingen in de experimentele scholen. In de interviews rapporteerden docenten, leerlingen en ouders positieve effecten van de interventie op zowel de motivatie, self-efficacy, het welbevinden en de leerresultaten van de leerlingen. De interventie kan als voorbeeld dienen voor andere scholen die de meertalige achtergronden van leerlingen (beter) willen benutten.
... For example, if a child already knows the word аэропорт/aeroport 1 in Russian, they will find it easier to learn the English counterpart airport. The advantage of cross-linguistic similarity interacts with age because older children know more words in the L1, but also have more developed metalinguistic skills that allow them to notice patterns in cross-linguistic similarities (Bosma et al., 2019(Bosma et al., , 2022Kelley & Kohnert, 2012). ...
... Notice, however, that Tribushinina et al. (2020) take positive cross-language relationships between L1 vocabulary size and EFL receptive vocabulary, measured with standardised vocabulary tests such as PPVT, as evidence of positive transfer. However, crosslanguage correlations in vocabulary sizes present only indirect evidence of positive transfer (Bosma et al., 2022). It is plausible that children who know more words in Russian also know more words in English because they recognise similar words (cognates), which accelerates vocabulary learning. ...
... Finally, this paper aims to establish whether age of EFL onset interacts with cognate effects. Research with typically-developing children shows that older children are more likely to benefit from cross-linguistic similarities because they have more advanced L1 skills but also because metalinguistic awareness and the ability to recognise patterns in crosslinguistic similarities and differences improve with age (Bosma et al., 2019(Bosma et al., , 2022Kelley & Kohnert, 2012). Since no research has investigated the interaction of age effects and crosslinguistic overlap in children with DLD, no specific hypothesis can be formulated at this stage. ...
Research on second language learning by children with DLD has mainly focused on naturalistic L2 acquisition with plenty of exposure. Very little is known about how children with DLD learn foreign languages in classroom settings with limited input. This study addresses this gap and targets English as a foreign language (EFL) learning by Russian-speaking children with DLD. We ask whether learners with DLD benefit from a later onset of EFL instruction because older children are more cognitively mature and have more developed L1 skills. The second aim of this study is to determine whether EFL learners with DLD benefit from positive L1 transfer in vocabulary learning. We administered a receptive vocabulary test to younger (Grade 6, n = 18) and older (Grade 10, n = 15) children with DLD matched on the amount of prior EFL instruction. The younger group started EFL instruction in Grade 2 and the older group in Grade 6. The performance of the two groups was compared after four and a half years of English lessons. Half of the words in the test were English-Russian cognates and half were noncognates. Contra to our hypothesis, the results showed no difference between younger and older children. Both groups equally benefitted from cognate vocabulary suggesting that positive cross-language transfer is available to children with DLD, irrespective of their age and onset of EFL instruction.
... Pedagogies which can be used in regular classes and not only in separate education for multilingual learners will be the focus of this review, as scholars including Cummins (2019), Lucas and Villegas (2010), and Duarte (2020) have made strong cases for the use of multilingual pedagogy for the benefit of all students, regardless of their linguistic background. Multilingual pedagogies can foster metalinguistic awareness of both monolingual and multilingual learners (Bosma et al. 2022). ...
... Some recent review studies have addressed similar aims as the current study, including a review of a range of factors (on micro-, meso-and macrolevel) which contribute to the effectiveness of multilingualism in education by Kirss et al. (2021). Other studies offer reviews of existing literature focused on one location or feature of multilingual pedagogies, such as third language acquisition (Dyssegaard et al. 2015), content and language integrated learning (CLIL) in Europe (Goris, Denessen, and Verhoeven 2019), or the effect of translanguaging on bilingual lexicon development (Bosma et al. 2022). Others are focused on other educational levels, such as a review of literature on dynamic language use in early childhood education (Pontier, Boruchowski, and Olivo 2020). ...
A growing body of research has shown that multilingualism can be a resource in learning, and has suggested that a diverse array of pedagogical approaches can be used to support multilingual learners in primary education. However, the field is lacking a review of literature examining multilingual approaches in education in relation to their outcomes. Therefore, this study asks what multilingual pedagogies can possibly be beneficial in supporting linguistically diverse students. Based on a systematic review of 34 international peer-reviewed articles on multilingual pedagogies in primary education and their cognitive and socio-affective outcomes, a categorisation into four multilingual pedagogies is proposed: pedagogical translanguaging-based, affirming, scaffolding and cross-linguistic. Additionally, we report on two main categories of outcomes: cognitive outcomes (e.g. reported results on vocabulary growth, morphological awareness, content learning) and socio-affective outcomes (e.g. reported results on wellbeing, relational aspects, self-efficacy). The proposed categorisation of multilingual pedagogies offers ways to support the shaping of multilingualism in education from different angles. The outcomes of the present study show that multilingualism can serve as a meaningful resource for learning in primary education contexts.
... Da alcuni anni, nell'ambito della linguistica applicata all'ambito educativo, è stato introdotto il concetto di translanguaging (Bosma et al., 2023). Si tratta di un fenomeno che descrive il modo in cui bambini, adolescenti e adulti bi-multilingui costruiscono significati e attingono al proprio repertorio linguistico attraverso modalità che superano i confini tra le lingue e fanno ricorso a strategie creative, dinamiche e originali. ...
... Nell'ambito scolastico, da decenni la prassi è quella di creare un contesto monolingue, in cui le diverse lingue dei bambini bilingui vengono tenute 32 separate, partendo dal presupposto che ciò eviti la confusione o la contaminazione linguistica (Bosma et al., 2023). Questo assunto, tuttavia, non corrisponde a quanto indicato dai risultati degli studi di psicolinguistica. ...
La trasformazione che, negli ultimi decenni, la società italiana ha subito a seguito dell'immigrazione pone alla scuola sfide impegnative, prima fra tutte quella di trovare strategie e metodologie efficaci per far apprendere la lingua italiana agli alunni con background migratorio. Anche a seguito dei nuovi sviluppi nell'ambito delle neuroscienze, è emerso il concetto di translanguaging, che promuove la mescolanza intenzionale delle lingue in classe, per sfruttare l'intero repertorio linguistico dei bambini bilingui. Le ricerche hanno mostrano che le strategie di translanguaging possono facilitare l'apprendimento linguistico e il trasferimento concettuale dalla L1 alla L2. Occorre quindi implementare metodologie che valorizzino e supportino lo sviluppo di un repertorio plurilingue, in un'ottica di inclusione e formazione dei futuri cittadini.
... These findings point to the importance of engaging in equitable practices when designing and implementing interventions, particularly moving on from 'best practices' derived from the monolingual literature and further examining how cultures and languages of multilinguals could be leveraged to improve reading and underlying language processes (Noguerón-Liu, 2020). Despite the benefits of home language supports in available vocabulary intervention research with young emergent bilinguals, none of the available studies adopt a translanguaging theoretical lens and pedagogical approach to support EBs' content knowledge and concomitant vocabulary and in response to EBs' dynamic bilingual progressions in their language and literacy development (Bosma et al., 2023;Otheguy et al., 2015). ...
... Recognising that positivist approaches highlighted in this review aim to establish generalisable patterns and follow the dominant paradigm informing the science of reading, future interventions could add qualitative (and perhaps formative) assessments and analyses to (quasi-)experimental studies to examine language and literacy performances across languages and better reflect the approximations in EBs' vocabulary breadth and depth of knowledge. In the same vein, future research should design vocabulary interventions with a translanguaging theoretical orientation and pedagogical approach given the dynamic bilingual progressions found in EBs' language and literacy development to enhance their conceptual knowledge and underlying vocabulary (Bosma et al., 2023;García & Flores, 2013;Sohn et al., 2022). ...
This best‐evidence synthesis appraises the design and outcome characteristics of vocabulary intervention studies conducted with preschool through 6th grade emergent bilingual (EB) children and spotlights rigorously designed studies for which effects could be better attributed to instructional features. Twenty‐nine selected studies were analysed for the design characteristics of attrition, random assignment, and baseline equivalence as well as the outcome characteristics of reliability and outcome alignment. Following suggestions from the What Works Clearinghouse (2020) guidelines, levels of evidence for effectiveness were determined for each treatment‐comparison group contrast. Studies meeting effectiveness standards were further analysed to determine intervention impacts (i.e., effect size) on EBs' English word learning. Analyses revealed that 17 studies (59% of the sample) were experimental and employed random assignment whereas baseline equivalence was established for most of the 12 quasi‐experimental studies (41% of the sample). Attrition did not plague the majority of vocabulary intervention studies. The outcome measures of all but one study showed satisfactory reliability indices, 85% of which showed alignment across treatment and comparison groups. Thirty‐six measures (65% of measures) across 21 reviewed studies (72% of studies) met acceptable levels of evidence of effectiveness. Most studies employed standardised vocabulary measures to assess EBs' growth in breadth rather than depth of vocabulary knowledge. The significance of outcome measures with large, medium and small posttest effect sizes are discussed relative to their oral/written, receptive/expressive, definitional/contextual and depth/breadth vocabulary characteristics. Implications address significant knowledge gaps regarding EBs' English vocabulary intervention and highlight issues and recommendations.
... However, they are rarely used due to teachers' negative beliefs and lack of knowledge about how to meet other family languages , i.e. the language(s) spoken within the family or home environment, in the classroom (Bredthauer and Engfer 2018;Daelman et al. 2023). Therefore, multilingual students are disadvantaged as they cannot use their full linguistic repertoire which could benefit their learning (Bosma et al. 2023;García 2009). This is discussed as one factor contributing to persisting educational disparities in Germany between students with and without migration background (Mang et al. 2023). ...
