Young Bilingual Children Research Articles

The Education of English language learners: research to practice

Introduction, Marilyn Shatz and Louise C. WilkinsonI. Early Language Experience and School Readiness1. The Brain and Language Acquisition: Variation in Language Knowledge and Readiness for Education, Barbara T. Conboy2. The Process of Acquiring a First and Second Language, Kathryn Kohnert and Giang Pham3. Language Choice and Competence: Code Switching and Issues of Social Identity in Young Bilingual Children, Iliana Reyes and Susan M. Ervin-TrippII. Language and Literacy Principles and Practices in School4. Ways to Words: Learning a Second-Language Vocabulary, Lisa M. Bedore, Elizabeth D. Pena, and Karin Boerger5. The Role of Phonology in Orthographically Different Languages, Ellen H. Newman6. Bilingualism and Cognitive Linkages: Learning to Read in Different Languages, Ellen Bialystok and Kathleen F. Peets7. Learning English as a Second Language, Maria Estela BriskIII. Assessment and Interaction: Working with Children and Families8. Communicative Repertoires and English Language Learners, Betsy Rymes9. Difficulty, Delay, or Disorder: What Makes English Hard for English Language Learners?, Carol Westby and Deborah A. Hwa-Froelich10. Implications for Assessment and Instruction, Alison L. Bailey11. Extended Implications for Practice: Families as Allies, Leslie Reese and Claude Goldenberg12. Recent Research on English Language and Literacy Instruction: What We Have Learned to Guide Practice for English Language Learners in the 21st Century, Diane August, Claude Goldenberg, William M. Saunders, and Cheryl Dressler

Young Bilingual Children's Heightened Sensitivity to Referential Cues

Children growing up in a dual-language environment have to constantly monitor the dynamic communicative context to determine what the speaker is trying to say and how to respond appropriately. Such self-generated efforts to monitor speakers' communicative needs may heighten children's sensitivity to, and allow them to make better use of, referential gestures to figure out a speaker's referential intent. In a series of studies, we explored monolingual and bilingual preschoolers' use of nonverbal referential gestures such as pointing and gaze direction to figure out a speaker's intent to refer. In Study 1, we found that 3- and 4-year-old bilingual children were better able than monolingual children to use referential gestures (e.g., gaze direction) to locate a hidden toy in the face of conflicting body-distal information (the experimenter was seated behind an empty box while the cue was directed at the correct box). Study 2 found that by 5 years of age, monolingual children had mastered this task. Study 3 established that the bilingual advantage can be found in children as young as 2 years old. Thus, the experience of growing up in a bilingual environment fosters the development of the understanding of referential intent.

Facing bilingual education: kindergarten teachers’ attitudes, strategies and challenges

This article examines how majority-language teachers coping with additive education view their roles in a bilingual framework, how they perceive issues of culture and language in young bilingual children, and how they understand the term ‘bilingual education’ in an L2 non-additive context. The study has been conducted in the context of pre-school bilingual education of second generation Russian-Hebrew speaking immigrants from the former Soviet Union in Israel. Using an ethnographic approach comprising observation, interviews and life histories, a set of behaviours and beliefs has been revealed, enabling us to compare approaches in two bilingual – Russian-Hebrew – kindergartens. This is discussed at both the micro- (teachers’ reports) and the macro- (Israeli language and educational policies) level.

A working memory, not bilingual advantage, in controlled attention

We explored the relationship between working memory (WM) and visually controlled attention (CA) in young bilingual and monolingual children. Previous research has shown that balanced bilingual children outperform monolinguals in CA. However, it is unclear whether this advantage is truly associated with bilingualism or whether potential WM and/or language differences led to the observed effects. Therefore, we examined whether bilingual and monolingual children differ on a visual measure of CA after potential differences in verbal and visual WM had been accounted for. We also looked at the relationship between visually CA and visual WM. Fifteen French monolingual children, 15 English monolingual children, and 15 early simultaneous bilingual children completed verbal short-term memory, verbal WM, visual WM, and visual CA tasks. Detailed information regarding language exposure was collected and abilities in each language were evaluated. A bilingual advantage was not found; that is, monolingual and bilingual children were equally successful in ignoring the irrelevant perceptual distraction on the Simon Task. However, children with better visual WM scores were also more faster and more accurate on the Simon Task. Furthermore, visual WM correlated significantly with the visual CA task.

