Promoting the Educational Success of Children and Youth Learning English Promising Futures (2017) / Chapter Skim
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4 Dual Language Learners: Capacities and Influences on Language Development
4 Dual Language Learners: Capacities and Influences on Language Development
Pages 107-164
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From page 107... ...
Understanding young children's capacity for dual language learning is critical for having evidence-based expectations that shape parents' and other caregivers' decisions about whether and how to raise children bilingually. These findings can also inform families, educators, education administrators, health professionals, and policy makers about the most advantageous learning environments for dual language learners (DLLs)
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From page 108... ...
, including family socioeconomic status, school, and community contexts, that affect children's opportunities to learn English and maintain their L1 and cultural heritage. THE UNIVERSAL CAPACITY FOR DUAL LANGUAGE LEARNING This section reviews research on children's underlying capacity for dual language development from birth to 5 years of age.
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. Thus, it is important to understand these early building blocks of dual language learning as precursors of subsequent and more complex aspects of language development.
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. These findings attest to the capacity of DLLs to use cues in language input to abstract higher-order features of language.
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Nevertheless, a coherent understanding of this stage of dual language learning is already beginning to emerge, one that emphasizes processes common to all language learners and those reflecting variability linked to unique features of dual language learning.
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And the Spanish monolinguals exhibited no preference, as would be expected since the contrast was specific to Catalan. These findings indicate that dual language learning does not compromise infants' ability to learn the phonotactic constraints of a language or to recognize words (Vihman et al., 2007)
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From page 113... ...
In contrast, neither the monolingual Spanish children nor the Spanish-Catalan bilinguals displayed differential recognition of the correctly and incorrectly pronounced word. These results suggest that bilinguals may take longer than monolinguals to learn certain phonological properties of one of their two languages because the task is more complex than that faced by monolingual children.
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From page 114... ...
Mutual exclusivity is thought to help monolingual children in word learning such that when they hear a new word, they tend to associate it with a novel object rather than an object for which they already have a label. This has been shown experimentally in 17-month-old monolingual infants and young children (e.g., Halberda, 2003; Markman, 1989)
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From page 115... ...
Their study included 47 Spanish-English bilingual children and 56 monolingual English-speaking children from high socioeconomic environments. Overall, they found that the monolingual children scored higher than the bilingual children on both English vocabulary and grammar indices from the MacArthur Communication Development Index when each language was considered separately.
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. 4 Researchers who study language development and use in bilingual children tend to use the term code mixing.
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,5 DLL and monolingual children learning the same languages usually demonstrate knowledge of the same grammatical structures and constraints (see De Houwer [2011] for a review of relevant studies)
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Communicative and Cognitive Capacity of Dual Language Learners Additional evidence for DLLs' capacity for learning more than one language early in development comes from studies that have examined their communicative competence using two languages and their cognitive flexibility. Communicative Competence DLLs demonstrate impressive capacity to manage their two languages when communicating with others.
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," that did not indicate the source of the breakdown, indicating that managing their two languages was not a challenge. Taken together, this evidence is difficult to reconcile with concerns that early dual language learning can engender confusion.
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and that it is related to socioeconomic status (Noble et al., 2005) and parenting style (Bernier et al., 2010)
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Finally, current evidence suggests that dual language learning does not appear to pose communicative or cognitive challenges, and to the contrary, it may under some conditions enhance the child's cognitive resources. INFLUENCES ON DUAL LANGUAGE LEARNING Children's impressive capacity to acquire at least two languages is seen across multiple components of language, with certain sensitivities arising before birth.
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BOX 4-1 Effects of Early Exposure on the Brain of Dual Language Learners One of the key questions concerning brain development is how exposure to two languages at an early age affects the brain signals observed. In a seminal study, Conboy and Mills (2006)
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. When dual language learning occurs from birth to 3 years of age, the neurocognitive changes in the brain are the same or nearly so for both (or all)
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that three separate fac tors -- age of acquisition, language proficiency, and cognitive control -- contribute to the brain architecture of bilingualism, and the interaction between the existing brain architecture and the environment at different ages is highly relevant to un derstanding dual language learning (Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, 2015)
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To what extent does ability in L1 support or hinder the acquisition of L2? Some immigrant parents may fear that talking with their child in L1 will compromise the child's ability to learn English and subsequently succeed in U.S.
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. Thus, it appears that learning a language early establishes a general foundation that can be engaged for later language learning and literacy.
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Similarly, Marchman and colleagues (2004) found in a study of 23.5-month-olds who were learning English and Spanish simultaneously that within-language were stronger than cross-language vocabulary-grammar associations.
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, as well as when they were first exposed to their L2 (as discussed above in the section on timing of second language learning)
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From page 129... ...
compared with monolingual French- and monolingual English-speaking children of the same age whose mothers did not differ from those of the bilingual children on education and nonverbal cognitive ability. The study findings revealed a strong and consistent association between exposure to a language and scores on vocabulary measures in that language, with more exposure producing higher scores, as expected.
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From page 130... ...
