Bilingual Learners Research Articles

The Role of Internal and External Individual Difference Factors in Bilingual Development: Exploring Highly Proficient Kurdish-English Bilinguals’ Perceptions

Drawing on qualitative research, the present study examines the characteristics of seven highly proficient Kurdish-English bilingual adolescents and their perceptions of the role of individual difference factors in bilingual development. Adopting a deductive thematic analysis approach, the collected data from semi-structured interviews were analyzed. The findings indicate that special attention should be paid to both internal and external factors in order for Kurdish-English bilinguals to reach high level of proficiency in both languages. External factors of richness of input, input quantity, language output, and socioeconomic status are crucial for fostering morphosyntactic and lexical skills in Kurdish and English. Moreover, the bilingual learners stated that conducting mathematical and logical problem-solving activities frequently and having high level of language learning aptitude are important predictors of rapid development of bilingual language abilities. In terms of age effects, the bilingual adolescents conveyed that having younger age and earlier start to Kurdish and English learning always lead to better morphosyntactic and lexical outcomes in both languages. To the best of our knowledge, the current study is the first to explore the role of individual difference factors in bilingual development among highly proficient Kurdish-English bilinguals. The paper highlights implications and directions for further research.

Mapping the mental lexicon of EFL learners

The present paper explores the lexical profiles of monolingual and bilingual learners acquiring English as a second and third language, respectively. Those profiles allow to get insights into learners’ lexical access and lexical organization in the new language. To shed more light in this issue, a lexical fluency task was used to gather data. Results showed lack of significant differences in all the measures taken, but some very interesting differences appear when graph theory metrics are applied. Thus, educational bilinguals show higher levels of lexical organization and stronger connections among the nodes. This can be indicative of a mental lexicon which is better organized, more compact, and more stable. Additionally, educational bilinguals’ networks display highest clustering coefficient and shortest path length. In semantic terms, this means that educational bilinguals can navigate their lexicon more efficiently and in a way that better resembles native lexical search. These findings open up new avenues for insightful studies concerning lexicon organization in different types of learners, with bilingualism being a relevant modulating factor.

Connecting form with function: Model texts for bilingual learners’ narrative writing

The linguistic influence of first language (L1), finding the appropriate words or expressions in the target language, and the lack of genre awareness are the major challenges for second language (L2) writers. For many English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students in secondary educational settings, narrative writing is an important genre in the English education curriculum. In this paper, we introduce an Expert Narrative Texts Corpus that provides EFL learners whose L1 is Chinese with model texts to address the above challenges in their narrative writing. Three key features of the tool are identified, namely, cross-linguistic comparisons for bilingual writers, model texts by expert writers, and learning to search. Taking these three key features into consideration, this paper also explores the pedagogical values of the corpus, through which bilingual writers can draw upon their L1 language resources, explore appropriate expressions within authentic example sentences, and search for both lexical items and rhetorical patterns.

Strengthening Teacher Preparation Addressing Perceptions of Behavior Management and Bilingual Learners during Field Experiences

A large body of literature recognizes the many challenges teachers experience in the classroom. The research and subsequent article bring to light the concerns identified by undergraduate teacher candidates during a day-long field experience. The intention of the experience was to focus on literacy instruction; however, that was often overshadowed by classroom and behavior management concerns and questions. Reflections and discussions after the experience were dominated by the identified behavior and classroom management issues and concerns the teacher candidates noticed. Their post-experience reflections were so focused on them that the candidates were unable to process the literacy behaviors, instruction, and resources.

COVID-19 and bilingual children's home language environment: Digital media, socioeconomic status, and language status.

