ESPE

Previous studies have examined either the input factors predicting language proficiency in bilingual children or the relationship between bilingualism and metalinguistic awareness. This thesis takes a novel approach exploring the two areas simultaneously. A study was conducted to investigate, first, the input factors that may cause variation in bilingual language proficiency and, secondly, the effects of differing levels of bilingualism on metalinguistic awareness. The participants were 38 French-English bilingual children aged six to eight, of middle to high socio-economic status, attending an international school in France. Data on the children’s language experiences and family background were collected through questionnaires given to parents and children. Language proficiency was measured using the standardised French and English versions of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. Metalinguistic awareness was assessed through seven metalinguistic tasks each given in both languages. ...

L’objectif de cette étude est d’observer les effets de l’exposition aux langues sur différentes variables linguistiques en production orale d’enfants bilingues français/anglais sans pathologie, scolarisés dans une école internationale publique (France), et répartis en deux groupes d’âges (groupe 1 : N = 10, M = 6;3; groupe 2 : N = 15, M = 10;2). Des questionnaires parentaux ont permis d’obtenir des mesures quant à l’exposition courante et cumulative aux langues ainsi qu’à la fréquence à laquelle les enfants lisent dans les deux langues. À partir de tests de vocabulaire réceptif standardisés et de productions narratives (Frog, where are you?), des données linguistiques françaises et anglaises ont été obtenues. Les narrations ont été transcrites en respectant les conventions CHILDES dans le logiciel CLAN, permettant l’observation de diverses mesures linguistiques relatives au lexique, à la morphosyntaxe et au discours. Des corrélations ont été effectuées entre les mesures d’exposition...

The input factors that may cause variation in bilingual proficiency were investigated in 38 French-English bilinguals aged six to eight, of middle to high socioeconomic status, attending an international state school in France. Data on children's current and cumulative language exposure and family background were collected through questionnaires given to parents and children. Language proficiency was measured using the standardised French and English versions of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and the Student Oral Language Observation Matrix, a rating scale of oral competence, completed by children's French and English teachers. The results indicated significant correlations between the language proficiency measures and current amount of overall exposure to each language, as well as current input and output quantity. Cumulative length of exposure was also a significant predictor for all the language proficiency measures. Furthermore, the child's dominant language was a reliable indicator of variables related to language use, including the child's preferred language for speaking and reading, and the language used with peers in the school playground. The implications of these findings are discussed, highlighting particularly the need to find ways of promoting the child's weaker language.

It is intuitively felt that visual cues should enhance online communication, and this experimental study aims to test this prediction by exploring the value provided by a webcam in an online L2 pedagogical teacher-to learner interaction. A total of 40 French undergraduate students with a B2 level in English were asked to describe in English four previously unseen photographs to a native English-speaking teacher of EFL via Skype, a free web-based videoconferencing tool, during a 10-minute interaction. Twenty students were assigned to the videoconferencing condition and 20 to the audioconferencing condition. All 40 interactions were recorded using dynamic screen capture software and were analyzed with ELAN, a sound and video annotation tool. Participants' perceptions of the online interaction are first compared with regard to the issues of social presence and their understanding and appreciation of the online interaction, using data gathered from a post-task questionnaire. The study then explores whether seeing the interlocutor's image impacts on the patterns of these synchronous exchanges and on the word search episodes. Results indicated that the impact of the webcam on the online pedagogical interaction was not as critical as had been predicted.

With the growing number of language courses offered online, teacher trainers are incited to reflect on the competences required by future online teachers (Lamy & Hampel, 2007). Among these, understanding the attention to the semiotic resources at their disposal and their orchestration by teachers is crucial (McCafferty & Stam, 2008), so as to adjust teacher training to these environments and help teachers develop critical semiotic awareness. Three French undergraduate students with a B2 level in English were asked to describe four photographs in English to the same teacher via Skype. We use a qualitative approach focusing on gestures and gazes to examine nonverbal behviours in synchronous videoconferenced-based interactions and to explore the rhythm of the interactions. Full abstract A growing number of language courses are offered online, inciting teacher trainers to reflect upon the different competences that future online teachers will have to develop (Lamy & Hampel, 2007). Among...

