The purpose of this study is to see how preschool teachers can support multilingual children and promote their development in their first languages. It was chosen to look at a specific municipality to see how the preschool teachers there work with multilingual children. By using the method of structured interviews, it was learnt that they do, in fact, work actively with multilingual children. The preschool teachers interviewed received the same questions in order to make the answers as comparable and measurable as possible. The results seem to indicate that more resources are needed to fulfil the needs of children with another first language than Swedish. The representatives of the municipality have chosen to concentrate on the two foreign languages that are the most common among the multilingual children in the municipality, viz. Arabic and Somali. Children who have other first language receive no formal training in their first language in preschool. One reason for the modest number of first-language teachers in the municipality – one in Arabic and one in Somali – is the fact that it is hard to find and recruit qualified first-language teachers. / Syftet med denna undersökning är att se hur några pedagoger på förskolan kan stötta flerspråkiga barn och främja deras språkutveckling i modersmålet. En kommun valdes ut för att se hur de arbetar med flerspråkiga barn. Genom att använda metoden strukturerade intervjuer framkom att pedagogerna faktiskt arbetar aktivt med de flerspråkiga barnen. Resultaten verkar tyda på att det skulle behövas mer resurser för att tillgodose behoven hos de barn som har ett annat förstaspråk än svenska. Kommunens representanter har valt att koncentrera sig på de två språk som är vanligast bland kommunens flerspråkiga barn, nämligen arabiska och somaliska. Barn med andra förstaspråk får ingen formell undervisning i sina förstaspråk i förskolan. En anledning till det blygsamma antalet modersmålslärare i kommunen – en i arabiska och en i somaliska – är det faktum att det är svårt att hitta och rekrytera kvalificerade modersmålslärare.

This study investigates the use of English during English lessons in Years 5 and 6. In order to do that, three research questions were formulated. In order to collect material to answer these research questions, two methods of data collection were combined, namely observations and interviews. Two English teachers at a school in the Stockholm area were observed and interviewed. These observations and interviews helped to collect the material. The result showed that the Swedish language dominates during English lessons. The teachers reported to be determined to use a large amount of English during their lessons; however, it was clear from the observations that this was not the case in practice. The teachers justified their choice of language by stating that the latest research proves that the students should not devote most of their energy to understanding the language as they should instead focus on the tasks. In order to answer the third research question both the teachers were interviewed. They stated that they use different exercises to address the goals of the curriculum.

The purposes of this study were (a) to examine two groups of healthy older Dutch English bilingual migrants in a New Zealand setting to investigate whether they were showing signs of L2 attrition with accompanying L1 reversion post-retirement, and (b) to identify possible factors which might play a role in the incidence of any L2 attrition and concomitant L1 reversion. Previous research has focused on similar groups of migrants in the Australian context, while New Zealand based research has focused on language shift and maintenance amongst three generations of migrants. The research design involved an analysis of sociolinguistic life, using questionnaires. These included self-assessments of L1 and L2 proficiency at three key times: on arrival in New Zealand, at time of ultimate attainment and post-retirement. Further, an analysis of assessments of respondents’ L1 and L2 proficiency pre-and post-retirement completed by interviewees’ adult children moderated respondents’ self-reports. The findings revealed a considerable overlap between participants’ self-reports and assessments by their adult children. The study also revealed a relationship between participants’ level of prior education and their ultimate attainment in the L2, with those who had come to New Zealand having learned English at Secondary School English very likely to have achieved a “good” or “very good” level of L2 proficiency. Conversely, those who had not learned the L2 at secondary school prior to arriving in New Zealand, were less likely to have achieved a “very good” level of ultimate attainment as evident both from self-reports and assessments by adult children. The design also included a linguistic analysis of elicited free speech. Data focused on key indicators of age, gender, social class, prior education, occupation and predominant linguistic environment pre- and post-retirement. Free speech was examined for code-switching, response latency and L1 structure in respondents’ spoken L2. Results indicated that a majority of respondents showed minimal if any signs of L2 attrition with concomitant L1 reversion, both as evidenced by their spoken L2 and as indicated by self-reports and assessments by adult children. Any signs of L2 attrition which were found appeared linked to respondents’ level of prior education and L2 proficiency on arrival in New Zealand. Being exposed to a predominantly L1 social environment post-retirement also appeared to result in a lifting of the threshold for L2 lexical items, resulting in a slightly increased response latency in the spoken L2. Three participants said they experienced some problems expressing their healthcare needs to medical professionals, to the extent that they were searching for words. All stated they “got there in the end” but needed more time to paraphrase their health needs. Two subjects avoided the use of the L2 during the interview, even when prompted in English. Three respondents engaged in significant codeswitching from L2 to L1 and vice versa, with two engaging in what Muysken (2000) terms “congruent lexicalisation”. Adult childrens’ reports indicated that the respondents in question had always spoken in this manner, but to a greater extent now, post-retirement. Overall, a number of the healthy older subjects interviewed for the study were showing some signs of increased response latency and lexical retrieval problems when expressing themselves in the L2, but none to the degree that they were no longer able to communicate in that language.