Fostering teacher beliefs (TB) and self-efficacy (TSE) towards multilingualism in class is key for the successful implementation of linguistically responsive teaching (LRT) aiming to support multilingual students, who are often disadvantaged in class. However, TB and TSE towards multilingualism have not been examined together within a longitudinal LRT intervention. Therefore, 44 teachers were trained in a professional development (PD) workshop about LRT, which they then implemented in their regular German classes. TB and TSE were measured longitudinally (TB pre-PD, post-PD and post-implementation,TSE post-PD and post-implementation). TB significantly improved through PD and remained stable during implementation, while TSE significantly decreased, probably due to unexpected challenges to motivate multilingual students to use their family languages. TB and TSE were moderately correlated when measured at the same time.Longitudinally, post-PD TSE had a positive effect on post-implementation TB when controlling for post-PD TM, but post-PD TB had no effect on post-implementation TSE when controlling for post-PD TSE. Overall, TB remained positive during the implementation of LRT without decreasing along with TSE. Hence, this study makes optimistic for improving TB through PD, but also emphasises that TSE needs further support during implementation.
... AT 1 added a multilingual approach by utilizing English in the context of Arabic language learning. This shows the application of multilingual, which helps students understand different language structures through cross-language comparisons (Bosma et al., 2023). In Madrasah Aliyah B and Madrasah Aliyah C, the diagnostic method focuses more on formative evaluation, conversation exercises, and simulations. ...
In teaching Arabic, the professional competence of Arabic teachers (AT) is an aspect that today's teachers must possess. Moreover, teaching Arabic in the 21st century emphasizes the communication skills of educators when using a foreign language. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the professional competence of AT in terms of praxeology perspectives, which include three cycles: the see cycle, the act cycle, and the judge cycle. This study uses a qualitative approach with a case study design. The study was conducted in three secondary schools (Madrasah Aliyah) in the Bandung Raya area, West Java. Participants in this study were nine AT. The study results showed that of the nine AT with a vision and mission of teaching based on multilingualism, only AT 1, AT 5, and AT 8. In the see cycle, three AT envisioned improving students' Arabic communication skills with a cultural approach, technology, and interactive methods. In diagnosing student difficulties, teachers used methods such as questions and answers, discussions, and conversation simulations, with the main challenges faced by students being a lack of vocabulary, sentence structure, and speaking anxiety. Then, in the act cycle, three AT showed variation in the application of learning methods and consistently used a multilingual approach. In addition, teachers explained the differences in Arabic and other foreign language structures and corrected students' mistakes in pronunciation and grammar. In the judge cycle, after an evaluation, three AT improved by adjusting teaching methods, such as increasing conversation exercises, adding project-based assignments, or utilizing learning technology.
... Through a psycholinguistic review, this study aims to identify the cognitive strategies used by learners in understanding idiomatic phrases, as well as identify the psychological barriers that may arise in the comprehension process (Bosma, 2023). With a better understanding of the psycholinguistic processes involved, it is hoped that this study can provide a foundation for the development of more effective teaching methods and learning strategies that can help learners overcome difficulties in the processing of Arabic idiomatic phrases. ...
Background. The background of this study is to explore psycholinguistic methods to assist Arabic language learners in processing idiomatic phrases more effectively. The focus is on identifying cognitive strategies that can improve the understanding and use of idiomatic phrases in communicative contexts. By solving this problem, it is hoped that learners can become more proficient in the idiomatic aspects of Arabic, improve communication skills, and feel confident interacting with native speakers. Purpose. The main objective of this study is to investigate the psycholinguistic aspects of Arabic idiomatic phrase processing, exploring cognitive strategies in non-native and native learners. The research aims to identify factors that influence comprehension, such as proficiency, culture, and learning experience, focusing on technology-based teaching methods to improve mastery. Method. This study takes a psycholinguistic approach, using a quantitative survey to investigate the processing of Arabic idiomatic phrases. The research involves identifying phrases, designing a survey, and analyzing the data to enhance the insights of understanding, which contributes to the understanding of psycholinguistics. Results. Research shows that learning Arabic in a formal environment has a positive impact on communication skills. The use of Arabic idiomatic phrases in daily life enriches communication. Online resources are dominant in understanding idiomatic phrases. The main obstacle is the difference in Arabic dialects. Psychological factors play an important role in the comprehension of idiomatic phrases and impact on overall Arabic language skills, especially in the context of social and professional communication. Conclusion. His study concluded that learning Arabic in a formal environment, such as school or university, has a great effect on students' speaking ability. The use of idiomatic phrases is also recognized as enriching everyday communication.
... This dissertation highlights the transformative potential of multilingual education, emphasizing the importance of professional development for teachers in fostering positive attitudes that can affect the extent to which pupils' home languages are incorporated in the classroom (Pulinx et al., 2017). The implementation of such multilingual educational approaches has been shown to lead to positive changes in multilingual pupils' school attainment and socio-affective development (Bonacina-Pugh et al., 2021; García and Baetens Beardsmore, 2009; Kirsch and Duarte, 2020; Sierens and Van Avermaet, 2014); increased vocabulary acquisition (Bosma et al., 2023) and a deeper understanding of the lesson materials for pupils with a different language background (Makalela, 2015); improved knowledge acquisition (Duarte, 2020); and enhanced identity affirmation (Creese and Blackledge, 2010;Makalela, 2015). ...
Europe's increasing societal diversity has led to a rise in multilingual school populations, where pupils speaking migrant or minority languages at home consistently perform lower academically compared to their peers. However, research indicates that explicitly valuing and incorporating pupils' full linguistic repertoire in the classroom can enhance their academic achievements and socio-affective development, underscoring the importance of utilizing linguistic diversity in education and fostering positive attitudes towards multilingualism. Attitudes, comprising emotional, cognitive, and behavioural dimensions, play a crucial role in shaping language education practices. The aim of this thesis was therefore to gain insight into the development of attitudes and practices surrounding the use of multilingual educational approaches during a four-year Educational Design Research Intervention study. We explored pupils’ implicit and explicit attitudes towards salient migrant and minority languages, as well as assessed the lasting impact of the 3M project on teachers' attitudes, knowledge, and practical skills. To obtain a more comprehensive picture, the studies of this dissertation utilize both qualitative and quantitative research methods, target implicit and explicit attitudes, involve pupils and teachers, and make use of cross-sectional and longitudinal designs. Our findings suggest that normalizing multilingual interaction and emphasizing inclusive language policies are essential steps in fostering supportive learning environments. Additionally, collaborative efforts between researchers and practitioners are crucial for developing inclusive pedagogies that meet the specific needs of teachers and facilitate the effective implementation of multilingual educational approaches.
... After this short introduction of Frisian and Limburgish, I now turn to lexical development, which is one of the developmental domains that we investigated in our research with Frisian and Limburgish children (Blom & Bosma, 2016;Francot et al., 2017). Children learn words through a process of linking phonological forms and meaning, building increasingly expanding mental networks that contain form-meaning associations, form-form associations and meaning-meaning associations (see Bosma et al., 2023, for a summary of relevant research). This associative leaning process is impacted by genetic and experiential factors (Dale et al., 2000;Samuelsson et al., 2005;Kidd et al., 2018), comprising both experiences related to input quantity and quality (e.g., Anderson et al., 2021;Hoff, 2020;Rowe & Snow, 2020). ...
Regional language speakers are subject to negative social judgments. In this contribution, I provide an overview of research in the Netherlands with children who are regional language learners against the backdrop of this deficit perspective. Findings on the lexical and cognitive development of children from Fryslân, a northern Dutch province, and Limburg, a southern Dutch province, demonstrate that regional language acquisition is neither associated with language delays nor with any cognitive difficulties. Linguistic overlap between Frisian and Limburgish, on the one hand, and Dutch, on the other hand, results in ample opportunities to share linguistic resources, experiences, and knowledge. Especially unbalanced children benefit from this cross-linguistic overlap because they can make use of their stronger language to perform in the weaker language. Cross-linguistic regularities between the regional and national language are helpful and support performance in the regional language. Results on cognitive effects suggest that regional language learners have some selective attention advantages. Although significant, the effects are small, the advantages do not last long, and they require sufficient exposure to and proficiency in the regional language.
... These planned activities and strategies refer to enhancing students' meta-linguistic awareness and encouraging students' use of their full linguistic repertoire by, for instance, providing multilingual material or verbally encouraging multilingual interaction (Cenoz and Gorter 2021;Kirsch 2020). Empirically, pedagogical translanguaging has been connected with positive student outcomes such as expanding their linguistic repertoire (review by Bosma et al. 2022) and larger confidence in using all linguistic resources (Cenoz, Santos, and Gorter 2022). ...
One shared goal of classroom instruction is to support students’ reading competence as a key skill of school success and participation in daily life. Yet, teaching that addresses multilingual students’ language-related resources to support reading is rare. In this study, we enriched reciprocal teaching with elements of linguistically responsive teaching (labelled LRRT) and conducted an intervention study in German primary schools (38 classes and 684 students) to examine its effects on reading competence. To assess reading competence, we used reading comprehension and reading strategy tests. Findings demonstrate the feasibility of our approach in regular primary school classes. Teachers and students highly valued the teaching unit as well. Results of latent mean difference score analysis confirmed the effectiveness of LRRT with respect to students’ reading strategy use but not with respect to their reading comprehension. Moreover, multilingual and monolingual students did not differ in their gains in reading competence. However, multilingual students’ different language use was of particular importance for gains in reading comprehension. The study thus provides further research on multilingualism as well as various stimuli for teachers of today’s heterogenous primary school classes.
