The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the possible role of alternative learning materials in the subject of English through an action research project in year nine, secondary school. The aim is to investigate the participating students’ engagement and comprehension of the texts used in the project. Some of the goals of the syllabus for English presuppose that pupils should be able to use various types of materials and sources of information in their learning. The goals also require a way of working characterised by variation and the use of different types of learning materials in English. In this particular study, data were collected continually during the process through questionnaires, observation notes and individual interviews with four pupils. A majority of the participants found working with the materials both engaging and enjoyable. Significant factors were mainly the varied nature of the texts, the presence of unfamiliar vocabulary and the texts’ relevance for the pupils. Regarding language development, the primary outcomes of the project were improvement of vocabulary as well as increased knowledge about various types of texts.

Syftet är att undersöka hur pedagoger i förskolan stimulerar språkutveckling hos barn i utomhusmiljö. Undersökningen har bedrivits genom observationer på 3 olika förskolor med fokus på de äldre barnen, 4-5 år. Den grundar sig i Vygotskijs teori om det sociokulturella perspektivet där miljön och den geografiska platsen utgör en grund för lärandet. Slutsatsen utifrån observationerna är att pedagoger ofta använder olika tillfällen för att utmana barnen i deras språkutveckling men att de kopplar lärandet till den miljön de befinner sig i. Pedagogerna berikar barnens språk utifrån vad som finns runt omkring barnen utomhus på gården eller i skogen. Alltså blir lärandet bundet till materialet som förekommer mer naturligt utomhus då pedagogerna i den här observationen inte visat att man tar ut objekt eller material som vanligt vis finns inomhus. / The purpose of this study is to investigate how educators in preschool stimulate language development in children in an outdoor environment. The survey has been conducted through observations at 3 different preschools with a focus on the older children, 4-5 years. It is based on Vygotskij’s theory of the sociocultural perspective where the environment and geographical location form the basis for learning. The conclusion from the observations is that educators often use different opportunities to challenge the children in their language development, but that you connect learning to the environment you are in. You enrich the children's language based on what is around the children outdoors in the yard or in the forest. Thus, learning is tied to the material that occurs more naturally outdoors as the educators in this observation have not shown that objects or materials that are usually found indoors are taken out.

This diploma thesis have special pedagogical character and it focuses on language development of children from multilingual environment. The reason for this focus is their increasing number. However, there are still relatively few publications on this topic in the Czech Republic because more emphasis is placed on bilingualism. In the theoretical part, is trying to cover the complexity of language development and then deal with the concepts of multilingualism and bilingualism. In the practical part there is a qualitative research investigation based on three case studies of children from multilingual environment. The individual studies describe in detail their language development, including the possible mixing of language codes, and possible communication disabilities. Also, there is trying to find which of the language becomes relaxed for the children. Interviews with parents and class teacher mainly used to obtain data.

The purpose of the study is to study the preschool teacher´s descriptions of their work to support multilingual children's language development and the strengthening of their identity in preschool. In order to achieve the aim, the following question has been formulated: What methods and materials do preschool teachers describe that they use to support multilingual children's language and identity in preschool? Previous research shows a lack of knowledge among educators about how they should work to be able to develop children's identity and support children's development in the Swedish language and the children's mother tongues. A qualitative method has been used in this study where interviews in combination with observations have been carried out at preschools in southern Sweden. The study's theoretical starting points are social constructionism and the sociocultural perspective. The results show that preschool teachers use the same working methods and methods to both develop children's language and communication skills but also to strengthen their identity. Methods and working methods that appear in the results include image support, body language, TAKK, language bags and the Kippin Family. The results of the study also show the importance of highlighting children's mother tongue and offering them security so that they can develop and form new skills. Finally, it emerged that the preschool teachers’ commitment and attitude affect children's learning and development in preschool. / Syftet med studien är att studera förskollärarnas beskrivningar kring sitt arbete föratt stödja flerspråkiga barns språkutveckling och stärkandet av deras identitet iförskolan. För att kunna uppnå syftet har följande frågeställning formulerats: Vilkametoder och material beskriver förskollärare att de använder för att stödjaflerspråkiga barns språk och identitet i förskolan? Tidigare forskning synliggörbristande kunskaper hos pedagoger kring hur de ska arbeta för att kunnautveckla barns identitet samt stödja deras utveckling i det svenska språket ochdet modersmål som de har. En kvalitativ metod har använts i denna studiedär intervjuer i kombination med observationer har genomförts på förskolor isödra Sverige. Studiens teoretiska utgångspunkter är socialkonstruktionismoch det sociokulturella perspektivet. I resultatet framgår det att förskollärareanvänder samma material och metoder för att både utveckla barns språk ochkommunikationsförmåga men även för att stärka deras identitet. Metoder ochde fysiska artefakterna som framkommer i resultatet är bland annat bildstöd,kroppsspråk, TAKK, språkpåsar och Familjen Kippin. Studiens resultat visaräven betydelsen av att belysa barns modersmål och erbjuda dem trygghet föratt de ska kunna utveckla och bilda nya kunskaper. Slutligen framkom det attförskollärarnas engagemang och bemötande påverkar barns lärande ochutveckling i förskolan.