Input is considered crucial in bilingual children's language development. This is especially true for bilingual children's mother tongue language learning given its common reduction in input opportunities due to the dominance of one language within society, as seen in countries and regions from Wales to Singapore. Previous studies tend to focus on the quantity and quality of conventional active communication and resources (e.g., speaking and reading with parents) on bilingual children's language development, and substantially, fewer studies have explored this topic from the perspective of digital media. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated the critical role of digital media in various aspects of life, including bilingual children's home language environment. Thus, to holistically understand bilingual children's daily language input patterns, it is imperative to explore both their conventional and digital media input resources. The current study focuses on English-Mandarin bilingual children in Singapore and would like to explore (1) whether their conventional and digital media language environments have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and (2) whether the societal status of a language and familial socioeconomic status (SES) would affect bilingual children's conventional and digital media input. Survey data from 162 parents of English-Mandarin bilingual preschoolers (3 to 6 years old) were used to explore the two research questions. Two online parental questionnaires were employed for data collection. One-way repeated-measures MANOVA and path models were used to address the questions. The results indicated that input patterns from nuclear family members had not been affected by COVID-19; however, the amount and frequency of conventional and digital media materials and activities increased significantly since COVID-19. Higher-SES families possessed more conventional materials and conducted conventional activities more often, while lower-SES families possessed more digital media materials. Both conventional and digital media materials and activities were richer in English than in Mandarin. Higher-SES families perceived digital media usage for learning to be of less importance than lower-SES families. The implications for early bilingual learning following COVID-19 are discussed.

The Effectiveness of Developing E-Book Learning Media on Bilingual Learning Course

The Effectiveness of Developing E-Book Learning Media on Bilingual Learning Course

Using SFL-based text analysis to inform instruction for emergent bilingual learners

Emergent Bilingual Learners (EBs) need language-focused instructional support if they are to access content, make meaning, and engage critically with academic texts in English. Text analysis informed by systemic functional linguistics (SFL) helps teachers identify “the language of schooling” (Schleppegrell, 2004) which they will need to make visible to their students. The authors, both teacher educators in an ESOL endorsement program, recognize that both the teacher candidates who are analyzing texts and the students whose instruction will be informed by the analysis engage in literacy practices that may not be recognized and valued by all teachers or aligned with the language demands of mandatory, high-stakes assessments. With that in mind, we envision a text analysis assignment that promotes language as meaning based, rather than rule based, and additive, rather than subtractive (Garcia, 2009) in terms of the language resources of teachers and students in language learning settings. Additionally, we look for ways to support our teacher candidates in interrogating texts critically as part of their analysis to uncover dominant perspectives. This practice-based article models the process of SFL-based text analysis facilitated by a text analysis tool we designed. The goal is that teachers can apply what they have learned from their analysis to create language-focused instruction that both supports academic language learning and promotes critical stances towards the connections between language choices and meaning making in specific academic contexts/disciplines. Additionally, we encourage teachers to use a variation of this text analysis format with students to explore how language is used in the text to develop all languages in the students' linguistic repertoire.

Digital Phonics Literacy Media to Support the Initial Reading Skills of First-Grade Students in Multicultural Bilingual Schools

Literacy in Indonesia still needs to be improved, and the scope of literacy of students in Indonesia still needs to be narrower, including reading activities not understanding. This research aims to create Indonesian digital phonics literacy media for the beginning reading ability of first-grade students in multicultural elementary schools. The research was developed with the ADDIE model. The research subjects were experts, grade I elementary school teachers, and bilingual learners in multicultural schools. Data collection methods were observation, interview, test, and questionnaire. Data analysis was done with qualitative and quantitative descriptions. The analysis shows that Indonesian digital phonics literacy media consists of digital storybooks, posters, and phonic songs packaged in websites with Google site applications. Media, material, and language validity in Indonesian digital phonics literacy media is very high. Digital phonics literacy media shows a very practical category with a practicality level of 80%-100%, a teacher response score of 89.38%, and a response to the collaboration of parents and students of 88.75%. The effectiveness of the media shows a large category with a significant contribution to students' beginning reading skills. The effect size coefficient of the test shown is 1.53 and 1.86 on the results of the observation analysis of the beginning reading ability of bilingual learners in multicultural schools.

