The Swedish curriculum for the subject English in upper secondary school clearly states the English should be used“as far as possible” in the classroom. However, the possible amount of first language usage is never mentioned. Thisfact piqued our interest for investigating how much, if any, first language use is beneficial for learning a newlanguage. For this reason, we decided to pose our research questions as follows: What are the different views on theusage of the L1 in an L2 and foreign-language classroom according to the teachers and learners? What has been saidabout only target language usage from a historical and a contemporary perspective? Does the use of the L1 in asecond-language/foreign-language classroom have a positive or negative effect on the learners’ language learning?To answer these questions, we have read and analysed sixteen empirical studies. Firstly, the research shows that bothlearners and teachers prefer to use the second language/target language as much as possible. However, they alsorecognise the benefits that the first language can have. The second question we have answered using both empiricalstudies as well as theorists from second language acquisition research and sociocultural theory. Our literaturedescribes a shift in language learning and teaching, from the bilingual grammar-translation method towards a moremonolingual classroom where the first language has no place. However, the empirical studies signal a new shift insecond-language/foreign-language education, reverting back to a more bilingual approach. Finally, all studies agreethat the first language has a complementary role in the language classroom, and if used properly, it can have apositive effect on language acquisition. Through our results we argue that the first language can increase the learners’motivation, move the tasks along and create a non-threatening environment where learners can feel safe to use thetarget language. Although the first language can benefit second language learning, learners and teachers must beaware of the danger of extensive usage, as it should remain a supplement to the target language.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur några lärare i grundskolan beskriver flerspråkiga elevers hinder och möjligheter i sin andraspråksutveckling i svenska och försöka förstå hur de arbetar med dessa elevers språkutveckling. Denna studie bidrar med kunskap och förståelse kring: andraspråkselevers språkutveckling, deras dubbla uppgifter att både lära sig undervisningsspråket och innehållet, hur vi tillsammans i skolans värld kan undanröja hinder och möjliggöra en god språk- och kunskapsutveckling. Data har samlats in genom halvstrukturerade intervjuer med fyra lärare som tillsammans representerar tre skolområden. Undersökningen är kvalitativ med en sociokulturell ansats där språket, redskapens redskap, står i fokus. Sammanfattningsvis visar resultaten att lärarna lägger stor vikt vid undervisning av ord, begrepp och förståelse. Tid och engagemang läggs på att: skapa relationer med eleverna, planera upp och bedriva språkförebyggande undervisning, som de ser gynnar och har betydelse för andraspråkselevers språkutveckling i svenska. Detta resultat framkommer även i andra studier som jag tagit del av. Med flerspråkiga elever menas elever som lär sig behärska fler än ett språk. Begreppen förstaspråk och andraspråk förkortas L1 och L2. Där L står för language och handlar om den ordningsföljd barnet lär sig språket, och har inget att göra med behärskningsgraden (Abrahamsson & Bylund, 2012). / The purpose of the study is to investigate how some teachers in primary school describes multilingual students’ obstacles and opportunities in their second language development in Swedish and try to understand how the teachers work with these students' language development. This study contributes with knowledge and understanding of: second language learners’ language development, their dual assignment to both learn the language and content, how we in education can remove barriers and allow a good language- and knowledge-development. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with four teachers who together represent three school areas. The study is qualitative with a socio-cultural approach in which language, the gear tools, are the focus. In summary, the results show that the teachers put great emphasis in teaching words, concepts and understanding. Time and dedication is put on: creating relations with the students, planning and conduct up language teaching prevention, which they see benefits and are important for second language learners’ language development in Swedish. This result is also indicated in other studies that I have read. Multilingual pupils mean students learning to master more than one language. The terms First language and Second language shortened L1 and L2. Where L stands for language and the figure is about the order the child learns the language, and has nothing to do with mastery level (Abrahamsson & Bylund, 2012).

