English Language Children Research Articles

A study of early childhood English language development as an impact of English cartoons

In this sophisticated era, technological advances have contributed to the phenomenon of bilingualism. Easy access to various content on the internet and social media has a new impact on the language acquisition of an individual, including children. Children are active users who access digital content, including English cartoons. Research conducted by Trota et al. (2022) and Alghonaim (2019) shows a significant effect of English cartoons on children's English language acquisition. Departing from this, the researcher conducted further research on similar influences on children who had mastered two languages before being exposed to English cartoons. Data was collected through direct observation and interviews with parents of participants. The research was conducted in Sarabau village, Plered sub-district, Cirebon district, with children aged 5 to 6 years as the object of research. The data was then carefully analyzed using a qualitative descriptive method. The results showed an influence on the acquisition of sound systems, vocabulary, and sentence formation in English. In line with this, researchers also found factors such as the intensity of screen time and the role and involvement of parents in the process of English language acquisition through English cartoons.

The Impact of Emotional Support from Family on Children's Growth in English Vocabulary

The influence of the emotional environment on cognitive development, specifically language acquisition, has been a pivotal topic in child psychology and pedagogics. This study aims to explore the interplay between emotional support from family and its effect on children's growth in English vocabulary. Utilizing a cross-sectional survey design, data was gathered from a total of 155 children, aged between 9 and 18, and their parents. Multivariable regression models were employed for statistical analysis. The research findings indicate a significant positive correlation between the level of family emotional support and the rate of English vocabulary acquisition in children. The greater the emotional support, the more noticeable the children's English language progress appears to be, highlighting the profound influence of a positive familial emotional climate on English vocabulary acquisition. The study underlines the importance of providing emotional support to children in their journey of language learning, suggesting that parents and educators should consider this aspect in promoting successful English vocabulary development.

Are family-teacher communication quality and child and family characteristics associated with head start children's classroom engagement? It's complicated

Children's classroom engagement during the first years of formal schooling is foundational to their academic success. Previous research has found that the quality of communication between parents and teachers as well as child and family characteristics are associated with children's engagement scores in the classroom. However, research remains limited, and most has been conducted among middle and high school students. Even less is known about the role of communication quality between parents and teachers on children's classroom engagement during preschool, when children are encountering the formal education system for the first time and the foundation for their school trajectories are being laid. This study explores the association between parent-teacher communication quality and child and family characteristics on the classroom engagement scores of 326 low-income, ethnoracially and linguistically diverse children attending Head Start, using a teacher and observer-rated measure of child engagement. Results showed that when teachers perceived having a high-quality communication with the child's parent, the child was rated to be more engaged in the classroom by both their teachers and independent observers. However, parent and child characteristics (i.e., parent race/ethnicity, children's English language skills, child gender, and child age) were only significantly associated with children's classroom engagement when rated by their teachers but not by independent observers. These findings suggest that building relationships with families early on might be a promising way that schools can support the wellbeing of minoritized children.

The Acquisition of Black Language by Spanish-Speaking Preschoolers: A Community-Based Sociolinguistic Approach to Language Assessment.

The purpose of this case series was to demonstrate a community-based sociolinguistic approach to language sample analysis (LSA) for the evaluation of Spanish-English bilingual preschoolers acquiring Black language (BL). As part of a comprehensive bilingual speech-language evaluation, we examined sociolinguistic variables in the context of the children's English language samples. Specific emphasis is placed on sociolinguistic information to account for all language(s) and dialect(s) in each child's environment, BL feature patterns, and appropriate scoring procedures for characterizing language use. This case series includes four monolingual English-speaking and four bilingual Spanish-English-speaking 4-year-olds in a linguistically diverse preschool program. Play samples were collected from each child and coded for morphosyntactic features across three categories: BL, Spanish-Influenced English, and shared. Measures derived from the language samples include percent grammatical utterances, mean length of utterance in words, and number of different words. The children's language is characterized within a community-based sociolinguistic approach that combines three culturally responsive methods for assessment found in the speech-language pathology literature in addition to a novel sociolinguistic questionnaire. We explain how conducting LSA using a community-based sociolinguistic approach yields diagnostically relevant information that is pertinent to conducting a comprehensive and accurate evaluation of preschoolers in linguistically diverse settings without the use of standardized assessments. A community-based sociolinguistic approach to LSA is a useful procedure for mitigating misdiagnosis in preschoolers reared in linguistically diverse environments.

