Second Language Development & Reading

• sequential bilingual


  - learn L1 and then later on develop a 2nd language
• simultaneous bilingual


  - learn both languages at the same time
• language dominance


  - most dominant language out of the one's you speak
• language proficiency


  - how good one's knowledge is in any language
• unitary language system hypothesis


  - suggests that bilingual children initially create on grammar and lexicon (based on culture and input) for both languages they learn
• dual language system hypothesis


  - suggests that bilingual children develop two separate linguistic systems from birth

  - both L1 and L2 have culture and input
• speech perception


  - at one year old, infants learning two languages can differentiate phonemes in each language similar to how monolingual children do
• vocab development


  - vocabulary learned in each language changes over time

  - percent of "translations" in a child's vocab increases with age

  -- toddler: 30%

  -- age 6: 50%

  -- age 11: 70%
• morphological development


  - a study of 3-5 year olds learning both english and french showed that bilingual kids made errors by reversing the order of two morphemes in compound words

  - sun juggler: juggle sun

  - apple eater: eats apple

  - banana peeler: peel banana
• do two languages slow you down?


  - being bilingual does not cause language delay

  - emergence of linguistic milestones occurs at about the same time as in monolingual children

  - mastery of morphology may lag behind a bit
• word recognition


  - being able to say individual words you see written on a page

  - does not necessarily mean you comprehend the words
• decoding


  - can be a synonym for word recognition

  - or can be used more specifically to mean

  -- word recognition by converting graphemes to phonemes

  -- often referred to as "sounding out" a word
• sight word reading


  - word recognition by memorizing what whole words look like
• reading is explicitly taught


  - developing oral language skills is more implicitly learned

  - when children learn to read it depends on the expectations and educational system of the culture they live in

  - learning to read also depends on the language children are learning to read