... There are dozens of activities using students' first language (L1) which can be done within schools to support students' learning. Such activities include: focusing on similarities and differences between the L1 and second language (L2), allowing students to discuss assignments amongst each other in the L1, multilingual label quests (eliciting vocabulary items from students in multiple languages), use of multiple languages in book reading or writing, pre-teaching in the L1 (at home or at school), cognate comparison (comparing similar words in different languages), and target word explanations in the L1 (Ticheloven et al., 2020;Bosma et al., 2022). An issue in translanguaging is that teachers may not know how to engage students in multilingual activities or may be afraid to 'lose control' by allowing students to speak other languages. ...
This mini review discusses the use of social robots in a translanguaging pedagogy: the use of robots to enable students to use their full linguistic repertoire within schools, so any language that they speak at home or in another aspect of their lives. Current research on robot-assisted second-language learning is reviewed with the aim of finding out whether students’ languages have been employed strategically to support learning of another language. A total of 83 articles has been analyzed on the use of first and second languages in student-robot interactions. Most interactions were either exclusively in the second language, or exclusively in the first language, with only target words in the second language. Few studies strategically mixed the two languages to bootstrap learning, and only one study used the first language of students with migrant backgrounds to learn the second language. The review concludes with recommendations for future use of social robots in a translanguaging pedagogy.
This study examined the influence of cognate status and language distance on simultaneous bilingual children's vocabulary acquisition. It aimed to tease apart effects of word‐level similarities and language‐level similarities, while also exploring the role of individual‐level variation in age, exposure, and nontarget language proficiency. Children simultaneously acquiring two closely related languages ( n = 203) or two more distant languages ( n = 109) performed extended versions of the LITMUS Cross‐Linguistic Lexical Task (Haman et al., 2015), a productive vocabulary test with words varying in their phonological similarity to their translation equivalents. Children speaking closely related languages obtained higher vocabulary scores than children speaking more distant languages, who showed a stronger positive effect of phonological similarity. The effect of language distance on vocabulary was not solely driven by the presence of (near‐)identical cognates in the test. These findings show that similarities beyond specific test items and/or beyond the phonological level play a role in vocabulary acquisition.
In dem Spannungsverhältnis einer nach wie vor dominierenden monolingualen Unterrichtspraxis und den bildungspolitischen Rahmenvorgaben stehen Lehrkräfte täglich vor der Frage, nicht-deutsche Familiensprachen ihrer Schüler:innen in den Unterricht einzubeziehen oder zu negieren. Für den Umgang mit Mehrsprachigkeit im Unterricht ist es da von entscheidender Bedeutung, ob die Lehrkräfte in der sprachlichen Vielfalt der Schüler:innen einen didaktischen Mehrwert sehen. Im vorliegenden Beitrag werden Ergebnisse der BLUME II-Vignettenstudie (Pilotierung) – einer qualitativen Interviewstudie mit Grundschullehrkräften (N=31) – berichtet, die Einblicke in die Überzeugungen der Lehrkräfte zum Einbezug nicht-deutscher Familiensprachen im Grundschulunterricht ermöglichen. Ausgehend von den überwiegend befürwortenden Grundüberzeugungen, werden in den detaillierteren Ausführungen der Lehrkräfte Einschränkung und Bedenken der Lehrkräfte deutlich – insbesondere hinsichtlich der konkreten didaktischen Umsetzung im Unterricht. Die Auswertungen zeigen, dass die Lehrkräfte für den didaktischen Nutzen der Mehrsprachigkeit ihrer Schüler:innen vornehmlich ausgewählte Fächer als geeignet erachten oder regelmäßige Unterrichtsrituale wie Begrüßungen für die Einbindung in den Unterricht nutzen. Im Unterricht sehen die Lehrkräfte die Schüler:innen oftmals als Expertinnen und Experten für ihre Sprache. Maßnahmen, um den Einbezug nicht-deutscher Familiensprachen in den Unterricht anzuleiten – v. a. durch vorbereitende Arbeitsaufträge an die Kinder – spielen in den Augen der Lehrkräfte eine bedeutende Rolle.
Kooperationen von Familie und Schule in Family Literacy Programmen können herkunftssprachliche Ressourcen für Lernprozesse adressieren und implementieren. Mehrsprachige Bilderbücher scheinen hierbei vielversprechende Materialien zu sein, da diese sich potenziell für das Vor- und Erstlesen in Familien und Unterricht eignen. Es stellt sich allerdings die Frage, welche Merkmale mehrsprachige Bilderbücher aufweisen müssen, um mehrsprachigkeitssensibel für beide Kontexte gewinnbringend verwendet werden zu können. Im vorliegenden Beitrag werden lese- und mehrsprachigkeitsdidaktische Kriterien zur Analyse der Eignung mehrsprachiger Bilderbücher für die Verknüpfung familialer Vorlesepraktiken und schulischen Erstleseunterrichts bei Schulanfänger:innen reflektiert und evaluiert. Diese werden auf ein Bücherkoffer-Korpus des Family Literacy-Projekts des Vereins „coach@school“ angewandt. Es zeigt sich u. a., dass sich Teile des Korpus zur Verbindung familialer Vorlesepraktiken und schulischen Erstleseunterrichts unter Berücksichtigung von Mehrsprachigkeit eignen und anregende Lerngelegenheiten bieten, insbesondere in Bezug auf Sprachvergleiche. Durch die Beschränkung auf additiv mehrsprachige Bilderbücher im Korpus werden allerdings Vorstellungen von Sprachen als getrennte, geschlossene Entitäten bestärkt und z. T. Sprachhierarchien reproduziert.
Die Bedeutung von mehrsprachiger Bildung für Lernprozesse, für eine inklusive Bildungsumgebung sowie im erweiterten Sinn auch für Individuen und Gesellschaft ist Thema des Sammelbandes. Die Autor:innen plädieren für eine stärkere Akzeptanz sprachlicher Vielfalt in Bildungseinrichtungen.
Der Schwerpunkt des Sammelbands liegt auf den Potenzialen mehrsprachiger Bildungspraktiken zur Entwicklung von fachlichen und persönlichen Kompetenzen sowie zur Bewältigung des Alltags in einer mehrsprachigen Gesellschaft. Die Autor:innen präsentieren konkrete Vorschläge zur Forschung, Umsetzung und Evaluation mehrsprachiger Bildungspraktiken. Eine zentrale Rolle in der Forschungsdebatte spielt das Translanguaging-Konzept von Ofelia García. Darüber hinaus werden die Diagnostik von Mehrsprachigkeit, die Rolle von Herkunftssprachen in der Bildungspraxis sowie Diskrepanzen zwischen den Überzeugungen von Grundschullehrkräften und der tatsächlichen Umsetzung einer mehrsprachigen Bildungspraxis thematisiert.
Der Sammelband bietet vielfältige Perspektiven auf die Potenziale, Herausforderungen und Chancen von mehrsprachiger Bildungspraxis. Er richtet sich an Forschende, Praktiker:innen sowie Studierende, die an einer evidenzbasierten und inklusionsorientierten Bildung interessiert sind und sich für die Förderung mehrsprachiger Kompetenzen einsetzen möchten.
Children who are refugees become bilingual in circumstances that are often challenging and that can vary across national contexts. We investigated the second language (L2) syntactic skills of Syrian children aged 6-12 living in Canada ( n = 56) and the Netherlands ( n = 47). Our goal was to establish the impact of the first language (L1 = Syrian Arabic) skills on L2 (English, Dutch) outcomes and whether L1–L2 interdependence is influenced by the length of L2 exposure. To measure L1 and L2 syntactic skills, cross-linguistic Litmus Sentence Repetition Tasks (Litmus-SRTs) were used. Results showed evidence of L1–L2 interdependence, but interdependence may only surface after sufficient L2 exposure. Maternal education level and refugee camp experiences differed between the two samples. Both variables impacted L2 outcomes in the Canadian but not in the Dutch sample, demonstrating the importance to examine refugee children’s bilingual language development in different national contexts.
Before the pandemic (2019), we asked: On what themes should research in mathematics education focus in the coming decade? The 229 responses from 44 countries led to eight themes plus considerations about mathematics education research itself. The themes can be summarized as teaching approaches, goals, relations to practices outside mathematics education, teacher professional development, technology, affect, equity, and assessment. During the pandemic (November 2020), we asked respondents: Has the pandemic changed your view on the themes of mathematics education research for the coming decade? If so, how? Many of the 108 respondents saw the importance of their original themes reinforced (45), specified their initial responses (43), and/or added themes (35) (these categories were not mutually exclusive). Overall, they seemed to agree that the pandemic functions as a magnifying glass on issues that were already known, and several respondents pointed to the need to think ahead on how to organize education when it does not need to be online anymore. We end with a list of research challenges that are informed by the themes and respondents’ reflections on mathematics education research.
Bilingual children often experience difficulties with inflectional morphology. The aim of this longitudinal study was to investigate how regularity of inflection in combination with verbal short-term and working memory (VSTM, VWM) influences bilingual children’s performance. Data from 231 typically developing five- to eight-year-old children were analyzed: Dutch monolingual children (N = 45), Frisian-Dutch bilingual children (N = 106), Turkish-Dutch bilingual children (N = 31), Tarifit-Dutch bilingual children (N = 38) and Arabic-Dutch bilingual children (N = 11). Inflection was measured with an expressive morphology task. VSTM and VWM were measured with a Forward and Backward Digit Span task, respectively. The results showed that, overall, children performed more accurately at regular than irregular forms, with the smallest gap between regulars and irregulars for monolinguals. Furthermore, this gap was smaller for older children and children who scored better on a non-verbal intelligence measure. In bilingual children, higher accuracy at using (irregular) inflection was predicted by a smaller cross-linguistic distance, a larger amount of Dutch at home, and a higher level of parental education. Finally, children with better VSTM, but not VWM, were more accurate at using regular and irregular inflection.
Purpose
The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effect of bilingual narrative intervention on vocabulary gains in Hebrew (school language) and English (home language) among English–Hebrew bilinguals, using a block design (one language at a time), and to determine whether there was cross-linguistic transfer to the language that was not receiving intervention.
