Preschool world language learners’ engagement with language: what are the possibilities?
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1Preschool world language learners’ engagement with
language: What are the possibilities?
What does development of language awareness among very
young world language learners look like, especially
when they have relatively infrequent exposure to the
language they are learning? Adopting an ‘engagement
with language’ (EWL) perspective (Svalberg, 2012) and
attending closely to classroom discourse, our research
analyses interactional data drawn from several Head
Start preschool classrooms (children aged 3-5) in
order to both establish what sorts of explicit
language awareness such young learners display in
episodes of EWL and to point out what other
opportunities for cultivating language awareness are
latent, but ultimately unexploited, in the classroom
discourse excerpts presented. Our analysis is the
basis for the claim that world language education more
broadly, especially in the case of young learners, can
be enhanced if curriculum and instruction
intentionally focus on developing language awareness
and deepening EWL.
Keywords: language awareness; engagement with
language; young learners; preschool; world language
learning
1 This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Language Awareness in October
2014, available online: http://wwww.tandfonline.com/ DOI: 10.1080/09658416.2013.804831.
Introduction
World language learning (WLL) at early ages is increasingly
popular in the United States (e.g. Borey & Hegstad, 2011;
Huang, 2009; Seewald, 2012) as it is elsewhere across the
globe (e.g. Butler, 2005; European Commission, 2011;
Martin, 2000). The belief that younger is better when it
comes to the learning of additional languages is shared by
parents, teachers, school administrators, and the language
education profession more broadly for a variety of reasons.
Perhaps most pervasive is the belief that young learners
possess distinct advantages in the process of acquiring
language and that these can be capitalized upon when WLL
begins early. Although empirical studies present
convincing evidence that a young learner does not have
absolute advantages inherent to age (Singleton, 2001), an
earlier start does represent a potentially much longer
sequence of language learning across the lifespan,
therefore holding promise for better ultimate attainment of
language abilities. Longer, more consistent sequences of
instruction over a learner’s lifetime can, as Johnstone
(2009) points out, first take advantage of what young
children do well and later draw on older children’s
strengths and resources in learning. Other language-
related benefits of early WLL that advocates point to are
support of first language literacy and development of
metalinguistic knowledge.
Most early WLL programs, though, do not adopt full or
even partial immersion as an instructional model, and
through much less frequent exposure to the language, aim to
produce only modest linguistic gains in learners
(Johnstone, 2009; Nikolov & Mihaljević Djigunović, 2011).
Rather than functional proficiency with language, these
programs often claim to cultivate positive attitudes, open-
mindedness, a global orientation, or intercultural
competence. Preparing today’s youth for ‘global
citizenship’ (e.g. Byram, 2011) is a goal that many
national governments are seeking to address through WLL;
however, as Woodgate-Jones and Grenfell (2012) explain in
reviewing curricular change underway in the United Kingdom,
policy documents are not always clear in articulating how
these goals are meant to be achieved through instruction.
What concretely teachers can do to foster positive
attitudes or develop intercultural competence in learners
remains largely unspecified. It is indeed in documenting
and examining the complexity of how exactly children engage
with language through WLL and how they do so in various
ways and in various contexts that further research could
contribute productively to clarifying what objectives,
processes, and outcomes are possible.
Research producing much-needed empirical evidence
regarding early WLL programs and practices must be situated
within the broader policy landscape and ideological climate
in which it takes place. We could easily consider the
current swell in support for early WLL in the U.S. as a
categorically positive development, yet sustainability in
early WLL programs has been a chronic challenge (Donato &
Tucker, 2010; Johnstone, 2009). Johnstone (2009) cautions
that surges in early WLL have come in at least three
worldwide waves since the 1960s (the third wave occurring
presently) and that we would do well to draw lessons from
these historical trends, since previous waves have, after
some time, always subsided. Johnstone encourages us to
examine international as well as national policy
environments for language education as we consider the
viability of current approaches and programs; a commitment
at a national level to language education is, he argues, a
major factor in developing programs that last. He also
links sustainability to the way an early WLL program model
corresponds (or not) to intended goals and outcomes:
‘Simply to assume that all will be well just because the
starting age has been lowered is a recipe for confusion’
(p. 38). Gathering empirical data about what precisely the
possibilities are when it comes to WLL is therefore an
endeavour of local and practical importance for individual
programs but also has broader implications for informing
policy and creating environments more favourable to
maintenance of early WLL programs. Moreover, research that
provides evidence that certain program models, curricula,
and pedagogical practices actually support specific gains
(related to linguistic proficiency, intercultural
competence, positive attitudes toward language learning,
etc.) or that suggests avenues for change, in the case that
links between objectives and outcomes are not found, would
move the field beyond an over-simplified ‘younger is
better’ equation to focus on identifying and building upon
what is most efficient, effective and sustainable in
particular early WLL contexts.
