Young L2 learners' narrative discourse


Book Description

Wie entwickeln sich Text-/Diskursfähigkeiten bei Zweitsprachenlernenden? Dieser bisher weitgehend unbeantworteten Frage geht die vorliegende Monographie in Bezug auf frühen Fremdsprachenerwerb nach. Untersucht werden narrative Texte von Grundschülerinnen und Grundschülern, die an einem englischsprachigen Immersionsprogramm in Deutschland teilnehmen, einer intensiven Form von CLIL bzw. bilingualem Unterricht. Ausgehend von einem psycholinguistischen Modell der Diskursproduktion betrachtet der vorliegende Band einerseits, auf der Makroebene der Textualität, die Entwicklung der Kohärenz der Erzählungen und andererseits, auf der Mikroebene, die Entwicklung der Kohäsion. Die gewählten Analysemodelle basieren auf Geschichtengrammatik und kohäsiven Mittel nach Halliday und Hasan (1976). Der Band ist eine der ersten Studien zu Kohärenz und Kohäsion im Zweitsprachenerwerb und die bisher einzige solche Studie im Kontext frühen Fremdsprachenunterrichts. Hauptzielgruppen sind Linguistinnen und Linguisten, die an Spracherwerb, frühkindlichen Erzählungen, Text-/Diskurslinguistik interessiert sind, sowie Fachdidaktikerinnen und Fachdidaktiker, die an frühem Fremdsprachenunterricht und bilingualem Unterricht interessiert sind.




Anaphora Resolution in Children and Adults


Book Description

This work focuses on the comprehension of null and overt subject pronouns in intrasentential anaphora contexts in Basque, a language which employs overt referential devices that fall out of the scope of what traditionally counts as third person pronouns, namely the demonstrative hura 'that' and the quasipronoun bera '(s)he (him/herself)'. Data from native adults obtained from two experimental offline tasks on the referential properties and the discourse features of null and overt pronouns set a baseline for comparison with a) the i nsights reported in descriptive grammars and with b) developmental data from 6-8-year-old child L1 and child L2.




La Española - Isla de Encuentros / Hispaniola - Island of Encounters


Book Description

Zwei Staaten unterschiedlicher sprachlicher und kultureller Prägung - Haiti und die Dominikanische Republik - teilen sich heute die Karibikinsel Hispaniola. In der Kolonialzeit war sie Schauplatz der ersten Begegnungen zwischen Indigenen und Spaniern und Spielball der Auseinandersetzungen zwischen europäischen Kolonialmächten. Plantagensystem und Sklaverei gelangten hier zu ihrer höchsten Blüte, bis die Haitianische Revolution und die Gründung des ersten unabhängigen Staats in Amerika das Kolonialsystem erschütterten. Die wechselvolle Geschichte der Insel spiegelt sich in vielschichtigen Sprach- und Kulturkontakten wider, die die karibische Sprachenlandschaft bis heute prägen und den Gegenstand des vorliegenden Bandes bilden. Die Beiträge beleuchten die frühesten indianisch-spanischen Sprachkontakte ebenso wie das Phänomen der Kreolisierung in Haiti, historische und aktuelle Austauschprozesse zwischen Spanisch und Kreol und die Weiterentwicklung dieser Sprachen in der Diaspora.




Researching and Teaching Speech Acts with Young L2 Learners


Book Description

This book introduces the main concepts of pragmatics as they relate to the young English language learner classroom and research with young second language learners (YLLs). It considers the speech acts which are particularly relevant to YLLs and presents research findings on learners’ development of speech act perception and production. It provides pre- and in-service second language (L2) teachers, teacher educators and researchers with an understanding of young learners’ pragmatic development and with ideas for research-based approaches and specific classroom activities to help foster speech act development in the YLL classroom. Moving beyond the research methods traditionally employed in L2 pragmatics research, it also demonstrates how participant-centred data elicitation methods can be effective when conducting research with children. This book will appeal to researchers, advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students in applied linguistics and TESOL, as well as pre- and in-service primary school L2 teachers and teacher educators.




The Magic of Language


Book Description

Language is magic. This magic happens when new ideas come to our minds or when we come across notions which are new to us, i.e. when we use language productively and construct our own world. The magic (in the productivity) of language works in various linguistic areas, e.g. phonetics, lexicology, phraseology, pragmatics, languages for specific purposes and multilingualism. In language teaching and learning, this magic comes into effect when language meets content, when we try to adapt our teaching to our learners’ needs or when we need to leave our comfort zone to take risks. With contributions by Lizeta Demetriou, Bessie Dendrinos, Olga Dobrunoff, Rashit Emini, Douglas Fleming, Thomas H. Goetz, Ourania Katsara, Bernd Klewitz, Katrin Menzel, Torten Piske, Lea Pöschik, Ronald Kresta, Nikolay Slavkov, Anja Steinlen, and Brikena & Gëzim Xhaferi, this edited volume features articles that cover a diversity of research findings which deal with the magic of language in various contexts and linguistic settings in Europe, America and Asia. Saarbrücken Series on Linguistics and Language Methodology (SSLLM) Series Editor: Prof. Thomas Tinnefeld




Young L2 learners’ narrative discourse


Book Description




English in Elementary Schools


Book Description

An increasing number of multilingual students, often with a migration background, are attending elementary schools in Germany these days. Also on the rise is the number of schools offering a bilingual program, where content subjects such as science and mathematics are taught in a foreign language. This book explores minority and majority language students' German and English reading and writing skills in elementary schools which offer either regular English-as-subject lessons or bilingual programs with varying degrees of English intensity. The focus is on effects of foreign language input intensity with respect to students' language background, gender, cognitive abilities, and socio-economic background. This book also provides recommendations for English reading and writing activities in the elementary school classroom.




An Empirical Study of EFL Writing at Primary School


Book Description

This book presents a research study investigating young foreign language learners' ability to compose communicative texts in English. It reviews current research on young learners' EFL writing, reports on the learners' EFL writing competence, describes text quality at different CEFR language levels, and discusses current teaching practices and the learners' perception of EFL writing.




Age and the Rate of Foreign Language Learning


Book Description

This book examines the various ways in which age affects the process and the product of foreign language learning in a school setting. It presents studies that cover a wide range of topics, from phonetics to learning strategies. It will be of interest to students and researchers working in SLA research, language planning and language teaching.




Research Methods for Understanding Child Second Language Development


Book Description

Butler and Huang’s book is one of the first to focus on second language (L2) development research methods and techniques specifically targeted at children of primary and pre-primary years. The last decade has seen a growing number of L2 studies of children aged 4–12, a demographic with special developmental characteristics that confound research methods designed for studying adults. Written by experts from a variety of disciplines, this book covers major research methods and techniques in existing L2 development research, including observations, surveys, interviews, introspective methods, speech production methods, receptive methods, eye tracking, and brain imaging, as well as research methods specifically designed for L2 children with special educational needs. The book also discusses various age-related considerations and challenges if they are employed to young L2 learners. This will be essential reading for SLA, child development, and TESOL researchers, and students in these courses will benefit particularly from pedagogical material such as further readings and discussion questions.