Method
Sixteen English–Hebrew bilingual children participated in the study using an adaptation of the Puente de Cuentos intervention. Vocabulary was examined using a word definition task before the intervention, post English intervention, post Hebrew intervention, and 4 weeks after the interventions ended to examine maintenance of skills.
Results
Repeated-measures analyses of variance revealed that children made significant gains in vocabulary in the language of intervention as expected. In addition, children made cross-linguistic gains in Hebrew during the English intervention, but made no gains in English following Hebrew intervention.
Conclusion
These results underscore the need to provide language support in the home language to ensure growth and that intervention in the home language does not hinder growth in the school language.
An important question in early bilingual first language acquisition concerns the development of lexical-semantic associations within and across two languages. The present study investigates the earliest emergence of lexical-semantic priming at 18 and 24 months in Spanish-English bilinguals (N = 32) and its relation to vocabulary knowledge within and across languages. Results indicate a remarkably similar pattern of development between monolingual and bilingual children, such that lexical-semantic development begins at 18 months and strengthens by 24 months. Further, measures of cross-language lexical knowledge are stronger predictors of children’s lexical-semantic processing skill than measures that capture single-language knowledge only. This suggests that children make use of both languages when processing semantic information. Together these findings inform the understanding of the relation between lexical-semantic breadth and organization in the context of dual language learners in early development.
There is increasing attention for interest as a powerful, complex, and integrative construct, ranging in appearance from entirely momentary states of interest to longer-term interest pursuits. Developmental models have shown how these situational interests can develop into individual interests over time. As such, these models have helped to integrate more or less separate research traditions and focus the attention of the field more on the developmental dynamics. This, however, also raises subsequent questions, one being how development can be understood in terms of interest structure. The developmental models seem to suggest that development occurs roughly along the line of six dimensions, which we summarize as the dimensions of historicity, value, agency, frequency, intensity, and mastery. Using an experience sampling method that was implemented in a smartphone application, we prompted 94 adolescents aged 13 to 16 (60% female) to rate each interest they experienced during two weeks on these six dimensions. A latent profile analysis on 1247 interests showed six distinct multidimensional patterns, indicating both a homogeneous and heterogeneous structure of interest. Four homogeneous patterns were indicated by more or less equal levels on all six dimensions in varying degrees, and contained 86% of the interests. Two heterogeneous patterns were found, describing variations of interest that are interpreted and discussed. These results endorse the complexity of the construct of interest and provide suggestions for identifying different manifestations of interest.
Teaching English has traditionally been associated with a monolingual bias and the exclusive use of English in the classroom is highly recommended in different countries. Nowadays English is widely used to teach academic content and this strict separation of languages can be problematic because it prevents students from using resources they have previously acquired in other languages (Cenoz & Gorter, 2015; Kubota, 2018). In this article we discuss ‘pedagogical translanguaging’ understood as intentional instructional strategies that integrate two or more languages and aim at the development of the multilingual repertoire as well as metalinguistic and language awareness. Pedagogical translanguaging considers learners as emergent multilinguals who can use English and other languages depending on the social context. Their linguistic resources are valued and learners are not seen as deficient users of English but as multilingual speakers.
While switching costs in production have been explained in terms of top-down cognitive control, researchers do not agree whether switching costs in comprehension should be interpreted in the same way. Within the BIA + model, it has been claimed that the comprehension of code-switches can be explained sufficiently in terms of bottom-up activation of lexical representations. In the current electrophysiological study, L1 speakers of Dutch with high proficiency in L2 English (n = 63) completed a Flanker task in which they intermittently read sentences with or without an alternational code-switch. With this ‘conflict-adaptation’ paradigm we examined whether reading a code-switch engages cognitive control that influences performance on a subsequent Flanker trial. Half of the participants were presented with Dutch sentences and Dutch to English code-switches, while the other half were presented with English sentences and English to Dutch code-switches. On the P300 component, we found a traditional Flanker effect, with larger amplitudes for congruent than for incongruent trials. The effect was modulated by a preceding code-switch and the direction of this modulation depended on the switching direction: the Flanker effect was smaller after a code-switch from L1 to L2 than after a monolingual L1 sentence, but larger after a code-switch from L2 to L1 than after a monolingual L2 sentence. This suggests that the L1 needs to be inhibited when reading a code-switch to the L2, while inhibition needs to be released upon encountering a code-switch from L2 to L1. These results thus show that reading code-switched sentences engages a domain-general cognitive control mechanism external to the lexicon.
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‐cognates matched on L2 frequency and concreteness and embedded them in exercises typical of English language teaching textbooks. Participants learned the words with their teachers in their classes at school. We manipulated the experimental group's awareness of orthographic cross‐linguistic similarity in awareness‐raising workshops. The results revealed that the participants had a higher chance of knowing cognates than other word types before the study. However, they acquired cognates embedded in exercises at the same rate as other word types. Also, the awareness‐raising manipulation, regardless of its intensity, had no additional effect on their acquisition of cognates and false cognates, indicating that awareness of cognateness did not boost learning cognates.
The purpose of this cluster randomized group study was to investigate the effect of multitiered, dual-language instruction on children’s oral language skills, including vocabulary, narrative retell, receptive and expressive language, and listening comprehension. The participants were 3- to 5-year-old children (n = 81) who were learning English and whose home language was Spanish. Across the school year, classroom teachers in the treatment group delivered large-group lessons in English to the whole class twice per week. For a Tier 2 intervention, the teachers delivered small-group lessons 4 days a week, alternating the language of intervention daily (first Spanish, then English). Group posttest differences were statistically significant, with moderate to large effect sizes favoring the treatment group on all the English proximal measures and on three of the four Spanish proximal measures. Treatment group advantages were observed on Spanish and English norm-referenced standardized measures of language (except vocabulary) and a distal measure of language comprehension.
This article focuses on the development of morphological awareness in English as a third language. It analyses how the activation of previous linguistic knowledge can influence morphological awareness. Participants were 104 primary school students who were learning English as a third language and were already fluent in two other languages, Basque and Spanish. Participants in the experimental group took part in a pedagogical intervention aiming at the development of morphological awareness by using translanguaging pedagogies. The aim of the intervention was to enable participants to use their linguistic repertoire across languages and benefit from their multilingual resources. Results indicate that participants in the experimental group obtained higher scores in morphological awareness than the control group from the same school. In addition, participants in the experimental group perceived that the use of translanguaging strategies was useful for their learning and also enjoyable as a teaching approach.
The challenging task of establishing meaningful translanguaging in multilingual classrooms necessitates negotiation between different stakeholders. Such negotiation requires investigation of the contexts and ways in which translanguaging may be implemented as a suitable teaching strategy. The aim of the current study was to elicit practical and pedagogical issues of translanguaging in the classroom via interviews with three different groups of stakeholders: language education researchers, teachers, and multilingual learners. We visited four differently composed multilingual high schools from which concrete examples were recalled in semi-structured interviews on the topic of translanguaging with the selected stakeholders. Adopting an iterative study design, interviewees were presented with daily life examples from the school visits as well as statements from other stakeholder interviews. Their statements and reactions to the statements of others were recorded, qualitatively analysed and categorised. Overall, seven distinct pedagogical challenges concerning a translanguaging pedagogy emerged from the interview analysis: (1) Side effects; (2) Goal formulation; (3) Learning the language of schooling; (4) English and other semiotic resources; (5) Affective functions; (6) Effort; and (7) Confusion. These palpable pedagogic issues may be helpful in understanding how translanguaging in multilingual contexts can be implemented, thus bridging the gap between theory and practice.
In this paper presents a holistic model for multilingualism in education (Duarte, 2017), which combines different approaches to teaching and knowledge and places them in a continuum — from the acknowledgement of different languages to their actual use as a language of instruction. The model addresses attitudes, knowledge, and skills related to the multilingualism of both teachers and students (Herzog-Punzenberger, Le Pichon-Vorstman, & Siarova, 2017)
and is suitable for different school types and students (i.e., for both minority and migrant students). The model is tested in the northern Netherlands in a multilingual education project that combines different approaches to multilingual education for both migrant and minority learners. Through design-based interventions, teachers and researchers collaboratively develop multilingual activities in a bottom
-up approach (i.e., based on questions from the schools involved). Some preliminary results from the project are presented, and the model’s
contribution to research on multilingual education is discussed.
In this study, the authors examined the impact of a vocabulary intervention designed to support vocabulary depth, or the building of semantic networks, in preschool children (n = 30). The authors further investigated the effect of specific instructional strategies on growth in vocabulary depth. The intervention employed shared book reading and guided play methods to teach words in conceptually linked categories, such as taxonomic and thematic groups. Using a within-subjects design, analyses indicated that the intervention had significant positive effects on children's depth of vocabulary knowledge. Children showed significantly greater growth in vocabulary depth for words taught in taxonomies as compared with words taught in themes. Three types of semantic information were learned more deeply for taxonomy words as compared with theme words: information about category membership, perceptual features, and object function. Results suggest that fostering deep vocabulary knowledge involves not only teaching single word entities but also introducing systems of conceptually related words to build semantic networks.