The purpose of our article is to present findings from
an exploratory study of several preschool classrooms
involved in the same WLL program. As noted above, an
instructional environment characterized by only infrequent
exposure to the language is typical of most early WLL
programs, and our findings are therefore potentially
instructive to those working in similar settings.
Moreover, we hope to make a contribution to the empirical
research base with regards to a particular dimension of
early WLL, development of language awareness (LA). Our
research describes the process of developing LA among very
young world language learners while also suggesting how
this awareness might have been pushed further in the
classrooms under study. We approached this task from an
engagement with language (EWL) perspective (Svalberg, 2009;
2012). In what follows, we analyse in detail several
classroom episodes in order to illustrate how very young
children can indeed develop LA through WLL, but we also
claim that even more can be done in terms of curriculum and
pedagogical techniques to more fruitfully engage very young
students in learning a world language. First, though, we
briefly review relevant theory and research related to LA
to set the stage for our own analysis.
Language awareness and engagement with language
Existing reviews of the LA literature (James & Garrett,
1991; Svalberg, 2007) make clear the broad scope of theory,
research and pedagogical applications related to the
construct. We limit our discussion to those formulations
of LA that are most relevant to our research.
Across definitions of LA certain terminology tends to
recur: consciousness, attention, alertness, noticing,
sensitivity, and perception. All of these revolve around
the central notion that LA has to do with explicit
knowledge or an explicit display of knowledge related to
language and/or language use. Garrett and James (2000), for
example, explain that LA refers to ‘explicit knowledge
about language and conscious perception and sensitivity in
language learning, language teaching and language use’ (p.
330). LA is, thus, observable through learners’ talk and
writing about language (i.e. meta-talk, meta-language) but
also through other means for displaying attention and
conveying meaning, such as gaze, gesture, and other
movement. These paralinguistic means for displaying LA are
especially important to consider as we study children
involved in WLL since linguistic capabilities, even in
their first languages, are still developing.
Those interested in LA focus on explicitness because
they are concerned either with the role that explicit
knowledge can play in promoting cognitive processes related
to second language acquisition (Ellis, 2008) or the
potential facilitative effects for development of critical
perspectives and intercultural competence (Byram, 2012) or
cultivation of positive attitudes toward linguistic
diversity (Hélot, 2008). LA in all cases deals with
explicit focus on language forms and functions; but,
especially as theorists and researchers interpret what is
meant by ‘language functions’, perspectives on and
approaches to LA vary quite considerably.
In the broad range of viewpoints on what LA is and the
types of learning it could positively impact, LA has been
examined from both product and process orientations. That
is, LA research ‘may focus on the engagement with language
(EWL) process through which LA is constructed (Svalberg,
2009) or the resulting or pre-existing LA itself in the
form of language and language-related knowledge, beliefs
and attitudes’ (Svalberg, 2012, p. 377). While a product-
orientation provides useful insight into starting and end
points, a process-orientation captures the complexity of
learning and development, in situ, and from multiple
angles. In our own study, we adopted an EWL orientation.
In early WLL settings, an EWL lens allows for close
examination of interactional processes that appear to
foster development of LA, and to imagine other possible
configurations in classroom discourse and interaction that
could push development of LA even further or in different
directions.
