Doctoral Degrees (General Linguistics)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (General Linguistics) by browse.metadata.advisor "Simonsen, Hanne Gram"

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    The development of cognitive processes and English language abilities : the case of early English language learners in a multilingual South African setting
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2018-12) White, Michelle Jennifer; Southwood, Frenette; Simonsen, Hanne Gram; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of General Linguistics.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The purpose of this study was to investigate the development of English language skills and the processes which underlie these skills in English Language Learners (ELLs) who are in their first year of formal schooling, Grade R. Twenty seven ELL participants were assessed longitudinally, three times over the course of their Grade R year, on an English language assessment battery, including the domains of syntax, semantics and pragmatics, along with a vocabulary test. Additionally, the processes underlying language acquisition were assessed with the use of working memory tasks, two phonological working memory tasks and two visuospatial working memory tasks. The English language and working memory development of the 27 ELLs were compared to seven English monolingual classmates in order to determine how their trajectory and rate of development related to one another. A total of nine different first languages (L1s) were represented in the ELL group, namely (ordered from that spoken by most of the highest to the lowest number of ELLs) isiXhosa, Shona, French, Swahili, isiZulu, Sesotho, Oshiwambo, Igbo and Cameroonian Pidgin English. Moreover, most of the ELL group knew at least one language besides their L1 and English. All participants were from one low socio-economic status school, where the sole language of learning and teaching (LoLT) is English. South Africa, with its 11 official languages and several other minority languages, is linguistically and culturally diverse, yet English continues to be the preferred LoLT (Heugh, 2000). Many South African children are thus ELLs who have little English proficiency upon entering school. The differing levels of English proficiency at school entry, together with a wide range of first languages in one classroom, pose teaching challenges. One of these challenges is that a certain level of proficiency in English is required to perform well academically in an English-medium school. It is widely accepted that academic success is highly dependent on language competence (Hoff, 2005; Owens, 2008), entailing that an understanding of the underlying processes related to language is crucial for assisting learners to perform well academically. Moreover, measures of non-linguistic processing, such as working memory, provide important information on language development in multilingual contexts (Paradis, 2010). Results from this study showed evidence for the three distinctions within working memory stipulated by Baddeley and Hitch (1974): the phonological loop, the visuospatial sketchpad and the central executive. The phonological loop and the central executive were found to be implicated in the ELLs’ English language development. It was also found that their performance on the tasks assessing these two components were predictive of outcomes on certain language domains. Furthermore, this study also found that both the ELLs and the English monolinguals showed a comparable growth trajectory to each other on the language as well as the working memory tasks. These findings contribute to the broadening of our knowledge of bilingual development, in the domains of working memory and English language learning. The South African education system is in crisis and further studies, such as this one, are needed in order to better inform practical solutions.