The English proficiency and academic language skills of Australian bilingual children during the primary school years

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kamelia Dennaoui ◽  
Ruth Jane Nicholls ◽  
Meredith O’Connor ◽  
Joanne Tarasuik ◽  
Amanda Kvalsvig ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Primary School ◽  
Academic Language ◽  
English Proficiency ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Bilingual Children

Exploring General Versus Academic English Proficiency as Predictors of Adolescent EFL Essay Writing

2021 ◽  
pp. 074108832098636
Author(s):  
Claire W. Jo
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Academic Language ◽  
English Proficiency ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Academic English ◽  
Essay Writing ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Proficiency Assessment ◽  
Essay Quality

Language learning is context-dependent and requires learners to employ different sets of language skills to fulfill various tasks. Yet standardized English as a foreign language assessments tend to conceptualize English proficiency as a unidimensional construct. In order to distinguish English proficiency as separate context-driven constructs, I adopted a register-based approach to investigate academic English proficiency (i.e., specific set of language skills that support academic literacy) and general English proficiency (i.e., wide range of language skills undifferentiated by context that are measured by traditional assessments) as separate predictors of overall essay quality. In the study, students completed a general English proficiency assessment and an academic language proficiency assessment, and essays were coded for academic writing features at the lexical, syntactic, and discourse levels. Beyond the contribution of academic writing features and general English proficiency, academic English proficiency emerged as a significant contributor to essay quality. Findings suggest that academic English proficiency scores more precisely identified a subset of academic language skills that is relevant to essay writing. The article concludes by discussing implications for strategic writing instruction that articulates the key expectations of academic writing used in and beyond school contexts.

scholarly journals Conversational Style and Early Academic Language Skills in CLIL and Non-CLIL Settings: A Multilingual Sociopragmatic Perspective

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Nightingale ◽  
Pilar Safont
Keyword(s):  
Primary School ◽  
Classroom Discourse ◽  
Academic Language ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Student Interactions ◽  
Teacher Student ◽  
Raising Awareness ◽  
Teacher Student Interactions ◽  
Conversational Style

As academic language skills develop, young learners are able to rise to the challenge of increasingly complex communication in increasingly formal settings (Snow, 2014; Uccelli et al., 2015). Studies suggest that CLIL contexts may favour the development of academic language skills (Dalton-Puffer, 2007; Nikula, 2007; Marsh, 2008; Pasqual Peña, 2010) to a greater extent than non-CLIL contexts. However, research that attempts to test this assumption has so far tended to do so from a pragmalinguistic perspective (Lorenzo & Rodríguez, 2014; Lorenzo, 2017). This paper takes a sociopragmatic approach to exploring the differences between CLIL and non-CLIL contexts regarding how they facilitate the development of early academic language skills. That is, how the communicative intentions that underlie CLIL and non-CLIL classroom discourse may help or hinder the development of such skills. The data were collected by observing classroom discourse in CLIL and EFL primary-school lessons, in Spanish-based and Catalan-based linguistic models. The method followed was to apply a taxonomy of the sociopragmatic level of academic language (Henrichs, 2010) to determine the quality of the conversational style and intersubjective cooperation found in the discourse. The results indicate that CLIL classroom discourse is characterised by the sort of conversational style that facilitates the development of academic language skills. However, in terms of intersubjective cooperation the results are somewhat inconclusive. Based on these results, the study suggests raising awareness of the role of conversational style in classroom discourse so as to boost the quality of teacher-student interactions in primary-school CLIL contexts and, thus, contribute to an identified need for continuous improvement of CLIL pedagogies and teacher training (Lorenzo, 2007; de Graaff et al., 2007).

PSYCHO- LINGUODIDACTIC PROBLEMS OF TEACHING LITERARY UKRAINIAN TO PRIMARY GRADE STUDENTS IN TERMS OF DIALECTAL ENVIRONMENT

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 38-43
Author(s):  
M. Lavrenova
Keyword(s):  
Primary School ◽  
Mutual Influence ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Primary Grade ◽  
Literary Language ◽  
Early School ◽  
Primary School Pupils ◽  
Primary Pupils ◽  
Primary Grade Students

The article is devoted to the problem of formation orthoepic Ukrainian literary language skills of primary school pupils living in the conditions of dialectal environment. It was determined that the successful training of Ukrainian literary language to a large extent depends on the mutual influence of languages used by children in the early school. Psycholinguistic bases of forming cultural speech of primary pupils are analysed. The effectiveness of pedagogical conditions of formation primary pupils’ speech culture in the native language lessons was theoretically proved.

scholarly journals Spanish-English Bilingual Children’s Relative Use of English Tense and Agreement Morphemes

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Irina Potapova ◽  
Sonja L. Pruitt-Lord
Keyword(s):  
Best Practice ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Language Assessment ◽  
Language Ability ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Comprehensive Understanding ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Third Person

Best practice for bilingual speakers involves considering performance in each language the client uses. To support this practice for young clients, a comprehensive understanding of how bilingual children develop skills in each language is needed. To that end, the present work investigates relative use of English tense and agreement (T/A) morphemes—a skill frequently considered as part of a complete language assessment—in Spanish-English developing bilingual preschoolers with varying levels of language ability. Results indicate that developing bilingual children with both typical and weak language skills demonstrate greater use of copula and auxiliary BE relative to third person singular, past tense and auxiliary DO. Findings thus reveal a relative ranking of T/A morphemes in developing bilingual children that differs from that of English monolingual children, who demonstrate relatively later emergence and productivity of auxiliary BE. In turn, findings demonstrate the importance of utilizing appropriate comparisons in clinical practice.