Classroom-related work on development of LA most often
involves descriptive accounts of curricular efforts,
pedagogical activities, and projects. For example,
projects in South Africa (Janks, 1999; 2001), South America
(Leal, 1998), Europe (Candelier, 2003; Carter, 1990;
Perregaux, De Goumoëns, Jeannot, & De Pietro, 2003), and
Canada (Armand, Maraillet, & Beck, 2004; Dagenais, Walsh,
Armand, & Maraillet, 2008) highlight the range of practical
means through which LA-raising goals have been addressed
and the variety of learning contexts in which LA is viewed
as potentially useful. Among these, only the Canadian
Elodil project describes activities for developing LA in
preschool-aged learners (Armand, 2011). A handful of
studies adopt a process orientation and look to classroom
discourse and interaction in an attempt to analyse how LA
develops (e.g. Dagenais et al., 2008; Razfar & Rumenapp,
2012).
With this frame in place, we hope that our work will
contribute to an understanding of the process of LA
development through EWL, especially when it comes to very
young learners. We also hope to strengthen the view,
within a process orientation that draws on the concept of
EWL, that LA development is a complex, dynamic and
ultimately transformable interaction among classroom
participants.
Research design
Our desire to study the process of LA development through
EWL among very young world language learners led us to
adopt an ecological approach and to employ ethnographic,
discourse-analytic methods. We collected observational
data, in the form of video recordings and fieldnotes, as
the children and teachers from several classrooms
participating in one early WLL program went about their
normal activity. We have spent nearly two years observing
the program, and although we only present four excerpts
from classroom interaction below, drawn from a year’s worth
of data collection (23 site visits and approximately 13.5
total hours of recordings), our analysis is grounded in and
is representative of what we have observed regularly since
the launch of the early WLL program.
Context
The early WLL program we studied is anchored in a
partnership between a network of ten Head Start preschools
and a local university. Head Start is a federally funded,
early education initiative for 3- to 5-year-olds that aims
to enhance school readiness for children from low-income
families. As is the case in broader U.S. society,
linguistic diversity in Head Start is increasing and is
increasingly recognized. The organization ‘continues to
support efforts to improve the cultural and linguistic
responsiveness of its practices’ (Advisory Committee on
Head Start Research and Evaluation, 2012, p. 96), focusing
heavily on finding ways to respect and accommodate home
languages other than English while promoting learning of
both languages. It also seeks new means for bringing
employees’ and the public’s attention to the longstanding
‘multicultural principles of Head Start programs’ (p. 107)
and to develop new strategies and practices to strengthen
these multicultural principles.
The particular classrooms in which our study took
place were all located in a medium-size city of
considerable racial, ethnic and linguistic diversity.
Nearly all of the children enrolled in these classrooms
were African-American as were many of the classroom
teachers and aides. All but one of the classroom teachers
in the network of ten centres was female. Only a few
children spoke a language other than English at home;
however, almost all of the children spoke Black English,
while classroom teachers’ linguistic repertoires included
varieties and styles ranging from Black English to so-
called ‘standard’ varieties of American English.
The Head Start-university partnership arose because a
parent active in the organisation approached a local
university’s school of education to inquire whether
language instruction could be integrated in some way into
Head Start classrooms. Collaboration between a professor
and a Head Start administrator led to creation of a program
in which language teachers in training from the local
university would visit the same Head Start classroom twice
a week for approximately two hours each visit to teach
children Chinese, Korean, or Spanish. The language
teachers in training, called language partners in the
program, were either native speakers or highly proficient
non-native speakers of the language they would teach the
children. Especially because the language partners were
novice teachers, they were supervised and observed
regularly and were offered guidance and support from both
the participating professor and the Head Start classroom
teachers. In their instruction, the language partners were
asked to teach the children vocabulary and basic
communicative routines, to align their content as much as
possible with the thematic instruction already part of the
regular Head Start curriculum, and to find ways for
children to experience a new language through play. In the
program we studied, then, there was no explicit curricular
focus on developing LA in the children nor was there any
focused training of the language partners that provided
techniques for raising LA.
