Language promotion and language practices in early educational settings in Luxembourg: Research projects in the fields of non-formal and formal education

Scientific Conference (2015, March 06)

Die sprachliche Situation Luxemburgs zeichnet sich durch eine besondere Komplexität aus, zu der nicht nur die drei offiziellen Landesprachen – Luxemburgisch, Französisch und Deutsch – sondern auch die ... [more ▼]

Die sprachliche Situation Luxemburgs zeichnet sich durch eine besondere Komplexität aus, zu der nicht nur die drei offiziellen Landesprachen – Luxemburgisch, Französisch und Deutsch – sondern auch die migrationsbedingte Diversität der Bevölkerung sowie die tagtäglichen GrenzpendlerInnen aus den Nachbarländern beitragen. Der frühkindlichen Bildung kommt hierbei eine Schlüsselrolle zu – sowohl in Hinsicht auf die Vorbereitung einer erfolgreichen Bildungsbeteiligung im mehrsprachigen luxemburgischen Schulsystem, als auch bezüglich des sozialen Zusammenhalts einer äußerst heterogenen Gesellschaft. Der Vortrag gibt zunächst einen Überblick über die sprachliche und organisationale Verfasstheit des Luxemburger Bildungs- und Betreuungssystems und präsentiert dann Einblicke in drei verschiedene Forschungsbereiche an der Universität Luxemburg, die sich dem Thema aus unterschiedlichen disziplinären, methodischen und konzeptionellen Perspektiven annähern. Claudine Kirsch gibt Einblicke in zwei Projekte zur Förderung der Mündlichkeit, zum einen anhand der App iTEO mit 4- bis 7-Jährigen in der „école fondamentale“, zum anderen durch Bildliteralität mit 2- bis 6-Jährigen in Kindertageseinrichtungen und Vorschulen (Projekte „iTEO“ und „Multilingual oracies“). Claudia Seele stellt erste Befunde aus ihrer ethnographischen Forschung zur alltäglichen Sprachpraxis in staatlich geförderten Kindertageseinrichtungen für 0- bis 4-Jährige vor. Pascale Engel de Abreu geht schließlich der Frage nach, wie man zentrale sprachliche und kognitive Prozesse bei mehrsprachigen Kindern fördern kann. In diesem Zusammenhang stellt sie die Projekte „Multilinguaalt Léierpotenzial fërderen (POLILUX)“ und „Lauter lëschteg Lauter“ (LITMUL) vor. Abschließend werden einige übergreifende Fragen zur Diskussion aufgeworfen, beispielsweise zum Verhältnis zwischen Forschung, Politik und Praxis, zu den Möglichkeiten und Grenzen eines Transfers wissenschaftlichen Wissens, zur Bedeutung und Ausgestaltung von Aus- und Weiterbildung sowie zur Zusammenarbeit mit Fachkräften und Familien. [less ▲]

Specific language impairment in language-minority children from low-income families

in International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders (2014), 49(6), 736-747

Background: Recent evidence suggests that Specific Language Impairment (SLI) might be secondary to general cognitive processing limitations in the domain of executive functioning. Previous research has ... [more ▼]

Background: Recent evidence suggests that Specific Language Impairment (SLI) might be secondary to general cognitive processing limitations in the domain of executive functioning. Previous research has focused almost exclusively on monolingual children with SLI and offers little evidence-based guidance on executive functioning in bilingual children with SLI. Studying bilinguals with SLI is important, especially in the light of increasing evidence that bilingualism can bring advantages in certain domains of executive functioning. Aims: This study seeks to determine whether executive functioning represents an area of difficulty for bilingual language-minority children with SLI and if so, which specific executive processes are affected. Methods and procedures: This cross-cultural research was conducted with bilingual children from Luxembourg and monolingual children from Portugal who all had Portuguese as their first language. The data from 81 eight-year-olds from the following three groups was analyzed: (1) 15 Portuguese-Luxembourgish bilinguals from Luxembourg with an SLI diagnosis; (2) 33 typically developing Portuguese-Luxembourgish bilinguals from Luxembourg; (3) 33 typically developing Portuguese-speaking monolinguals from Portugal. Groups were matched on first language, ethnicity, chronological age and socioeconomic status, and they did not differ in nonverbal intelligence. Children completed a battery of tests tapping: expressive and receptive vocabulary, syntactic comprehension, verbal and visuospatial working memory, selective attention and interference suppression. Results: The bilingual SLI group performed equally well to their typically developing peers on measures of visuospatial working memory but had lower scores than both control groups on tasks of verbal working memory. On measures of selective attention and interference suppression, typically developing children who were bilingual outperformed their monolingual counterparts. For selective attention, performance of the bilingual SLI group did not differ significantly from the controls. For interference suppression the bilingual SLI group performed significantly less well than typically developing bilinguals but not monolinguals. Conclusions and implications: This research provides further support to the position that SLI is not a language-specific disorder. The study indicates that although bilingual children with SLI do not demonstrate the same advantages in selective attention and interference suppression as typically developing bilinguals, they do not lag behind typically developing monolinguals in these domains of executive functioning. This finding raises the possibility that bilingualism might represent a protective factor against some of the cognitive limitations that are associated with SLI in monolinguals. [less ▲]