Educational Neuroscience: New Discoveries from Bilingual Brains, Scientific Brains, and the Educated Mind.

ABSTRACTWe discuss the fruits of educational neuroscience research from our laboratory and show how the typical maturational timing milestones in bilingual language acquisition provide educators with a tool for differentiating a bilingual child experiencing language and reading delay versus deviance. Further, early schooling in two languages simultaneously affords young bilingual children a reading advantage and may also ameliorate the negative effect of low socioeconomic status on literacy. Using powerful brain imaging technology, functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy, we provide a first‐time look into the developing brains of bilingual as comapred to monolingual children. We show unequivocally that the age of first bilingual exposure is a vital predictor of bilingual language and reading mastery. Accounts that promote later dual language and reading instruction, or those that assert human brain development is unrelated to bilingual language mastery, are not supported by the present findings. We discuss the implications for education, teachers, and developmental brain sciences.

Using language sampling in clinical assessments with bilingual children: challenges and future directions.

Current language tests designed to assess Spanish-English-speaking children have limited clinical accuracy and do not provide sufficient information to plan language intervention. In contrast, spontaneous language samples obtained in the two languages can help identify language impairment with higher accuracy. In this article, we describe several diagnostic indicators that can be used in language assessments based on spontaneous language samples. First, based on previous research with monolingual and bilingual English speakers, we show that a verb morphology composite measure in combination with a measure of mean length of utterance (MLU) can provide valuable diagnostic information for English development in bilingual children. Dialectal considerations are discussed. Second, we discuss the available research with bilingual Spanish speakers and show a series of procedures to be used for the analysis of Spanish samples: (a) limited MLU and proportional use of ungrammatical utterances; (b) limited grammatical accuracy on articles, verbs, and clitic pronouns; and (c) limited MLU, omission of theme arguments, and limited use of ditransitive verbs. Third, we illustrate the analysis of verb argument structure using a rubric as an assessment tool. Estimated scores on morphological and syntactic measures are expected to increase the sensitivity of clinical assessments with young bilingual children. Further research using other measures of language will be needed for older school-age children.

The invented spellings of non-Spanish phonemes by Spanish–English bilingual and English monolingual kindergarteners

This study compared the English spelling of native Spanish-speaking children receiving English-only instruction with monolingual native English speaking children at the end of kindergarten. In invented spelling, young bilingual children can show us how they perceive the unique sounds of English by the way they map English letters onto non-Spanish sounds. The spelling of non-Spanish phonemes and English and Spanish stop consonants differing in voice onset time were examined. The relationship of plausible English spelling with English vocabulary knowledge was also investigated. The bilingual kindergarteners had significantly fewer correct spellings of ending stop consonants, which differ phonetically in English and Spanish, than did the monolingual group. No significant difference between the two groups at the end of kindergarten was found when spelling non-Spanish phonemes however. The lexical restructuring model was applied to explain a positive correlation between vocabulary and plausible English spellings.

“Um, They Weren't Thinking About Their Thinking”: Children's Talk About Issues of Oppression

This article presents first and second grade children's talk about issues of language diversity and culture. Children focus on the issue of oppression and initially examine oppressors in their talk within literature circles across a year in a Sheltered English Immersion classroom. Drawing on a critical literacy framework and anti-bias perspective, the article offers an examination into how young bilingual children grapple with critical issues connected to multicultural children's literature in the classroom. The article ends with some consideration regarding assisting young children to become advocates for issues of social justice.

Bilingual First Language Acquisition: Evidence from Montreal

Bilingual code-mixing is the use of elements (phonological, lexical, and morpho-syntactic) from two languages in the same utterance or stretch of conversation or in different situations. Bilingual code-mixing is ubiquitous among bilinguals, both child and adult. Child bilingual code-mixing has been interpreted by researchers and laypersons as an indication of linguistic confusion and incompetence. This article reviews a series of studies on French-English simultaneous bilinguals from Montreal that examined their code-mixing with respect to young bilingual children’s ability: to differentiate their developing languages, to control code-mixing in different communicative situations, to adjust their code-mixing in response to feedback from interlocutors, and to fill gaps in their developing language competence. Contrary those who view child code-mixing as evidence of confusion and incompetence, extant evidence indicates that it reflects linguistic and communicative competence even in very early stages of simultaneous bilingual acquisition.