This chapter explores the issues pertaining to multimodality, which has always been considered as a defining characteristic of CALL (Chapelle 2009). The chapter begins by critically examining the various definitions of multimodality, especially in the field of second language acquisition and cognitive psychology and explores the distinction between mode, modality and channel. With reference to specific studies conducted in the field, we then investigate the potential of multimodality for second language comprehension and interaction. These studies support the idea that learning may be enhanced when teachers and learners have access to diverse modes. We also raise the question of cognitive load, especially crucial when information available in different modalities has to be processed, potentially leading to the division of attention between several channels. To address the issue of multimodality in CALL, we take an overview of computer-mediated tasks and discuss the challenges identi...

Bilingual children show sensitivity to cognates from a young age in receptive (Pérez, Peña, & Bedore, 2010) and productive vocabulary tasks (Sheng et al., 2016). However, the effect of cognates on children’s receptive vocabulary skills in particular shows considerable variation, and may be absent in some individuals (Kelley & Kohnert, 2012; Potapova, Blumenfeld, & Pruitt-Lord, 2016) and groups of children (e.g. Floccia et al., 2018). Two possible sources of variation in this effect are children’s age and relative language exposure: the strength of the cognate advantage on picture-identification increases with age (Kelley & Kohnert, 2012) and decreases with increased exposure to a language (Robinson Anthony et al., 2020). Longitudinal analyses of the effect of cognates on receptive skill in both of bilingual children’s languages are rare. In this study, we address this gap by viewing the effect of cognates on picture-identification (receptive) performance in French and English, cross...

This study on online L2 interactions compares lexical word search between an audioconferencing and a videoconferencing condition. Nine upper-intermediate learners of English describe a previously unseen photograph in either the videoconferencing or the audioconferencing condition. A semantic feature analysis is adopted to compare their interactions. To evaluate the contribution of visual and verbal modes, a quantitative analysis examines the distribution of the referential properties of one target lexical item: tunnel earring. It suggests that pushed output produced in the videoconferencing condition is lexically richer. Then, in view of these results, focusing on two learners, one from the audioconferencing condition and one from the videoconferencing condition, a fine-grained multimodal analysis of the qualitative features of gestures and speech complements the quantitative results. It demonstrates how the videoconferencing condition allows the learner to embody salient physical referential properties of the lexical item, before transferring the referential information to the verbal mode, to produce a semantically rich description. The study will interest researchers working on multimodality and L2 teachers deciding between videoconferencing and audioconferencing as pedagogical options.

This study explores how language exposure may shape oral narrative skills in three first grade French-English emergent bilinguals attending an international programme at a state school in France. The students come from three different home language backgrounds (English dominant; French dominant; both French and English). Parent questionnaires provide information on current and cumulative exposure and home literacy practices. Spontaneous oral narratives are elicited in French and English. Microstructure, macrostructure, and narrative quality analyses show that while one language may appear to be dominant, notably for certain microstructure skills, performance in other areas may be superior in the other language. The study highlights how different actors' agency (children, parents, siblings, teachers) may contribute to language learning trajectories and outcomes, steering dual language acquisition. For teachers, the study reiterates the complexity of language learning and the need to diversify activities to ensure that students are processing and producing language appropriately.

De plus en plus de projets telecollaboratifs reposent sur les outils de visioconference poste-a-poste pour servir de moyens d’echange synchrone entre les apprenants (cf. par exemple Jauregi, de Graaff & Canto, 2011) ou des tuteurs et des apprenants (cf. Develotte, Guichon, Kern, 2008). Les recherches portant sur l’apport de l’image de la webcam ont par exemple souligne l’interet de disposer d’indices paralinguistiques pour desambiguiser la communication entre les interactants et faciliter l’intercomprehension (cf. Wang, 2004). D’autres auteurs ont mis en valeur le potentiel de la visioconference pour developper les competences interculturelles (O’Dowd, 2006). Certains chercheurs en revanche se sont montres plus circonspects vis-a-vis du potentiel de la multimodalite et ont montre que celle-ci pouvait provoquer une division de l’attention (Sweller, 2005). Dans le champ de l’enseignement-apprentissage des langues, les etudes empiriques continuent de voir le jour mais de nombreuses que...

As more and more language courses are offered online using webconferencing platforms, it is important for teacher trainers to reflect on the diverse competences required by online teachers (Lamy & Hampel 2007). Among these, it is crucial for teachers to develop their understanding of the contribution to meaning making of coverbal semiotic resources (McNeill 1992, 2005; Goldin-Meadow 2003), including gestures, head and body movements, gaze and facial expressions. Furthermore, it is important to raise teachers’ awareness as to how these multimodal resources combine and how they are orchestrated (Norris 2004) in webconference-supported teaching environments. By developing teachers’ semio-pedagogical competence (Guichon & Cohen, to be published), defined here as the appropriate use of semiotic resources to foster learning, teachers should manage online teaching more effectively.The context of the research presented in this paper is the telecollaborative project ISMAEL (InteractionS and ...