Transformative pedagogy for inclusion and social justice through translanguaging, co-learning, and transpositioning

AbstractThe idea of translanguaging has disrupted much of the thinking in bilingual education. A common misunderstanding, however, is that translanguaging was intended to be a language teaching strategy. This article seeks to explore what a translanguaging approach to language teaching entails, with specific reference to the education of minoritized and racialized bilingual and multilingual learners in the school systems in English-dominant countries such as the UK. In particular, I highlight the connections with and contributions to the inclusion and social justice agenda that the translanguaging project aims to make. Translanguaging takes one step further from multilingualism in challenging the raciolinguistic ideologies that view bilingual learners as having separate languages and languaging lives. It instead views their racial/ethnic identities and linguistic practices together, that is, their translanguaging being. My main argument here is that to use translanguaging as a pedagogy for inclusion and social justice requires a change of mindset, not just practice – that is, translanguaging pedagogy rather than pedagogical translanguaging – which can be achieved through processes of ‘co-learning’ and ‘transpositioning’.

Enriching preservice teachers' translanguaging stance and practices toward emergent bilingual learners through virtual professional development

AbstractUnderstanding and affirming the assets of emerging bilingual learners (EBLs) and resources are often not part of preservice teacher (PST) preparation, particularly for preservice secondary teachers (Newman et al., 2010). The authors of this article designed two Grand Seminars to support PSTs to begin to develop a translanguaging mindset and to help them to apply what they have acquired to content language teaching through reading and reflection on The Book of Unknown Americans. The purpose of the seminars was to prepare PSTs with equity‐ and asset‐ based mindsets and practices to support EBLs, such as translanguaging. This study focuses on how the PSTs began to take up translanguaging as a mindset, or stance, yet required more time and development to engage in translanguaging as a pedagogy. One research question guided the design, presentation, and analysis of the data: In what ways do PSTs manifest a translanguaging stance? Implications for TESOL and all educators are provided to support PST understanding of EBL demography at their practicum placements and its connection to pedagogy.

A Corpus-Based Study on The Development Of the Javanese Language Among Multilingual Children In East Java

This paper seeks to examine multilingual children’s Javanese across different grades of primary schools with a focus on proficiency, vocabulary, and grammatical development. The data were partially taken from CBLING (Corpus of Bilingual Learners’ Languages), a corpus developed by Universitas Negeri Malang. Using AntConc as a corpus development tool, we measured Javanese proficiency using the Mean Length of Utterances (MLU) method. Our findings on the development of Javanese proficiency and vocabulary growth indicated insignificant improvement across grades. However, the average vocabulary density grows significantly from the first two lower grades to the three higher ones. In terms of grammar, hybrid words showing morphological blendings, such as mastekno or isikno were observed in the participants’ writings. Taken together, our findings are essential for teaching and learning Javanese as a regional home language and generating an important linguistic feature of 21st century multilingual children’s Javanese.
 Keywords: corpus study, Javanese language, multilingual children, East Java

Clil Approach to The Students' Foreign- Language Communication Skills: Teacher's Perception

This study aimed to describe teachers’ perceptions of using CLIL to improve students’ communication skills in foreign languages without knowing the material elementary school students are taught. This research is motivated by the main problem of the low foreign language ability of students in elementary schools who apply bilingual learning. This situation makes it difficult for students to understand the material taught by the teacher in bilingual education. According to Coyle et al. (2010), CLIL is an approach with a dual focus between content and language with a 4C framework consisting of Content, Cognition, Communication, and Culture; This research includes descriptive qualitative research with interview data collection techniques, document studies, and field notes. The participants in this study consisted of 2 teachers who taught Cambridge Science and Mathematics subjects in grade 4 of SD Lazuardi Kamila GCS. For the application of CLIL in the classroom, teachers use peer learning methods to motivate students to learn foreign languages. Teachers have a perception that CLIL influences the process of learning English communication skills in students. The situation is supported by teachers’ creativity in applying 4C and teaching methods that follow the needs of students as peer learning methods.
 Keywords: CLIL, Communication, Perception, Teacher