abstract: Codeswitching, or the bilingual practice of switching between two languages, is a frequently misunderstood phenomenon in many fields, including education. Given the growing number of bilingual students and English Language Learners in U.S. schools, it is imperative that the field of education be informed by current research in bilingualism and language acquisition, including codeswitching. Codeswitching that occurs within a sentence is subject to specific rules derived from the languages involved in the switching. Furthermore, a codeswitcher's intuitions about the grammatical acceptability of certain switches over others, called grammaticality judgments, provide linguists with a unique window into how the language systems interact. In current codeswitching research, it is sometimes claimed that simultaneous and early sequential bilinguals provide more accurate grammaticality judgments than late sequential bilinguals. Although this claim is largely motivated by Critical Period Hypothesis research, the grammaticality judgments of the three groups of bilinguals have yet to be systematically compared to determine if there is indeed a difference in judgments. This dissertation investigates potential differences in intrasentential codeswitching patterns of simultaneous, early sequential and late sequential Slovak-English bilinguals (N = 39) through a comparison of grammaticality judgments. Analysis of potential differences is grounded in generative approaches to first and second language acquisition. Grammaticality judgments from Slovak-English bilinguals were elicited through a survey of constructed items. Chi square results are analyzed to determine variation in judgments attributable to bilingual group based on age of onset of exposure to English. In addition, a sub-study of data from the Welsh-English Siarad Corpus (http://www.siarad.org.uk/siarad.php) is presented. Normed token means for English and mixed tokens for simultaneous, early sequential, and late sequential bilinguals are compared using ANOVA tests, and variability is discussed in light of relevant theoretical considerations. Results from this study indicate that there are few differences attributable to age of onset of exposure, thus helping to clarify current practices in codeswitching research methodology, particularly in terms of identifying characteristics of participants. The study also addresses issues surrounding the critical period hypothesis and the effect of age of onset of exposure in bilingualism, topics which are both directly relevant to the field of education. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Curriculum and Instruction 2010

This thesis explores EMI students’ perspective on the role of the English language, multilingualism and language proficiency focusing on EMI students at five different schools in the UAE and Sweden. In order to explore the students’ perspectives a survey was conducted using a questionnaire that was distributed via e-mails. Overall the results demonstrate that a clear majority of the 94 informants have a positive attitude towards attending EMI schools and multilingualism. 20 different languages are reported as first language or languages used in different contexts. Even so, English is undoubtedly the language most of the students declare as their strongest language- Also, English proficiency is regarded to be significant for future undertakings such as university studies and employment locally and internationally.

This master's thesis investigated realizations of typologically marked structures (word final stops) in the interlanguages of 15 ESL learners across Arabic, Brazilian-Portuguese and Japanese first languages (L1s). In general, previous theories of markedness (see Eckman's MARKEDNESS DIFFERENTIAL HYPOTHESIS and STRUCTURAL CONFORMITY HYPOTHESIS) and transfer (such as Major's ONTOGENY MODELS) were upheld in that more marked structures proved more problematic than less marked areas. Where uniformity of modification strategies was found, OPTIMALITY THEORY was implemented to illustrate process of acquisition undertaken during interlanguage development. In an isolated speech task, participants who demonstrated acquisition of more marked structures (ie., voiced final stops) were also successful with their less marked counterparts (voiceless final stops), but not vice versa. In connected speech, more advanced participants' modifications of target structures (such as assimilation of voicing and place of articulation) were more similar to patterns exhibited by native speakers of the target language while less advanced participants' productions (ie., lack of intervocalic voicing) were more reflective of their L1. These findings support the hypothesis that interlanguages adhere to universal grammar and, thus, behave as natural languages. Finally, future directions such as potential research of L1/L2 perception issues and pedagogical implications of the study's results are explored.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:24:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2006-09-26Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T18:53:04Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 kimura_nss_me_mar.pdf: 1143852 bytes, checksum: a3dad97925751c86f7bf247ede91ffa9 (MD5) / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) / A dissertação tem como objetivos: 1) apresentar uma maneira de desenvolver o ensino de língua pela qual seja possível a produção de conhecimentos significativos e que considere a vida e a realidade dos alunos. 2) Produção textual Histórias de Família por meio de um percurso pelo qual os alunos possam viver os processos de produção e tenham a consciência da história familiar. As análises mostram que a escrita do gênero Histórias de Família oferece uma riqueza de dados importantes para se pensar em uma metodologia de ensino voltada para a produção de conhecimentos significativos e uma educação humana mais ampla. Promove a interação com a família e desperta a responsabilidade com as atividades de linguagem, uma vez que a palavra escrita é vista como um trabalho e socializada com interlocutores reais: a família e os leitores das narrativas. / The study here described has two objectives: (1) to introduce a way of developing the study of a language that aims the production of meaningful knowledge and by taking into account the students' life and context; (2) the written production of family histories through a process by which students can experience the writing production process and can become aware of their own family history. The results of the analyses show that the production of the family history genre offers a wealth of important data to think of a teaching methodology focused on the production of meaningful knowledge and of an education that is more broad and human. In addition, the written production of the family history genre provides students with opportunities of interaction with their families and awakens the responsibility and involvement with language based activities so that the written language can be viewed as work and socialized with real interlocutors: the families and the readers of the narratives.