In this empirical study, the aim is to investigate how and why teachers in five elementary classes in Sweden use the target language and first language respectively in the EFL classroom. In addition to investigating the teacher perspective, pupils are also asked how they perceive their English teacher’s choice of spoken language in the EFL classroom. The study has a theoretical base in Krashen’s (1982) Second Language Acquisition Theory, as well as previous research on teachers’ language use in the EFL classroom. The study revealed that the participating teachers use the target language mainly to instruct, and to encourage their pupils to produce English themselves. The study also showed that the first language is used to aid comprehension and to explain when the pupils do not seem to understand what is said in English. Furthermore, some of the participating teachers expressed a desire to use more target language in their teaching, while feeling obligated to speak Swedish to make sure all pupils understand. The results of the study also show that participating pupils find English in general to be both easy and fun, in one or several aspects, and that most of the pupils in the study appreciate their teacher using the target language during English lessons. Another conclusion that can be drawn is that more research is needed regarding how teachers’ linguistic choices actually affect pupils’ communicative proficiency in the English language. / <p>Engelska</p>

Not many studies exist in the literature on reading in South Africa which examine the differences between the reading performance of first (L1) and second (L2) language English speaking learners, particularly those who experience barriers to learning. Using archival material from the Education Clinic of the University of the Witwatersrand, this study compared the results on the Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test (Brown Level) for a group of 43 high school L1 (20) and L2 (23) learners identified as experiencing barriers to learning. In line with international research on reading difficulties skills (Ben-Zeev, 1984; Baker, 1988; Drucker, 2003; Cummins, 1989,1991; Miller, 1984; Droop and Verhoeven, 1998), it was found that the L2 students performed significantly below the level of their L1 counterparts in Auditory Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension. The results on the Phonetic Analysis were found to be similar for both groups.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-05T18:10:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 31 / Nenhuma / Este estudo tem como objetivo principal apresentar o jogo num ambiente digital, possibilitando o ensino-aprendizagem de língua portuguesa através da narrativa.O trabalho está dividido em quatro capítulos. No primeiro capítulo apresento o jogo e, em especial, o jogo em ambiente digital. No segundo capítulo exploro o jogo digital como um Hipergênero. No terceiro capítulo apresento o jogo em seu contexto de produção. No quarto capítulo são abordadas as estruturas de narrativas através de modelos teóricos dos autores selecionados e são analisadas as narrativas criadas pelos alunos durante o jogo de RPG no ambiente escolar. As histórias criadas pelos alunos confirmaram as hipóteses do estudo. Elas se mostraram úteis à compreensão das práticas lingüísticas digitais ao contribuírem para a compreensão das narrativas não lineares,entendidas como estruturas complexas / This study’s main objective is to present the game in a digital environment, in order to make possible the learning of the Portuguese language through narrative. The work is divided into four chapters. In the first chapter, the game, and especially the game in a digital environment, is presented. In the second chapter, I explore the game as a “hyper-genre”. In the third chapter I show the game in its production context. In the fourth chapter and last chapter I explore the narrative structures through the theoretical models of the selected authors and analyze the narratives created by the students during the RPG game in school environment. The stories created by the students confirm the study’s hypothesis. They proved to be useful for the understanding of the digital linguistic practices by contributing for the understanding of the non-linear narratives considered as complex structures

My thesis is based on the topic of the adaptation of children with different first languages to the social surroundings of a kindergarden. The aim of the thesis is to explain the challenges of the pre-school education especially in the period of a foreign child´s inicial adaptation to the kindergarden environment. The thesis is divided in two parts - the theoretical part and the practice part. In the theoretical part of my work I have focused on the callenges faced by a foreign child in a Czech kindergarden, on the preparation of the kindergarden to satisty the needs of a child with different first language and finally on the proces of the child´s adaptation to the kindergarden environment. The practical part of my work accumulates the knowledge based on my own experiences with my Czech speaking daughter in the Austrian Kindergarden as well as the two Vietnamese girls in the environment of a Czech Kindergarden. The foundings of the practical part of my thesis are complimented by semi-structured interviews with the kindergarden teachers.

