English syntactic acquisition among Malay-English bilingual primary school students

In the original version of Processability Theory (PT) by Pienemann (1998), the development of learners’ L2 morphology and syntax are analysed in the same hierarchy/schedule. In Pienemann, Di Biase and Kawaguchi (2005), the analysis of learners’ L2 syntax, inspired by developments in Lexical Functional Grammar (Bresnan 2001), was extended to encompass discourse-pragmatic functions and lexical mapping, which account for higher levels of complexity. These aspects were further expanded by Bettoni and Di Biase (2015) leading to the Prominence Hypothesis and some adjustments regarding the Lexical Mapping Hypothesis. The current study presents the acquisition of English syntax among Malay-English bilingual primary school children from the latter developments. Five nine-year-old children, who have attended the same primary school which employed the Standard Based Curriculum for Primary Schools (KSSR) syllabus for 2 years (i.e., since they were 7 years old) became the informants for this study. The speech output of the children was elicited through two communicative tasks. Based on the Prominence Hypothesis, results demonstrate that the children used canonical word order (SVO) and had progressed to the XPDF canonical word order stage (TOPXP SVO) but had not yet reached the non-canonical word order (TOPXP marked orders). From The Lexical Mapping Hypothesis standpoint, the children were found to use the default thematic mapping (Agent/experiencer mapped on SUBJ, patient/theme mapped on OBJ) as well as the default mapping with additional arguments (Agent/experiencer mapped on SUBJ, patient/theme mapped on OBJ, and other members of the a-structure hierarchy such as goals and locatives, mapped on OBL) but they have not reached the non-default mapping structure (e.g. passives). These findings are significant because these newer PT hypotheses are tested for the first time on the English L2 syntax of bilingual Malay-English children and because of their implications for English curriculum development for Malaysia’s primary schools

The onset of English lexical acquisition among Malaysian preschoolers

English is undoubtedly an important language for educational and socioeconomic mobility in numerous countries including Malaysia. Regardless of its importance, studies to document English language acquisition among Malaysian children acquiring English in the local context remain scarce. This normative data is imperative for syllabus-designers, policymakers, teachers and linguists to understand and to develop materials that are developmentally sensitive and contextualised to the local setting. Thus, the objective of this paper is to present the onset of English lexical acquisition among 99 Malaysian preschoolers at the beginning of formal instruction. The 99 children were pupils in 3 public preschools in Klang Valley, Malaysia. The children’s language production was elicited in individual communicative tasks. Their lexical output, both in English and Malay were analysed based on the children’s language choice during the session as well as the frequencies of types and tokens. The results indicate that Malaysian preschoolers displayed a limited range of productive abilities and age-sensitive vocabulary in English at the beginning of formal instruction. However, at that point, the children already possess receptive skills greater than their productive skills. Based on the findings, implications for pedagogy are also discussed

Bilingualism and environment: from childhood to adulthood

The talk explores the relationship between how children acquire several languages and their linguistic environmental factors

A case study on the acquisition of plurality in a bilingual Malay-English context-bound child

The early development of simultaneous bilinguals has been at the core of heated controversy since the mid-seventies. The Unitary Language System Hypothesis by Volterra and Taeschner saw early development as a single language system gradually diverging into two systems. On the contrary, Meisel (1989), De Houwer (1990) and Paradis and Genesee (1996) suggested the early separation of two linguistic systems. Neither position, however, considered language environmental conditions constraining development as key variables. This paper aims to show that the predominant environmental languages to which the Malay-English bilingual child in the current study was alternately exposed might have played an important role in shaping the child’s acquisition of plurality in each language. Throughout the period of investigation (from age 3;4 to 3;10 and at 4;8) the child’s interactions were regularly audio and video recorded. The current study focuses on the development of plural marking in a simultaneous Malay-English bilingual child. Interestingly, at a point when English was environmentally predominant, the child would occasionally use the English plural suffix -s on Malay nouns. After moving back to Malaysia, the child used reduplication to mark plurals in both languages. The findings of this study indicate that the predominant linguistic environment in which the child grows and develops plays an important role in shaping the child’s language production

The development of plural expressions in a Malay-English bilingual child

In a postcolonial country such as Malaysia, English plays an important role in governance, education and popular culture. With English now becoming the lingua franca of the globalised world, many Malaysian urban families use English to speak to their children at home, in conjunction with the Malay language or other ethnic languages. Recognising the important relationship between the two languages, this paper investigates early bilingual development of Malay and English focusing specifically on the development of plural marking in a child raised simultaneously in these typologically distant languages. These two languages express plurals differently: Malay through various forms of reduplication and English by morphological marking on nouns. But how does the child manage to learn, simultaneously, such divergent systems? In order to shed some light on this question, a bilingual child growing up in these two languages was audio- and video- recorded in each language over 6 months, that is from 3 years 4 months (3;4) to 3 years 10 months (3;10). Results suggest that though the child appeared to develop two distinct systems of plurality in Malay and English, the two developing systems also manifested considerable cross-linguistic influence in both directions. Implications for the study of world Englishes are discussed