Language dominance is a multidimensional construct comprising several distinct yet interrelated components, including language proficiency, exposure and use. The exact relation between these components remains unclear. Several studies have observed a (non-linear) relationship between bilingual children’s amount of exposure and absolute proficiency in each language, but our understanding of the relationship between language exposure and use and relative proficiency is limited. To address this question, we examined whether experiential-based measures of language dominance, operationalised here in the narrow sense of relative language proficiency, can provide an efficient alternative to the more labor-intensive performance-based measures often used in the literature. In earlier work, Unsworth (a) examined the relationship between relative proficiency and language exposure and use in a group of English–Dutch bilingual preschool children residing in the Netherlands. This study expands these findings by examining Dutch–English preschool children of the same age residing in the United Kingdom in order to cover the full dominance continuum. Participants were 35 simultaneous bilingual children (2;0–5;0) exposed to English and Dutch, 20 resident in the Netherlands and 15 in the United Kingdom. Relative amount of language exposure and use were estimated using a parental questionnaire. To obtain performance-based measures of language proficiency, children’s spontaneous speech was recorded during a half-hour play session in each language. The transcribed data were used to derive MLU (words), average length of the longest five utterances, the number of different verb and noun types. Single word vocabulary comprehension was assessed using standardized tests in both languages. Following Yip and Matthews (2006), relative proficiency was operationalised using differentials. In line with Unsworth (2016a), English-dominant children typically had less than approx. 35% exposure to Dutch and used Dutch less than approximately 30% of the time. Curve-fitting analyses revealed that non-linear models best fit the data. Logistic regression analyses showed that both exposure and use were good predictors of dominance group membership assigned using the same approach as Unsworth (2016a), that is, using SDs. Dominance groups derived independently using cluster analyses overlapped with the groups derived using SDs, confirming that relative amount of exposure and use can be used as a proxy for language dominance.
Purpose
In this study, the authors evaluated the efficacy of a Spanish–English versus English-only vocabulary intervention for dual-language learners (DLLs) with language impairment compared to mathematics intervention groups and typically developing controls with no intervention. Further, in this study the authors also examined whether the language of instruction affected English, Spanish, and conceptual vocabulary differentially.
Method
The authors randomly assigned 202 preschool DLLs with language impairment to 1 of 4 conditions: bilingual vocabulary, English-only vocabulary, bilingual mathematics, or English-only mathematics. Fifty-four DLLs with typical development received no intervention. The vocabulary intervention consisted of a 12-week small-group dialogic reading and hands-on vocabulary instruction of 45 words. Postintervention group differences and linear growth rates were examined in conceptual, English, and Spanish receptive and expressive vocabulary for the 45 treatment words.
Results
Results indicate that the bilingual vocabulary intervention facilitated receptive and expressive Spanish and conceptual vocabulary gains in DLLs with language impairment compared with the English vocabulary intervention, mathematics intervention, and no-intervention groups. The English-only vocabulary intervention differed significantly from the mathematics condition and no-intervention groups on all measures but did not differ from the bilingual vocabulary intervention. Vocabulary growth rates postintervention slowed considerably. Results support the idea that bilingual interventions support native- and second-language vocabulary development.
Conclusion
English-only intervention supports only English. Use of repeated dialogic reading and hands-on activities facilitates vocabulary acquisition.
Purpose
The purpose of this study was twofold: First, we replicated in a new sample our previous findings that a culturally and linguistically responsive (CLR) bilingual approach for English vocabulary instruction for preschool Latino dual language learners was effective. Subsequently, we investigated whether the positive effect of CLR instruction varies as a function of individual child characteristics, including baseline vocabulary levels and gender.
Method
Using a randomized pretest–posttest follow-up group design, we first replicated our previous study (N = 42) with a new sample by randomly assigning 35 Spanish-speaking Latino preschoolers to a CLR bilingual group or an English-only group. The preschoolers received small-group evidence-informed shared readings targeting 30 English words 3 times a week for 5 weeks in their preschools. Vocabulary outcomes were measured using both standardized and researcher-developed measures. We subsequently conducted further studies with the combined sample size of 77 children to examine the variability in intervention effects related to child gender and baseline vocabulary levels.
Results
The direct replication study confirmed findings of our earlier work suggesting that the CLR bilingual approach promoted greater gains in L1 and L2 vocabulary than in an English-only approach. The extension studies revealed that the effect of the CLR bilingual vocabulary approach on English and Spanish vocabulary outcomes was not impacted by gender or vocabulary status at baseline.
Conclusion
This study provides additional evidence of the benefits of strategically combining L1 and L2 for vocabulary instruction over an English-only approach. Our findings also suggest that preschool Latino dual language learners can benefit from a bilingual vocabulary instructional approach regardless of gender or baseline vocabulary levels in L1.
This article seeks to develop Translanguaging as a theory of language and discuss the theoretical motivations behind and the added values of the concept. I contextualize Translanguaging in the linguistic realities of the 21st century, especially the fluid and dynamic practices that transcend the boundaries between named languages, language varieties, and language and other semiotic systems. I highlight the contributions Translanguaging as a theoretical concept can make to the debates over the Language and Thought and the Modularity of Mind hypotheses. One particular aspect of multilingual language users' social interaction that I want to emphasize is its multimodal and multisensory nature. I elaborate on two related concepts: Translanguaging Space and Translanguaging Instinct, to underscore the necessity to bridge the artificial and ideological divides between the so-called sociocultural and the cognitive approaches to Translanguaging practices. In doing so, I respond to some of the criticisms and confusions about the notion of Translanguaging.
The adult lexicon links concepts and labels with related meanings (e.g. dog–cat). We asked how children’s encounters with concepts versus labels contribute to their semantic development. We investigated semantic priming in monolinguals and bilinguals, who have similar experience with concepts, but different experience with labels (i.e. monolinguals hear “dog”, bilinguals hear “dog” and “chien”). Similarities in performance across monolinguals and bilinguals, as well as across bilinguals’ two languages, support the position that encounters with concepts – as opposed to labels – are the largest driver of early semantic development. Our findings also suggest that the effects of semantic priming may be challenging to observe in the current paradigm at 24 months, but are strong in bilinguals by age 30 months.
This article seeks to develop Translanguaging as a theory of language and discuss the theoretical motivations behind and the added values of the concept. I contextualize Translanguaging in the linguistic realities of the 21st century, especially the fluid and dynamic practices that transcend the boundaries between named languages, language varieties, and language and other semiotic systems. I highlight the contributions Translanguaging as a theoretical concept can make to the debates over the Language and Thought and the Modularity of Mind hypotheses. One particular aspect of multilingual language users’ social interaction that I want to emphasize is its multimodal and multisensory nature. I elaborate on two related concepts: Translanguaging Space and Translanguaging Instinct, to underscore the necessity to bridge the artificial and ideological divides between the so-called sociocultural and the cognitive approaches to Translanguaging practices. In doing so, I respond to some of the criticisms and confusions about the notion of Translanguaging.
Using a semantic priming experiment, the influence of lexical access and knowledge of semantic relations on reading comprehension was studied in Dutch monolingual and bilingual minority children. Both context-independent semantic relations in the form of category coordinates and context-dependent semantic relations involving concepts that co-occur in certain contexts were tested in an auditory animacy decision task, along with lexical access. Reading comprehension and the control variables vocabulary size, decoding skill, and mental processing speed were tested by means of standardized tasks. Mixed-effects modeling was used to obtain individual priming scores and to study the effect of individual differences in the various predictor variables on the reading scores. Semantic priming was observed for the coordinate pairs but not the context-dependently related pairs, and neither context-independent priming nor lexical access predicted reading comprehension. Only vocabulary size significantly contributed to the reading scores, emphasizing the importance of the number of words known for reading comprehension. Finally, the results show that the monolingual and bilingual children perform similarly on all measures, suggesting that in the current Dutch context, language status may not be highly predictive of vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension skill.
The present study investigated the contribution of morphological and cognate awareness to the development of English and French vocabulary knowledge among young minority and majority language children who were enrolled in a French immersion program. Participating children (n = 75) were assessed in English and French on measures of morphological awareness, cognate awareness, and vocabulary knowledge from Grades 1 to 3. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to investigate linear trends in English and French vocabulary growth for minority and majority language children and to identify metalinguistic contributions to Grade 1 and Grade 3 English and French vocabulary performance and rate of growth. Results demonstrated a similar pattern of prediction for both groups of children. English and French morphological awareness and French-English cognate awareness significantly predicted concurrent and longitudinal vocabulary development after controlling for nonverbal reasoning, phonological awareness, and word identification. The contributions of morphological awareness to English vocabulary and cognate awareness to French vocabulary strengthened between Grades 1 and 2. These findings highlight the emerging importance of morphological and cognate awareness in children's vocabulary development and suggest that these metalinguistic factors can serve to broaden the vocabulary repertoire of children who enter school with limited language proficiency. (PsycINFO Database Record
The purpose of this study was to examine the hypothesis that helping preschoolers learn words through categorization may enhance their ability to retain words and their conceptual properties, acting as a bootstrap for self‐learning. We examined this hypothesis by investigating the effects of the World of Words instructional program, a supplemental intervention for children in preschool designed to teach word knowledge and conceptual development through taxonomic categorization and embedded multimedia. Participants in the study included 3‐ and 4‐year‐old children from 28 Head Start classrooms in 12 schools, randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. Children were assessed on word knowledge, expressive language, conceptual knowledge, and categories and properties of concepts in a yearlong intervention. Results indicated that children receiving the WOW treatment consistently outperformed their control counterparts; further, treatment children were able to use categories to identify the meaning of novel words. Gains in word and categorical knowledge were sustained six months later for those children who remained in Head Start. These results suggest that a program targeted to learning words within taxonomic categories may act as a bootstrap for self‐learning and inference generation.