The present study investigates the relevance of fundamental frequency in speech segmentation models intended to simulate infants. Speech from three different conditions (infant-directed speech to 3- and 12-month-olds, and adult-directed speech) was segmented based on fundamental frequency information, using a variant of the dpn-gram segmenting technique (highlighting similar segments as lexical candidates). The spectral distance between segments that were found based on fundamental frequency similarity was calculated, and compared to the spectral distance between segments that were found using transcription as basis for segmentation, as well as to the spectral distance between randomly paired segments from the same speech materials. The results show the greatest within-condition difference in speech directed to 3-month-olds, in which segmenting based on fundamental frequency similarity generated segment pairs with smaller spectral distance than did transcription-based segmentation or random segment pairs. Speech directed to 12-month-olds resulted in a somewhat smaller difference when using fundamental frequency data compared to when using transcriptions. For adult-directed speech, no difference was found in spectral distance between pairs generated by the different bases for segmentation. Neither segmenting speech by highlighting similar segments as lexical candidates, nor using fundamental frequency as basis for segmentation is optimal for a speech segmentation model intended to simulate 12-month-olds or adults. These groups are more likely to segment speech based on their already present or growing linguistic experience than on acoustic similarity only. However, for a model simulating a 3-month-old infant, the present segmentation procedure and its basis for segmentation are more plausible. When modeling speech segmentation in an infant-like manner it is important to take into account both that the cognitive abilities of infants develop rapidly during the first year of life, and that some aspects of their linguistic environment vary during this period.

This thesis investigates the relationship between speech production and speech perception in the early stages of phonological and lexical acquisition. Previous studies have mainly focused on independent investigations of speech production and perception abilities in language acquisition. This thesis connects the individual speech production capacities to the child's perception and is organized around three major studies: Study I explores methodological alternatives such as the combination of EEG and eye-tracking in different Swedish participant groups: adults, 17-month-olds, and 24-month-olds. Visual and auditory stimuli, as well as the connection between word production and word perception are explored. Study II investigates phonological capacities in terms of consonant inventory, percentage of correctly pronounced words, segmental errors, as well as phonological templates in relation to vocabulary size in a group of Swedish 18-month-olds. Study III studies the influence of the children's individual phonological and lexical capacities in speech production on their word recognition in a group of Swedish toddlers with a productive vocabulary size above 100 words. The general results show that children accept mispronounced word forms as appropriate word candidates when the word forms are related to their individual word production. The occurrence of segmental errors increases with vocabulary size, and phonological templates are more likely to be observed in children with a productive vocabulary size above 100 words. The results thus indicate an influence of the individual child's production on word recognition, and a relationship between phonological capacities and lexical knowledge. These insights contribute to theoretical debates in linguistics regarding the abstractness of phonological word form representations and reveal a closer relationship between production and perceptual abilities in toddlers than what has previously been shown.

Uppsatsen tar sin grund i frågeställningen varför elever med annat modersmål än svenska verkar ha det svårare att förvärva de ämneskunskaper och språkliga färdigheter i sitt nya språk som krävs för att kunna lyckas i det vanliga klassrummet.    För att försöka komma fram till en förklaring på detta görs en litteraturstudie och genomgång av forskningsläget kring kopplingen mellan kunskapsnivå i modersmålet, språklig färdighet i det nya språket och förvärvandet av ämneskunskaper i ett klassrum där undervisningen sker på det nya språket.    Resultatet redovisas i två delar kopplade till elevernas och lärarnas inställning till närvaron av modersmålet i det vanliga klassrummet och visar att skillnaderna mellan elevernas upplevda behov av modersmål och känslan när de tillåts använda det för att visa sina färdigheter och lärarnas upplevelse av förlorad kontroll av undervisningssituationen.    Den bild av modersmålets betydelse för kunskapsinhämtning på ett nytt språk som framträder presenteras och problematiseras i viss mån från ett undervisningsperspektiv men också ur ett resursperspektiv och jämlikhetsperspektiv.  Slutsatsen är att den klassiska tron på att utveckling av det nya språket och därigenom ökad kunskapsinhämtning i specifika ämnen på det nya språket inte har förutsättningarna att ge optimalt resultat utan att tillgången till modersmålsundervisning säkerställs då dessa framstår som kopplade till varandra.