Methods of data collection and analysis
Once data were collected, organized, transcribed, and
translated, we identified what we call EWL episodes in the
transcripts of classroom interaction (see Appendix for
transcription conventions). EWL episodes are comparable to
language-related episodes, since they too are stretches of
interaction in which learners ‘talk about the language they
are producing, question their language use, or correct
themselves or others’ (Swain & Lapkin, 1998, p. 326). Yet,
we found the concept of EWL more fitting to our analysis
since EWL attempts to capture the fine detail of the
process of engagement around language and since it does so
with attention to more than just what learners say. EWL as
an analytic framework invites a nuanced, multi-modal
analysis of LA and how it develops through EWL. We drew
heavily on Svalberg’s (2012) criteria for identifying EWL
(see Figure 1), and through our analysis sought to address
the following research questions:
(1) What does the development of LA look like among
preschool world language learners receiving relatively
infrequent instruction and in a model that did not
intentionally take up LA-raising as an objective?
(2) What evidence is there in classroom interactions that
LA could have been developed further?
[Figure 1 near here]
Analysis and discussion
The aim of our analysis was to describe the nature of young
children’s development of LA by identifying episodes of EWL
and paying special attention to the depth of engagement in
these interactions. Throughout the data, 53 EWL episodes
were identified. Sometimes participants engaged about
particular linguistic forms or functions; at others they
focused on language(s) in general. EWL episodes varied in
their focus and unfolded in different ways in interaction;
in the discussion of analysis that follows, we identify the
trends in our data but also point to evidence of how LA
could have been cultivated more deeply in certain
interactions. We believe this type of analysis to be
useful since it shows quite clearly what very young
language learners are capable of even when curriculum and
pedagogy are not intentionally focused on raising LA, and
it indicates possible future directions for developing such
curricula and pedagogical techniques.
Lexically-focused, teacher-initiated EWL
Most likely because instruction in this early WLL program
often focused on word-learning, instances of translation
and one-word utterances were the most common form of
explicit explanation of language and typified EWL among the
children, their language partners and classroom teachers.
Accounting for approximately 87% of all EWL episodes,
lexically-focused engagement through means of translation,
occurred both from L1 (English) to L2 (Chinese, Korean or
Spanish) and in reverse. Excerpt 1, in which a Chinese
language partner, Mei (all participants referred to by
pseudonym), starts a group lesson by asking how the
children were doing that day, illustrates this very typical
pattern in our data.
Excerpt 1: How do you say hello in Chinese? Who remembers?
01 Mei: so how is everyone doing today? 02 Ss & Ts: good03 Mei: okay so (pause) how do you say hello in Chinese? ((waves her04 hand above her head)) who remembers? 05 S1: 你你06 hello07 Mei: good very good can everyone say that again08 Ss: 你你09 hello
It is reasonable to expect that a language teacher would
start a lesson with learners by saying hello and asking how
they are; yet, rather than speaking in Chinese from the
outset, Mei begins her conversation with the class in
English and then focuses explicit attention onto a
linguistic form, in this case, the word ‘hello’. As a
result, in applying Svalberg’s criteria, we can see that in
this EWL episode, language is most definitely treated as an
object rather than serving as the medium of communication
and the children need not do any noticing of the form on
their own. When Mei asks directly for a translation of the
word from English to Chinese in lines 3-4, and especially
when she adds the question ‘who remembers?,’ there is clear
indication that the EWL is squarely in the realm of
information recall. Cognitively, then, we might
characterize EWL in Excerpt 1 as relatively undemanding.
Affectively, children in this interaction appeared willing
to engage, although in a few of the many translation-based
EWL episodes in our data, we occasionally observed an
individual child resisting or rejecting a translation. The
learners’ behaviour is highly dependent on Mei’s
contributions to the interaction, and therefore not
autonomous. In terms of social dimensions of EWL, the
children do engage verbally; however, their contribution is
minimal to the social interaction and highly reactive. In
sum, this interaction between Mei and the group of
students, and the many others in our data that mirror it
closely, created EWL that highly constrained the depth with
which and ways in which children participated.
