Expressive Vocabulary of German-English Bilingual Toddlers

2002 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 381-394 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dörte A. Junker ◽  
Ida J. Stockman
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Expressive Vocabulary ◽  
Vocabulary Size ◽  
Language System ◽  
Vocabulary Skills ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Simultaneous Acquisition ◽  
English Speaking

This study investigated whether young children learning two languages simultaneously are inherently weaker language learners than their monolingual counterparts. Two questions were examined: (a) whether simultaneous language learning at an early age slows down the language learning process for both languages (bilingualism deficit hypothesis) and (b) whether young children use a unitary language system containing features of both languages, preventing them from separating the languages (unitary language system hypothesis). To test these hypotheses, vocabulary skills of 10 German-English bilingual toddlers were compared with those of monolingual German- and English-speaking peers around 24 months of age using Rescorla's (1989) Language Development Survey. This vocabulary checklist, based on parental report, was used in its original English and in a German translated version. Findings revealed that bilingual toddlers were not inferior in conceptual vocabulary size and verb diversity when words in both languages were pooled. Given that nearly half of the bilingual conceptual vocabulary (43%) was associated with lexical forms in both languages, it is inferred that language separation is possible at age 2. Findings from this study contribute to the growing body of evidence that early simultaneous acquisition of more that one language is not an inherent disadvantage for the child. These findings suggest further that some existing instruments may be useful for assessing the early vocabulary of German-English bilingual toddlers.

scholarly journals In search of resilient and fragile properties of language

2014 ◽  
Vol 41 (S1) ◽  
pp. 64-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
SUSAN GOLDIN-MEADOW
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Great Promise ◽  
Artificial Language ◽  
Fundamental Properties ◽  
Linguistic Input ◽  
Language Input

ABSTRACTYoung children are skilled language learners. They apply their skills to the language input they receive from their parents and, in this way, derive patterns that are statistically related to their input. But being an excellent statistical learner does not explain why children who are not exposed to usable linguistic input nevertheless communicate using systems containing the fundamental properties of language. Nor does it explain why learners sometimes alter the linguistic input to which they are exposed (input from either a natural or an artificial language). These observations suggest that children are prepared to learn language. Our task now, as it was in 1974, is to figure out what they are prepared with – to identify properties of language that are relatively easy to learn, the resilient properties, as well as properties of language that are more difficult to learn, the fragile properties. The new tools and paradigms for describing and explaining language learning that have been introduced into the field since 1974 offer great promise for accomplishing this task.

The acquisition of requests by second language learners of Spanish

2005 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derrin Pinto
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Request Strategies ◽  
Using Data ◽  
L1 And L2

This cross-sectional study in interlanguage pragmatics analyzes the requests employed by English-speaking learners of L2 Spanish, using data collected from university students at four different levels of language learning. The most common request strategies are first identified in a cross-linguistic analysis of Spanish and English and are then compared to the interlanguage data. The requests of lower-level students are found to be more idiosyncratic and pragmatically ambiguous than those of advanced learners, although not necessarily more direct. Advanced learners show signs of improvement, but still rely largely on L1 request behavior. Learners at all levels display more difficulties in areas in which there is cross-linguistic variation between the L1 and L2.

Grammatical morphology in language–impaired children acquiring English or German as their first language: A functional perspective

1992 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrin Lidner ◽  
Judith R. Johnston
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
First Language ◽  
Sentence Production ◽  
Expressive Vocabulary ◽  
Language Impaired ◽  
Functional Perspective ◽  
Grammatical Morphology ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Impaired Children

ABSTRACTFourteen matched pairs of German-speaking and English-speaking language-impaired children, aged 4;5–6;11, were tested for their knowledge of grammatical morphology and expressive vocabulary, using the Grammatical Closure subtest of the ITPA or its German adaptation, Grammatik in the PET, and the Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test or the Aktiver Wortschatztest. Children were matched pairwise on the basis of their chronological age, nonverbal IQ, and scores in a sentence imitation and a sentence production task. As predicted, the German-speaking language-impaired children earned higher scores in grammatical morphology and vocabulary than did the English-speaking children. These findings add to a growing body of literature that documents language-specific sensitivity to particular sorts of syntactic devices. They also suggest that the morphological difficulties seen in English-speaking language-impaired children stem in part from the minor functional role played by these forms during the early language learning years.