An international teaching partnership's ideas to transform early education practices for global understanding and cultural sensitivity

The article stems from an international partnership between two faculty members from a British university and an American state college. This partnership has developed through years of collaboration in the field of early childhood education, resulting in the sharing of best practice of both countries and the research of the two authors. Each has developed and published curriculum models for teaching young children in diverse societies to assist teachers in educating young children for global understanding and supporting young bilingual children in culturally sensitive curriculum approaches. This article reflects on this joint international collaboration and the results of disseminating practice.

The topics and roles of the situational code-switching of an English-French bilingual

ABSTRACTMost studies of child bilingualism (Döpke, 1992; Fantini, 1985; Genishi, 1999; Gumperz, 1977, 1982; McClure, 1977; Myers-Scotton, 1993a; Romaine, 1994) concern children raised in a bilingual language community. The present study concerns a four-year-old child in an English-speaking community raised in an environment where his mother only spoke French to him. Two questions were raised: Can a child raised by a non-native parent produce situational code-switching triggered by topic changes? Are there additional topics or roles to add to the previous literature that trigger a young English-French bilingual child to code-switch? The data in this study showed that the child produced situational code-switching. Two novel hypotheses for code-switching were also found: leadership and expression of emotions and sensations. This case-study is important for the field of code-switching in the environment of a non-native parent raising a child in a second language.

Role-play and language socialization among bilingual Korean children in the United States

This article examines children's role-play within the framework of language socialization, as well as the relations between (a) utterances made by young bilingual Korean children within the role-play frame and (b) metacommunicative utterances about the play. It analyzes the language features that children use to set up the context of role-play and explores the relationships of the children who participate in the process of role-play socialization. Data analysis includes thematically and pragmatically related sequences of naturally occurring interactions during lunch time and play time in a Korean Baptist church in the United States and play time at some of the children's homes. Results indicate that bilingual children socialize themselves and jointly construct their identities through role-play in the communities of practice using specific features of language such as metacommunicative verbs, deictics, and code-switching.

Examining Bilingual Children's Gender Ideologies through Critical Discourse Analysis

This article presents a case study of young bilingual students' discussionsof literature in a second-grade Spanish/English bilingual classroom in the US. Sociocultural, critical, and Chicana feminist perspectives informed an analysis of the ways the children worked at understanding, marking, and resisting gender boundaries. This critical discourse analysis helped reveal students' emergent gender ideologies and their awareness of gender inequities as they discussed the picture book Oliver Button Is a Sissy. Contrary to common assumptions that question young language minority children's ability to engage in critical discussions, the children's talk revealed sophisticated understandings of various gender issues in contemporary US society. The results of the study show how young bilingual children are developing and negotiating sometimes contradictory gender ideologies, and how the literacy events in primary classrooms can create a context where that negotiation can take place, while also supporting the development of children's academic and social identities.

Codeswitching at the interface of language-specific lexicons and the computational system

It has been noted by many researchers that young bilingual children pass through a stage of early mixing which extends approximately until the age of 2;6 and ends abruptly. Research on bilingual first language acquisition has clearly excluded the possibility to explain mixed utterances as the result of a fused lexical or grammatical system. However, the actual debate on the reasons for early mixing still continues. Two main approaches have dominated the field of language mixing in adults: One assumes that adult's codeswitching is constrained by grammatical principles, suggesting that a third grammar is responsible for the grammaticality of mixed utterances (e.g., the Equivalence Constraint formulated by Poplack (1980), or the Functional Head Constraint formulated by Belazi, Rubin & Toribio (1994) among others). Since child grammar is supposed to be organized differently from adult grammar, the grammatical “ingredients” of the principles which constrain codeswitching are absent in early child language (Köppe & Meisel, 1995). It therefore follows that early mixing in young bilingual children is not to be considered as constrained by any grammatical principles. The other approach argues that codeswitching in adults is not regulated by external grammatical principles, but that the only constraints which govern codeswitching are those required by the two languages involved (MacSwan, 2000). We will show that this assumption holds for child language as well. Our analysis of mixing opens the perspective that child grammar can be considered to be organized in the same way as adult grammar. Furthermore, we will argue that early mixing is related to developing performance abilities, in the present paper to the readiness on the bilingual child's part to speak the language(s).

