Toegepaste Taalwetenschap in Artikelen - Volume 81, Issue 1, 2009

SLA is as much a product of learner-internal as of contextual, learner-external factors but the latter have been relatively underinvestigated in mainstream SLA research. This research focuses on German-speaking pupils learning English in four different educational contexts (n=4x26), representing four discrete points on the traditional foreign language - second language context continuum: a regular German school near Munich (Germany), the European School (ES) in Munich, the ES in Brussels (Belgium), and the ES in Culham (UK). Two dependent variables have been studied: global L2 proficiency and L2 social-psychological dispositions.The study reveals significant differences in global L2 proficiency amongst the four contexts. The results suggest that a high functional importance of the target language in the learning environment stimulates L2 proficiency development. In terms of social-psychological dispositions, no important differences were found amongst the four contexts; pupils in all four contexts demonstrate positive attitudes towards (learning) English and are highly motivated.

The relevance of L1 status and typology for L2 learning is often assumed. These concepts, however, are rarely the primary object of study in SLA research, in part because defining them is a complex matter. In an attempt to redress this imbalance, this explorative study investigates French L2 social-psychological dispositions and global French L2 proficiency in young learners in European schools in Brussels and Luxemburg (n=83; 585h of FSL on average).It was found that pupils with a lower status L1 (German as compared to English) display more positive L2 attitudes, higher L2 motivation and achieve higher levels of global L2 proficiency. A different trend was observed in pupils whose L1 is typologically similar to the L2 (Spanish as compared to German): few significant differences were found concerning social-psychological dispositions as well as global L2 proficiency.

The present study was set up to evaluate to what extent multilingual study groups can be considered homogeneous. A series of interviews were conducted to investigate the metacommunicative awareness of 101 children. We compared children who had learned an additional language in a formal context (abbreviated LLE, i.e. Language Learning Experience) to those who had not (abbreviated nLLE, i.e. without a Language Learning Experience). The primary outcome measure consisted of the reactions to an imaginary situation of communication. The results of the current study suggest that LLE children were more inclined to carry out the exchange than the nLLE children. Studying the same outcome measure, no such difference was identified when comparing monolingual to multilingual children. These findings indicate that with regard to the present tasks, the presence or absence of LLE may be a more relevant factor than mono- or multilingualism.

This study investigates whether there is a difference between native and non-native speakers of Dutch in the segmentation of reduced and unreduced Dutch forms. For this purpose, two segmentation tasks were constructed, measuring both speed and accuracy of segmentation. Participants were presented with full and reduced auditory input and had to indicate how many and which words they heard. Native speakers were faster and more accurate than non-native speakers in segmenting unreduced and reduced speech. This may be ascribed to non-native speakers' inability to effectively use Dutch segmentation cues. They may also be less able to use reconstructive processes. More notably, non-native speakers were better at counting words than identifying them. This may represent a phase in the - what seems to be a - gradual process of the acquisition of segmentation skills. This study constitutes a stepping stone toward bridging the gap between studies of segmentation and studies of reduction processes.

This paper describes a pilot-study that explores situated learning at kindergarten. By whole-class shared book reading, children get to know several participation frame-works, in which they gradually learn to participate during a longitudinal reading-aloud program. Using qualitative conversation analytic methods, this paper shows how children explore these different frameworks. One framework is described in more detail, because it demonstrates the development children go through by learning to participate in this discussion frame. As can be seen by the interactions that take place within the discussion frame, children gradually learn to use exploratory talk: children jointly construct knowledge, which enables them to practice and develop ways of reasoning with language. This pilot-study shows that further analysis of the creation of participation frameworks during whole-class book reading and the interactions that take place within these frameworks is likely to give more insight into the evolving processes of learning and development.

In theory, opaque orthographies should pose more difficulties for people with developmental dyslexia than transparent ones. (Frost, 2005). However, studies (Miller-Guron & Lundberg, 2000; Van der Leij & Morfidi, 2006) show that some people with dyslexia are better at reading L2 English than their L1 transparent orthography. The current study suggests that they have a form of dyslexia known as phonological dyslexia. On the basis of the dual-route model (Coltheart, 2005), it is proposed that membership of a dyslexic subtype - phonological or surface - influences success in dealing with orthographic depth. To test this, Dutch teenagers with phonological and surface dyslexia performed Dutch and English orthographic competence and spelling tasks. The results seem to indicate that people with phonological dyslexia are more successful in reading English as an L2 opaque than Dutch as an L1 transparent orthography; however, in the case of spelling, the reverse pattern is observed.