Through verbal and nonverbal dyadic engagement with caregivers, infants acquire two critical capacities for social engagement: joint attention and language. Children initiate joint attention (IJA) when they use eye contact and pointing (IJA bids) to direct the attention of a social partner to objects of common interest, which then helps children acquire object labels from their social partners. The present study was designed to examine differences in the effect of the number of children in the household (also known as “parity”) on the relationship between IJA and language development. We reasoned that infants who are only children (i.e., in uniparous homes), relative to infants who have one or more siblings (i.e., in multiparous homes), would have more opportunity to engage in IJA, and would, therefore, acquire a larger number of object labels. We tested the hypotheses that: 1) there would be a positive correlation between the number of IJA bids and language overall, and 2) parity would moderate the IJA-language relationship such that in uniparous households, the aforementioned correlation would be stronger than in multiparous homes. For this study, 73 primarily white, middle-class infants ranging from 12 to 20 months of age (30 uniparous, 40 multiparous, 3 missing) visited the lab. Using the Picture Book Task of the Early Social Communication Scales, IJA behaviors were coded when children made eye contact with the experimenter (lower IJA) or pointed to pictures in the book (higher IJA) without elicitation. Productive and receptive vocabulary was measured through parental report using the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory. Preliminary analyses showed that older children had larger productive [r(30) = .50, p = .000] but not receptive vocabularies relative to younger children. Also, we were surprised to find that the ages of the infants in our investigation were not associated with the number of siblings in their homes since older infants would have been more likely to have younger siblings. In terms of our hypotheses, it was found that IJA was not associated with either language measure. To test for a moderation effect, we conducted a moderated regression analysis in which each language measure was regressed on IJA, the number of siblings in the home, and the interaction term for these two variables. The interaction term was statistically significant, indicating a moderation effect [B = -8.09, SD = 4.00, t = -2.02, p = .047]. However, this association disappeared after controlling for child age. Overall, our hypotheses were not supported. Although it is possible that parity has no moderating effect of on the IJA-language relationship, our sample size did not provide for large amounts of statistical power to make such a strong claim in this direction. Still, these null findings may provide positive reassurance for families with multiple children that their younger children are not at an IJA/language acquisition disadvantage.

Studying language development through event-related potentials provides specific information regarding how the brain processes specific aspects of language over time. In this study, the P600 component, a positive wave occurring approximately 600 ms post-stimulus and known for detecting syntactic errors, was specifically analyzed. Thirty children between the ages of 5 and 12 years listened to linguistically correct, syntactically incorrect, and semantically incorrect sentences in three ear conditions: monaurally to the right ear, monaurally to the left ear, and binaurally. The participants were instructed to judge the sentences to be correct or incorrect. Comparisons were then made of the latency and amplitude of the P600 between the age groups, sentence types, and ear conditions. The results of this study indicate that younger children exhibit later latencies and higher amplitudes than do adults. The study also suggests that syntactic processing becomes fully established around the age of 8 to 9 years. In reference to ear condition, this study found that ear condition may be a factor in a child's ability to recognize syntax. This was the first study that investigated developmental ERPs and ear condition. Therefore, this finding is a result of interest that needs to be further explored in future studies. The current study also suggests that the right ear advantage (REA) phenomenon may exist neurologically in older ages with monotic sentences. This is another area that would benefit from additional research as this phenomenon has not been previously described.