O cérebro multilingue

E-print/Working paper (2014)

Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (CLT) and word knowledge in monolingual children

Scientific Conference (2014, July 17)

Introductory paper presents the method of the CLT construction and monolingual results obtained for 18 languages (Afrikaans, British English, SA English, Catalan, Finnish, German, Hebrew, isiXhosa ... [more ▼]

Introductory paper presents the method of the CLT construction and monolingual results obtained for 18 languages (Afrikaans, British English, SA English, Catalan, Finnish, German, Hebrew, isiXhosa, Italian, Luxembourgish, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish). The CLT was conceived to assess comprehension and production of nouns and verbs in different languages. Picture choice and picture naming tasks were chosen because these procedures least involve other types of linguistic or conceptual skills. Response accuracy indicates the size of receptive and expressive vocabulary. Error coding (production task) provides additional information about the nature of lexical problems. We used a unique procedure for designing the CLT in parallel in 34 different languages according to the same criteria. Phases of the CLT design included: (1) Defining a set of candidate words (158 nouns and 142 verbs) that are mostly shared across 34 languages (a picture naming and rating study; 85 competent judges) (2) Determining the formal complexity of candidate words for each language (expert informants) (3) Determining the age of acquisition (AoA) of candidate words (on-line subjective rating study in each language; over 800 adult participants) (4) Selecting a list of target words for each language according to key criteria (5) Designing a set of culturally-neutral colored pictures for the selected words (6) Preparing uniform instructions for CLT use All CLT versions were piloted and the lists of target words were verified according to the pilot results. Cross-linguistic comparison of monolingual baseline CLT results includes data obtained from 449 children (aged 3-6 years). The results show significant effect of age, noun priority in both comprehension and production and interaction of mode and word-class (production of verbs was most prone to errors). We conclude that the CLT represents an accurate and culture-fair method for assessment of lexical knowledge in preschool children. [less ▲]

Executive functions and Specific Language Impairment (SLI) A cross-cultural study with bi- and monolingual children from low income families in Luxembourg, Portugal, and Brazil

Scientific Conference (2014, July 16)

Research questions. Our aim was to (a) seek cross-cultural evidence for executive functioning deficits in children with specific language impairment (SLI); (b) explore whether a similar pattern of ... [more ▼]

Research questions. Our aim was to (a) seek cross-cultural evidence for executive functioning deficits in children with specific language impairment (SLI); (b) explore whether a similar pattern of deficits emerges in monolingual and bilingual children with SLI from low income families. Methods. We present data on bilingual and monolingual children from Luxembourg, Portugal, and Brazil who all speak Portuguese as their first language and were tested on the same battery of language and executive function measures. The data from 124 eight-year-olds from five different groups was analyzed: (1) 15 Portuguese-Luxembourgish bilingual children from Luxembourg with SLI (Bi-SLI); (2) 33 typically developing Portuguese-Luxembourgish bilingual children from Luxembourg (Bi-TD); (3) 33 typically developing monolinguals from Portugal (Mo-TD/Pt); (4) 18 monolinguals from Brazil with SLI (Mo-SLI); (5) 25 typically developing monolinguals from Brazil (Mo-TD/Br). Groups were matched on chronological age, socioeconomic status, and nonverbal intelligence. Children completed a range of measures tapping vocabulary, grammar, verbal and visuospatial working memory, and cognitive control. Results. Despite significant differences in their language and verbal working memory performance (SLI<TD), groups exhibited comparable performance on visuospatial working memory tasks. On cognitive control the following pattern emerged: Mo-TD/Pt < Bi-TD; Bi-SLI = Mo-TD/Pt; Mo-SLI < Mo-TD/Br. Conclusion. The study provides no evidence of domain-general deficits in working memory in SLI. Visuospatial working memory difficulties might not be specific to SLI but represent one of many risk factors that can compromise language learning. Our data is consistent with the position that a bilingual experience stimulates the development of cognitive control that is involved in dealing with conflicting information. Notably, our results indicate that mechanisms of cognitive control might be deficient in monolingual but not in bilingual children with SLI raising the possibility that bilingualism might represent a protective factor against some of the cognitive limitations in SLI. [less ▲]

Cross-Linguistic and Cross-Cultural Effects on Verbal Working Memory and Vocabulary: Testing Language Minority Children with an Immigrant Background

Scientific Conference (2014, July 03)

The study explored the impact of test language and cultural status on vocabulary and working memory performance in multilingual language minority children. Twenty 7-year-old Portuguese-speaking immigrant ... [more ▼]