The present paper deals with the acquisition of finiteness in German and Dutch child language. More specifically, it discusses the assumption of fundamental similarities in the development of the finiteness category in German and Dutch L1 as postulated by Dimroth et al. (2003). A comparison of German and Dutch child corpus data will show that Dimroth et al.'s assumption can be maintained as far as the overall development of the finiteness category is concerned. At a more fine-grained level, however, German and Dutch children exhibit different linguistic behaviour. This concerns in particular the means for the expression of early finiteness and the status of the auxiliary hebben/haben 'to have'. The observed differences can be explained as the result of target language specific properties of the input.

The purpose of this research was to establish an effect of the communicational environment on the interpretation of representational gestures. In particular, it was tested whether having a more concrete or abstract mindset influences the way gestures are interpreted. As in Krahmer & Stapel (to appear), the mindset of 46 participants was manipulated by letting them solve word puzzles with only abstract or concrete concepts. Participants then interpreted gestures shown on film by choosing between a given concrete and abstract interpretation. Results show that despite an overall abstract bias, there was a difference between the conditions in interpreting the gestures in the hypothesized direction. Furthermore, the control condition that was not put in a specific mindset scored an average in-between these two conditions. Since this effect was only significant at the beginning, it is concluded that there is a brief but generalisable environmental effect on the interpretation of representational gestures.

Based on how different languages verbalise motion events they can be divided into two main categories: satellite-framed (e.g., English) and verb-framed languages (e.g., Spanish) (Talmy, 1985; Slobin, 2004). This typology reflects the speakers' way of thinking-for-speaking (Slobin, 1996; 2004). According to, for example, McNeill & Duncan (2000), gestures are also part of thinking-for-speaking. This is reflected by the constituents with which gestures coincide. However, previous research (Van Hoof, 2000; Vrinzen, 2003; Boot 2003) suggests that even two satellite-framed languages can differ in their gesture placement. The English participants tended to place their gestures on the verb (expected of verb-framed languages). The Dutch displayed no consistent pattern across the three studies. This study investigates German. Results suggest that Germans tend to place their gestures on the satellite (expected of satellite-framed languages). Together, these four studies indicate that a categorisation based on speech cannot necessarily be applied to gestures.

Educational priority policy schools differ in the learning outcomes they achieve with second language learners. School effectiveness research suggests that teachers can make a difference, but fails to make clear exactly how they can do so. This quasi-experimental study combines a comparison group design with a control group design to answer the research question "How effective are five primary school teachers in creating powerful learning environments for knowledge construction and academic language learning?" This article focuses on which types of students benefit the most from a classroom intervention, called The case DNA. The case DNA is a task-based lesson unit containing eight clear lesson objectives and the necessary lesson materials and learning activities to realize these lesson objectives. The teachers were free to adapt the lesson unit to their own teaching styles. The results of the students on the pre-test, post-test and delayed post-test DNA were analysed using multilevel analysis. Results show that socio-economic status, language proficiency, number of turns, teacher expectations and home language Turkish predict differential learning outcomes.

Within Dynamic Systems Theory (DST), it is assumed that differences in the degree of variability can provide insight into the process of L2 development. This longitudinal case study investigates intra-individual variability in Finnish learner language, focusing on the development of accuracy and complexity.The study involves 54 writing samples, written by a Dutch student who learned Finnish as a foreign language. Finnish, a synthetic language of the agglutinating type, is very different from Indo-European languages and well known for its complex morphology. This complex morphology was investigated for accuracy in form and use. Word-, Noun Phrase-, clause- and sentence constructions were examined for complexity. The purpose of the study was to explain the fluctuations of intra-individual variability and complex relations between variables and to detect both supportive and competitive relationships between growers in order to provide valuable insights into the dynamic processes involved in L2 development.

In this paper, we looked at the acquisition of gender agreement in the DP by bilingual children acquiring both a Romance (Spanish or French) and Germanic (Dutch) language. The prediction was that gender agreement would be acquired earlier by bilinguals in their Romance language than in Dutch. Seven French/Dutch and nine Spanish/Dutch children participated in a sentence completion task created to elicit gender-marked determiners. It turned out that the French/Dutch bilinguals made more errors in gender assignment in Dutch than in French, which confirms this hypothesis. The Spanish/Dutch bilinguals showed atypical behaviour, omitting articles in both Dutch and Spanish quite frequendy, which indicated a delay in both languages. Since the French/Dutch bilinguals were more proficient in both languages than their Spanish peers, we suggest that a certain proficiency in the two languages must be attained in order to prevent a delay in acquisition.