Using Writing to Understand Bilingual Children's Literacy Development

Young Spanish–English bilingual children's writing reveals their understanding of the writing process and the relationship between their two languages. After examining more than 100 writing samples of young bilingual children, the researchers found similar developmental patterns to those of monolingual English and monolingual Spanish children. However, there were some differences. For example, young bilingual children sometimes write the same letters in both languages but read them differently. Bilingual children also may use both languages in one sentence or paragraph to convey their message. Spelling in both languages may be affected by the different sounds made in the two languages by the same letters (especially vowels). Children's writing samples are included in the article to demonstrate these points. The findings of this study lead to assessment and instructional recommendations for teachers: Teachers of bilingual children should provide them with many opportunities to write in both languages in order to gain a fuller picture of their writing development. In addition, they should help the children view their bilingualism as a strength that can improve their writing.

Biliteracy and Second-Language Learners

Biliteracy and Second-Language Learners

Finding the Keys to Biliteracy: How Young Children Interpret Different Writing Systems

This paper discusses ways in which young bilingual children understand the principles underlying different writing systems. Six case studies were conducted, involving six-year-olds growing up in London who were learning to write in Chinese, Arabic or Spanish at the same time as English. The children's formal and informal literacy interactions were observed at home, community language school and primary school. Peer teaching sessions were also set up so that children could demonstrate their ideas about Chinese, Arabic or Spanish to primary school classmates. Findings show that these young emergent biliterates were able to grasp concepts from different systems, by producing their own interpretations of the input provided by teachers and family. A discussion follows as to whether such understandings were heightened by dealing with more than one writing system, and whether the research points to a more general propensity amongst young children to look for the principles involved in graphic representation. Finally, the paper argues that mainstream educators need to recognise the cognitive gains for minority-language children who are becoming biliterate and offer support for this important area of learning.

Growing syntactic structure and code-mixing in the weaker language: The Ivy Hypothesis

We present a hypothesis for a specific kind of code-mixing in young bilingual children, during the development of their two first languages, one of which is considerably weaker than the other. Our hypothesis, which we label the Ivy Hypothesis, is that, in the interaction meant to be in the weaker language, the child uses portions of higher syntactic structure lexically instantiated in the stronger language combined with lower portions in the weaker language. Code-mixing patterns were studied in five Swedish-French/Italian children aged 2–4. The parts of the code-mixed utterances reflected as much syntactic structure of each language as was used in monolingual utterances in the same recording of each child. This uneven development, which is due to different amounts of input of the two languages, can be accounted for by assuming that syntactic structure is acquired by building each language from the bottom up through lexical learning.

Latino/a Voices in Australia: Negotiating Bilingual Identity

In Australia, bilingual identity and home language retention/attrition in bilingual children has had little research attention. This is particularly true in the early years of life where identity construction emerges in the context of early childhood education. This article begins with an overview of the Australian context to focus attention on the limited provision of bilingual support in early childhood settings. By drawing on the work in identity and hybridity negotiation, the ‘voices' of six Latin American parents are discussed to show how identities are negotiated and intersect with language retention within the social fields of ‘race’, ethnicity and gender differences. Three emerging themes are highlighted: the diversity of the parents' experiences in negotiating identity and language retention in family life; the parents' experiences of identity as multiple; and identity as a site of transformation and struggle in child rearing and gendered family practices. These findings demonstrate the significance of parents' perspectives and experiences of identity and language retention in raising their children bilingually, which can inform equitable and innovative practices in the provision of bilingual support in early childhood settings. In conclusion, the author invites early childhood educators to reframe their understandings of identity construction in young bilingual children.

The Modeling Hypothesis and child bilingual codemixing

According to one explanation of child bilingual codemixing(the modeling hypothesis), bilingual children's rates of mixing are related to rates of mixing in the input addressed to them. An assumption of this hypothesisis that bilingual children are sensitive to codemixing in the input and that they can adjust their own rates on-line in accordance with the input. Despite its widespread appeal, evidence concerning its validity has been largely inconclusive. The assumption is largely noncontro versial in the case of older bilingual children, as evidenced by their adoption of the patterns of codemixing of the speech communities in which they live. However, it is not clear whether young bilingual children have the cognitive and linguistic capacities implicated by this assumption. The present study sought to examine this assumption directly. Six French-English bilingual children(average age 2;4 years) were recorded during play sessions with an assistant who engaged in relatively low(15%) or relatively high rates(40%) of mixing on three separate occasions. The results indicate that these children were sensitive to the language choices of their interlocutors and that they were able to adjust their rates of mixing accordingly; further, they appeared to do this by matching their language choice with that of their interlocutors on a turn-by-turn basis.