Ce travail porte sur l’inscription de la notion extralinguistique de mouvement dans deux langues typologiquement différentes, et examine l’impact de ces différences sur les premiers développements langagiers. Les travaux récents sur la question montrent en effet qu’il existe des contraintes proprement linguistiques, en plus de contraintes générales liées à l’empreinte particulière qu’apporte la perception de l’espace et du mouvement à la cognition. Notre objectif est d’analyser la place de ces contraintes dans l’acquisition du langage, à partir de suivis longitudinaux d’enfants francophones et anglophones filmés dès les débuts du langage. Nous présentons d’abord plusieurs illustrations des hypothèses sur la précocité du mouvement, repérées dans les premières formes de communication : celles-ci dessinent des liens très précoces entre mouvement et langage, qui ne semblent pas dépendre de la langue adressée à l’enfant. Nous nous penchons ensuite sur l’impact des contraintes proprement linguistiques, que l’expression du déplacement fait apparaître. L’analyse du discours adressé à l’enfant permet de souligner l’importance des contextes de production, et de variations reflétant des choix énonciatifs différents : leur prise en compte atténue les différences inter-langues observées dans la littérature. Cependant, des contrastes plus marqués apparaissent dans les premières expressions du déplacement : ils montrent une prise en compte précoce des contraintes linguistiques. L’analyse de l’expression du déplacement en français révèle aussi une focalisation peut-être excessive de la typologie sémantique sur les valeurs spatiales. Pour montrer que la prise en compte des valeurs non spatiales importe y compris pour l’analyse de l’anglais, nous interrogeons l’articulation des valeurs spatiales et non spatiales dans l’acquisition des premières constructions, à partir d’un des premiers marqueurs utilisés par les enfants anglophones : up. / This dissertation starts from the expression of motion (an extralinguistic notion) in two typologically different languages, and analyses the impact of those differences in early language acquisition. Recent studies have highlighted the importance of linguistic constraints, in addition to general constraints linking our perception of space and motion with general cognitive processes. Our aim is to situate those constraints within a general understanding of first language acquisition: this will be achieved through analyses of longitudinal follow-ups of French and English-speaking children from early communication onwards. We start by isolating and discussing some features of early communication in which the primacy of motion is best illustrated. They are evidence for the existence of early links between motion and language, which do not seem to depend on the characteristics of the language acquired. We then examine the impact of linguistic constraints, as they appear in the expression of location changes. Child-directed speech shows important variations in context, but also in each speaker’s linguistic choices and strategies: cross-linguistic differences thus need to be reconsidered. However, more marked contrasts are seen in how children first express location changes: they are evidence for an early integration of linguistic constraints. Our analyses also underline the overrated status of spatial semantics in typology and cross-linguistic comparisons. In order to show that non spatial meaning matters, we finally question how both spatial and non-spatial semantics are implied in the acquisition of syntactic constructions with one of the first markers used by English-speaking children: up.

This study investigated the morpheme acquisition order of Swedish students in grades 6 and 7, utilizing corpus texts drawn from the Uppsala Learner English Corpus (ULEC). It is an extension of Khor (2012) that focused on students in grades 9 and 12. Previous studies on morpheme acquisition order suggested that there was a natural sequence in acquiring morphemes, regardless of first language (L1). First language influence was said to be minimal or non-existing. Recently, studies have found evidence that L1 transfer is greater than first thought. This study examined three morphemes; articles, the preposition in, and plural form. The results showed that the errors that both groups made were consistent with the errors that were found in Khor (2012). The errors were of the same nature in all age groups, mainly in differences in (1) generic and specific usage of articles in Swedish and English, (2) the generic sense of regular plural nouns, (3) plural form of irregular nouns and nouns of Latin or Greek origin, (4) plural forms of countable and misuse of uncountable nouns, and (5) the usage of prepositions in Swedish and English. Current studies have also generated these results, which points towards strong L1 influence. The different usage and the errors suggest that the first language influence is stronger than first described, and consequently, that it influences the acquisition of morphemes. Therefore, the L1 seems to shape the order in which grammatical morphemes are acquired. Learners in one language group seem to learn the morphemes in a specific order, rather than a fixed universal order.

