The study addressed immigrant families' and mainstream school systems' support for young children's home language learning in Basel, Switzerland. In Switzerland, as in many European countries and in Australia, early childhood educators work with growing numbers of children from immigrant, refugee and asylum seeking families. The culturally, linguistically and ethnically diverse groups of children that now characterise childcare centres, kindergartens and primary schools result from these patterns of immigration and present challenges for teachers and other educators who cater for the needs of increasingly diverse student populations. The literature on home languages acknowledges the importance of the relationship between a child's first language and development in the second language and the essential role of language proficiency in academic success. Despite knowledge from extensive studies on the interdependency of first and second language development (Cummins, 1979, 1981b, 1991, 2001) and evidence that continued development in a child's first language is crucial for overall cognitive development and transfer to second language learning (Collier, 1995), there is little focus on helping children maintain their home language in the early years of education. Arguably too, information and communication technologies (ICTs) lead to increased availability and opportunities for global communication, affecting the nature of communication, and creating possibilities for new forms of learning in the home and school. Children must therefore have the opportunity to become proficient users of these new and evolving forms of technology in order to acquire the skills, including language skills that they will need for future employment. In the light of this conceptual background, the present research focused on: (1) Immigrant parent beliefs and attitudes to home language use and how languages were used at home. (2) The strategies families used to promote home language learning in oral and written forms. (3) The extent to which ICTs were used as a tool to support home languages in the family and school environment. (4) The kinds of support offered in school and communities and what government policies and initiatives were afforded to home languages. (5) The nature of school and community policies and practices on the promotion and maintenance on home languages. These issues were addressed through a qualitative interpretive research approach drawing on the traditions of phenomenography (Marton 1986) and Grounded Theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). The research was based on three main data sources: (1) analysis of policy and curriculum documents from school systems, (2) interviews with key education personnel and (3) interviews with ?immigrant? parents (n=58) from diverse socio-economic backgrounds living in Basel. Families were drawn from 16 countries including the former Yugoslavia, (Kosovo, Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia), Spain, South and Central America, and Turkey. All children, whose parents participated in the study, attended state run kindergartens and primary schools. A major focus in the data collection and analysis was on (a) parents' perspectives and experiences as they negotiated home language learning in the home, school and community and the extent to which they used ICTs to enrich home language development, and (b) mainstream teachers' perspectives on the role home languages played in linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms, as well as the role ICTs and media played in teaching children from immigrant families. The results of the study showed that: (a) immigrant children's home languages and culture as well as bilingualism and multilingualism are prominent features in Basel integration policy and curriculum documents but this focus is rarely translated to early childhood classroom practice, (b) classroom teachers focus predominantly on children learning their second language (German), (c) immigrant children's home language and culture is valued and respected but formal opportunities for children to learn to read and write in their home languages begin only when they have reached second grade, (d) there were a range of perspectives, reasons and strategies for maintaining and promoting home languages within families, (e) ICT was not an integral part of children's classroom experiences in kindergarten and scarcely integrated in primary classrooms, but was used in a variety of ways within homes to promote home language and communication, (f) there were wide variations in parents' and teachers' perspectives on what constitutes parent involvement in children's learning and education, and (g) links between home and school were mostly 'one way' and formal and some parents desired more frequent, more informal and spontaneous contact with teachers. These findings have considerable implications for Basel school and classroom practice and for early and middle year policy makers. They show that embedded assumptions of both teachers and parents may have a negative impact on children's positive identification with both majority and minority language learning. Limited financial support for home language classes is likely to have a negative effect on immigrant children's home language literacy learning. Dialogue needs to be sought on the potential for ICT use in home language learning. Policy makers' efforts towards developing multilingualism in all children are problematic. Some parents drew attention to the challenge of learning a third language through a second language, L1 + L2a +L2b + L3+L4. (L1 = home language, L2a= German Swiss dialect, L2b = Standard German, L3= French, L4 = English). To help better explain and increase awareness of the interrelationship between home languages, ICT use and the home-school connection, a model was developed that reflects the range of immigrant family perspectives on home language learning and the influences that appear to promote home language development within children's environments. This 'multilingual social cohesive communications model' should assist in understanding the important links between home languages, ICTs and home-school communication. The model emphasises the importance of developing bottom up local level strategies and recognises the vital role of positive interactions between parents and teachers. It builds on a sociocultural view of language learning, tapping on the potential of new learning tools (ICTs) in real and virtual communities. It recognises the importance of intercultural identity formation and at the same time the inhibiting effects of discrimination both overt and covert. The model incorporates the strategies schools need to improve communication with families and to strengthen links between home and school with the view to improving educational outcomes and prospects for immigrant children.