Essen as a Corpus of Early Musical Experience

Statistics derived from the Essen Folksong Collection have widely been used as a proxy for general stylistic norms familiar to Western listeners. Since the specific facets of contemporary musical experience best modeled by a corpus of nineteenth-century European folksongs remain ambiguous, this study tests whether Essen-like music might be familiar to North American listeners through common children’s songs. Comparison with a corpus of 38 English-language children’s songs highly popular in North America finds that scale degrees from Essen and the children’s song corpus have near-perfect correlations in frequency profiles as well as high to very high correlations in tonal expectations and 4-grams. Profiles of scale degrees’ downbeat probabilities and average durations have moderate to high correlations for the diatonic but not the total chromatic. Overall, profiles of scale-degree behavior from the children’s song corpus match profiles from Essen more closely than do profiles from another corpus of music widely familiar to contemporary listeners (Billboard Hot 100 songs) and similarly closely as a corpus of nineteenth-century common-practice German vocal music (Schubert songs). For contemporary North American listeners, studies relying on Essen might plausibly be reinterpreted in terms of Essen acting as a corpus of early musical experience although the generalizability of Essen-derived statistics likely depends on the precise statistics being measured.

Improving Kids English Vocabulary Through Immersive Mobile Games

This paper explores the potential of utilizing immersive games to enhance children's English vocabulary acquisition. In a world increasingly reliant on effective communication in English, developing a robust vocabulary foundation is essential. Traditional language learning methods can often be tedious for children, leading to disengagement and reduced motivation. To address this challenge, this study delves into the innovative use of immersive games as an educational tool. Immersive games offer a unique opportunity to create an interactive and captivating learning environment that can significantly improve a child's vocabulary retention and usage. This research investigates the effectiveness of various types of immersive games, including virtual reality, augmented reality, and interactive simulations, in engaging children and expanding their English vocabulary. The study also examines the impact of immersive experiences on motivation, engagement, and overall language learning outcomes. By examining the latest trends in educational game design and language acquisition theories, this paper presents a comprehensive overview of the advantages of using immersive games as a vehicle for vocabulary development in children. It highlights the potential for immersive games to foster a fun and dynamic language learning experience, making it a promising approach for educators and parents seeking to enhance children's English language skills. The findings of this study provide valuable insights into the design and implementation of immersive games for English vocabulary enhancement in children, shedding light on the significant role these games can play in shaping the future of language education. As technology continues to evolve, harnessing the power of immersive games for educational purposes becomes an exciting avenue for nurturing the linguistic abilities of the younger generation. Key Words: English Vocabulary, Immersive Games, Language Learning, Education, Child Learning, Educational Technology, Interactive Simulations, Motivation, Engagement, Language Education, Educational Games.

The Role of YouTube Children's Educational Videos in Enhancing Early Childhood English Language Proficiency: An Investigation of Parental Perceptions

This study explored the use of YouTube children's educational videos to enhance early childhood English language proficiency. The study utilized a qualitative research design, and data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 10 parents of preschool-aged children. The findings of the study revealed that parents used a variety of YouTube children's educational videos to enhance their children's English language proficiency, including videos that taught basic English vocabulary, songs, nursery rhymes, grammar, and sentence structures. Participants also identified perceived benefits and drawbacks of using YouTube children's educational videos, such as improvements in vocabulary and grammar skills, exposure to the English language, and concerns about addiction to watching videos, exposure to inappropriate content, and quality and accuracy issues. Moreover, parents perceived YouTube children's educational videos to be effective in enhancing their children's English language skills, and various factors influenced their decision to use such videos, such as convenience, affordability, variety of content, and fun and engaging learning. The study suggests that YouTube children's educational videos can be a useful tool to enhance early childhood English language proficiency. However, parents need to be mindful of the potential drawbacks associated with their use, such as inappropriate content and addiction. The study also contributes to the existing literature on the use of technology in early childhood education and provides insights into parents' perspectives on YouTube children's educational videos.

Neural Correlates of Morphosyntactic Processing in Spanish-English Bilingual Children: A Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Study.