scholarly journals The Effects of Audio- visual Recorded and Audio Recorded Listening Tasks on the Accuracy of Iranian EFL Learners’ Oral Production

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 110
Author(s):  
Pooya Drood ◽  
Hanieh Davatgari Asl
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Control Groups ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Oral Production ◽  
Self Study ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
And Control

<p>The ways in which task in classrooms has developed and proceeded have receive great attention in the field of language teaching and learning in the sense that they draw attention of learners to the competing features such as accuracy, fluency, and complexity. English audiovisual and audio recorded materials have been widely used by teachers and students, and have been the important resources of teaching and self-study. Nowadays, the environment we are living in is abundant with audio visual input and we as teachers ,thus, should be aware of the fact that environment can change students’ behavior towards language and language learning .What effects do these materials have on English speaking ability? The objective of this study is to find out whether there is difference in Iranian EFL learners’ accuracy in both audiovisual recorded (videos, movies ,etc.) and audio recorded tasks. For this purpose, 40 students of intermediate level were chosen and then were randomly assigned into two experimental and control groups each of which was under different listening tasks. (Audio visual- and audio only). Data analysis showed that the group which was trained under AV listening tasks showed different effects on students’ accuracy, compared to the other group positioned using audio recorded. Based on the results of this study, it is imperative that teachers consider the types of activities and methods that can have influence over language learners’ speaking ability.</p>

scholarly journals Maternal responsiveness and directiveness in speech to 2-year-olds: Relationships with children’s concurrent and later vocabulary

2021 ◽  
pp. 014272372110495
Author(s):  
Katariina Rantalainen ◽  
Leila Paavola-Ruotsalainen ◽  
Sari Kunnari
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Receptive Vocabulary ◽  
Effect Sizes ◽  
Maternal Responsiveness ◽  
Expressive Vocabulary ◽  
Vocabulary Size ◽  
Vocabulary Skills ◽  
Future Child ◽  
Maternal Speech ◽  
Directive Speech

This study investigated responsive and directive speech from 60 Finnish mothers to their 2-year-old children, as well as correlations with concurrent and later vocabulary. Possible gender differences with regard to both maternal speech and children’s vocabulary skills were considered. There were no gender differences in maternal utterance frequencies or in maternal utterance types. Girls scored statistically significantly higher in receptive and expressive vocabulary tests at 24, 30 and 36 months. The effect sizes were large. Maternal Other Utterances (fillers like yes, oh, umm) were correlated with children’s concurrent receptive vocabulary. However, there was no relationship between Other Utterances and children’s later vocabulary after controlling for vocabulary size at 24 months. This association may reflect an attempt by mothers to elicit speech from more linguistically advanced children. Furthermore, mothers’ Intrusive Directives towards 2-year-olds correlated negatively with receptive vocabulary at 30 months, particularly for boys. Surprisingly, Intrusive Attentional Directives correlated positively with expressive vocabulary in the group of 30-month-old girls. The results of this study demonstrate relationships between maternal verbal interactional style and both concurrent and future child vocabulary.

scholarly journals VOCABULARY SIZE AT FOUR STAGES OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Daskalovska
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Communicative Competence ◽  
Vocabulary Knowledge ◽  
Word Knowledge ◽  
Vocabulary Size ◽  
School Students ◽  
Authentic Texts ◽  
The Difference