This study examines the production and perception of laryngeal constriction in the early vocalizations of Bai and English infants. The first part of the study documents the development of laryngeal voice quality features in the non-syllabic and syllabic utterances of Bai and English infants. The second part of the study focuses on the perception of laryngeal constriction in infant vocalizations by adult Bai and English listeners. The study is grounded in Esling’s (2005) model of the vocal tract, which characterizes the laryngeal vocal tract as a separate articulator, distinct from the oral vocal tract. The study of Bai and English infants’ production identifies universal and language-specific patterns in infants’ development of laryngeal constriction. In the first months of life, most sounds produced by Bai and English infants are constricted. As the year progresses, all infants explore degrees of constriction in dynamic utterances that feature alternations between constricted and unconstricted laryngeal voice quality settings. As well, throughout the year, infants produce an increasing proportion of unconstricted vocalizations. By the end of the first year, when infants have developed increasing control of the laryngeal and oral vocal tracts, they produce syllabic utterances that begin to reflect the use of laryngeal voice quality features in their ambient language. English syllabic utterances are mostly unconstricted, mirroring the prevalence of unconstricted settings in the target language. By contrast, Bai syllabic utterances are mostly constricted or dynamic, reflecting the use of laryngeal voice quality in Bai, a register tone language that employs laryngeal voice quality features distinctively at the syllabic level. The second part of the study highlights universal and language-particular patterns in Bai and English adults’ perception of laryngeal voice quality in infants’ utterances. In evaluating the importance of a range of infant sounds in learning the target language (Bai or English), adults from both language groups assign lower ratings to infant utterances that occur earlier in development, such as constricted non-syllabic utterances, and higher ratings to sounds that occur later, such as syllabic utterances with rapidly articulated syllables. Bai and English adults’ perceptions also reflect some language-specific patterns that correspond to language-particular characteristics identified in infants’ use of laryngeal voice quality in syllabic and non-syllabic utterances. These correspondences suggest that adults are attuned to laryngeal voice quality in infants, and that, in turn, infants become attuned to the use of laryngeal voice quality features in their ambient language early in development. The production study demonstrates the fruitfulness of Esling’s (2005) model of the vocal tract in revealing previously undocumented patterns in the development of laryngeal constriction in the first year of life and in highlighting the importance of emergent laryngeal control as a stimulator of phonetic development. The perception study shows that adults whose native languages differ markedly in their use of laryngeal constriction can systematically evaluate laryngeal voice quality features in the full range of non-distress vocalizations produced by infants in the first year of life.

A pesquisa em Atrito linguístico de L1 tem testemunhado um desenvolvimento desde os anos 80. No entanto, ainda são poucos os estudos acerca do português brasileiro (PB) e imigrantes brasileiros em comunidades de L2 dominante. Assim, partindo de uma visão da linguagem como um Sistema Adaptativo Complexo (CAS) (e.g., LARSENFREEMAN; CAMERON, 2008; BECKNER et al. 2009;. MERCER, 2013), este estudo investigou a produção das plosivas surdas do PB-L1 e do Standard Southern British English-L2 (SSBE) por imigrantes adultos do Sul do Brasil residentes em Londres, testando os efeitos dos primeiros dez anos (tempo de residência - LOR) na comunidade britânica. Usando um desenho transversal, este estudo explorou a produção de plosivas surdas em posição inicial de palavra de trinta e dois participantes, com idades entre 18-40: imigrantes brasileiros que viviam em Londres durante períodos de tempo variados (chegada no Reino Unido com idade > 18 anos), monolíngues do SSBE e monolíngues do BP. Os alvos do BP /p/, /t/ e /k/ foram apresentados na frase-veículo “Eu Diria _______”. Os alvos para o SSBE foram apresentados na frase “I would say_______”. Os alvos em posição inicial de