Sometimes, lexically-focused, teacher-initiated EWL
episodes were slightly more elaborate. Accompanying their
verbal explanations of language, students on occasion
gestured and moved about. The following excerpt took place
when a Spanish language partner, Megan, and some of the
children in the class were playing a game she invented
called ‘Dora dice’ (Dora says) similar to the game ‘Simon
says’ that many children aged 3-5 are familiar with in the
U.S.
Excerpt 2: Dora dice levántate
01 Megan: ((with her hand up)) okay Dora dice bajen lamano02 Dora says lower your hand03 S1: put your hand down04 Megan: muy bien we’re going to put our hand down bajen la mano05 very good lower your hand06 ((some children ask Megan if they can play with Dora))07 okay you can play with Dora one by one a fewmore times with08 Dora dice okay?09 Dora says10 Ss: okay11 Megan: just a few more times how about levántate 12 stand up 13 do you remember what levántate means?14 stand up15 S1: ((touches his head)) stand stand up ((pointshis finger toward the16 ceiling))17 Megan: stand up ((stands up, students stand up)) muy bien18 very good
[Figure 2 near here]
In this relatively typical example of EWL in the classrooms
we studied, the language partner asks students the meaning
of the word, levántate, to which a little boy in the class
responds with translation from Spanish to English and
physical movement. Standing up and pointing his finger at
the ceiling as he speaks (see Figure 2) seems to move the
utterance from the realm of pure translation into a true
explanation of language and a slightly deeper EWL. In
terms of Svalberg’s criteria, the video data from which
Excerpt 2 and Figure 2 are drawn illustrate definite
alertness in the child, and his focus on a particular
linguistic form (levántate) as an object of attention. That
his reasoning is based in information recall and a reaction
to Megan’s question (rather than an instance of independent
noticing or reflection) would perhaps suggest in Svalberg’s
model that the cognitive dimensions of his EWL were
relatively shallow; however, when studying EWL among very
young children, we should perhaps not be overly concerned
if cognitive aspects of EWL are predominantly, or at least
initially, of the more memory- or imitation-based and
reactive kind. As Nikolov and Mihaljević Djigunović (2011)
point out, the dominant focus in early WLL programs on
practice with vocabulary items or communicative chunks
reflects ‘developmental stages in early language learning
as children gradually shift from prefabricated utterances
to more analysed language use’ (p. 97). Inductive
reasoning about language and more independently emerging
comparisons, questions, and inferences about language are
perhaps more likely to appear at later stages of language
learning.
In further support of the EWL are the little boy’s
affective and social engagements. In this interaction with
Megan and other children, the boy was willing and eager to
participate in the game that the class was playing, and
this seems to have had a positive impact on his willingness
to engage with language and lent decided purpose to his
display of LA. Indeed, showing awareness of the lexical
form ‘levántate’ was central to playing the game. The
language partner’s question was at once part of the game
and a prompt for the children to display their knowledge
about language; in this sense, the little boy’s explanation
through translation and physical movement are highly
dependent on the language partner and more reactive in
nature, as opposed to being more initiating or autonomous.
Yet, the translation is socially meaningful since it
furthers the child’s ability to participate in the game.
Student-initiated EWL
While teacher-initiated EWL was prevalent throughout the
data, student-initiated episodes occurred as well
(approximately 11% of the time). In the following excerpt
from one of the Korean-learning classrooms, the Head Start
classroom teacher, Ms. Lane, was leading a group lesson on
the topic of vegetables. All of the children were sitting
on the floor facing Ms. Lane, while Mina, the Korean
language partner, was at the back of the group, listening
to the teacher’s lesson. In this classroom, Ms. Lane often
incorporated Korean into her lessons by asking Mina for
translations of certain words or phrases, even when Mina
was not the one leading the whole-group activity. In
Excerpt 3, in the midst of the EWL that Ms. Lane sets up,
we see a student initiate his own EWL as he attempts to
contribute to the class’ on-going discussion of vegetables.