كان الغرض من هذه الدراسة هو فحص فرضية أن مساعدة الأطفال في الروضة تعلم كلمات عن طريق التصنيف بإمكانه أن يعزز من قدراتهم على تذكر الكلمات وخصائصها المفاهيمية، بوصفها محفزا للتعلم. قمنا بفحص هذه الفرضية وذلك بالتحقيق في أثر البرنامج التعليمي "عالم المفردات" (WOW) الذي يعتبر تدخلا تكميليا لأطفال الروضة ومصمما من أجل تعليم معرفة الكلمات والتطور المفاهيمي، من خلال النظام التصنيفي ووسائل الإعلام. تضمنت الدراسة مشاركين تتراوح أعمارهم بين 3 و4 سنوات ينتمون إلى 28 روضة أطفال، التي تنتمي إلى 12 مدرسة, خضعت عشوائيا للبحث ومراقبة المجموعات. جرى تقييم الأطفال على معرفة الكلمات واللغة التعبيرية والمعرفة المفاهيمية وأصناف وخصائص المفاهيم في تدخل لمدة سنة كاملة. أظهرت النتائج أن الأطفال الذين خضعوا للبرنامج التعليمي "عالم المفردات" (WOW) قد تفوقوا بصورة مستمرة على نظرائهم الذين خضعوا للمراقبة. علاوة على ذلك, فإن أطفال البحث قد تمكنوا من استخدام الأصناف والتعرف على معنى الكلمات الجديدة. استمر اكتساب الكلمات والمعرفة التصنيفية بعد 6 أشهر بالنسبة للأطفال الذين بقوا في روضة الأطفال. توحي هذه النتائج إلى أنه يمكن لبرنامج يهدف إلى تعلم الكلمات أن يعمل كمحفز للتعلم الذاتي، وتوليد الاستنتاجات.
本研究旨在考查一个假设：帮助学龄前儿童通过分类来学习单词，可提高他们记忆单词及其概念属性的能力，从而发展他们的自主学习能力。作者通过调查「单词世界」(WOW)教学计划的影响来考查这个假设。该教学计划是一个学龄前儿童补充干预计划，旨在透过使用分类学的分类方法及嵌入式多媒体，教授单词知识和发展单词概念。研究参与者是来自12所学校中的28个「启蒙计划」学前儿童班里的3‐4岁儿童，他们被随机分配到干预组和对照组。在一年的干预中，儿童接受单词知识、表达语言、概念知识、类别和概念属性的评估。结果显示，「单词世界」(WOW)干预组的表现一致地优于对照组；此外，干预组儿童可以使用类别来确定新词的词义。仍然留在「启蒙计划」班里的儿童，其单词和类别知识的改进保持稳定至干预后6个月。这些研究结果显示，针对透过分类学的分类方法来学习单词的教学计划，可引导儿童凭自己的力量学习自学和产生推断。
Cette étude avait pour but d'examiner l'hypothíse qu'aider des enfants d'âge préscolaire à apprendre des mots en les catégorisant pourrait favoriser leur capacité à retenir les mots et leurs propriétés, agissant alors comme une amorce d'auto‐apprentissage. Nous avons examiné cette hypothíse en analysant les effets du matériel d'enseignement le Monde des Mots (MDM), un supplément pédagogique destiné aux enfants d'âge préscolaire conçu pour la connaissance des mots et le développement des concepts à l'aide d'une catégorisation taxinomique avec multimédia impliqué. Ont participé à l'étude des enfants de 3 et 4 ans provenant de 28 classes Head Start issus de 12 écoles assignées au hasard au groupe de traitement et au groupe contrôle. Les enfants ont été évalués sur leur connaissance des mots, l'expression orale, les connaissances conceptuelles, les catégories et les propriétés des concepts tout au long de l'année de l'intervention. Les résultats ont montré que les enfants du groupe de traitement MDM ont de maniíre systématique dépassé leur contrepartie du groupe contrôle; en outre, les enfants soumis au traitement ont été en mesure de se servir des catégories pour trouver le sens des mots nouveaux. Les bénéfices dans la connaissance des mots et les connaissances catégorielles sont demeurés six mois plus tard chez les enfants restés dans Head Start. Ces résultats suggírent qu'un programme visant l'apprentissage de mots au sein de catégories taxonomiques peut agir comme une amorce pour l'auto‐apprentissage et la production d'inférences.
Проверялась гипотеза о том, что категоризация лексики при обучении дошкольников новым словам может существенно увеличить способность к запоминанию слов и их концептуальных свойств и стимулировать малышей к самообучению. Для расширения их словарного запаса и умения работать с концептами авторы исследовали учебный модуль “Мир слов” (WOW), разработанный в качестве дополнительного вмешательства для дошкольников, которые обучаются по программе Head Start. WOW знакомит детей с таксономической классификацией посредством мультимедийных средств. Трех‐ и четырехлетние дети из 28‐и дошкольных групп в 12‐и школах были случайным образом включены либо в экспериментальную, либо в контрольную группу. На протяжении годичного обучения оценивалось знание слов, выразительность речи, знание концептов, их свойств и категорий, к которым они могут быть причислены. Дети, обучавшиеся по программе WOW, стабильно показывали более высокие результаты, чем их ровесники из контрольных групп. Помимо прочего, эти дети способны использовать категоризацию для определения значений новых слов. Через полгода после окончания обучения эти дети продолжали опережать сверстников по знанию слов и умению категоризировать. Это свидетельствует о том, что программа, предлагающая изучение слов в рамках таксономических категорий, может помочь вырастить поколение, которое будет способно к самообучению и к самостоятельным выводам.
La meta de este estudio fue el de investigar la hipótesis que ayudar a los preescolares a aprender palabras por medio de la categorización mejoraría su capacidad de retener palabras y sus propiedades conceptuales, sirviendo de arranque para el auto aprendizaje. Investigamos esta hipótesis estudiando los efectos del programa de enseñanza World of Words (Mundo de palabras; WOW por sus siglas en inglés), una intervención adicional para niños preescolares diseñada para el aprendizaje de palabras y el desarrollo conceptual por medio de la categorización taxonómica y el uso de diversos medios. En este estudio participaron niños de 3 y 4 años de 20 aulas de Head Start en 12 escuelas escogidas al azar en cuanto a grupos de tratamiento y de control. En un año completo de intervención, se evaluaron los estudiantes en cuanto a su conocimiento de palabras, su lenguaje expresivo, su conocimiento conceptual, y las categorías y propiedades de los conceptos. Los resultados mostraron que los niños del grupo de WOW sistemáticamente superaban a los niños del grupo de control; además, los niños del grupo de tratamiento podían usar categorías para encontrar el significado de palabras nuevas. Los adelantos en el conocimiento de palabras y categorías todavía existían 6 meses más tarde para los niños que seguían con Head Start. Estos resultados sugieren que un programa dedicado al aprendizaje de palabras dentro de categorías taxonómicas puede ayudar al autoaprendizaje y la producción de inferencias.
This book consists of three sections (4 chapters each). Section 1 presents an overview and history of natural resource management, from both the North American and international perspectives. Section 2 discusses the challenges facing Integrated Resource and Environmental Management (IREM) by examining issues such as conflict, property rights, the role of social science in natural resource management, the influence and formation of power in a decision making context, and the theoretical foundations of IREM. Section 3 addresses the definition and application of IREM from several different contexts, including real-world applications and planning frameworks. Individual case studies are integrated into the end of each chapter, which serve to illustrate various models associated with IREM that demonstrate the advantages and challenges of using an IREM approach. In addition, discussion questions are included at the end of each chapter to stimulate dialogue underlying many of the issues presented in the text. This book has been written for students, primarily at the advanced undergraduate level, in the many academic areas pertaining to natural resource management. It provides a useful resource for practitioners, researchers and managers currently involved in the field of natural resource management, as well as providing a comprehensive aid for natural resource decision making within the context of the real world.
Translanguaging has recently been promoted as a socially just and academically beneficial way to teach English language learners, however, there is an absence of research on the compelling ways bilingual families in the United States flexibly apply their entire linguistic repertoire when reading, particularly within shared readings. The present study involves one Spanish-English bilingual parent named Blanca, who was observed during five shared reading events with her early elementary-aged children, after which her translanguaging was coded for its book talk function. Interview and survey data about Blanca’s linguistic background and ideologies were also collected and coded using the constant comparative approach. Findings showed that Blanca engaged in translanguaging during four out of five book readings for the purpose of responding to her children, asking recall and summarization questions, directing children to pictures, and pointing out new vocabulary. Interview and survey data showed that Blanca highly valued bilingualism and privileged the use of “Spanglish”, or a hybrid Spanish-English mixture. While Blanca cannot represent all bilingual parents, her translanguaging can be used by educators and researchers as an introductory guide for translanguaging within classroom read-alouds and to lessen the disconnect between bilingual families and school.
Bilingualism as it occurs in current societies is a complex, multidimensional and dynamic phenomenon, calling for new approaches to capture this concept. This study shows the feasibility of a person-centred approach by combining measures of the use of and proficiency in the first and second language from 110 young Turkish–Dutch children at two measurement waves, using two existing datasets. Latent Profile Analysis revealed four profiles, equivalent at age four and six: 1) Dominant L1 use, relatively low L1 and L2 proficiency , 2) Dual L1 and L2 use, around average L1 and L2 proficiency, 3) Dominant L1 use, relatively high L1 and L2 proficiency and 4) Dominant L2 use, relatively high L2 proficiency . Latent Transition Analysis indicated that children changed in profiles over time. Regression analyses showed that profiles were differently related to the family's socioeconomic status and children's nonverbal intelligence at age four. No relations were found at age six.
Research Findings
Storybooks provide opportunities for children to encounter new words in context and build vocabulary. Storybooks intended for dual-language learners (DLLs) can come in two types – immersive monolingual second language (L2) books, or an emerging style of “code–switching” books written predominantly in a child’s dominant language (L1), but highlighting target vocabulary in L2. In this study we investigated how book type affects vocabulary retention. Both English (ELL) and Spanish (SLL) learning 2– to 5–year–olds heard researcher–designed stories that introduced novel animal names in L2 – one formatted monolingually in L2, and one code-switching from L1 to L2. Children’s new word retention was then tested with simple picture identification tasks. The findings demonstrated that both SLL and ELL participants had comparable novel word retention after each book type, but there was an interaction of age and storybook type, such that older children, regardless of primary language or typical L2 exposure were more likely to experience a novel word retention boost from the code–switching book. Practice or Policy: These findings suggest that matching the best book type to an individual learner depends on understanding the learner’s developmental stages in both L1 and L2.