palavra foram gravados aleatoriamente três vezes por cada participantes. Para a produção SSBE-L2, os resultados mostraram que falantes com um LOR entre zero e três anos diferem dos controles SSBE (p <0,05) para todas as três plosivas surdas inglês britânico. Imigrantes com um LOR entre quatro e sete anos também diferem dos controles (p<0,05) para [p] e [t], mas não divergem para [k] (p>0,05). Aqueles que residem em Londres entre oito e onze anos não apresentaram diferenças em relação aos monolíngues do inglês britânico (p>0,05), e apresentaram os maiores valores médios de VOT. Em relação à produção do VOT para o PB-L1, a produção dos participantes com o menor período de tempo em Londres não era diferente da dos monolíngues do PB. Por outro lado, imigrantes com um LOR entre quatro e sete anos produziram valores de VOT diferentes dos produzidos pelos controles para [t] e [k], apresentando valores médios mais elevados (p <0,001), mas não para a [p] (p>0,05). Finalmente, os imigrantes que eram residentes em Londres entre oito e onze anos revelaram diferenças em relação aos controles do PB, apresentando os maiores valores de VOT (p <0,001) para todos os sons plosivos considerados. Esses resultados fornecem evidência para o atrito linguístico de L1 enfrentado pelos falantes nativos do PB (shortlag VOT) imersos em uma comunidade de L2 dominante (long-lag VOT), bem como para o efeito de LOR, já que os valores de VOT tendem a aumentar em função do tempo de residência. Esses dados confirmam, como previsto por uma visão da linguagem como um CAS, que o sistema de L1 não é rígido e pode mudar durante o tempo de vida de um falante. Nossos resultados sugerem que as línguas naturais dependem de uma variedade de agentes, além de serem adaptativas e sujeitas a constantes mudanças. / The study of L1 attrition has witnessed some development since the 1980s; however, there are still few studies on Brazilian Portuguese (BP) and on Brazilian immigrants in L2-dominant communities. Thus, departing from a view of language as a Complex, Adaptive System (CAS) (e.g. LARSEN-FREEMAN; CAMERON, 2008; BECKNER et al., 2009; MERCER, 2013), this study investigated the production of BP-L1 and Standard Southern British English-L2 (SSBE) voiceless plosives by Southern Brazilian adult immigrants in London, testing the effects of the first ten years (length of residence - LOR) in the British community. Using a cross-sectional design, this study explored the production of voiceless plosives in word initial position by thirty-two participants, aged 18-40: Brazilian immigrants that had been living in London for differing lengths of time (arrival in UK aged > 18 years), monolingual SSBE controls, and monolingual BP controls. BP target sounds /p/, /t/ and /k/ were presented in the carrier sentence Eu diria _______. SSBE targets were presented in the sentence I would say_______. Targets were elicited in word-initial position, and were randomly recorded three times by the participants. For SSBE-L2 production, the results showed that speakers with a LOR between zero and three years differ from the SSBE controls (p<.05) for all three voiceless British English plosives. Immigrants with a LOR between four and seven years differ from the controls (p<.05) for [p] and [t], but do not diverge from them for [k] (p>.05). Those residing in London between eight and eleven years do not present differences from the British English monolinguals (p.>05), and presented the highest mean values. With regard to BP-L1 VOT production, the production by participants with a shorter period of time in London was not different from the BP monolingual controls. On the other hand, immigrants with a LOR between four and seven years yielded different VOT values from those produced by the controls for [t] and [k], presenting higher mean values (p<.001), but not for [p] (p>.05). Finally, immigrants that had been residing in London between eight and eleven years revealed differences from the BP controls, presenting the highest VOT values (p<.001) for all the plosives. These findings provide evidence for first language attrition faced by short-lag VOT speakers immersed in long-lag VOT L2- dominant communities, as well as for the effect of LOR, as values tend to increase through time. These data confirm, as predicted by a view of language as a CAS, that the L1 system is not rigid and might change during the life span. Our results suggest that language depends on a variety of agents and is also adaptive, being subject to constant change.