scholarly journals Relating input factors and dual language proficiency in French–English bilingual children

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 296-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cathy Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Dual Language ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
English Bilingual

High proficiency across two languages is related to better mental state reasoning for bilingual children

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 407-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATHERINE R. GORDON
Keyword(s):  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Preschool Age ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Preschool Age Children ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACTPast research suggests that bilingualism positively affects children's performance in false belief tasks. However, researchers have yet to fully explore factors that are related to better performance in these tasks within bilingual groups. The current study includes an assessment of proficiency in both languages (which was lacking in past work) and investigates the relationship between proficiency and performance in a variety of mental state tasks (not just false belief). Furthermore, it explores whether the relationship between language proficiency and performance in mental state tasks differs between bilingual and monolingual groups. Twenty-six Spanish–English bilingual and twenty-six English monolingual preschool-age children completed seven mental state tasks. Findings provide evidence that high proficiency in English is related to better performance in mental state tasks for monolinguals. In contrast, high proficiency in both English and Spanish is related to better performance in mental state tasks for bilinguals.

scholarly journals “¿Cómo estas?” “I’m good.” Conversational code-switching is related to profiles of expressive and receptive proficiency in Spanish-English bilingual toddlers

2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 333-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krystal M. Ribot ◽  
Erika Hoff
Keyword(s):  
Dual Language ◽  
Receptive Language ◽  
Code Switching ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Expressive Vocabulary ◽  
Language Choices ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Switching Patterns ◽  
Who Code ◽  
The U.S

Relations between bilingual children’s patterns of conversational code-switching (responding to one language with another), the balance of their dual language input, and their expressive and receptive proficiency in two languages were examined in 115 2½-year-old simultaneous Spanish-English bilinguals in the U.S. Children were more likely to code-switch in response to Spanish than English. Children’s expressive vocabulary scores were higher in English than in Spanish, while their English and Spanish receptive language scores were not different. Analyses of subgroups of children with different but consistent patterns of code-switching confirmed that children who code-switched to English showed greater English skills, specifically in the expressive domain. Children who did not code-switch were more balanced bilinguals in both expressive and receptive skills. Children with other code-switching patterns showed still different profiles of dual language expressive and receptive proficiency. These findings reveal that some, but not all, bilingual children show different profiles of expressive and receptive skill in their two languages and that these proficiency profiles are related to their language choices in conversation.

Acquisition of compound words in Chinese–English bilingual children: Decomposition and cross-language activation

2011 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 583-600 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHENXI CHENG ◽  
MIN WANG ◽  
CHARLES A. PERFETTI
Keyword(s):  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Semantic Transparency ◽  
Compound Words ◽  
Judgment Accuracy ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Language Activation ◽  
Cross Language

ABSTRACTThis study investigated compound processing and cross-language activation in a group of Chinese–English bilingual children, and they were divided into four groups based on the language proficiency levels in their two languages. A lexical decision task was designed using compound words in both languages. The compound words in one language contained two free constituent morphemes that mapped onto the desired translations in the other language, such as tooth(牙) brush(刷).Two types of compound words were included: transparent (e.g., toothbrush) and opaque (e.g., deadline) words. Results showed that children were more accurate in judging semantically transparent compounds in English. The lexicality of translated compounds in Chinese affected lexical judgment accuracy on English compounds, independent of semantic transparency and language proficiency. Implications for compound processing and bilingual lexicon models are discussed.

scholarly journals Oral Language and Reading Among Bilingual Students Preprint

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Marc Goodrich ◽  
Lisa Fitton ◽  
Lauren Thayer
Keyword(s):  
Reading Achievement ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Oral Language ◽  
Reading Ability ◽  
Dual Language ◽  
First Grade ◽  
Vocabulary Knowledge ◽  
Literacy Skill ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
English Reading

Understanding factors that influence reading achievement among bilingual children is considerably more complex than it is for monolingual children. Research on dual language development indicates that bilingual children’s oral language abilities are often distributed across languages in varied ways, due to heterogeneity of dual language exposure and input. Consequently, there may be greater variability in the associations between oral language proficiency and reading ability among bilingual children than there is for monolingual children. This study evaluated how vocabulary knowledge and morphosyntactic ability in Spanish and English was associated with English reading achievement among 117 bilingual kindergarten and first grade children in the U.S. using both OLS and quantile regression. Results indicated that although English vocabulary and morphosyntax were both significantly associated with reading achievement, English vocabulary knowledge was most strongly associated with reading at higher quantiles of reading ability. Cross-language analyses indicated that both Spanish vocabulary and morphosyntax made significant contributions to predicting English reading achievement beyond the effects of English oral language. Spanish vocabulary was uniquely predictive of reading at high and low quantiles of English reading, whereas relations between Spanish morphosyntax and English reading did not differ across quantiles. These results were consistent with predictions derived from theoretical models such as the simple view of reading and suggest that Spanish vocabulary knowledge may provide more unique information about children’s underlying capacity for acquiring language and literacy skill than does morphosyntax.

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