Oral Microstructures in Multilingual and Monolingual Dyads of Children Aged 3-to-4 Years old in ECE

(1)

Oral Microstructures in Multilingual and Monolingual Dyads

of Children Aged 3-to-4 Years old in ECE

Nancy Allen, Caroline Bouchard, Johanne April

Université Laval, Québec, Canada

2019 Biennial Meeting,

Baltimore, March 23rd

1-Context

1- Developing verbal and non-verbal microstructures (i.e. propositions, gestures, etc.) may enhance skills that underlie communication in both multilingual and unilingual dyads and the role of the E is essential in it (Sabol et al., 2018).

2- Microstructure helps measure children’s linguistic growth in terms of both gestures and words BUT in previous study the focus was essentially put on the development of their macrostructure and has not underlined the role of the E (Weisleder et al., 2013).

3- Language support offered by the educator to children is essential for both their verbal and non-verbal language growth (Cabell et al., 2015).

4- Strategies used by educators to elicit and support children’s

microstructures appeared different in multilingual and

monolingual dyads (Gest et al., 2006).

5- As more and more multilingual children attend ECE, it is important to understand if and how the role of their educator can promote their language development, as would be the case for monolingual children.

2- Aims

Describe and compare the evolution of the development of oral microstructures (verbal

and non-verbal) that compose spontaneous narratives of 24 children enrolled in an Early Childhood Center (ECE) between 36 and 47 months old and the practices used by their educator through this specific development.

5- Discussion

- Preliminary results show that for

EMM

and

CHR

, when their Es decrease their used of strategies, these children used fewer verbal microstructures.

- For

NIL

, even though E has decreased the number of strategies used, his verbal microstructures are equivalent between the two T.

- Overall, only a few strategies are used by the educators in variety and in numbers.

- In general, between T1 and T2, the less strategies Es used, the less unilingual children (8/12) used verbal microstructures with them.

- Even if Es used fewer strategies in T2, only 3/12 multilingual children decreased their use of verbal microstructures with them.

- Although more drastic (i.e. some Es did not/no longer used strategies between T1 and T2), our results are similar to those of Gest et al. (2006).

However, the contexts in which these strategies are present should be looked at, in order to understand how it is possible to support/spread their use.

- Describing more specifically the content of the verbal and non-verbal microstructures would allow to have a portrait of their quality (in terms of MLU)

which could then be related to the quality of the practices used by the Es.

4- Results

6- Selected References

- Cabell, S.Q., Justice, L.M., McGinty, A.S. & DeCoster, J. (2015). Teacher-child conversations in preschool classrooms: Contribution to children’s vocabulary development. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 30 (part A), 80-92. - Gest, S. D., Holland-Coviello, R., Welsh, J. A., Eicher-Catt, D. L. & Gill, S. (2006). Language development subcontexts in head start classrooms: distinctive patterns of teachers talk during free play, mealtime, and book reading. Early Education and Development, 17(2), 293-315. - Weisleder, A. & Fernald, A. (2013). Talking to Children Matters: Early Language Experience Strengthens Processing and Builds Vocabulary. Psychological Science, 24(11), 2143-2152.

7- Acknowledgements and

contact

nancy.allen1@ulaval.ca

3- Method

Procedures: - An average of 3h26 filmed observation for each dyad repeated at T1 and at T2 - Full transcript of children’s spontaneous narratives divided in two categories: verbal and non-verbal microstructures; - Full transcript of the strategies used by their educator divided in two main categories: - Elicitation (Encourage the child to explain his knowledge) and scaffolding (Adult assistance to the child to help him develop a thought he could not develop without the support); - Computerized Language Analysis (CLAN, MacWhinney et al., 2001). Participants: - N= 12 dyads; 6 Multilingual (5b.; 7g.) and 6 Monolingual (6b.; 6g.) = 24 children - N= 12 female educators; Teaching experience= 12.41 years (SD= 4.78) Measures: - Two Non-participatory observations: T1= children’s aged 36-40 months T2= children aged 42-47 months old 88 103 71 124 97 120 104 65 67 89 91 88 142 ₁₃₈ 128 177 157 118 159 139 220 177 96 ₈₈ 18 16 31 ₉ 32 35 ₇ 19 40 3 27 15 16 ₄ ₅ 30 ₃ ₅ 34 ₄ ₆ 25 ₆ ₃ 19 ₂ ₁ 18 ₁ ₄ 35 ₄ ₅ 44 ₄ ₃ 17 ₇ ₆ 32 ₁ ₇ 21 ₃ ₃ 14 ₄ ₁ PE T Z A R LOU D E L A LI GA B E M M NI L F RE Z A C BA B Z OE