scholarly journals KO MPETENCJE SŁOWOTWÓRCZE POLSKICH DZIECI DWUJĘZYCZNYCH MIESZKAJĄCYCH W IRLANDII(NA PRZYKŁADZIE NAZW OSOBOWYCH ŻEŃSKICH)

2021 ◽  
pp. 83-88
Author(s):  
Natalia SIUDZIŃSKA
Keyword(s):  
Language Skills ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Linguistic Development ◽  
Feminine Gender ◽  
Slavic Languages ◽  
Polish Language ◽  
Group 5 ◽  
Context Of Learning

The complexity of word-formation in Slavic languages, especially in the Polish language, makes it very difficult for Polish speaking children and bilingual children to learn, especially when the second language is not Slavic. In this article I would like to concentrate on the linguistic problems in the context of learning word-formation by bilingual children aged 5-9 who live in Ireland and who learn Polish and English at the same time. I would like to juxtapose their level of word formation competence with those children who are Polish language speakers living in Poland and who are in the same age group (5-9). The research described below concerns the category of feminine gender words. The linguistic data used for the description were collected during the fieldwork research carried out with the group of thirty bilingual children. The results of the research allowed to establish the differences in the linguistic development of monolingual and bilingual children and to indicate the factors that determine the acquisition of word-formation competences. This type of research will help teachers and other specialists (psychologists, speech therapists) working with such children to better assess the language skills of bilingual children. They also allow to estimate the scale of difficulties that Polish children returning from emigration will encounter.

Investigating the Four Acquisition Skills in Fifth-Primary-Iraqi-Kurdistan-School Pupils in Reading from Teachers' Viewpoints

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 73-77
Author(s):  
Natiq Saeed Ghayyib
Keyword(s):  
Primary School ◽  
Primary Schools ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Arabic Language ◽  
Influential Factor ◽  
Iraqi Kurdistan ◽  
Primary School Pupils ◽  
Primary Pupils

The study is an attempt to investigate the four acquisition skills in fifth-primary pupils of Iraqi Kurdistan in reading from the teachers' viewpoints.  The sample of the study selected were (12) primary schools in Sulaimaniyah province in Iraq and its suburbs as parts of Sulaimaniyah Education Directorate in terms of (6) schools for male and (6) schools for female. Then, a questionnaire of (20) items was designed. The study aims at determining the four acquisition language skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing) of Iraqi Kurdistan students for the fifth-primary-school pupils in reading subject from the teachers' viewpoint and, then, arranging the skill according to its importance. The findings of the study proves that there is an influential factor that is the Glorious Quran , as they have sort of acquaintance on the Arabic language through reading and listening to the Glorious Quran.

Mentoring University Preparatory Students Through World Englishes (WEs)-Integrated Courses

2018 ◽  
pp. 77-96
Author(s):  
Ahmet Cihat Kapçık ◽  
Ali Öztüfekçi ◽  
Aybüke Demet Ören ◽  
Ayten Kaplan ◽  
Çiğdem Yılmaz Uzunkaya ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
English Proficiency ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
World Englishes ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
The World ◽  
Expanding Circle ◽  
The Status ◽  
Data Collection Procedure

The increasing number of non-native English speakers in the world has led to the use of varieties of English. Nowadays, the number of speakers of English in the expanding circle has exceeded the number of speakers in the outer and inner circles. This has given rise to the scrutiny of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). With this regard, the research on World Englishes (WEs) has increased over the last few decades. In light of these observations, the purpose of this chapter is to raise awareness of World Englishes (WEs) among preparatory students at private universities in Turkey. Specifically, the study is concerned with mentoring preparatory students through Wes-integrated courses. The participants of this study were 20 preparatory students at A2-level English proficiency. As data collection procedure, the mentor teacher of the existing program adapted EFL materials including videos, dialogues, and integrated four language skills. The data were collected through questionnaires and reflective essays. With regard to the results, the students had an idea about the concept of Wes, and they became aware of the varieties of English to some extent; specifically, they displayed consciousness about the status of English across the world and sympathy toward WEs.

An intervention to increase conversational turns between parents and young children

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn A. LEECH ◽  
Meredith L. ROWE
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Academic Language ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Language Abilities ◽  
Turn Taking ◽  
Conversational Turns ◽  
Parent Child

Abstract Behavioral and neural evidence indicates that young children who engage in more conversations with their parents have better later language skills such as vocabulary and academic language abilities. Previous studies find that the extent to which parents engage in conversational turn-taking with children varies considerably. How, then, can we promote extended conversations between parents and their children? Instead of asking parents to engage in longer turn-taking episodes, we provided parents with information on conversational content that we hypothesized would lead to increased episodes of longer, more sustained conversational turn-taking. Specifically, we found that boosting the frequency of parent-child talk about abstract, non-present concepts – decontextualized language – led to an increase in dyadic conversational turn-taking during home mealtimes several weeks later.

Moving Towards Translanguaging

2020 ◽  
pp. 208-232
Author(s):  
Mara R. Barbosa
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Academic Language ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Learning Needs ◽  
Teaching Models ◽  
The University ◽  
Pedagogical Changes

Emerging bilinguals at US schools are generally subject to programs that are inadequate for their learning needs. It is crucial to find teaching models through which they can develop their academic language skills. This chapter presents the program Learn from the Experts, a partnership between a university and a high school, that fosters collaboration between Spanish and English learners. In this program, which follows the translanguaging pedagogy, Spanish learners from the university meet to collaborate with Spanish heritage English learners from the high school in lessons designed to develop each of the participants' skills in the language they are learning. The chapter also presents pedagogical changes made to the program resulting from the program team's reflection. It contributes to the development of models that support emerging bilinguals' language learning through collaboration with more experienced speakers without compelling speakers of minoritized languages to distance themselves from their languages and cultures.

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