Purpose
This study examined the effects of a vocabulary intervention for bilingual children that was conducted in children’s first language, Spanish, and included explicit instruction on cognates. We measured effects in terms of change from pre- to post-intervention in Spanish as well as associations with the non-target language, English.
Method
Participants were 12 Spanish-English bilingual children, aged 6–8 years, with and without Developmental Language Disorder. Children completed the intervention in pairs (one child with DLD and a typically developing peer) for 70-minute sessions, 3 days a week, for four weeks. Intervention targeted 32 words (16 cognates, 16 non-cognates) using four storybooks (8 words/book) and interactive activities that highlighted similarities across languages. Pre- and post-intervention measures in Spanish and English included tasks of word definition and cognate facilitation.
Results
As a group, children showed improvement in definition quality and cognate naming in Spanish. There was a positive correlation between definition quality and cognate naming for the typically developing children, but not for the children with DLD. All children showed positive cross-language correlations on post-intervention measures.
Conclusions
Bilingual children, with and without DLD, have the capacity to improve in their awareness and use of cognates. Explicit teaching of cognates can be an effective tool for building vocabulary skills. Children with DLD may need additional time and support to apply their knowledge of cognates to vocabulary learning.
In adult bilinguals, a word in one language will activate a related word in the other language, with language dominance modulating the direction of these effects. To determine whether the early bilingual lexicon possesses similar properties to its adult counterpart, two experiments compared translation equivalent priming and cross-linguistic semantic priming in 27-month-old bilingual toddlers learning English and one other language. Priming effects were found in both experiments, irrespective of language dominance and distance between the child’s two languages. The time course of target word recognition revealed a similar pattern for translation equivalent priming and cross-language semantic priming. These results suggest that the early bilingual lexicon possesses properties similar to the adult one in terms of word to concept connections. However, the absence of an advantage of translation equivalent priming over semantic priming, and the lack of dominance and language distance effects, suggest that when two languages are acquired in parallel during infancy, their integration within a single dynamic system is highly robust to input variations.
How do child and adult L2 classroom learners integrate newly-learned L2 words into their L1 mental lexicon, and how do they process the orthographic, phonological, and semantic codes of words in their L2 and L1? Do these processes differ in child L2 learners, who are still developing their L1 lexical knowledge, from adult L2 learners, and if so, how? Current psycholinguistic models of lexical processing in L2 learners, the Revised Hierarchical Model (RHM) and the developmental specification of the Bilingual Interactive Activation model (BIA-d), focus on adult L2 learners. A guiding question in this chapter is whether these models can also account for lexical processing in child L2 learners. The chapter focuses on two critical assumptions these models share: (1) lexical access is language nonselective, and (2) L2 word meaning access progresses from reliance on lexical-level links between L2 and L1 to reliance on direct L2 word form-to-concept mappings. Psycholinguistic studies testing adult and child L2 learners, with a specific focus on classroom learners tested during the earlier stages of L2 learning, are reviewed. The currently available evidence indicates that lexical processing in child and adult L2 learners shows remarkable similarities, despite considerable developmental differences in language and literacy knowledge, brain maturation, cognitive function, and processing speed. Both child and adult L2 learners' lexical processing support language non-selective and parallel activation of L1 and L2 orthographic-phonological codes. However, child L2 learners seem to exploit L2 word-to-concept links at an earlier stage in L2 learning than adult L2 learners, and L2 meaning access appears less reliant on the L1 system in children than in adults.
The current work investigates whether language dominance predicts transfer of skills across cognitive-linguistic levels from the native language (Spanish) to the second language (English) in bilingual preschoolers. Sensitivity to cognates (elephant/elefante in English/ Spanish) and metalinguistic awareness (MLA) have both been shown to transfer from the dominant to the nondominant language. Examining these types of transfer together using a continuous measure of language dominance may allow us to better understand the effect of the home language in children learning a majority language in preschool. Forty-six preschool-aged, Spanish-English bilinguals completed English receptive vocabulary and metalinguistic tasks indexing cognate effects and MLA. Language dominance was found to predict crosslinguistic (cognate) facilitation from Spanish to English. In addition, MLA skills also transferred from Spanish to English for children with lower English proficiency, and no transfer of MLA was evident for children with higher English proficiency. Altogether, findings suggest that transfer from a dominant first language to a nondominant second language happens at linguistic and cognitive-linguistic levels in preschoolers, although possibly influenced by second language proficiency. The current study has implications for supporting the home language for holistic cognitive-linguistic development. ARTICLE HISTORY
This article presents recent developments around multilingual secondary education in the officially bilingual province of Friesland, the Netherlands. As in other European contexts, schools in this region face the challenge of a growing language diversity due to migration. Despite this larger variety of languages in society, schooling is still mainly through the national language (Kroon & Spotti, 2011), based on the idea that immersion in each of the target languages triggers the best outcomes, thus leading to language separation pedagogies. Also, in teacher training programmes, pre-service teachers are educated with a pedagogy of language separation. This is in contrast with research that has repeatedly shown the importance of using all language resources of multilingual pupils in optimizing learning (Cenoz & Gorter, 2011; Cummins, 2008).
Against this backdrop, recent developments for multilingual secondary education within the province of Friesland focus on
a. less separation between the three instruction languages (Frisian, Dutch and English);
b. creating bridges between foreign languages in secondary education (German and French);
c. valorising and including migrant languages in mainstream education.
The Holi-Frysk project (holistic approach for Frisian and language education) was set up as an answer to these issues (Authors, forthcoming). In this pilot-project three secondary schools of different types developed, implemented and evaluated multilingual teaching approaches to include all languages present in the school in teaching. Teachers were trained through workshops and school visits and the
activities were video recorded, transcribed and analysed on their translanguaging practices.
The article will first of all present and discuss a few examples of the pedagogical activities and secondly zoom in on its effects at the interactional level by focusing on moments in which different functions of pedagogical translanguaging (García & Wei, 2015) appear. Finally, suggestions are given how these findings could be integrated in the teacher training programmes to prepare our pre-service teachers for today’s multilingual and multicultural classrooms.
Group differences in semantic priming between young readers with different comprehension levels have been reported, with poor readers showing reduced or no context-independent semantic priming compared to normal readers. However, other studies have not been able to replicate these effects on an individual differences level, even though the spreading of semantic activation is hypothesized to play a role in the reading comprehension process. In the present study, we investigated whether priming during sentence reading, rather than single word priming, could be related to children's reading comprehension scores. A self-paced reading experiment involving both associated and non-associated, context-dependent (functional) and context-independent (categorical) semantic relations was administered to 137 Dutch monolingual and bilingual children. Delayed facilitative priming effects were observed for non-associated context-dependently and context-independently related word pairs, but these were not linked to individual differences in reading comprehension. Monolinguals and bilinguals showed similar performance on almost all language measures, including semantic priming and reading comprehension.
Bilingual adults are faster in reading cognates than in reading non-cognates in both their first language (L1) and second language (L2). This cognate effect has been shown to be gradual: recognition was facilitated when words had higher degrees of cross-linguistic similarity. The aim of the current study was to investigate whether cognate facilitation can also be observed in bilingual children's sentence reading. To answer this question, a group of Frisian-Dutch bilingual children (N = 37) aged 9-12 years completed a reading task in both their languages. All children had Dutch as their dominant reading language, but most of them spoke mainly Frisian at home. Identical cognates (e.g., Dutch-Frisian boek-boek 'book'), non-identical cognates (e.g., beam-boom 'tree'), and non-cognates (e.g., beppe-oma 'grandmother') were presented in sentence context, and eye movements were recorded. The results showed a non-gradual cognate facilitation effect in Frisian: identical cognates were read faster than non-identical cognates and non-cognates. In Dutch, no cognate facilitation effect could be observed. This suggests that bilingual children use their dominant reading language while reading in their non-dominant one, but not vice versa.
This paper reports results from two studies conducted to examine word learning among preschool children in group book reading while we developed a scalable method of teaching words during book reading. We sought to identify factors that fostered both depth and breadth of learning by varying the type of information children heard about words while holding exposures constant. We also asked whether prior word knowledge affects children’s learning across our different instructional approaches. In Study 1 we evaluated pre-post gains from two types of explicit instruction (Didactic and Conceptual), an implicit instructional approach (Review), and repeated Exposure. For all three instructed conditions growth in receptive knowledge (our measure of breadth) was statistically equivalent when compared to control (d = 0.43) and exposure words (d = 0.41). In Study 2, words were taught using an augmented explicit approach and through repeated exposure. Moderate and statistically significant growth in receptive knowledge was found when comparing instructed to control words (d = 0.48) and large effects were found with an expressive task measure of depth of knowledge (d = 1.19). There also was evidence of learning from exposure. Children’s vocabulary knowledge moderated learning gains. In Study 1 children with limited knowledge of vocabulary (0.75 SD below the group mean) learned fewer words than others. In Study 2, pre-test vocabulary knowledge moderated gains on the expressive measure for directly taught words and gains on the receptive measure for words taught through exposure. Thus, when words were intentionally taught, all children except those with the weakest initial knowledge acquired the initial lexical representations captured by the receptive measure at a similar rate. Those with stronger vocabulary more quickly acquired initial representations from exposure alone and deeper knowledge when they received intentional instruction. We conclude that teachers can build depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge by combining intentional instruction of target words with repeated use of varied words by reading books multiple times and instructional comments that include use of novel words.