The aim of this study was to examine the effects of early bilingual exposure on Spanish-English bilingual children's neural organization of English morphosyntactic structures. This study examines how children's age and language experiences are related to morphosyntactic processing at the neural level. Eighty-one children (ages 6-11 years) completed an auditory sentence judgment task during functional near-infrared spectroscopy neuroimaging. The measure tapped into children's processing of early-acquired (present progressive -ing) and later-acquired (past tense -ed and third-person singular -s) English morphosyntactic structures, the primary language of academic instruction. We observed effects of syntactic structure and age. Early-acquired morphemic structures elicited activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus, while the later-acquired structures elicited additional activations in the left middle temporal gyrus and superior temporal gyrus (STG). Younger children had a more distributed neural response, whereas older children had a more focal neural response. Finally, there was a trending association between children's English language use and left STG activation for later-acquired structures. The findings inform theories of language and brain development by highlighting the mechanisms by which age and language experiences influence bilingual children's neural architecture for morphosyntactic processing.

The Adoption of E-learning Media to Enhance English Skills in Magelang Orphanage

The objective of the community service activity at the Panti Asuhan Yatim-Piatu Ibu Zaenab in Magelang is to improve the orphanage children's English language abilities. The action implements e-learning media and an English Pronunciation learning innovation supported by voice recognition technology and artificial intelligence. The orphanage children, who struggled to learn English due to a lack of proper resources and difficulties with pronunciation, were divided into groups and given a pre-test. The results indicated that their English proficiency remained low and required e-learning to enhance their skills. After completing the pre-test, the students received education and training through an e-learning system, followed by a post-test. The results indicated that their English language skills improved. E-learning effectively facilitated learning and enhanced the children's English language skills. This activity is anticipated to considerably improve orphanage children's education and English language skills, which will benefit them in daily life.

Negative Concord without Agree: Insights from German, Dutch and English Child Language

Children acquiring a non-negative concord language like English or German have been found to consistently interpret sentences with two negative elements in a negative concord manner as conveying a single semantic negation. Corpus-based investigations for English and German show that children also produce sentences with two negative elements but only a single negation meaning. As any approach to negative concord and negative indefinites needs to account for both the typological variation and the child data, we revisit the three most current syntactic Agree-based analyses, as well as a movement-based approach and show that they either have difficulties with the child data or face challenges in the adult language variation or both. As a consequence, we develop a novel analysis of negative concord and negative indefinites which relies on purely morphological operations applying to hierarchical semantic representations within a version of the Meaning First architecture of grammar. We will argue that the typological variation between the main three different types of languages as well as the children’s non adult-like behaviour fall out from this in a straightforward fashion while the downsides of the Agree- and the movement-based accounts are avoided.

Gifts, growing, and love: A qualitative analysis of children’s literature depicting breastfeeding

Children’s literature on the topic of breastfeeding is a niche form of media that has the potential to present breastfeeding in a different light because of a difference in audience and intent, but this media form is understudied. The aim of this study was to explore the portrayal of breastfeeding in English language children’s literature published between 1985 and 2020. This cross-sectional qualitative study explored the written and visual content of children’s literature on the topic of breastfeeding. This qualitative study utilized content analysis to explore 49 children’s books that depict breastfeeding as a major theme or story. Children’s books depict breastfeeding as an act of love that confers benefits beyond nutrition including being a symbolic gift, and conferring growth, and love. Breastfeeding is presented in these books by teaching how mammals feed their young or by teaching children about the function of breasts. These books also often include information for parents. Children’s literature depicting breastfeeding provides a unique avenue for the dissemination of breastfeeding resources and information. This research can inform lactation education practices in healthcare settings by normalizing breastfeeding.

Semantic Difficulty for Bilingual Children: Effects of Age, Language Exposure, and Language Ability.

Semantic tasks evaluate dimensions of children's lexical-semantic knowledge. However, the relative ease of semantic task completion depends on individual differences in developmental and language experience factors. The purpose of this study was to evaluate how language experience and language ability impact semantic task difficulty in English for school-age Spanish-English bilingual children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD). Participants included 232 Spanish-English bilingual children in second through fifth grade with (n = 35) and without (n = 197) DLD. Data included children's performance on the English Semantics subtest of the Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment-Middle Extension Field Test Version (BESA-ME), age of English acquisition, and percent English language exposure. Task difficulty, a measurement of the relative ease of task completion, was calculated for six semantic task types included on the BESA-ME. Multilevel regression modeling was conducted to estimate longitudinal growth trajectories for each semantic task type. Results showed that language ability and grade level drive semantic task difficulty for all task types, and children with DLD experienced greater difficulty on all task types compared to their typically developing peers. Longitudinally, semantic task difficulty decreased for all children, regardless of language ability, indicating that semantic task types became easier over time. While children made gains on all semantic tasks, the growth rate of task difficulty was not equal across task types, where some task types showed slower growth compared with others. English language exposure emerged as a significant predictor of semantic task difficulty while age of acquisition was not a significant factor. This study clarifies developmental profiles of lexical-semantic performance in bilingual children with and without DLD and supports clinical decision-making regarding children's English language learning.