Student tutoring: Language Observations and Schedule for ESL That Immigrated at A Young Age

With the development of technology, how could we consider and reflect on language exposure and benefits from electronic products. The scaffolding is a very effective teaching strategy for bilingual learners. We cannot have as much exposure to English as native speakers do due to several practical issues, and our reliance on our native tongue is strong. Therefore, it is essential to create a clear study step diagram. These issues include: (1) How to make adjustments throughout micro scaffolding in order to help students improve the weakness of English skills. (2) How could teachers design class sessions and what teachers should take into account? (3) How feedback works for students and how could teachers design a ideal assessment and feedback which could make the development and inspiration simultaneously?

Translanguaging in teacher education: engaging preservice teachers in culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogies

This qualitative case study challenges monoglossic teaching practices in mainstream classrooms with emergent bilingual learners. I examine how pre-service teachers in a California teacher education course took up a culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogy (CLSP) that centers students’ identities, cultures, and language practices, as well as the ways they engaged with translanguaging during an examination of their own and their students’ language practices, and in enacting a translanguaging pedagogy. I discuss the opportunities that teacher candidates experienced in their student-teaching placements as they planned and implemented CLSP, and the ways in which their interactions with the children informed the urgency of a transformative pedagogy. I argue that we must fully embrace translanguaging as a culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogical practice in our continued effort toward transforming education and in seeking to eradicate systemic injustices in schools and beyond.

Sources of Heterogeneity in Functional Connectivity During English Word Processing in Bilingual and Monolingual Children.

Diversity and variation in language experiences, such as bilingualism, contribute to heterogeneity in children's neural organization for language and brain development. To uncover sources of such heterogeneity in children's neural language networks, the present study examined the effects of bilingual proficiency on children's neural organization for language function. To do so, we took an innovative person-specific analytical approach to investigate young Chinese-English and Spanish-English bilingual learners of structurally distinct languages. Bilingual and English monolingual children (N = 152, M(SD)age = 7.71(1.32)) completed an English word recognition task during functional near-infrared spectroscopy neuroimaging, along with language and literacy tasks in each of their languages. Two key findings emerged. First, bilinguals' heritage language proficiency (Chinese or Spanish) made a unique contribution to children's language network density. Second, the findings reveal common and unique patterns in children's patterns of task-related functional connectivity. Common across all participants were short-distance neural connections within left hemisphere regions associated with semantic processes (within middle temporal and frontal regions). Unique to more proficient language users were additional long-distance connections between frontal, temporal, and bilateral regions within the broader language network. The study informs neurodevelopmental theories of language by revealing the effects of heterogeneity in language proficiency and experiences on the structure and quality of emerging language neural networks in linguistically diverse learners.

The real preschoolers of Orange County: Early number learning in a diverse group of children

The authors assessed a battery of number skills in a sample of over 500 preschoolers, including both monolingual and bilingual/multilingual learners from households at a range of socio-economic levels. Receptive vocabulary was measured in English for all children, and also in Spanish for those who spoke it. The first goal of the study was to describe entailment relations among numeracy skills by analyzing patterns of co-occurrence. Findings indicated that transitive and intransitive counting skills are jointly present when children show understanding of cardinality and that cardinality and knowledge of written number symbols are jointly present when children successfully use number lines. The study’s second goal was to describe relations between symbolic numeracy and language context (i.e., monolingual vs. bilingual contexts), separating these from well-documented socio-economic influences such as household income and parental education: Language context had only a modest effect on numeracy, with no differences detectable on most tasks. However, a difference did appear on the scaffolded number-line task, where bilingual learners performed slightly better than monolinguals. The third goal of the study was to find out whether symbolic number knowledge for one subset of children (Spanish/English bilingual learners from low-income households) differed when tested in their home language (Spanish) vs. their language of preschool instruction (English): Findings indicated that children performed as well or better in English than in Spanish for all measures, even when their receptive vocabulary scores in Spanish were higher than in English.

