Lending a Helping Hand for English-Chinese Bilingual Children's Idiom Comprehension and Retention: Implications for Early Childhood Educators

Autor/inn/en	Wang, Xiao-lei; Plotka, Raquel
Titel	Lending a Helping Hand for English-Chinese Bilingual Children's Idiom Comprehension and Retention: Implications for Early Childhood Educators
Quelle	In: Early Years: An International Journal of Research and Development, 38 (2018) 3, S.298-315 (18 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0957-5146
DOI	10.1080/09575146.2016.1258693
Schlagwörter	Chinese; Bilingualism; Experimental Groups; English (Second Language); Second Language Learning; Second Language Instruction; Native Speakers; Figurative Language; Speech Communication; Nonverbal Communication; Language Processing; Child Language; Correlation; Reading Comprehension; Scaffolding (Teaching Technique); Retention (Psychology); Adults; Scores; Early Childhood Education; Learning Theories; Learning Readiness; Linguistic Input; Gender Differences; Teaching Methods; Coding; Reliability + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? China; Chinesen; Bilingualismus; English as second language; English; Second Language; Englisch als Zweitsprache; Zweitsprachenerwerb; Fremdsprachenunterricht; Muttersprachler; Non-verbal communication; Nonverbale Kommunikation; Sprachverarbeitung; 'Children''s language'; Kindersprache; Korrelation; Leseverstehen; Merkfähigkeit; Early childhood; Education; Frühkindliche Bildung; Frühpädagogik; Learning theory; Lerntheorie; Lernbereitschaft; Sprachbildung; Geschlechterkonflikt; Teaching method; Lehrmethode; Unterrichtsmethode; Codierung; Programmierung; Reliabilität
Abstract	Idiom comprehension and production reflect a child's language competence. Research suggests that there is a positive relationship between children's reading comprehension skills and their idiom understanding. This study examines whether adult verbal scaffolding, in conjunction with the deliberate use of iconic gestures, can facilitate young bilingual children's comprehension and retention of idiomatic expressions in their different languages. Twenty-three five-year-old English-Chinese bilingual children learned novel idioms across two experimental conditions. In Experiment 1, a native Chinese-speaking adult and a native English-speaking adult, respectively, taught children a set of Chinese and English idioms via speech only. In Experiment 2, the same adults, respectively, taught a different set of Chinese and English idioms via speech-gesture combinations. The results suggest that children could comprehend more idioms in both languages after being taught via the speech-gesture modality than the speech-only modality. They also tended to retain more idioms taught in the speech-gesture modality than in the speech-only modality in both languages. Moreover, those children who scored high in their idiom comprehension and retention also scored high both in their recast of the gestures used by the adults and in their rate of speech-gesture mismatches. Educational implications for early childhood settings are discussed. (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01