Exploring the effectiveness of DMFonF on English vocabulary and grammatical plural constructions among Malaysian preschoolers

This study explores the effectiveness of a novel second language instruction approach in a Malaysian preschool context. This approach is called Developmentally Moderated Focus-on-Form (DMFonF), an instructional intervention that integrates a communicative approach to second language teaching with a ‘focus on form’ and a psycholinguistic theory of second language development, the Processability Theory. In this study, the development of six Malaysian preschool children (mean age =5.6) were investigated in a 10-week longitudinal study. Three children in the group received DMFonF in their English lessons and the other three children received no intervention. Data collection sessions were conducted at three different points over the 10 weeks to evaluate the children’s English development. The first data collection point, a pre-test, was conducted physically before the DMFonF intervention to establish the lexical and grammatical baseline of the children’s English development. The second data collection was conducted online after the first set of six face-to-face lessons with DMFonF. The third and final data set was also collected online after the completion of the second set of four online lessons. Results show that the children who received DMFonF instruction acquired English lexical and grammatical plural constructions, specifically the plural suffix -s and the plural noun phrase agreement (i.e., numeral quantifiers+ noun+ suffix-s) as taught in the DMFonF lessons; the children in the control group, however, acquired English lexical items but their grammatical skills did not change. The outcome of this study suggests that DMFonF is effective in triggering grammatical development and in further facilitating the learners’ lexical acquisition

Bilingualism

Are you a bilingual/multilingual? Have you ever wondered how you learn to speak all these languages? Are you intrigued to know how humans acquire language (s)? If you answer yes, then join us for a talk on how humans acquire language (s)

Developing a new framework of English lexical and morphological development among Malaysian primary- school children

It is an incontrovertible fact that English is currently the lingua franca of the world. Increasing globalisation has made it crucial to raise the standards of English proficiency among youth in Malaysia. In fact, there have been many reports on the deteriorating standards of English among young Malaysians. Regardless of the many reforms taken by the government as corrective measures to improve Malaysian students’ English proficiency, we have yet to see any positive outcome. Most studies investigating the issue of Malaysian students’ proficiency have focused primarily on the policies of the education system, the pedagogy, and the teacher’s perspective. Studies to document the English acquisitional trajectory of Malaysian learners are scant and this normative data is imperative for syllabus-designers, policy-makers, teachers as well as linguists to create English materials that are suitable and effective for learning. Thus, this research proposes to investigate the development of lexicon (vocabulary) and morphology (grammar) in Malaysian primary-school children. Our focus will be on the students’ speech, particularly examining how English lexicon and grammar develop among these children in one year. These children attend a primary school that is based on the national education curriculum (KSSR). They will be recorded four times at three monthly intervals in the study. Other than their English development, the student’s home factor will also be examined. The outcome of this study will help us develop a framework for English language acquisition that will enable teachers and syllabus designers to create materials that will help learners to acquire and improve English proficiency

Raising children bilingual

The talk is a public forum on ways that parents can do to help their children become bilingual

Constructing a new developmentally moderated model of English instruction with focus-on-form for Malaysian public preschools.

The aim of this paper is to introduce a new framework on English language learning at Malaysian public preschools. At the preschool level in Malaysia, all preschools (public and private ones) are required to follow the guidelines stated in Standard National Preschool Curriculum (SNPC). However, the SNPC is very general and the Ministry also does not supply any textbook, which leads to some preschools to supplement their curriculum by subscribing to various education franchisors available on the market such as Smart Reader, Q-DEES, Kinderland and Montessori. Therefore, this research aims to develop a model of English learning based on developmentally moderated focus-on-form instruction(DMFonF), focusing on public preschools. The study is longitudinal quasi-experimental research using mixed-method approaches to investigate the effectiveness of DMFonF on Malaysian pre-schoolers for one year. Participants include 90 preschool children from public MOE preschools: Group A (45 children) will receive DMFonF in their English lessons while group B (45 children), will receive no intervention. The tests to evaluate the children's English development include the pre-test, test 1 and test 2 and delayed post-test. The outcome of this research will lead to a new framework that will assist teachers, linguists, and syllabus-designers to create a developmentally moderated English curriculum