As is seen for vocabulary, associations between exposure and processing speed are language-specific. In one longitudinal study, Spanish-English bilingual children from families of a broad range of socioeconomic status were followed between ages 30 and 36 months, and their relative exposure to each language predicted their efficiency in real-time language processing and expressive and receptive vocabularies in that language (Hurtado et al., 2014)
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, the contingent responsiveness of language input, and caregiver engagement of children in literacy activities (with a focus on the use of questions during booksharing activities)
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Asking a child, "What do you want to do next? " is more likely to elicit a conversational response than is "Do that." This point is illustrated by a study in which supportive language input to 2- and 3-year-olds (in families of middle to high socioeconomic status)
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Contingent responsiveness Responsive language experiences, defined as input that is prompt, contingent, and positively connected to a child's interests and actions, predict gains in monolingual children's language, especially during the first 2 years of life (e.g., Bornstein et al., 2008; Landry et al., 2006)
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From page 134... ...
In a case study, for example, a Spanish-English bilingual child who used many more overt subjects in Spanish than is typical of Spanish monolingual children actually heard more overt subjects in the Spanish used by her English-speaking mother, who was a non-native speaker of Spanish (Paradis and Navarro, 2003) (see De Houwer [2009, pp.
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From page 135... ...
Parents' language proficiency also is important for the quality of parentchild interactions more broadly, which in turn can influence children's language learning. Parents may inadvertently limit their ability to convey certain information to children when they communicate in a language they do not know well (McCabe et al., 2013)
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. It appears, however, that DLLs engage in literacy and other learning activities less often than monolingual children, which may contribute to the relatively low performance of some DLLs in school.
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Nonetheless, work on television viewing in relation to toddlers' language learning has shown few benefits (Linebarger and Walker, 2005) and even some impairment of learning (Hudon et al., 2013)
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. Empirical evidence on how English L2 speech perception becomes more difficult as a function of age and whether certain contrasts are more difficult at certain ages and for speakers of certain native languages could provide information on the optimal instruction for DLLs of different ages with different L1 backgrounds.
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From page 139... ...
Words The structure of the words children learn -- reflected in the structure of the input they receive -- also may influence their development of proficiency in English as a second language. Studies of children learning only one language strongly suggest that language learning builds on itself (e.g., Reznick and Goldfield, 1992)
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Such research suggests that interactions between dual language systems may be a permanent feature of sequential DLLs' grammars.
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. Parents from different cultural communities, and even those within the same cultural group, provide different language experiences to their DLL children, and these differences play out in children's language development, school readiness, and later academic success, as reviewed earlier.
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. Being the child of an immigrant or U.S.-born parent and the extent to which the family is integrated into mainstream society both are associated with DLLs' development and learning (e.g., Center for Early Care and Education Research -- Dual Language Learners, 2011)
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From page 143... ...
toddlers from families of low and high socioeconomic status, for example, found that at 18 months, toddlers in the high socioeconomic status group looked more quickly at the correct object after hearing a word relative to toddlers from the low socioeconomic status group. Although both groups improved in processing speed with increasing age, children from families of low socioeconomic status had achieved the processing efficiency at 24 months that their peers from better-off families had achieved at 18 months.
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. Reliance on gesture as a communicative tool can aid language learning if gestures are coupled with child-directed speech, but impede language learning if they substitute for language inputs.
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. Additionally, low-income communities have fewer print resources available to children relative to middle-income communities, placing children from poor households (a disproportionate number of which are dual language households)
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. Summary A number of factors have been shown to influence the development of dual language proficiency.
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Even though these differ ences sometimes result in DLLs sounding different from monolingual children of the same age, these differences are in most cases normal and typical for children learning two languages at the same time, and not an indication of disorder, impairment, or disability. Conclusion 4-2: There is no evidence to indicate that the use of two languages in the home or the use of one in the home and another in an early care and education setting confuses dual languages learners or puts the development of one or both of their languages at risk.
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From page 148... ...
Conclusion 4-7: Language competence varies considerably among dual language learners. Multiple social and cultural factors -- including par ents' immigrant generational status and years in the United States, socioeconomic status, exposures to the risks of poverty, the perceived status of the home language in the community, and neighborhood resources -- may help explain this variation.
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. Receptive vocabulary differences in monolingual and bilingual children.
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Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, FPG Child Development Institute, Center for Early Care and Education Research -- Dual Language Learners.
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In Governor's State Advisory Council on Early Learning and Care Sacramento (Ed.) , California's Best Practices for Young Dual Language Learners Research Overview Papers (pp.
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. Bilingual language learning: An ERP study relating early brain responses to speech, language input, and later word production.
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From page 153... ...
. The language and literacy development of young dual language learners: A critical review.
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From page 154... ...
. Dual language exposure and early bilingual development.
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From page 155... ...
. Critical period effects in second language learning: The influence of maturational state on the acquisition of English as a second language.
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From page 156... ...
. Effects of the age of second language learning on the duration of first and second language sentences: The role of suppression.
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From page 157... ...
. When timing is everything: Age of first-language acquisition effects on second-language learning.
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. Dual Language Development and Disor ders: A Handbook on Bilingualism and Second Language Learning (2nd ed.)
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. Properties of dual language exposure that influence 2-year-olds' bilingual proficiency.
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. Early gesture selectively predicts later language learning.
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. One Child, Two Languages: A Guide for Preschool Educators of Children Learning English as a Second Language.
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Journal of Child Language, 5(2)
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Developmental Science, 6(1)
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