Form-focused instruction makes up an important part of the literature on second language acquisition research. Current approaches to second language instruction have called for an integration of message-focused and form-focused instruction in the L2 classroom. At the same time, a growing interest is the pedagogical applications of form-focused research, which proposes a means of addressing form in the classroom using various instructional options, some of which involve incidental and pre-planned focus on form.This study examined the nature and occurrence of pre-planned and incidental focus on form in two secondary school ESOL classrooms, and what thinking underlay the two teachers' practices in choosing a particular option. The study reports on the methods and approaches that two teachers employed in the context of their own ESOL classrooms, in which form-focused instruction occurred, and explored the extent to which different levels of experience influenced the instructional decisions of two ESOL teachers.The results showed that there was a considerable amount of attention to form in lessons that purported to be 'communicative' and certainly were so. It also became clear that in these classes, a focus-on-form was not just a reactive phenomenon, it was also proactive since the students played an important part in both initiating and responding focus on form episodes. Much of the focus on form that arose was triggered by a problem in using English accurately, not by a problem in communication. That means that, although the lessons were 'communicative', the students regularly paid attention to language for its own sake.It is suggested that both pedagogy and teacher education/development may benefit from a perspective in which both good and not-so-good practice is seen as cognitive and reflective activity.

Adults learning a second language (L2) (“late learners”) have difficulty achieving a native speaker’s level of accuracy in both perception and production of L2 phonetic segments. This difficulty often results in deviant production of L2 segments that is perceived as accented speech by native speakers of that language. It is generally agreed that this failure in non native segmental production and perception is caused by previous linguistic experience with the first (L1) language. Late learners are expected to show stronger L1 effects than learners who learnt their L2 in early childhood (“early learners”). However, not all L2 phonetic segments are equally difficult for late learners. The learnability of L2 phonetic segments is thought to be perceptual in nature and depends on the perceived phonetic distance between them and the acoustically, phonetically and/or articulatorily most similar segment(s) in the learner’s L1 phonetic inventory. It is generally assumed that specific L2 segments will be perceptually related or assimilated to the most similar L1 segment(s) even if there is a detectable acoustic difference between them. The studies reported in this thesis examined Serbian-English bilinguals’ perception and production difficulties with two Australian English vowel contrasts that are not contrastive in Serbian: /e/ - /æ/ and /i:/ - //. We compared participants who began learning English before 5 years (“early”) versus those who began after 15 years (“late”). In Study 1and Study 2 early learners discriminated and produced both contrasts equally well, whereas late learners had greater difficulties perceiving and producing /e/ - /æ/. In Study 3 a priming paradigm was applied to discrimination and perceptual assimilation tasks in which the prime and target contain phonologically identical, phonetically similar or phonologically and phonetically unrelated vowels under two interstimulus intervals (ISI) that tap phonological versus phonetic levels of processing, according to prior research. Early versus late group differences suggest that discrimination and production accuracy reflect how listeners assimilate Australian English vowels to native Serbian vowels. “Early” and “late” learners related L2 vowels to L1 differently, which reflects differences in establishment of the L1 phonetic system at the time of L2 onset. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Australia hosts thousands of English language learners every year and one of the reasons learners give for this is their belief that living in the target language community naturally avails them of more language learning opportunities than are available in their homelands. In fact, learners actually learn faster and more effectively compared to the limited gains in their respective countries. Believing that the target language community has a strong role in language learning, this research focuses on the factors and opportunities which enable students to develop their language skills in informal settings outside the school. Due to the vast scope of the research area, six different types of data collection methods have been used so that a wider spectrum in SLA could be investigated. These include an exploration of learner beliefs about their language learning experiences and a study of authentic social activities and linguistic engagements within those activities. The outcome of this research suggests that language learning is not first initiated “in the head”, but starts with the social activities in which learners participate and the qualities of the linguistic challenges and opportunities within these activities. The research draws on sociocultural theory (Vygotsky 1962, 1978), ecological approach to learning (van Lier 1999) and register theory (Halliday and Hasan 1985), and also on a range of research within second language acquisition studies. The study illustrates that language learning occurs in the context of activitybased communication experiences in authentic contexts, and the more the constant challenge and varied linguistic opportunities exist in the learner’s ecology, the more and better the chances to learn language. An overall approach to understanding independent language learning and a conceptual framework for examining informal language learning opportunities, have been developed. The study concludes with some implications for pedagogical practice in English language classrooms.

