Sequential bilingual heritage children's L1 attrition in lexical retrieval: Age of acquisition versus language experience

This study investigated the unresolved issue of potential sources of heritage language attrition. To test contributing effects of three learner variables – age of second language acquisition, length of residence, and language input – on heritage children's lexical retrieval accuracy and speed, we conducted a real-time word naming task with 68 children (age 11–14 years) living in South Korea who spoke either Chinese or Russian as a heritage language. Results of regression analyses showed that the participants were less accurate and slower in naming target words in their heritage language as their length of residence in Korea and the amount of Korean input increased. The age of Korean acquisition did not significantly influence their performance. These findings support the claim that heritage speakers’ language experience is a more reliable predictor of first language attrition than age of acquisition. We discuss these findings in light of different approaches to explaining language attrition.

Poverty Effects on Oral Language Development

This chapter focuses on oral language development in children birth to third grade. Additionally, the effects of poverty on oral language development in children is explored. Subject matter includes typical language development, common language disorders, and current information regarding the interplay of language and technology. Particular attention is paid to the ways the home environment influences early language in infants and toddlers. Strategies to support language development in young children through the language experience approach, literacy, text sets, and technology are explained. Resources, materials, and suggested activities for parents, caregivers, and educators are embedded.

From story to book: Discourse analysis between teacher and student in the creation of a culturally relevant text

Lack of representation of children from nondominant cultural and linguistic backgrounds continues to be problematic in children’s literature, and especially within early literacy texts for beginning readers. One remedy is for children to tell their own stories through the language experience approach, which can then be printed into culturally relevant texts and used for beginning reading material in classrooms. To truly capture a student’s story, especially if the student is an emergent bilingual, a teacher must listen very closely and take care when adjusting the child’s story. Two Bakhtinian concepts support the careful examination of a teacher’s scribing of story in this study: chronotope, used here as the time-space sphere above the text, and revoicing, or the retelling of a child’s story that is paraphrased or altered. Findings show that gesture within the chronotope of the story is an especially generative tool for student storytelling and that teachers must reflect closely on intentional or unintentional reasons for revoicing a child’s story. Language experience approach holds possibilities for the creation of children’s culturally relevant texts. As such, it is important that teachers reflect on their language experience approach techniques so that the book remains true to the child’s story.

My Writing: An E-LEA-Based Android Application to Develop Kindergarten Children's Early Literacy

My Writing is a tool that preschool children can use to improve their reading and writing skills, which can be used both at school and at home. This tool was developed based on the Language Experience Approach (LEA) and is in the form of an Android application designed for children. It is used to help children understand that the spoken language can be altered into the written one and still retains its meaning. 10 teachers were included in this study and data were collected from teacher opinions and assessments. The findings showed that My Writing is an effective application for developing literacy in young children, and that it is easy to use by children and parents, making it simple for teachers to assess children’s literacy skills while they study at home. Keywords: Language Experience Approach (LEA), Digital LEA, E-LEA, My Writing, early reading and writing

Discussion of Issues Related to Spoken and Signed Language Test Design for L1 Children

This chapter is a joint discussion of key items related to the development of spoken language tests (Chapter 1.1) and signed language tests (Chapter 1.2) for L1 children and the ways in which they have been addressed. We highlight the common issues and challenges in spoken and signed language assessment as well as the differences, e.g., availability of tests. In so doing, we consider how experience with spoken language assessment—for example, the development of methods for assessing language abilities that are independent of language experience—may inform test development in signed language. We also consider how awareness of issues in signed language assessment may increase awareness of similar issues that are easily overlooked in spoken language assessment—for example, the range of communication contexts and partners that children regularly encounter—and stimulate critical reflection on the use of language tests in general. One specific recommendation the chapter has for developers of signed language tests in the future is to consider areas that are unique to signed communication and critical to signing children’s language development.

Segmental error patterns in Finnish-accented English

Research suggests that explicit pronunciation teaching improves second language speech production, but language teachers often lack the relevant knowledge to teach pronunciation. This study examined segmental error patterns in Finnish-accented English and the relationship between segmental errors and foreign accent ratings in two groups differing in amount of second language experience. Our study identified a number of common segmental error patterns in Finnish-accented English, which may guide formal pronunciation instruction. We further found that the sheer number of segmental errors in a sentence affected foreign accent ratings as did the number of vowel errors in a sentence. We speculate that the detrimental effect of vowel errors may be related to the finding that vowel errors resulted in non-English segments more often than consonant errors did. Finally, we found a facilitative effect of second language experience on foreign accent rating that cannot be reduced to number of segmental errors, despite the finding that number of consonant errors was reduced with increased second language experience.

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.

Language: Experience on a Borderline Phenomenon

This article is focused on language’s nature and its role as a condition of understanding. In this context, the basic question remains whether language represents reality or, on the contrary, constitutes it. In order to answer this question, the study examines the border as a phenomenon. If we consider the border as nothing more than a limit, then the world within the boundaries of language appears to be something constructed only by language. If we presume that the border is a field of communication between reality and the subject, then the understanding should include elements of subjectivity, as well as reality itself. This could be the main statement of dialectical symbolism.

Perceiving fingerspelling via point-light displays: The stimulus and the perceiver both matter

Signed language users communicate in a wide array of sub-optimal environments, such as in dim lighting or from a distance. While fingerspelling is a common and essential part of signed languages, the perception of fingerspelling in varying visual environments is not well understood. Signed languages such as American Sign Language (ASL) rely on visuospatial information that combines hand and bodily movements, facial expressions, and fingerspelling. Linguistic information in ASL is conveyed with movement and spatial patterning, which lends itself well to using dynamic Point Light Display (PLD) stimuli to represent sign language movements. We created PLD videos of fingerspelled location names. The location names were either Real (e.g., KUWAIT) or Pseudo-names (e.g., CLARTAND), and the PLDs showed either a High or a Low number of markers. In an online study, Deaf and Hearing ASL users (total N = 283) watched 27 PLD stimulus videos that varied by Realness and Number of Markers. We calculated accuracy and confidence scores in response to each video. We predicted that when signers see ASL fingerspelled letter strings in a suboptimal visual environment, language experience in ASL will be positively correlated with accuracy and self-rated confidence scores. We also predicted that Real location names would be understood better than Pseudo names. Our findings show that participants were more accurate and confident in response to Real place names than Pseudo names and for stimuli with High rather than Low markers. We also discovered a significant interaction between Age and Realness, which shows that as people age, they can better use outside world knowledge to inform their fingerspelling success. Finally, we examined the accuracy and confidence in fingerspelling perception in sub-groups of people who had learned ASL before the age of four. Studying the relationship between language experience with PLD fingerspelling perception allows us to explore how hearing status, ASL fluency levels, and age of language acquisition affect the core abilities of understanding fingerspelling.