The study explored the impact of test language and cultural status on vocabulary and working memory performance in multilingual language minority children. Twenty 7-year-old Portuguese-speaking immigrant children living in Luxembourg completed several assessments of first- and second-language vocabulary (comprehension and production), executive-loaded working memory (counting recall and backward digit recall), and verbal short-term memory (digit recall and nonword repetition). Cross-linguistic task performance was compared within individuals. The language minority children were also compared with multilingual language majority children from Luxembourg and Portuguese-speaking monolinguals from Brazil without an immigrant background matched on age, sex, socioeconomic status, and nonverbal reasoning. Results showed that (a) verbal working memory measures involving numerical memoranda were relatively independent of test language and cultural status; (b) language status had an impact on the repetition of high- but not on low-wordlike L2 nonwords; (c) large cross-linguistic and cross-cultural effects emerged for productive vocabulary; (d) cross-cultural effects were less pronounced for vocabulary comprehension with no differences between groups if only L1-words relevant to the home context were considered. The study indicates that linguistic and cognitive assessments for language minority children require careful choice among measures to ensure valid results. Implications for testing culturally and linguistically diverse children are discussed. [less ▲]

Dat méisproochegt Gehir beim Kand

Conference given outside the academic context (2014)

Le cerveau multilingue Est-ce qu’une éducation multilingue est bénéfique pour l’enfant ? Quelles sont les conditions optimales pour qu’un enfant puisse devenir parfaitement multilingue ? Cette conférence ... [more ▼]

Le cerveau multilingue Est-ce qu’une éducation multilingue est bénéfique pour l’enfant ? Quelles sont les conditions optimales pour qu’un enfant puisse devenir parfaitement multilingue ? Cette conférence met en évidence le soi-disant « avantage cognitif » du multilinguisme et illustre les influences du multilinguisme sur l’organisation du cerveau. Des questions plus pratiques face à l’éducation multilingue seront également abordées. [less ▲]

Specific language impairment in language minority children from low-income families

in Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology (2014, May), 56(S3), 7-23

Background: This study seeks to determine whether executive functioning represents an area of difficulty for bilingual children with SLI and if so, which specific executive processes are affected. Methods ... [more ▼]

Background: This study seeks to determine whether executive functioning represents an area of difficulty for bilingual children with SLI and if so, which specific executive processes are affected. Methods: The data from 81 eight-year-olds from the following groups was analyzed: (1) 15 Portuguese-Luxembourgish bilinguals from Luxembourg with an SLI diagnosis; (2) 33 typically developing Portuguese-Luxembourgish bilinguals from Luxembourg; (3) 33 typically developing Portuguese-speaking monolinguals from Portugal. Groups were matched on first language, ethnicity, chronological age, socioeconomic status, and nonverbal intelligence. Children completed tests tapping: expressive and receptive vocabulary, syntactic comprehension, verbal and visuospatial working memory, selective attention and interference suppression. Results: The bilingual SLI group performed equally well to their typically developing peers on measures of visuospatial working memory but had lower scores than both control groups on tasks of verbal working memory. On measures of selective attention and interference suppression, typically developing children who were bilingual outperformed their monolingual counterparts. For selective attention, performance of the bilingual SLI group did not differ significantly from the controls. For interference suppression the bilingual SLI group performed significantly less well than typically developing bilinguals but not monolinguals. Discussion: The study indicates that although bilingual children with SLI do not demonstrate the same advantages in selective attention and interference suppression as typically developing bilinguals, they do not lag behind typically developing monolinguals in these domains of executive functioning. This finding raises the possibility that bilingualism might represent a protective factor against some of the cognitive limitations that are associated with SLI in monolinguals. [less ▲]

Das mehrsprachige Gehirn

Conference given outside the academic context (2014)

The multilingual brain. Is a multilingual education beneficial for children? What are the optimal conditions under which a child can become perfectly multilingual? The given lecture will focus on the ... [more ▼]

The multilingual brain. Is a multilingual education beneficial for children? What are the optimal conditions under which a child can become perfectly multilingual? The given lecture will focus on the "cognitive advantages" of multilingualism and illustrate the impact that being multilingual has on the cognitive organisation of the brain. Practical questions regarding multilingual education will also be discussed. [less ▲]

D’méisproochegt Gehir

E-print/Working paper (2014)

Den „kognitive Virdeel“ vun der Méisproochegkeet besteet doranner, datt méisproocheg Kanner a bestëmmte kognitiven Aufgaben, déi déi sougenannten „Exekutivfunktioune“ moossen, besser si wéi Kanner, déi ... [more ▼]

Den „kognitive Virdeel“ vun der Méisproochegkeet besteet doranner, datt méisproocheg Kanner a bestëmmte kognitiven Aufgaben, déi déi sougenannten „Exekutivfunktioune“ moossen, besser si wéi Kanner, déi nëmmen eng Sprooch schwätzen. [less ▲]