Thesis (M. A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Australia hosts thousands of English language learners every year and one of the reasons learners give for this is their belief that living in the target language community naturally avails them of more language learning opportunities than are available in their homelands. In fact, learners actually learn faster and more effectively compared to the limited gains in their respective countries. Believing that the target language community has a strong role in language learning, this research focuses on the factors and opportunities which enable students to develop their language skills in informal settings outside the school. Due to the vast scope of the research area, six different types of data collection methods have been used so that a wider spectrum in SLA could be investigated. These include an exploration of learner beliefs about their language learning experiences and a study of authentic social activities and linguistic engagements within those activities. The outcome of this research suggests that language learning is not first initiated “in the head”, but starts with the social activities in which learners participate and the qualities of the linguistic challenges and opportunities within these activities. The research draws on sociocultural theory (Vygotsky 1962, 1978), ecological approach to learning (van Lier 1999) and register theory (Halliday and Hasan 1985), and also on a range of research within second language acquisition studies. The study illustrates that language learning occurs in the context of activitybased communication experiences in authentic contexts, and the more the constant challenge and varied linguistic opportunities exist in the learner’s ecology, the more and better the chances to learn language. An overall approach to understanding independent language learning and a conceptual framework for examining informal language learning opportunities, have been developed. The study concludes with some implications for pedagogical practice in English language classrooms.

<p>The subject of this essay is a comparison of essays written by the same learners at two different points in time - i.e. while they were in the first and in the third grades of the Swedish secondary school. The essay includes a presentation of the raw data that have been used. The theoretical background is a general survey of some of the abundant literature relating to Second Language Acquisition and Error Analysis, and a large part of it deals with interlanguage theories. The analytical part of the work presents the results of the study, including a grammatical classification of the totality of the errors encountered as well as a presentation of the results for the whole of each class and for each individual learner. Finally, some of the theories are related to the results of the analysis and some conclusions are drawn. A part of the work consisted in the gathering of essays written by learners (exclusively with Swedish as their mother tongue) of the same class in a real school context, first to make a quantitative study of their errors, and second to make a comparison between their essays written at two different points in time. The aim was to find out if there had been an evolution, and to what extent the evolution had taken place. The hypothesis formulated at the beginning of this essay is that learners, in general, should make fewer errors after two years have passed. The results are that errors concerning Verbs (especially Concord), as well as miscellaneous spelling errors, were the most frequent ones, and this is true for both grades. As the total number of errors is lower for the third grade than for the first, and since the learners' production is larger in the third grade than in the first, the hypothesis can be considered to be true, though a larger study should be conducted to see if a general pattern can be found.</p>

<p>This study aims to investigate, describe and discuss the views of a group of adolescents on their identity and the process of second language acquisition. They all came to Sweden and started studying in Swedish schools in the last three years without any knowledge of the Swedish language.</p><p>The study has been conducted with respect to the adolescents own perspectives and what they consider important.</p><p>The methods used are group discussions/ interviews, observations in class and informal discussions with teachers and adolescents.</p><p>Their voices are described and discussed in this paper. One must take into consideration that there is no objective of being neutral or to generalize the results to any other group or category. On the contrary the study has involved critical self- scrutiny and active reflexivity according to ethnographic tradition.</p><p>Symbolic interaction has provided a theoretical framework for the study. Looking into how social identities may be constructed or communicated from the adolescents voices and looking in to their use of language the study reveals that several expectations and situations need’ to be met by different identities. The adolescents struggle to be accepted as members of the mainstream although they are a linguistic minority.</p><p>They are convinced that second language acquisition is the key to success although the same language still is a hindrance to negotiation of identity in the school context. Their strategy to be recognised as equals manifests itself in submissive attitudes and compliance. The adolescents explain this kind of behaviour as a natural attitude from the schools in their first country. The adolescents in this study are motivated. They do not see adaptation as a loss of anything rather as an enriched life experience and nutrition to their double identities. They are not victims of language discrimination but subjected to symbolic power influencing them in their actions. They are still working on their identities, their language acquisition and adaptation to expectations in different situations. They are, and will be, multidimensional personalities.</p>