Research on bilingual course teaching evaluation of the The Event Management Major based on decision-oriented evaluation model

The improvement of bilingual teaching can continuously enhance students' international vision and innovative ability, which is an important measure to cultivate innovative talents in the construction of double-top universities. Using the decision-oriented evaluation model, this study explores the relationship between the whole process of bilingual curriculum investment and teaching satisfaction, taking the bilingual curriculum construction of the Event Management major at Zhejiang Yuexiu University as an example. The research findings indicate that bilingual teaching is a gradual process, and the input of teaching resources, especially the supply of teaching resources and students' self-expression, have a great influence on teaching results. To improve the quality of bilingual teaching and students' interest in learning, this study suggests paying attention to students’ language foundation and the visualization of assessment results to stimulate their initiative in bilingual learning.

Development of Physics Worksheet Based on Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) Integrated with Bilingual Class Learning

The purpose of this research is to create physics worksheets on Higher-Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) Integrated with Bilingual Learning. The method employed was research and development. This research was carried out at MA Diniyah Putri and SMA Global Surya. Non-test instruments in the form of questionnaires and test instruments in the form of questions were used to collect data. The results of the validation of material experts obtained a score of 4.22 with very feasible criteria, and media experts obtained a score of 4.32 with very feasible criteria. The results of the trial in the limited group obtained a score of 3.77 with high criteria and in the field trial a score of 4.45 with excellent criteria. The increase in students' HOTS abilities can be seen after using the worksheet. Therefore HOTS-based physics worksheet integrated with bilingual class learning is feasible to use. It is suggested to further researchers to develop worksheets on different learning materials.

Research on Early Childhood Bilingual Education in China from the Perspective of Cognitive Neuroscience

With the rapid development of globalization and the world economy, English, as the universal language, plays a pivotal role in the international political, economic and cultural fields. English non-native speakers are paying more and more attention to popularizing English education as an important part of basic education, and English learning is also showing a trend of becoming younger and younger. However, the early childhood language acquisition process is influenced and controlled by various complex factors, including acquisition age, acquisition methods, family ecological environment and socio-cultural factors. At present, the early childhood bilingual education in China is booming, but due to the mentality of most parents and the immaturity and incompleteness of various conditions, combined with the lack of scientific theoretical basis and empirical research on early childhood bilingual learning, the bilingual education in early childhood There have been many problems in the development process. In recent years, the development of brain development in the field of cognitive neuroscience has made important progress, prompting people to continuously explore how to more effectively promote early childhood language development and bilingual ability. Starting from the concept of bilingual education, this paper expounds the latest research results of early childhood bilingual ability development and brain development, the current situation, existing problems and development path of bilingual education for preschool children in China, and provides a large number of parents, educators and educational decision-making departments. Useful lessons are learned from experience.

IMPLEMENTATION OF BILINGUAL LEARNING IN EARLY CHILDREN IN KINDERGARTEN MUHAMMAD SHODIQ SUMBERDUREN

Implementation of Bilingual Learning in Early Childhood is very embedded in everyday life in anticipation of global competition. Children who are given bilingual learning from an early age will be able to compete with the outside world because they can learn foreign cultures that use English as a world language. This study aims to describe bilingual learning in early childhood at Muhammad Shodiq Sumberduren Kindergarten. Children who have two language skills or bilingualism will be able to master a second language such as mastering English and Arabic, or their mother tongue. The research results of bilingual learning at Muhammad Shodiq Sumberduren Kindergarten are not carried out by coercion but are carried out with fun activities such as singing and playing, as well as getting used to children's language in daily communication, the application of bilingual learning at Muhammad Shodiq Sumberduren Kindergarten Krucil Probolinggo shows that every child turns out to be able to develop language naturally. However, children's language development is also influenced by parents, the environment and the world of education, especially in learning two languages (bilingual).