This paper explores input factors that may cause variation in bilingual language proficiency in 38 bilingual children attending an international school. Results indicate a strong association between language exposure estimates and proficiency measures. The child's stronger language is shown to be a reliable predictor of variables related to language use. Abstract: The overall aim of this paper is to explore how certain linguistic factors relate to bilingual children's performance in English and French. The participants of our study are 38 French-English bilingual children aged six to eight, of middle to high socio-economic status, attending an international school in France. Data on the children's language experiences and family background were collected through two questionnaires -one completed by the parents, and the other given orally by the researcher to the children. Language proficiency was measured using the standardised French and English versions of the Peabody ...

Dans la lignee des chapitres precedents qui se sont tous penches sur certains phenomenes didactiques, le present chapitre aborde la question de la formation des futurs enseignants en ligne et examine comment des competences en lien avec l'image projetee en ligne peuvent se developper par le biais de l'autoconfrontation. En effet, un des enjeux de la formation a la pedagogie en ligne incite a reflechir au role des ressources semiotiques multimodales, telles que les gestes, le regard et les expressions faciales dans la construction du sens lors d'une interaction pedagogique mediatisee. Quel que soit son degre d'experience pedagogique, l'enseignant en ligne est conduit a developper sa competence semiopedagogique, c'est-a-dire l'utilisation appropriee de ressources semiotiques pour favoriser l'apprentissage et pour mieux gerer son enseignement (Develotte, Guichon et Vincent, 2010). Cela suppose d'aiguiser sa conscience semiotique critique pour etre en...

The overall aim of this paper is to explore how certain input factors relate to bilingual children’s performance in English and French. The participants of our study were 38 French- English bilingual children aged six to eight, of middle to high socio-economic status, attending an international school in France. Data on the children’s language experiences and family background were collected through questionnaires given to the parents and the children. Language proficiency was measured using the standardised French and English versions of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. Having examined the strength of the relationship between overall language exposure estimates and the language proficiency measures in each language, we then turn our attention to the relationship between the children’s current language input and each of the language proficiency measures, followed by the children’s current language output and the language proficiency measures. Next we investigate the relationship...

Numerous studies have demonstrated that bilingual children have a processing advantage on verbal and non-­‐verbal problem solving tasks requiring high levels of control of attention, a skill component enabling subjects to suppress distracting or misleading information while focusing their attention on some other element (e.g. Ben-­‐ Zeev, 1977; Bialystok, 1986a and1986b; Ricciardelli, 1992; Bialystok and Majumder, 1998; Cromdal, 1999; Bialystok and Martin, 2004; Bialystok and Shapero, 2005; Bialystok and Martin-­‐Rhee, 2008).A study was conducted to investigate the effects of differing levels of bilingualism on metalinguistic awareness. The participants were 38 English-­‐French bilingual children aged six to eight, of middle to high socio-­‐economic status, attending an international school in France. Language proficiency was measured using the standardised English and French versions of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (Dunn et al., 1987; Dunn et al., 1993). Metalinguistic aware...

Previous studies have examined either the input factors predicting language proficiency in bilingual children or the relationship between bilingualism and metalinguistic awareness. This thesis takes a novel approach exploring the two areas simultaneously. A study was conducted to investigate, first, the input factors that may cause variation in bilingual language proficiency and, secondly, the effects of differing levels of bilingualism on metalinguistic awareness. The participants were 38 French-English bilingual children aged six to eight, of middle to high socio-economic status, attending an international school in France. Data on the children’s language experiences and family background were collected through questionnaires given to parents and children. Language proficiency was measured using the standardised French and English versions of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. Metalinguistic awareness was assessed through seven metalinguistic tasks each given in both languages. ...

Our work is in keeping with the general framework of didactical research in France, where we both studied, and now teach. This paper describes a model training session designed for in-service mathematics teachers, whose purpose is to guide them in their understanding of the relationship between students’ tasks and activities in secondary school (from 11 to 18 years). We first explain the didactical tools that we consider necessary in order to address tasks analysis, and then, as an example of a training session, we provide a list of tasks on similar triangles illustrating the two kinds of analysis in which we engage participants. As a conclusion to this paper, we comment on our choices, and their potential influence on teachers’ practices.