<p>My aim with this paper is to see whether there are any differences, when it comes to learning English, between students in practical and theoretical programs at upper secondary school in Sweden. I have looked at what differences there are when the students begin the programs and how the English A course differs in material, the students’ influence on their own studies and the atmosphere in the classrooms. Earlier studies have shown that adolescents from the lower social classes more often choose a practical program while students from higher social classes tend to choose a theoretical program. The students’ grades from lower-secondary school have an influence on the choice of program as well. Those with low grades from elementary school frequently choose a practical program whereas students with better grades more often choose a theoretical program. Though in my study, the students’ former grades did not differ that much. Further, studies have shown that students who would like to learn languages are divided into two types. The students are either so-called instrumental or integrative learners. My study showed that integrative exercises are used more often than instrumental exercises in upper-secondary school. Unfortunately, there are also some students that do not want to learn a second language at all and such students are in almost every class but they can be found more often in practical courses. To conclude, I found out in my study that there were differences between the courses in theoretical and practical programs. The differences affected the students in a way that made it easier to achieve a better grade in English in a theoretical program.</p>

<p>Denna studie undersöker om dold språkförståelse i ett andraspråk kan synliggöras vid återberättande på förstaspråket. Det kan vara svårt att skilja språkutvecklingen hos barn med typisk språkutveckling med svenska som andraspråk från språkutvecklingen hos flerspråkiga språkstörda barn om man testar dem på andraspråket. Därför behövs det referensdata för normalspråkiga barn. Sexton barn i femårsåldern med normal språkutveckling, åtta enspråkiga barn med svenska som första språk och åtta flerspråkiga barn med arabiska som första språk och svenska som andraspråk, testades med <em>Buss-sagan</em> (<em>Buss Story Test</em>, BST) och TROG (<em>Test for Reception of Grammar</em>). De flerspråkiga barnen fick sagan uppläst på svenska och återberättade först på svenska och sedan på arabiska. Resultatet i den kvantitativa analysen visade att de enspråkiga barnen fick signifikant bättre resultat för parametern information på BST och bättre resultat på TROG. Däremot skiljde sig resultatet för parametern information i berättelserna på arabiska inte signifikant från resultatet i de flerspråkiga barnens berättelser på svenska. Den kvalitativa analysen visade att de flerspråkiga barnens återberättelser på svenska och arabiska jämfört med de enspråkiga barnens framför allt lexikalt och diskursivt var mindre komplexa och korrekta. Detta kan till viss del bero på testsituationen, men också på brister i språkförståelse och uttrycksmedel. Slutsatsen man kan dra är att man som logoped behöver vara medveten om att olika språkliga strukturer utvecklas i olika takt både i första- och andraspråket, och att det behövs anpassat inflöde på alla språk för att underlätta språkförståelsen och den lexikala utvecklingen.</p> / <p>This study examines if language comprehension which may be concealed in a second language can be made visible by retelling in the first language. It can be difficult to separate the language development of typically developed children with Swedish as their second language from that of multilingual children with language impairment. Therefore, reference data for multilingual children with typical language development are needed. Sixteen five-year-old children with normal language development, eight monolingual children with Swedish as their first language and eight multilingual children with Arabic as their first language and Swedish as their second language, were tested with <em>Buss Story Test</em> (BST) and TROG (<em>Test for Reception of Grammar</em>). The multilingual children got the story of <em>Buss Story Test</em> read to them in Swedish and then retold the story first in Swedish and then in Arabic. The result of the quantitative analysis showed that monolingual children achieved significantly better results for the parameter information on BST and better results on TROG. On the other hand, the result of the parameter information in the children’s Arabic retellings did not differ significantly from that in the multilingual children’s Swedish retellings. The qualitative analysis showed that the multilingual children’s retellings in Swedish and Arabic compared with the monolingual children’s retellings were less complex and correct in regard mostly to lexical and narrative structure. This can, to a certain extent, be due to the testing situation, but also due to deficiencies in language comprehension and means of expression. The authors conclude that speech therapists need to be aware of the fact that different linguistic structures develop at a different rate both in the first and the second language, and that tailored input in all the children’s languages is needed in order to facilitate comprehension and lexical development.</p>