Plaga czerwonych potworów. Reprezentacja Hołodomoru w książce obrazkowej „Tell Me a Story, Babushka” Caroli Schmidt i Viniciusa Melo

The plague can be symbolically interpreted as a deadly ideology that led to the deaths of several million people and the subsequent erasure of these traumatic events from collective memory. This paper takes a closer look at the literary representations of the Holodomor, the Great Famine of 1932–1933, in English-language children’s literature of the Ukrainian diaspora, using the example of the first edition of the picturebook Tell Me a Story, Babushka (2019) by Carola Schmidt, an author of Ukrainian-Brazilian origin, illustrated by Vinicius Melo. The article highlights the relationship between the two complementary narrative voices that Schmidt and Melo use to familiarize their young readers with the Holodomor. The article also shows that despite the generalizations present in Tell Me a Story, Babushka, Schmidt and Melo succeed in bringing the subject matter of the Holodomor to young readers without being misleading. Moreover, due to the universal nature of the fairytale narrative and the educational values it conveys, the picturebook can provoke extratextual discussions about the Great Famine and Ukrainian culture.

“I Don't Let What I Don't Know Stop What I Can do”—How Monolingual English Teachers Constructed a Translanguaging Pre‐K Classroom in China

AbstractGuided by translanguaging pedagogy, this study examines how monolingual English teachers in a Pre‐K school in China navigate between English and Chinese to construct a translanguaging classroom. Findings based on classroom observations and interviews reveal that, despite being constrained by their monolingualism, the English teachers enacted translanguaging in multiple ways creating three translanguaging components: translanguaging assistance, translanguaging assessment, and translanguaging showcases. Translanguaging assistance enables children to learn English with the assistance of their first language; translanguaging assessment evaluates children's English language skills within a spectrum of multilingual funds of knowledge, and translanguaging showcases define strategic activities to unlock children's full linguistic repertoires, activate their creative voices, and let their bilingualism shine. This study provides pedagogical guidelines that balance the goal of learning a language and developing children's bilingualism through an iterative enactment of the three translanguaging components.

ГАСТРОНОМИЧЕСКИЕ ОБРАЗЫ В ПРОИЗВЕДЕНИЯХ О ДЕВОЧКАХ (НА МАТЕРИАЛЕ ТВОРЧЕСТВА АМЕРИКАНСКИХ ПИСАТЕЛЬНИЦ Ф.Х. БЕРНЕТТ, Л.М. ОЛКОТТ И Л. ИНГЛЗ-УАЙЛДЕР)

Children’s literature expectedly seeks to describe the daily life of a child, in which gastronomic images often have a certain set of symbolic and social meanings. Consideration of images of food in works for children and adolescents through the prism of contemporary literary theories makes it possible to fit the motif of food, which includes, among other things, rituals of eating and cooking, into a broader cultural context. The article analyzes the works of American writers L.M. Alcott, F.H. Burnett and L. Ingalls Wilder, written in the second half of the XIX – early XX century and constituting classics of English-language children’s literature. The study of images of food in semiautobiographical works of American writers about girls and for girls, which include the novels of Alcott, Burnett and Ingles-Wilder, is important for a number of reasons. Firstly, in works for teenagers, food acts as a social marker, and the ability to cook it indicates the entry into adulthood. Secondly, each of the works presents various ways of interacting with other cultures, including via gastronomic issues, which, in accordance with the tasks of adolescent literature, questions the role of significant adults who support the child in getting acquainted with a new culture or insist on preserving their own.

Teacher-child racial/ethnic match from prekindergarten through first grade: Understanding early exposure and outcomes

The purpose of this study was to explore whether evidence that children have significantly higher achievement and more positive relationships with their teachers when assigned to a teacher of their same race/ethnicity extended to the earliest grades. Using data from a three-year project in North Carolina, we descriptively examined teacher-child racial/ethnic match exposure in prekindergarten (PK), kindergarten (K), and first grade (G1). In exploratory inferential analyses, we further used a two-way fixed-effects (child and time) approach to associate teacher-child racial/ethnic match with academic achievement and teacher-child relationships, moderated by race/ethnicity and grade. Parents/caregivers reported their child's race/ethnicity, and of the sample of children (n = 447), 34% were identified as Black, 42% as Latinx, and 24% non-Latinx White, with 10% of children identified as more than one race/ethnicity. Black children commonly experienced a race match in PK, but this likelihood decreased over time through G1. In contrast, the likelihood that White children experienced a match increased through G1. Latinx children were unlikely to experience a match in any grade. Teacher-child racial/ethnic match was positively associated with children's English language scores, with no suggestion that this effect varied by race or grade. In addition, a positive association between match and reading scores was evident only for Latinx children and only in PK, but not K or G1. Match was not significantly associated with math scores or teacher-reported relationships with children.

