Is Bilingual Receptive Vocabulary Assessment via Telepractice Comparable to Face-to-Face?

Purpose: This study investigated the effect of delivery method (face-to-face or telepractice), time, home language, and language ability on bilingual children's receptive vocabulary scores in Spanish and English. Method: Participants included bilingual children with ( n = 32) and without ( n = 57) developmental language disorders (DLD) that were assessed at 2 time points about 1 year apart. All children participated in face-to-face assessment at Time 1. At Time 2, 41 children were assessed face-to-face and 48 children were assessed using telepractice. Results: Delivery method was not a significant predictor of receptive scores in either Spanish or English. Spanish and English receptive vocabulary increased over time in both children with and without DLD. Children with DLD had lower receptive vocabulary raw scores than children with typical development. Children who spoke English-only at home had significantly higher English receptive scores than children who spoke Spanish-only or both Spanish and English at home. Conclusions: Face-to-face and telepractice assessments seem to be comparable methods for the assessments of Spanish and English receptive skills. Spanish and English receptive skills increased over time in children with and without DLD. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.17912297

Play to Learn: Shakespeare games as decolonial praxis in South African schools

The place of Shakespeare in South African secondary education has become highly contested in light of calls to decolonise the English Home Language curriculum through intentional inclusion of indigenous authors and knowledge systems, and the removal of colonial impositions such as Shakespeare. Yet removing Shakespeare from the curriculum is not the only or even the best solution for countering the violent legacies of colonialism and apartheid. This article argues that a more effective decolonial approach would be to change the way Shakespeare is taught in schools by cultivating horizontal, instead of hierarchical, dialogue within classrooms and between secondary educators and Shakespeare scholars. The authors describe their own horizontal collaboration to produce “Blood will have Blood”, a series of lesson plans and assignments centred on scenes of violence in the Shakespeare set works. Using the digital theatre game Play the Knave, the programme engages secondary school students in creative experimentation and embodied play with Shakespeare’s texts. As learners access the curriculum from their own epistemological standpoints and through their own bodies, they come to understand gendered and racial forms of violence represented in the plays and manifested in their personal and historical contexts. The article contextualises the project in terms of Practice as Research (PAR) methodology while offering preliminary findings from the programme’s implementation in Cape Town schools.

Writing With Emergent Bilingual Students

The aim of this chapter is to provide teachers with an understanding of who emergent bilingual students are and how they can adapt their practices in order to use students' home language as a resource rather than as a deficit. The chapter will share findings from a study conducted with emergent bilingual students in a kindergarten writing workshop. It will also focus on how teachers can adopt an additive approach to language that expands children's linguistic, social, and cultural resources while supporting learning a new language as well and literacy development.

A History of The Six-Year Primary Project in the Use of Yoruba as the Medium of Primary Education

The Larger Context and Arguments on Mother Tongue and Education Many non-English speaking parents think that if their children only learn English, they will fare better in school. In the last half a century or so, researchers have noticed the problem faced especially by developing nations in their language-related educational policies.1 Some countries, like Burundi, for example, have adopted this mentality and made English the official national language, in hopes that encouraging English will stimulate the economy and improve the job prospects of youth.2 However, research consistently shows that focusing entirely on English or any “majority language” at the detriment of one’s native language actually does more harm than good. There are many 1 See works of Joshua Fishman, Language Problems of Developing Nations. New York: Wiley, 1968 and Joshua Fishman. Readings in the Sociology of Language. The Hague, Paris: Mouton, 1968. 2 Angelina Kioko, “Why Schools Should Teach Young Learners in Home Language,” British Council, January 16, 2015, https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/ why-schools-should-teach-young-learners-home-language. 238 Toyin Falola and Michael Oladejo Afolayan benefts of children’s maintaining their native language, which I summarize below and will expand upon throughout the essay: 3 1. One’s language is tied with one’s identity. Consequently, then, maintaining one’s native language means maintaining one’s identity. With this maintained identity, one feels a connection to one’s native culture and therefore has a positive self-concept. 2. Maintaining one’s language allows one to strengthen relationships with family and community members who perhaps do not speak English (or the majority language) or who prefer to speak in their native language. Tis allows for one to keep a reliable social network bound by a common tongue. 3. If a young child is forced to speak in English (or the majority language) when they prefer to speak in their mother tongue, they are also forced to operate at a lower intellectual age than they actually are. Tis can damage the child’s academic future. Therefore, it is best for the child to be encouraged to speak both languages and experience the benefits of bilingualism and a fully developing brain. 4. Similar to #3, children who are able to speak in their native language and English (or the majority language) experience higher academic achievement throughout their life.