Excerpt 3: Bread in Korean is 빵
01 Ms. Lane: alright now I want you to tell me- Ms. Ms. Mina do you know 02 any can you give us some names for vegetables? (pause)
03 broccoli?04 Mina: um broccoli is just broccoli05 Ms. Lane: oh you call it broccoli?06 Mina: yeah07 Ms. Lane: oh they call broccoli broccoli just like we do you go to Korea 08 you can say I want broccoli and they’ll giveyou broccoli like we09 do okay what about cabbage? 10 Mina: cabbage uh (pause) 你你你11 cabbage12 Ms. Lane: 你你你 你你你 that’s cabbage you like cabbage? 13 cabbage cabbage14 ((unintelligible)) I do so we like 你你你15 cabbage16 S1: ((turns to Mina to ask privately how tosay bread in Korean))17 Ms. Lane: we need to find out today from Mr. Jerome what’s our vegetables 18 so we can say it in En- in Korean ((two students put their hands 19 up)) go ahead S2 ((S2 leaves))20 S3: what’s cabbage?21 Ms. Lane: 你你你 你你你 that’s cabbage22 cabbage cabbage23 Mina: ((answers S1)) 你24 bread25 S1: Ms. Lane?26 Ms. Lane: ((looks at S1 who has stood up and raised his hand)) yes27 S1: bread in Korean is 你28 bread29 Ms. Lane: ((looks confused)) pardon me? vegetables we’re talking about30 vegetables ((turns to Mina)) what’s vegetables in Korean?31 Mina: 你你32 vegetable
Quite apparent in this excerpt is the nature of the EWL
that the Head Start classroom teacher establishes. This is
an EWL that is focused narrowly on lexicon and that
interactionally involves translation from English to
Korean, from Ms. Lane’s requests for particular words to
Mina’s responses. The student shifts the interaction by
initiating his own EWL (see Figure 3), asking Mina for a
word, gaining permission to speak from his teacher, and
then standing up to loudly state ‘bread in Korean is 你’
(line 27).
[Figure 3 near here]
Drawing on Svalberg’s criteria, we may note that the
child is alert and has clearly noticed that translation of
food-related words is going on between Ms. Lane and Mina.
His attention is focused on language-as-object, but the EWL
is meaningful in the sense that he seeks out the Korean
word for something he truly wants to add to the on-going
discussion. (Incidentally, this element of meaningfulness
is not included in Svalberg’s criteria for identifying EWL
although it could prove relevant across cognitive,
affective and social dimensions of EWL). The student’s
information-seeking behaviour points to more reflective and
proactive engagement than Excerpts 1 and 2 show, and is
perhaps, as a result, cognitively deeper than the many
teacher-initiated, translation-based interactions we
analysed. Affectively, the little boy is very willing to
engage with language and to share his contribution with the
group. His EWL is purposeful and his behaviour highly
autonomous. Socially, the child is interacting with both
the language partner and his classroom teacher as he
engages with language. This is a scaffolded social
interaction, as the child asks Mina for help; however, the
little boy comes across more as a leader than a follower
since he initiates the EWL around the word ‘bread’ in
Korean.
This excerpt further illustrates issues of EWL that
have to do not just with language form or function but also
with the activity of language learning itself. The little
boy’s way of requesting a translation from Mina and then
formulating his contribution to the class’ discussion as an
equation in which ‘X in A language is Y in B language’ points
to his underlying understanding of what language is and
what language learning involves. Students in all of the
classes we studied were regularly and consistently engaged
in learning the strategy of translation as central to the
activity of language learning, and teachers and language
partners routinely modelled such practices. Such
socialization through EWL produced a common format for
demonstrating one's LA. This kind of approach, however,
need not be the only strategy young learners develop
through their WLL.
Script-focused, student-initiated EWL
While most interactions in the WLL program we studied
focused on oral language and on lexicon, they sometimes
took up other modes and other formal features of language,
including writing and pronunciation (only 6% of the time).
In one of the Korean-learning classrooms, the language
partner often wrote in Korean script as she also orally
taught new words to the children. For instance, she
incorporated activities where students attached Korean-
medium labels to classroom objects such as doors, chairs,
and books. In Excerpt 4, writing systems are at the heart
of an interaction between a little girl and Mina, when the
child asks Mina to write both of their names on a piece of
paper.
Excerpt 4: How spell your regular name?
