ask for suggestions on research methodology/ a reference

Thu Dec 17 00:04:31 UTC 2009

Dear Ellen,

I second Marilyn Vihman's suggestions for your research questions.   
Young children can learn *about* English, and they can enjoy some  
songs and games in English from casual programs, but they will not  
learn to use the language without a serious and continuous commitment  
to create an immersion situation for at least part of their day,  
several days a week.  My own children participated in Spanish for  
English speakers when they were in elementary school in Miami.   
Classes were 20 minutes or so per day, three or four times a week.  I  
am not aware of any studies evaluating them, but children who took  
them were given no credit for them when it came to language classes in  
junior high school, and within a month or so, children who didn't take  
them seemed to know as much as those who did.

The program is called "World Languages" by the Miami-Dade Public  
Schools:  http://bilingual.dadeschools.net/  I called the Office of  
Educational Accountability to see if there has been any official  
evaluation of the learning that takes place in those programs.  The  
director said that the 20 minutes a day, 4 times a week was a  
disaster.  It might have worked, but no one ever did the whole  
program.  Children were always being pulled out for something else.   
She sent me a study of a slightly different model, however, which was  
done in-house by Schneyderman and Abella and was just published on  
line in a Taylor & Francis journal:

Bilingual Research Journal, 32: 241–259, 2009.
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t909204797.

This newer program is called "Extended Foreign Language" with two  
models: 1 hour of Spanish language arts per day, or 1 hour of Spanish  
language arts plus 1/2 hour of science or social studies in Spanish.   
The research followed a sample of children from kindergarten to 3rd  
grade, some native Spanish speakers, but the more interesting ones for  
your purposes were the non-Hispanic children.  One analysis compared  
the two programs to each other, and another compared the participants'  
English and Math standardized (FCAT) scores to a carefully matched  
control sample.  The two models of the program were not very different  
in outcome for the native Spanish speakers (and the students were  
above the national averages for the normed reading tests in Spanish).   
Not surprisingly, the non-native Spanish speakers did somewhat better  
with the extra half-hour per day than with just one hour.  One chart  
shows that by 3rd grade, 53% with 1 hour a day, and 61% with 1.5 hours  
a day scored "fluent" on the LAS-O. (The native speakers went from 61%  
to 91% fluent speakers in that time.)  By 3rd grade, native speakers  
had no "non-speakers" according to the LAS; the 1.5 hours/day program  
had 9% "non-speakers"  but the 1-hour a day program had 31% non- 
speakers.  In the second analysis, all the program children did as  
well as or better than the controls in their state testing.

Anyway, I think there's something there to give you some ideas.  Let  
me know if you have any trouble downloading the article and I will  
send it to you.

(I will also add that the book of mine Marilyn Vihman mentions  
(Raising a Bilingual Child, 2008) is written for parents, but you can  
get page-by-page references for the material in it at my website, so  
it may be a good start for your dissertation project.
http://www.zurer.com/pearson/bilingualchild/Notes-newpages3.html)
I am also happy to try to answer any questions if I can. : )

Good luck. Yours is a question the world is waiting to hear an answer  
to.

Cheers,
Barbara

On Dec 15, 2009, at 3:21 PM, marilyn vihman wrote:

> Dear Ellen,
>
> I teach a class in child bilingualism, so probably some of what my  
> students read and think about is relevant here. I'll just respond to  
> the questions I might know something about...
>
> On 15 Dec 2009, at 13:20, yqwang wrote:
>
>> This is the first time I ask for help here. I am looking forward  
>> for your kind suggestions.
>>
>> In my Ph.D. dissertation, I want to conduct a study on kindergarten  
>> English instruction. Since 1990s, parents are crazy for young  
>> kids’ English learning in China. It’s a fact in Shanghai that  
>> most kindergarten provide English program for 3-6 year children. It  
>> seems that parents are over-anxious. However, what is the  
>> relationship between kindergarten English learning and later  
>> English achievement? Can the early start guarantee more success?
> I'd say that ealry  L2 is useful only insofar as it is an immersion  
> experience. Very young children don't do well with explicit  
> teaching, and don't benefit from just an hour or two a week. Also,  
> for it to be of any use, there must be serious continuity: If they  
> keep getting exposure to English over a long period of time, and it  
> involves interaction with English speakers that is interesting and  
> motivating to them, and it is not interrupted by a few years of no  
> exposure, then yes, early learning can be beneficial.
>
>> What are the optimal conditions for children to learn a foreign  
>> language?
> As I indicated above, the key thing is immersion - hearing the  
> language used by fluent (if not L1) users, and with motivation:  
> reasons to use the language, ideally with social interlocutors who  
> are of interest to the children and who do not know the children's L1.
>
>> I think a careful study is necessary and of great significance to  
>> both parents and kindergarten teachers.　How can I conduct my study  
>> effectively?  Is there anyone have done relevant studies? 
>> Suggestions on methodology are especially welcome.
> I would start by using audio/video recording to see who the children  
> are talking to, what kind of responses they are giving, etc - a  
> naturalistic observational study, perhaps focusing on a small number  
> of individual children.
>
> There is a considerably literature, though not necessarily quite  
> what you are planning to study. Some sources for the literature  
> include Ellen Bialystok's book (2001) and one by Barbara Pearson,  
> mainly addressed to families, I think, last year. Lily Wong Fillmore  
> studied children learning English in immersion in Kindergarten or  
> first grade in N. California in the 1970s. Barry McLaughlin has a  
> book (1980s) on L2 acquisition in childhood. I suggest hunting  
> around via Google Scholar...
>
> I hope these remarks are helpful!
>
> -marilyn vihman
>> Thanks in advance for any help anyone is able to offer regarding  
>> this point.
>>
>> Ellen
>>
>>
>> ************************************************************************************************
>>
>>
>> Ellen Wang
>> Ph.D. Student
>> Children’s Language Development and Education Area
>> Department of Preschool Education
>> East China Normal University
>> Shanghai, China
>>
>>
>>
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************************************************
Barbara Zurer Pearson, Ph.D.
Research Associate, Depts of Linguistics and   Communication Disorders
c/o 226 South College
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Amherst MA 01003

bpearson at research.umass.edu
http://www.umass.edu/aae/bp_indexold.htm
http://www.zurer.com/pearson

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