Supporting toddlers as competent story navigators across home and early childhood contexts

Young children learn how to communicate with others through their everyday interactions and social relationships. In this article, we argue that stories about personal experiences are a valuable context for exploring how 1-year-old toddlers learn to engage with others across their family homes and early childhood settings. We demonstrate how Lexie, aged 16 months, communicated multimodally as she contributed to a personal story about her experience of eating lunch. Lexie’s competence as a storyteller was supported by a teacher who shared her cultural background and home language. Lexie’s story highlights the critical role of teachers in supporting story interactions in attuned and reciprocal ways that allow the competencies of 1-year-old toddlers as learners and communicators to be recognised and extended.

Contributions of Oral Narrative Skills to English Reading in Spanish–English Latino/a Dual Language Learners

Purpose: The study examined the contributions of Spanish and English oral narrative skills to English reading among 95 early elementary dual language learners (DLLs) from Spanish-speaking homes in the United States. This sample of first- and third-grade DLL children attended Spanish–English dual language immersion programs and received language and literacy instruction in both English and Spanish. Method: All participants completed a storytelling task in both languages and two English reading tests in decoding and reading comprehension. The story narratives were analyzed for microstructures (number of different new words, lexical diversity [D], mean length of utterance, subordination index [SI]) using the Computerized Language ANalysis program. The narrative samples were also evaluated for macrostructures (i.e., discourse-level features) using the Narrative Scoring Scheme. Results: Grade, English D, and Spanish SI significantly predicted English reading. Grade level was the strongest predictor of the three for both decoding and comprehension. However, Spanish SI was more robust than English D for decoding whereas English D was a stronger predictor than Spanish SI for comprehension. Conclusions: Young DLL children's oral narrative skills in English as well as in their home language Spanish contributed to their English reading outcomes. The study further specified the contributions of narrative elements to different reading skills. Microstructural elements appeared to play a stronger role in English reading than macrostructural elements for DLLs in dual language programs in early elementary grades. The results provided support for the simple view of reading and the linguistic interdependence hypothesis . The results also implicated that maintaining young DLL children's home language skills may be beneficial, rather than harmful, to their English reading development.

Review of Andrea C. Schalley & Susana A. Eisenchlas (eds.). 2020. Handbook of Home Language Maintenance and Development: Social and Affective Factors.Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-1-5015-1689-4

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Supporting Bilingualism in Vulnerable Populations

Although bilingualism is generally appraised and supported by society, many more doubts arise when it comes to children suffering from neurodevelopmental disorders. The concern that the exposure to two languages might deteriorate the linguistic development of children, together with the advice to simplify the linguistic environment and to adopt a monolingual approach, leads many families to abandon their home language and sacrifice bilingualism. Scientific research, however, has shown that this fear is ungrounded and that children with developmental disorders can become successful bilingual speakers, if they are provided with appropriate linguistic exposure. The aim of this paper is that of providing a state-of-the-art of the literature on this topic, by reviewing studies conducted on the interaction between bilingualism and neurodevelopmental disorders, focusing in particular on the interaction between bilingualism and developmental language disorder (DLD), developmental dyslexia and autism spectrum disorder. We discuss issues related to the early identification of DLD and dyslexia among bilinguals and we report the results of studies showing that bilingualism does not exacerbate the difficulties of children with developmental disorders, but on the contrary it can be beneficial for them, at the cognitive, linguistic and socio-cultural level. Finally, we provide some recommendations for parents, educators and practitioners, focusing on the importance of supporting the family language in all of its components, including literacy, for a complete and harmonic bilingual growth.

Bullying prevalence and numeracy performance among primary school children in Johannesburg: Implications for school-based interventions

Background: Research has provided evidence about the negative impact of school bullying on the academic performance of primary school children, but studies on the prevalence of school bullying and numeracy performance of children are very scant.Aim: This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of school bullying and numeracy performance among primary school children, and its implications for school-based interventions.Setting: The sample comprised 435 children (56.3% females and 43.7% males; Grades 1–7; median age = 11 years) attending six primary schools in three different education districts in Johannesburg, South Africa.Method: The children self-reported their experience of bullying by peers through a questionnaire. In addition, they completed numeracy tests. For children aged 6 to 9 years, the questionnaire was completed with the assistance of trained field workers.Results: The results following a linear regression with multiple predictors indicated that numeracy was significantly associated with contextual variables such as grade and home language. Bullying was strongly associated with socio-economic indicators such as school quintile and regional situation. These variables are important in early school support interventions directed at improving learner numeracy performance in the primary school.Conclusion: The results show a relatively high percentage of bullying in primary schools in the Johannesburg region. The performance in numeracy was significantly associated with the grade and home language of the learner. Contextual variables related to socio-economic situation of learners such as school quintiles and regional situation had strong associations with bullying.