Cathy Cohen

Policy and research promote students’ classroom talk as beneficial for language development. However, few studies have investigated student perspectives on student talk in language classrooms, and even fewer have compared those perspectives across L1 or L2/L3 subjects and countries. To address this gap, this article presents findings from the European project LANGUAGES. We interviewed 94 secondary school students in English and French classes in England, France and Norway, where these languages have different statuses in society and in school. Through reflexive thematic analysis, we identified two main themes that captured students’ voices and perspectives on enabling and constraining aspects of classroom talk in their language lessons. The first theme, “student talk as a pathway to progression in L1 and L2/L3”, includes perspectives on classroom talk as a means to language learning. The second theme, “dynamics of collaborative student talk”, discusses peer influence on student talk and students’ need for a safe classroom environment to feel confident to talk. Across contexts, students placed high value on participation in classroom talk and articulated their views on the learning benefits of such talk. However, differences between contexts also emerged, particularly in relation to aspects of classroom talk that students perceived as constraining. The study highlights the importance of ensuring varied and plentiful opportunities for student talk in all language classrooms, but also the need to create a classroom environment as a safe space to support the dynamics of oral interaction.

This mixed methods study explores the effects of cumulative exposure, age of onset of acquisition (AO), parent proficiency and richness of the language environment on the grammatical development in French and English of 49 French–English bilingual children who were acquiring the languages either simultaneously (2L1) or successively (cL2). Participants (24 girls) were in 1st grade (M = 6;4, n = 20) or 5th grade (M = 10;4, n = 29), attending a state school in France, in a French–English bilingual programme. Production data come from a narrative task in each language. Parent questionnaires were used to explore environmental factors. Results show, first, that children’s age and parent proficiency were positive predictors of grammatical accuracy in English, while in French only cumulative exposure was a positive predictor. Secondly, exposure showed a stronger relationship with grammatical accuracy in cL2 children; however, only in French, the language in which children made more errors overall. Finally, we found that both 2L1 and cL2 children made gender errors, an early-acquired structure in French. A qualitative analysis of errors with gender highlights, first, the importance of language output for grammatical development, even for children receiving substantial language input and, second, the role of home factors which play a more important role than community language use in shaping grammatical development. This study underscores the complex, interconnected nature of experiential effects on bilingual grammatical development in each language.

This study explores dual language acquisition according to three interrelated factors which have been found to account for individual differences in bilingual development. These are child-internal, proximal and distal factors. This five-year longitudinal case study investigates the complex interplay between language exposure, language skills and language and cultural identity construction in three French-English bilingual adolescents (from age 10 to 14), from three different home language backgrounds (French dominant; English dominant; both French and English), attending the same bilingual programme in France. Data were collected annually. Parent questionnaires provided information on the children’s exposure to French and English from birth, within the family and in school and other social environments. Semi-structured interviews with the children explored their current language exposure and their language practices with close family and friends, and in language-based activities, such as reading. Language skills were assessed in both languages through (1) a narrative task evaluating lexical diversity and grammatical accuracy, and (2) a standard receptive vocabulary task. Identity construction was explored through semi-structured interviews and a language portrait activity. Our findings showed, first, that higher exposure to a language at home and school did not necessarily align with higher level skills in that language. High-level skills were also observed in the language where exposure was quantitatively lower, but qualitatively rich. Secondly, despite higher exposure to one language, children sometimes identified more with the language and culture they were exposed to less. We highlight the importance of exploring children’s exposure and language biographies in depth to distinguish the sources and types of exposure received from birth. We also show the impact of children’s agency on their language investment and language development.

The cognate advantage in bilingual children varies in strength across groups and individuals, in particular on receptive measures (e.g. picture-identification). This variation may be due to children’s developing ability to benefit from cognates in such tasks, yet longitudinal studies of this phenomenon, especially with older children, are rare. Using longitudinal and cross-sectional analyses of picture-identification performance in French and English from 37 bilingual children attending a dual language program in France, this study investigates the cognate advantage across a wide range of ages (6–13 years old). The influence of children’s relative exposure on the cognate advantage is also investigated. We find that significant differences in cognate versus non-cognate performance emerge only after the first years of elementary school. Children show marked growth in late elementary and middle school years, but only on the English task. The strength of the cognate advantage in picture-ID is inversely related to exposure to that language. These findings are discussed in relation to the nature of these children’s exposure and properties of cognates in the two languages. Implications for dual language pedagogy are also discussed.

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.

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 conventionsCHILDESdans le logicielCLAN, 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 et celles des performances linguistiques. Les résultats révèlent que le vocabulaire réceptif et certaines mesures de productivité narrative semblent être sensibles au degré d’exposition de chaque langue. De plus, nos conclusions renforcent l’idée du rÔle essentiel de la lecture sur la performance linguistique, et ce d’autant plus pour les enfants les plus jeunes. Pour finir, cette étude souligne l’importance de travailler en étroite collaboration avec les équipes pédagogiques et les parents d’enfants bilingues afin de fournir des recommandations concrètes pour enrichir le langage oral.

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 socio-economic 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.