One of the main aims of language learning is developing communicative competence, or the ability to communicate effectively in everyday situations. In order to achieve that, besides grammar knowledge, learners need to acquire enough vocabulary knowledge that would enable them to use the language outside the classroom, which requires acquiring significant receptive and productive word knowledge in order to be able to participate in various communicative situations. Research shows that the most frequent 2000 words comprise about 85% of the words in any text regardless of the topic, and that learners need to know at least 3000 word families in order to be able to use the language successfully and to be able to read authentic texts with understanding. However, experience shows that acquiring a large vocabulary is one of the biggest obstacles that language learners face in the process of language acquisition. Nevertheless, since vocabulary knowledge is the key component of the overall communicative competence, is it necessary to invest time and effort to learn the most frequent words in the language. The aim of this study is to determine the vocabulary size of language learners at four stages of language development. In addition, the study attempts to determine the difference between receptive and productive knowledge of vocabulary, as well as the difference between knowledge of words seen in isolation and in context. The participants were four groups of learners, of whom three groups comprised elementary and secondary school students and one group were university students. The results showed that during the first five years of learning the vocabulary knowledge increases at a greater rate, that learners have better receptive than productive knowledge of words, and that seeing words in context helps learners demonstrate greater receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0725/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

scholarly journals English Speaking Skill and Indian Undergraduate ESL Learners: Interleaving or Block Practice?

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sujata Kakoti ◽  
◽  
Sarat Kumar Doley ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Practice Approach ◽  
Present Context ◽  
Speaking Skill ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Esl Learners ◽  
Attitude And Motivation

Recent studies showed that compared to practicing language skills in A stepwise manner over a period known as block practice, mixing the units of learning, and making them less predictable by presenting them randomly to the language learners, known as interleaving, may prove to be a more effective approach to language teaching (Finkbeiner&Nicol, 2003; Schneider et al., 1998, 2002; Miles, 2014; Nakata, 2015). This paper is an attempt at reporting the findings of a 24-day long experimental study on the pedagogical effect of the interleaving and block practice approach to language learning (speaking skill in the present context) on undergraduate English as a second (ESL) learner. The teaching experimentation was done online on 36 undergraduate learner participants at the School of Sciences in Tezpur University during the Autumn Semester, 2020-21. The interleaving group showed slightly better language pedagogical results in speaking skills in English than the block practice group. It is, however, stated that the difference in performance was not found to be statistically significant. The performance of the two groups across the four micro-skills of speaking in English identified as interaction, pronunciation, fluency & coherence, and vocabulary & grammar remained static within the duration of the experimentation. Additionally, the groups did not demonstrate any significant difference in their L2 attitude and motivation over time.

Learner-Initiated Language Learning Through Social Media Sites (SMSs)

2020 ◽  
pp. 69-88
Author(s):  
Rashad Ali Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Formal Education ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Authentic Materials ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
New Research

Social media sites have become an essential part of communication and interaction all over the globe. They have also offered numerous opportunities to language learners across geographic borders, paralleled by a new research interest in their potential. The present study joins this relatively new line of research as it adds data from a sample of Yemeni English language learners about their uses and perceived benefits of using social media sites in English beyond formal education. The study came up with a conclusion that Yemeni EFL learners were actively participating in social media sites and were aware of their language-related benefits. The participants reported that social media sites were helpful for building various aspects of their English proficiency but found them most useful for their writing and reading skills, expanding their vocabulary, having access to authentic materials, and communicating with English speaking friends, both native and non-native speakers. They ranked their usefulness in the following order: Facebook, WhatsApp, and Twitter.

scholarly journals Swearing: A "Bad" Part of Language; A Good Part of Language Learning

1995 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin-Eliece Mercury
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
North American ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Linguistic Variables ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Esl Learners ◽  
Esl Classroom

This article proposes that class treatment of taboo language can be beneficial for language learning students. This is not to say that all groups of ESL learners would benefit, nor that instructors should teach their students how to swear in English. However, I suggest that learners need to understand what constitutes "obscene" language in North American contexts, why native speakers choose to use it, and what it signifies sociolinguistically. Arguments are made as to why an ESL classroom may be one of the better places (i.e., a more responsible, mature environment) where L2 speakers can receive explanations about the usage and paradoxes involved in swearing. The author's experience related to the use of taboo language by L2 speakers in a non-English speaking environment is described. In addition, some non-linguistic variables relevant to cursing are also discussed. As a means to open this topic for discussion, this article suggests that there is, in terms of sociolinguistics, study value in the nature and use of obscene language for language learners.

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