The Parental Investment Effect on Immigrant Children at Schools: Employment and Specialization of Parents as an Explaining Variable for Tasks Achievement in Second Language

This article reports on research aimed at identifying ways of improving the contribution of Dutch infant classes to the second language acquisition of nonnative children. Verbal interactions in 15 Dutch infant classes with immigrant children were investigated. Conversations were audiotaped during five types of activity: the pupil-centered conversation, the instructional exchange, the children's group, the small-group-with-teacher, and the special second-language group. Several input and production features, which are assumed to facilitate second language acquisition, were analyzed. Potentially, the special second language group offers the best opportunities for second language acquisition with respect to input and response production; the children's group is the most favorable activity with respect to self-initiated production. Regarding the actual contribution of the five activities to an average infant-class day, however, the children's group offers most of the beneficial interaction for second-language acquisition. Implications for the teaching of young multilingual children are presented.

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Das Projekt "Deutsch als Zweitsprache in Dialektumgebung"

Linguistik Online ◽

10.13092/lo.32.535 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 32 (3) ◽

Author(s):

Andrea Ender ◽

Wei Li ◽

Katharina Straßl

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Immigrant Children ◽

Primary School Children ◽

Learning Situation ◽

Language Abilities ◽

Deutsch Als Zweitsprache ◽

Local Dialect ◽

Career Opportunities ◽

German Speaking ◽

Ongoing Project

This paper presents the ongoing project "German as a Second Language in a Dialect-Speaking Environment" which is concerned with the acquisition of German as a second language by immigrant children in the German-Speaking part of Switzerland. As this is one of the areas where a distinct dialect coexists with the standard variety, the language acquisition poses a challenge for immigrant children: The daily input does not correspond at all, or only in part, to what the immigrant children should learn (e.g. for achievement in school and career opportunities), namely standard German. The aims of the project are to evaluate existing language measuring methods for preschool children and to develop a test that is adapted to the bilingualism of the immigrant children and the specific diglossic learning situation. Furthermore, an empirical pilot study deals with the language abilities of primary school children and examines how and to what extend the local dialect influences the use of standard German in spoken and written texts.

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The second-language vocabulary trajectories of Turkish immigrant children in Norway from ages five to ten: the role of preschool talk exposure, maternal education, and co-ethnic concentration in the neighborhood

Journal of Child Language ◽

10.1017/s0305000912000712 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 41 (2) ◽

pp. 352-381 ◽

Cited By ~ 20

Author(s):

VESLEMØY RYDLAND ◽

VIBEKE GRØVER ◽

JOSHUA LAWRENCE

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Maternal Education ◽

Vocabulary Development ◽

Immigrant Children ◽

Preschool Age ◽

Ethnic Concentration ◽

Peer Talk ◽

Turkish Immigrant ◽

Elementary Years ◽

L2 Vocabulary

ABSTRACTLittle research has explored how preschools can support children's second-language (L2) vocabulary development. This study keenly followed the progress of twemty-six Turkish immigrant children growing up in Norway from preschool (age five) to fifth grade (age ten). Four different measures of preschool talk exposure (amount and diversity of teacher-led group talk and amount and diversity of peer talk), as well as the demographic variables of maternal education and co-ethnic concentration in the neighborhood, were employed to predict the children's L2 vocabulary trajectories. The results of growth analyses revealed that maternal education was the only variable predicting children's vocabulary growth during the elementary years. However, teacher-led talk, peer talk, and neighborhood predicted children's L2 vocabulary skills at age five, and these differences were maintained up to age ten. This study underscores the importance of both preschool talk exposure (teacher-led talk and peer talk) and demographic factors on L2 learners' vocabulary development.

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Literacy in a Second Language Context: teaching immigrant children to read

Educational Review ◽

10.1080/0013191870390306 ◽

1987 ◽

Vol 39 (3) ◽

pp. 245-261 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Ludo TH. Verhoeven

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Immigrant Children ◽

Language Context

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Distinctiveness and Assimilation in Vowel Perception in a Second Language

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2019_jslhr-h-19-0074 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 62 (12) ◽

pp. 4534-4543

Author(s):

Wei Hu ◽

Sha Tao ◽

Mingshuang Li ◽

Chang Liu

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Native Language ◽

Vowel Identification ◽

Vowel Perception ◽

Perceptual Distance ◽

Vowel Space ◽

English Vowels ◽

Chinese Counterpart ◽

Vowel Categories

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate how the distinctive establishment of 2nd language (L2) vowel categories (e.g., how distinctively an L2 vowel is established from nearby L2 vowels and from the native language counterpart in the 1st formant [F1] × 2nd formant [F2] vowel space) affected L2 vowel perception. Method Identification of 12 natural English monophthongs, and categorization and rating of synthetic English vowels /i/ and /ɪ/ in the F1 × F2 space were measured for Chinese-native (CN) and English-native (EN) listeners. CN listeners were also examined with categorization and rating of Chinese vowels in the F1 × F2 space. Results As expected, EN listeners significantly outperformed CN listeners in English vowel identification. Whereas EN listeners showed distinctive establishment of 2 English vowels, CN listeners had multiple patterns of L2 vowel establishment: both, 1, or neither established. Moreover, CN listeners' English vowel perception was significantly related to the perceptual distance between the English vowel and its Chinese counterpart, and the perceptual distance between the adjacent English vowels. Conclusions L2 vowel perception relied on listeners' capacity to distinctively establish L2 vowel categories that were distant from the nearby L2 vowels.

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