This study investigated the neurophysiology of semantic language processing in children, ages 5 to 12 years. A well-established marker of semantic processing, the N400 event related potential (ERP), was analyzed within and across child age groups. Child N400s were recorded in response to correct sentences, semantically incorrect sentences, and syntactically incorrect sentences. N400s were also recorded across ear condition to examine potential processing differences. Children across all age groups consistently demonstrated N400s in the semantic error condition. N400s were also regularly observed in the syntactic error condition; especially, for younger children. Younger children also demonstrated N400s even in response to correct sentence types. Interestingly, clear N400 effects (i.e. N400 amplitude differences between correct and semantically incorrect sentences) were only observed for one age group. While these findings indicate that children across all age groups detect semantic errors, the ability to consistently parse error types develops later.

The examination of Event Related Potentials during language processing tasks provides valuable information of how the brain processes language over time. In the current study, the development of the early left anterior negativity (ELAN) was analyzed in young children. Previous research has described the ELAN as a negative waveform elicited during syntactic processing between 200 and 500 ms post linguistic stimuli. Thirty children from 5 to 12 years of age listened to sentences that were linguistically correct, syntactically incorrect, or semantically incorrect. Sentences were presented for right monaural, left monaural, and binaural ear conditions to determine possible differences related to right ear advantage (REA). An ELAN-like component in regards to latency and amplitude was observed in children 8 years of age and older; however, comparison between linguistic conditions suggest that the ability to differentiate between linguistically correct, syntactically incorrect, and semantically incorrect stimuli is not established until 12 years of age. Results suggest that adult-like syntactic processing of morphosyntactic errors is not established until after 12 years of age. Comparison between ear conditions suggests that the REA effect may exist in older children, a finding that has not been reflected in previous behavioral research.

Noun clauses are grammatical constructions that are of relevance both to typical language development and impaired language development. These clauses have been part of published techniques for the clinical analysis of language samples, and computer software for the automated analysis of clinical language samples has attempted to identify noun clauses, with limited success. The present study examined the development and clinical use of noun clauses as well as the automated identification of these clauses. Two sets of language samples were examined. One set consisted of 10 children with specific language impairment (SLI) whose age ranged from 7;6 to 11;1 (years;months), 10 peers matched for language development equivalence, and 10 peers matched for chronological age. The second set of samples were from 30 children considered to be typically developing, who ranged in age from 2;6 to 7;11. Language sample utterances were manually coded for the presence of noun clauses (including wh- noun clauses, that- noun clauses, and gerunds.) Samples were then automatically tagged using software. Results were tabulated and compared for accuracy. ANCOVA revealed that differences in the frequencies of WH-infinitive noun clauses and gerunds were significant between the matched groups. "Zero that clauses" (that-noun clauses containing no subordinator that) and gerunds were significantly correlated with age. Kappa levels revealed that agreement between manual and automated coding was high on WH-infinitive clauses, gerunds, and finite wh-noun clauses.

Det akademiska kravet på eleverna i skolans yngre åldrar ökar, och tiden för lek minskar. Vi vill med denna kunskapsöversikt lyfta vikten av lek, framför allt i skolans yngre åldrar, och ta reda på hur lek kan användas och utformas i svenskundervisningen för att främja dessa elevers språkutveckling och lärande.  Vi har valt ut tretton vetenskapliga och referentgranskade artiklar för att hjälpa oss att belysa lekens hur och besvara vår frågeställning. För att finna adekvata och relevanta artiklar har vi använt oss av ett systematiskt litteratursökande i databaserna ERC, ERIC och LibSearch. Resultatet av vår tematiska analys av artiklarna gav oss fyra olika teman: fri lek, rollek, regelbunden lek och digital lek. Diskussionen belyser bland annat vad styrdokumenten säger, hur leken kan vara språkutvecklande och utbildande, vilka typer av lek som finns och hur dessa kan användas i undervisningen samt vad leken behöver för att öka elevernas lärande och språkutveckling på bästa sätt. Avslutningsvis lyfter vi vår syn på kunskapsöversiktens svagheter och ger förslag på vidare forskningsområden.