This study focused on the mechanisms underlying incidental second language (L2) vocabulary acquisition prior to formal instruction. We designed a cross‐sectional study to examine which learner‐related and word‐related variables affect young learners’ vocabulary knowledge at the level of meaning recognition and meaning recall. We collected data from 616 Flemish children between 10 and 12 years old by using a questionnaire about learners’ extramural English, an English vocabulary test, and a Dutch vocabulary test. The findings revealed that participating learners frequently engaged in activities involving English before receiving formal instruction and that their amount of extramural English increased with age. The results also showed the rate of vocabulary growth from exposure to extramural English for three contiguous age groups. Further, both word‐related and learner‐related variables predicted vocabulary knowledge. Cognateness was the most powerful predictor, followed by frequency and concreteness. We also found a positive relationship between extramural English and vocabulary knowledge.
Open Practices
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This study compared receptive English grammar skills of two groups of 7‐ and 9‐year‐old Danish children at the beginning of second language (L2) instruction in English, and two groups of Spanish/Catalan children of the same age after several years of instruction. The study examined the influence of two language‐related factors (receptive vocabulary skills, cognate linguistic distance) and two context‐related factors (amount of formal instruction, frequency of exposure to English outside school), additionally focusing on the gender variable. Results revealed that the amount of formal instruction had a lesser role in the children's receptive grammar knowledge than cognate linguistic distance and out‐of‐school contact with English (particularly with audiovisual material). These factors may explain why Danish children's receptive knowledge of English prior to school instruction is largely similar to that of Spanish children after several years of instruction, revealing a sharp contrast in their respective starting points for L2 learning.
Standards of academic performance place a high demand on students’ English language. To help Spanish-speaking preschoolers who are developing English as a second language meet these demands, researchers recommend strengthening their first language to facilitate development of their second language. Head Start teachers and research assistants delivered 12 Spanish and 12 English language lessons to eight preschoolers in small groups. Lessons targeted storytelling and vocabulary and occurred 4 days a week for 20 min. A multiple-baseline experimental design across groups was used to examine the effect of the Spanish–English narrative intervention on children’s retelling skills and a pretest posttest design without a control group documented children’s acquisition of the target words. Results indicated that children made gains in English retelling while maintaining their already high Spanish retelling skills. Improvements in vocabulary were observed in English but not in Spanish.
We examined how L2 exposure early in life modulates toddler word recognition by comparing German–English bilingual and German monolingual toddlers’ recognition of words that overlapped to differing degrees, measured by number of phonological features changed, between English and German (e.g., identical, 1-feature change, 2-feature change, 3-feature change, no overlap). Recognition in English was modulated by language background (bilinguals vs. monolinguals) and by the amount of phonological overlap that English words shared with their L1 German translations. L1 word recognition remained unchanged across conditions between monolingual and bilingual toddlers, showing no effect of learning an L2 on L1 word recognition in bilingual toddlers. Furthermore, bilingual toddlers who had a later age of L2 acquisition had better recognition of words in English than those toddlers who acquired English at an earlier age. The results suggest an important role for L1 phonological experience on L2 word recognition in early bilingual word recognition.
Two conceptions of the linguistic system of bilinguals are in contention. The translanguaging approach supports what we call a unitary view, arguing that bilingualism and multilingualism, despite their importance as sociocultural concepts, have no correspondence in a dual or multiple linguistic system. In our view, the myriad lexical and structural features mastered by bilinguals occupy a cognitive terrain that is not fenced off into anything like the two areas suggested by the two socially named languages. But a strong critique of this view by Jeff MacSwan adopts the familiar position that, while allowing for some overlap, the competence of bilinguals involves language specific internal differentiation. According to this view, which we have called the dual correspondence theory, bilinguals possess two separate linguistic systems whose boundaries coincide with those of the two named languages. Several interdisciplinary considerations point to the lack of initial plausibility of the dual correspondence theory. And the main argument offered by MacSwan in defense of the theory, namely restrictions on code switching, lacks descriptive adequacy and theoretical coherence. The dual correspondence theory has had pernicious effects in educational practices. A much healthier educational climate is created by teachers who adopt the unitary view sponsored by translanguaging.
Previous studies on second language (L2) vocabulary acquisition with children showed that the use of a picture learning method favours the creation of direct links between the semantic system and new lexical representations at early stages of L2 acquisition (Comesaña et al., 2009). However, recent studies found that this influence seems to vary according to the cognate status of the words being learned (Comesaña et al., 2012), raising the question of how the type of words involved can modulate the lexical-semantic connections between the words of both languages in the bilingual memory. The main goal of the present study was to explore list composition effects in the establishment of L2 word-to-concept connections in Portuguese children by using a picture-based method. Results showed no influence of list composition in the establishment of L2 lexical-semantic connections when cognates have to be learned. Findings are discussed in light of relevant models of bilingual memory.
Emergent bilingual students draw on their linguistic repertoires, moving fluidly between named languages and varieties to meet communicative ends. However, these translanguaging abilities are often not supported in English-dominant school settings. The author proposes six design principles that educators can use to create instructional strategies that support emergent bilinguals’ translanguaging in the classroom. The author then describes an instructional activity that was created and implemented following the design principles. During this activity, second-grade emergent bilingual students used tablets to record and share multilingual e-books. As a result, not only were students’ translanguaging abilities supported, but students were also able to create bilingual written texts and develop strategies to effectively translate for one another.
The present study investigated the impact of translation equivalents (TE) on lexical processing in a sample of 36 French–English bilingual toddlers at 22-months of age. Children were administered the Computerized Comprehension Task (CCT; Friend & Keplinger, 2003) in each language and parents completed the MacArthur Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) in both English and French across two visits (one language per visit). Correct trials on the CCT were identified and classified into one of two categories: words with a known TE as reported on the CDI and words without a known TE on the CDI. Reaction times for correct trials were averaged and compared for each of the bilinguals’ languages. Interestingly, children were faster to retrieve words with a known TE on the CDI than words with no known TE. The present findings suggest that the translation facilitation effects reported in adult bilinguals are also present in very young bilinguals.
A framework for conceptualizing the development of individual differences in reading ability is presented that synthesizes a great deal of the research literature. The framework places special emphasis on the effects of reading on cognitive development and on “bootstrapping” relationships involving reading. Of key importance are the concepts of reciprocal relationships—situations where the causal connection between reading ability and the efficiency of a cognitive process is bidirectional-and organism-environment correlation—the fact that differentially advantaged organisms are exposed to nonrandom distributions of environmental quality. Hypotheses are advanced to explain how these mechanisms operate to create rich-get-richer and poor-get-poorer patterns of reading achievement. The framework is used to explicate some persisting problems in the literature on reading disability and to conceptualize remediation efforts in reading.
Very few studies exist on the role of cross-language similarities in cognate word acquisition. Here we sought to explore, for the first time, the interplay of orthography (O) and phonology (P) during the early stages of cognate word acquisition, looking at children and adults with the same level of foreign language proficiency, and by using two variants of the word-association learning paradigm (auditory learning method vs. auditory + written method). Eighty participants (forty children and forty adults, native speakers of European Portuguese [EP]), learned a set of EP-Catalan cognate words and non-cognate words. Among the cognate words, the degree of orthographic and phonological similarity was manipulated. Half of the children and adult participants learned the new words via an L2 auditory and written-L1 word association method, while the other half learned the same words only through an L2 auditory-L1 word association method. Both groups were tested in an auditory recognition task and a go/no-go lexical decision task. Results revealed a disadvantage for children in comparison to adults, which was reduced in the auditory learning method. Furthermore, there was an advantage for cognates relative to non-cognates regardless of the age of participants. Importantly, there were modulations in cognate word processing as a function of the degree of O and P overlap which were restricted to children. The findings are discussed in light of the most relevant bilingual models of word recognition.
This chapter looks at the development of language awareness within the context of multilingual education by focusing on translanguaging as a pedagogical tool. The origin of translanguaging in the context of Welsh-English bilingual education is discussed as well as its spread to other contexts. The focus of the article is on the use of translanguaging in language and content teaching. It highlights the importance of considering the learner as a multilingual speaker who has a multilingual repertoire and uses it in a social context is highlighted. The original concept translanguaging based on the alternation of the languages used in the input and output have developed so as to use other possibilities of relating the different languages. Several projects aimed at developing metalinguistic awareness by activating the relationships between the languages in the multilingual learner’s repertoire are discussed. Some of the challenges of using translanguaging as a pedagogical tool are also addressed. Among them the concept of translanguaging and the spread of monolingual ideologies are discussed.
Investigated the development of 2 levels of morphological knowledge that contribute to Spanish-English bilingual students' ability to recognize cognates: the ability to recognize a cognate stem within a suffixed English word, and knowledge of systematic relationships between Spanish and English suffixes (e.g., the fact that words ending in
-ty in English often have a Spanish cognate ending in
-dad). 196 Latino bilingual students in Grades 4, 6, and 8 were asked to give the Spanish equivalent for English words, some of which had derivational and inflectional suffixes. Results show that the Ss' ability to translate cognates increased with age above and beyond any increase in their vocabulary knowledge in Spanish and English. There was also marked growth in the Ss' knowledge of systematic relationships between Spanish and English suffixes. Ss recognized cognate stems of suffixed words more easily than noncognate stems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Effects of Spanish immersion on children's native English vocabulary were studied. Matched on grade, sex, and verbal scores on a 4th-grade Cognitive Abilities Test (CAT), 30 5th- and 6th-grade immersion students and 30 English monolinguals did 60 consecutive Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) items. They also did a 20-item Spanish–English Cognate Test (SECT), similar to PPVT, on recognizing low-frequency English words with high-frequency Spanish cognates. The CAT and conventionally scored PPVT revealed comparable verbal ability between groups, but on 60 consecutive PPVT items, immersion did better than control (p = .002) because of cognates. On SECT, immersion significantly outperformed control (p