On the nature of morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge in school-age English-Japanese bilingual and monolingual children
Morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge are two (among many) components of multi-faceted word knowledge critical for language development and ultimately, academic performance, as they strongly correlate with other essential, literacy-related skills, such as spelling, writing and reading comprehension (Ramirez, Chen, Geva & Kiefer, 2010). Developing these types of knowledge is a non-linear process for school-age children: morphological awareness, in particular, involves long-term learning towards a full mastery beginning in mid-dle childhood and continuing through adolescence. Such learning processes can pose significant challenges especially for children attending a school entirely in a second language (L2) while speaking, as a first language (L1), a language which is ethno-linguistically minority in status in the larger (L2) society. Despite globally growing populations of L2 children in school settings, little is known about the nature of morphological/vocabulary knowledge in one language, relative to the other, especially when children are learning two typologically distant languages with different writing systems. The current study, situated within the theoretical framework of multicompetence
Hayashi, Yuko
Applied Linguistics ; Education ; Educational Psychology ; morphological awareness ; bilingualism ; vocabulary ; transfer ; multicompetence
On the nature of morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge in school-age English-Japanese bilingual and monolingual children. Morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge are two (among many) components of multi-faceted word knowledge critical for language development and ultimately, academic performance, as they strongly correlate with other essential, literacy-related skills, such as spelling, writing and reading comprehension (Ramirez, Chen, Geva & Kiefer, 2010). Developing these types of knowledge is a non-linear process for school-age children: morphological awareness, in particular, involves long-term learning towards a full mastery beginning in mid-dle childhood and continuing through adolescence. Such learning processes can pose significant challenges especially for children attending a school entirely in a second language (L2) while speaking, as a first language (L1), a language which is ethno-linguistically minority in status in the larger (L2) society. Despite globally growing populations of L2 children in school settings, little is known about the nature of morphological/vocabulary knowledge in one language, relative to the other, especially when children are learning two typologically distant languages with different writing systems. The current study, situated within the theoretical framework of multicompetence
nature morphological awareness vocabulary_knowledge school age english_japanese bilingual monolingual_child morphological awareness vocabulary_knowledge among many component multi_faceted word_knowledge critical language development ultimately academic performance strongly correlate essential literacy related skill spell write read_comprehension and developing type knowledge non_linear process school age child morphological awareness particular involve long_term learning towards full mastery begin mid childhood continue adolescence learn_process pose significant challenge especially child attend school entirely second_language speaking first_language language ethno linguistically minority status large society despite globally grow_population child school setting little_known nature morphological vocabulary_knowledge language relative especially child_learn typologically distant language different write_system current_study situate_within theoretical_framework