01 S1: now can I write your name how what’s your name? 02 ((gets a piece of paper and puts it on the table)) 03 Mina: oh my my name? 04 S1: in Korean05 Mina: in Korean06 S1: yep 07 Mina: ((S1 leans forward as Mina writes her name)) Min (pause)08 (pause) I have square in my name that’s weird ((points to a part 09 of her name)) Min (pause) A (pause)10 S1: you got that in your name11 Mina: Mina that’s my name12 S1: how spell your regular name? 13 Mina: my regular name? this is my regular name14 S1: ((stares at Mina for a while))15 Mina: Mina16 S1: ((takes Mina’s pencil)) I’m gonna sh- I showyou how I write my 17 first name ((unintelligible))18 Ms. Lane: do you remember her name (pause) Mina19 S1: Mina ((writes her own name on the paper, under Mina’s name, 20 then taps on Mina’s arm who is looking at other children)) look it21 ((spells name letter by letter))22 Mina: [S1’s name]23 S1: can you write can you write my name in Korean?24 Mina: sure 25 S1: S ((starts to spell out her name for Mina using English alphabet))26 Mina: ((writes S1’s name in Korean on paper)) oh 你你你 你你 that’s
27 student’s name28 that’s your name29 S1: how you spell her name? ((points at the Korean person filming))30 Mina: her name? ((turns to the Korean researcher)) what’s your name? 31 ((turns to S1)) ask her name ((quietly)) askher name what’s your32 name? ((whispers in S1’s ear)) say 你你你33 name34 S1: 你你你35 name36 Mina: 你你你?37 what is38 S1: 你你你?39 what is40 Mina: 你你你41 name42 S1: 你你你43 name44 Mina: 你你你?45 what is46 S1: 你你你?47 what is48 Jung: Jung49 Mina: Jung I see Jung ((writes the name on thepaper))50 S1: in Korean now ((smiles at Mina))51 Mina: yeah that’s Korean
Throughout this interaction, the student and Mina
engage in a kind of negotiation about writing systems and
this occurs at multiple levels. On one level, we see the
little girl display her awareness that Korean has a writing
system distinct from English (line 4) since she specifies
that Mina should write her name ‘in Korean’ after the
broader request in line 1 (‘what’s your name’). She again
displays this awareness in line 23 when she asks Mina to
write her name on paper ‘in Korean’. As she begins to
spell her own name aloud, though, she uses the English
alphabet, and a new opportunity arises for negotiation of
what a writing system and spelling are. Mina remarks ‘oh’
(line 26) and then ‘spells out’ the child’s name as she
writes it down in Korean characters; this act of ‘spelling’
though occurs in Korean fashion, focusing on syllable
structure rather than saying a sequence of letters, as the
phonetic system in Korean is influenced by syllable
patterns. The final segment of the interaction involving
the little girl’s interest in knowing how to write down the
researcher’s name (lines 29-51) is further evidence that
she was becoming adept with recognizing the existence of
English and Korean as distinct writing systems, and she
makes a particularly proud display of her awareness in line
50, smiling at Mina and commenting ‘in Korean now’.
Development of LA through EWL shifted in this episode
from exclusive attention to formal features of writing
systems to their relative values. In line 8, Mina draws
the little girl’s attention to a particular feature of the
Korean script, the square shape of one of the characters in
her name, which Mina characterizes as ‘weird’. Mina seems
to possibly be speaking for the little girl, formulating
what she thinks the little girl might say about the
character because it’s different from English script. This
characterization appears to focus the child’s attention on
evaluating the written form since she questions in line 10
‘you got that in your name’; she too seems oriented to the
‘weirdness’ of the square-shaped character. An exchange
then ensues, during which the student asks Mina to write
her ‘regular’ name, an apparent request for Mina to write
her name not with Korean script but using the English
alphabet. To this Mina responds that what is written in
Korean is her ‘regular’ name. The little girl, after some
silent consideration appears to accept this proposition,
volunteers to show Mina how her own name is written and
proceeds to write it out using English script on the piece
of paper. This stretch of interaction was one that
suggested to us the strong possibility for developing LA in
much deeper ways through early WLL. Beyond awareness of
forms and their linguistic and communicative functions, EWL
could possibly foster more critical LA rooted in
exploration of and possible negotiation of the values we
ascribe to language.