NB OF VERBAL AND NON-VERBAL MICROSTRUCTURES OF UNILINGUAL CHILDREN AND STRATEGIES USED BY

THEIR E. IN T1

V with E V with D NV with E NV with D Scaffolding Elicitation

103 76 ₆₉ ₆₅ 89 48 87 65 49 56 102 104 140 145 139 202 178 183 ₁₆₉ 154 217 187 112 ₁₀₇ 18 16 31 ₉ 32 35 ₇ 19 40 3 27 15 16 30 34 25 19 18 35 44 17 32 21 ₁₄ 5 0 4 3 6 4 ₀ 2 ₁ 1 ₂ 6 ₁ 3 ₀ 5 ₂ 8 ₃ 3 4 3 2 2 PE T Z A R LOU D E L A LI GA B E M M NIL F RE Z A C BA B Z OE NB OF VERBAL AND NON-VERBAL

MICROSTRUCTURES OF UNILINGUAL CHILDREN AND STRATEGIES USED BY

THEIR E. IN T2

- 6/12 children use more NV microstructures with their D than with their E in T1. 5/12 use them more in T2. = Little change for NV

- As a general rule, unilingual children use considerably more V microstructures between them than with their E for both T.

- E used 2 less elicitation and 3 less scaffolding with EMM between T1 and T2. - E used 2 less elicitations and 4 less scaffolding with NIL between T1 and T2.

47 19 65 53 87 51 49 37 56 38 44 51 182 85 182 170 102 160 105 ₉₉ 152 135 153 ₁₂₇ 32 44 14 ₉ 32 19 17 ₅ 36 13 30 ₆ 24 39 47 12 27 25 18 22 11 20 26 26 3 2 5 3 5 4 4 2 ₀ 0 ₁ 5 3 1 3 2 4 4 ₁ 6 3 7 2 ₂ E D O S OP F RA KE I NA T M A T I V Y H I B CH R S OF A LE LA U

NB OF VERBAL AND NON-VERBAL MICROSTRUCTURES OF MULTILINGUAL

CHILDREN AND STRATEGIES USED BY THEIR E. IN T1

176 75 197 209 159 169 109 142 215 111 158 165 20 42 18 ₁₃ 28 ₁₄ ₁₀ ₁₁ 22 3 20 34 27 38 ₂₁ 32 11 22 28 17 14 35 28 40 65 21 91 56 87 30 67 42 ₃₇ 76 54 ₄₄ 7 4 ₃ 4 5 3 ₀ 3 5 2 6 4 4 3 5 5 ₁ ₂ 4 4 3 4 2 5 E D O S OP F RA KE I NA T M A T I V Y H I B CH R S OF A LE LA U

NB OF VERBAL AND NON-VERBAL MICROSTRUCTURES OF MULTILINGUAL

CHILDREN AND STRATEGIES USED BY THEIR E. IN T2

V with D NV with D NV with E V with E Scaffolding Elicitation

- 5/12 children use more NV microstructures with their D than with their E in T1. 3/12 use them more in T2. - As a general rule, multilingual children use more than one MIC between them with E for both T. - E used 2 less elicitations and 3 less scaffolding with CHR between T1 and T2. Legend: E= Educator; D=Dyad; V= Verbal; NV= Non-Verbal; T1-T2= Time 1, 2 At this stage, only 3 children stood out in regard of their use of verbal and non-verbal use of microstructures when compare to the number of strategies used by their E.