Development and validation of a parent belief and attitude questionnaire on supporting young children's English as a second/foreign language development

ABSTRACT The present study aimed to develop and validate a questionnaire assessing parents’ beliefs about, and attitudes toward, supporting young children's English as a second/foreign language development – Parent English Language Belief and Attitude Questionnaire (PELBA-Q). The PELBA-Q was piloted with 173 parents of kindergarten-aged children and further validated with a sample of 278 parents in Hong Kong. A series of exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to explore the factor structure and evaluate model fit, which resulted in a 20-item questionnaire with four factors (i.e. Perceived Importance of the Home Environment; Perceived Child's English Language Ability and Self-Efficacy; Normative Beliefs; and Control Beliefs). The convergent and divergent validity of the PELBA-Q were also established by examining the relationship between the PELBA-Q and parents’ home practices and family characteristics. The PELBA-Q had satisfactory model fit indices and demonstrated good reliability and validity. The findings showed that the PELBA-Q could potentially be used as a sound assessment tool for measuring parents’ beliefs and attitudes on young children's English as a second/foreign language development and could contribute to greater understanding of how parental beliefs and attitudes may influence home practices and children's English language learning outcomes.

Типология сигналов адресованности в текстах детского детектива (на материале англоязычных и русскоязычных произведений)

The study aims to identify typical addressing signals for English-language and Russian-language texts of children’s detective fiction on the basis of a comparison by means of decoding stylistics. The paper carries out a comparative analysis of addressing signals presented at different levels of text organisation, whose features are attributable to children’s literature in general and the detective genre in particular. Scientific novelty is determined by the material obtained during a classification of linguistic means of addressing in the genre of children’s detective fiction, which have not been elaborated before. As a result of the study, the most common examples of linguistic addressing signals in Russian-language and English-language children’s detectives have been identified.

INTERACTIVE MULTIMEDIA ENGLISH LEARNING IN-TEGRATED WITH MOBILE AUGMENTED REALITY

This research mainly focused on multimedia integrated Augmented Reality application that enhances the English learning capabilities of children. Iterative-Cognitive Software development life cycle has been used in this application for its flexibility and changed of adaptability. The application was developed by analysis phase in which the information gathered to identify the problems, scope, objectives and the problem solution. M-Learning offers the great opportunity to learn English language for children at anytime and anywhere by this application. Multimedia integrated M-leaning augmented reality application is the prominent task in this research.

Improving knowledge and perception of HIV/AIDS among English language speaking children in rural areas through educational digital storytelling.

Background/Objective:Previous research efforts have shown the need for improvement of knowledge and perception of HIV/AIDS among English Language speaking children in rural areas. Hence, the study at hand was designed to investigate the effect of using educational digital storytelling intervention to satisfy this need of English Language children in rural areas in Nigeria.Method:The study adopted a randomized control design involving a pretest, post-test, and follow-up measures. Eight-four children (n = 84) took part in the study. The HIV Knowledge Questionnaire (HIV-KQ-18) and the Perceived Risk of HIV Scale (PRHS) were used for data collection. Data were analyzed using t test statistics.Result:The educational digital storytelling intervention in appreciably improved knowledge and perception of English language children in rural areas who participated in the intervention concerning HIV/AIDS compared with their peers in the no-intervention control group. The improvement in knowledge and perception gained was also maintained throughout the follow-up evaluation period.Conclusion:The present study showed that the use of educational digital storytelling could improve knowledge and perception of HIV/AIDS among English Language speaking children in rural areas. Educational digital storytelling intervention effectively improved knowledge and perception of HIV/AIDS among children in rural areas. In return, we recommend that rural sociologists, counselors, language and communication experts, child educators, and other professionals involved in public health especially, as it concerns children be skilled in the use and application of educational digital storytelling intervention procedures to facilitate the move towards adopting the method in their professional practices.