If we apply Svalberg’s criteria in analysing Excerpt
4, it is quite apparent that the little girl is alert and
attentive to features of language. She is very focused on
language as an object, but in a sense that is different
from more lexically-focused EWL episodes that are analysed
above. She considers whole languages and their writing
systems, as opposed to one particular feature, such as a
lexical item. In reviewing the video recording of this
interaction, there are quite clear instances of the child
reflecting on language. The longer pause in line 14 and
the child’s expression are surface indicators of seemingly
deeper reflection. The interaction is also highly
analytical, as the little girl compares English and Korean
writing systems and asks questions. Cognitively, this
interaction is comparatively richer than those analysed
above, if we interpret a broader range of reflective,
critical and analytical displays as signs of deeper
cognitive engagement. From affective and social points of
view, the little girl is quite eager to engage, she does so
purposefully and independently, and she acts as a leader
rather than a follower at various moments of the
interaction. The initiative she takes to engage with
language is apparent in the first line of the excerpt,
where she draws Mina into an interaction around writing,
and at other moments when she keeps the interaction going
by offering to show Mina how she writes her own name (lines
16-17) and in expressing curiosity about the researcher’s
name (line 29).
Conclusion
Through our analysis, we were able to gain several
insights. First, our data establishes that LA through EWL
is definitely possible even among very young language
learners and even in an instructional model that only
provided limited time for language learning. Second, there
were clear patterns in EWL episodes, with interactions
around language dominated by a focus on lexicon, involving
mostly translation, and being largely teacher-initiated.
These patterns seem to correspond to the pedagogical
approach in place in the program. Most importantly, in
reviewing our data, we came to the conclusion that the
patterns we identified could most certainly be shifted to
yield richer EWL, in our context and likely in others.
Such a transformation could occur pedagogically and/or
curricularly along any one of the dimensions outlined in
Svalberg’s model or through some combination of these
aspects.
For instance, in the program we studied, attention is
currently being focused on revising pedagogical approach
such that there is an intentional focus on raising LA
through EWL (with plans to also focus on cultivating
critical LA in the future). Drawing from existing
curricula, but adapting goals and activities for the very
young learner, efforts are underway to train language
partners to more intentionally draw attention to language
forms and functions, to do so in ways that are motivating
to children, and to go beyond mere information recall to
include comparison and reflection (drawing from the
cognitive dimensions of EWL that Svalberg proposes).
Training also encourages language partners to invite
learners to share their personal experiences with and
perspectives on languages and to do so through visual and
gestural modes in addition to the verbal. Drawing from
affective and social dimensions of Svalberg’s framework,
these modifications are aimed at fostering more interactive
encounters, in which children advance their perceptions and
understandings more autonomously. We anticipate that
prompting the language partners to consciously attend to
enhancing EWL will shift the nature of interactions in the
program. We intend on researching the impact of these
changes as well as the ways in which the language partners
design instruction and develop their approach to raising LA
through EWL over time.
We found Svalberg’s framework for identifying EWL to
be highly practical and flexible in capturing the process
of learners’ interactions with language. The model might
be further developed to include questions about the
meaningfulness of the engagement and to more explicitly
acknowledge the role of non-verbal modes that support
displays of awareness and facilitate EWL (gesture,
movement, drawing, etc.). Further classroom-based research
in a range of classroom contexts that have explicit goals
of raising LA would likely benefit from using Svalberg’s
model and would nuance our understanding of what is
possible in various learning environments when particular
dimensions of the framework are emphasized in instruction.
Beyond study of processes that foster LA through EWL, it
would also be valuable to research awareness about the
activity of language learning that learners develop through
their interactions.
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Appendix. Transcription conventions
S = student; Ss = multiple students
Ts = Head Start classroom teachers
(pause)
((transcriber’s note))
translation
? rising intonation
- cut off speech
Figure 1. Svalberg’s (2012) criteria for identifying
engagement with language (EWL).
Figure 2. Pointing upward during ‘Dora dice’.
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