DIPLOMARBEIT Titel der Diplomarbeit Early English Language Learning. A case study of picture book based storytelling at the Playschool Linz Verfasserin Sabrina Staudinger angestrebter akademischer Grad Magistra der Philosophie (Mag. phil.) Wien, 2012 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt: A 343 Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt: Diplomstudium Anglistik und Amerikanistik Betreuerin: Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Ute Smit … to my mum and to my dad Acknowledgments While writing this thesis, I have been very fortunate to draw on the guidance and encouragement of my family, supervisor, colleagues and friends. Thank you, my family, for always trusting me and my decisions. Thank you, Mum and Dad, Thomas and Melanie and the rest of the best for your invaluable support, constant encouragement and infinite patience. I would not be where I am today without you. I would like to thank Dr. Ute Smit who shared her time, valuable feedback and expertise with me. Special thanks to my friends Laurie O'Garro and Katharina Niedermayr who have been a great help in the final stages of my thesis. Thank you for your detailed comments on drafts of this work. I want to express my gratitude to my colleagues and girlfriends for having made my time at the campus so very special. Thank you all for the motivation you have given me by your mere presence and countless coffee breaks. Konstantin, my youngest friend, I would like to thank you for the inspiration you are to me. It is a true pleasure to watch you learn to speak. I also want to thank Mag. Karin Lach and the whole library team. As much as I have always enjoyed studying at this place, I enjoy working there. Last but not least, I would like to thank Sunhild Huber-Schönfelder, Nicole Ramsebner and the whole Playschool team for their co-operation. Vienna, February 2012 Sabrina Staudinger I German Abstract Die vorliegende Diplomarbeit Early English Language Learning - A case study of picture book based storytelling at the Playschool Linz untersucht Prozesse und mögliche Auswirkungen des frühen Fremdsprachenlernens auf die kindliche kognitive sowie sprachliche Entwicklung und illustriert und analysiert den Gebrauch der englischen Sprache von 17 österreichischen Kindergartenkindern der Deutsch/Englisch bilingualen Playschool in Linz. Dabei wurden die Kinder gebeten, die Bildergeschichte Ich bin die kleine Katze (Spanner 1981) individuell zu erzählen. Die Arbeit ist in sechs Teile gegliedert, wobei die ersten vier Teile den theoretischen Hintergrund bilden und die zwei weiteren Teile die empirische Studie und deren Ergebnisse beschreiben. Der theoretische Teil gibt einen Überblick über die Arten, Auswirkungen und individuellen Verschiedenheiten des frühen Fremdsprachenlernens. Darüber hinaus werden auf die Aufgaben der Lehrer sowie auf die Position der Lernenden eingegangen. Die Theorie ist relevant für das Verstehen des frühen Fremdsprachenlernens im Zusammenhang mit seinen Auswirkungen auf das Sprachbewusstsein der jungen Lernenden. Des Weiteren werden Entwicklungen in Österreich im Bereich der frühkindlichen Förderung aufgezeigt. Ein zusätzliches Kapitel über Korpuslinguistik beschreibt die Vorgehensweise, die Stärken und Schwächen der gewählten Art von Datenanalyse. Im empirischen Teil der Arbeit werden neben der expliziten Beschreibung der Vorgehensweise der Studie auch Analysen und Ergebnisse anhand einiger Beispiele und Statistiken aufgezeigt. Allgemeine Ergebnisse der Studie betreffen die Sprach- und Wortwahl, Zeitform sowie verwendete Nomen und Verben, die in den Bilderbuchbeschreibungen der Kinder vorkommen. Dazu werden Ergebnisse der Elternbefragung besprochen. Aus den durchgeführten Buchbesprechungen mit den Kindern wurden vier Gespräche ausgewählt, die einer detaillierten Analyse unterzogen wurden, welche Beispiele des kreativen, kindlichen Fremdsprachengebrauchs und die Unterschiede zwischen den verschiedenen Kindern aufzeigen. II Table of Contents German Abstract ....................................................................................................................... I Table of Contents......................................................................................................................II List of abbreviations ................................................................................................................. V 1 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 1 2 THE YOUNG LANGUAGE LEARNER ................................................................... 3 2.1 The Age Factor ................................................................................................................ 3 2.2 Individual Learner Factors ............................................................................................... 6 2.2.1 Learning vocabulary from oral context ............................................................................. 8 2.2.2 The importance of story-book telling ............................................................................. 10 2.2.3 Language reception and production ................................................................................ 11 2.3 Language Development of Five to Six-Year-Olds .......................................................... 13 2.3.1 Metalinguistic awareness and insights ............................................................................ 15 2.3.2 Optimum use of the young child's abilities ..................................................................... 17 3 EARLY ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING ...................................................... 19 3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 19 3.2 Teaching English to Young Learners – a European Trend .............................................. 22 3.3 Implications of the Kindergarten Curriculum in Austria ................................................. 26 3.4 A Pre-School Immersion Example ................................................................................. 28 3.4.1 Teachers of young learners ............................................................................................ 31 3.4.2 The young learner in the kindergarten ............................................................................ 33 3.4.3 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 35 4 CORPUS LINGUISTICS ........................................................................................... 38 4.1 Computer-Aided Language Analysis.............................................................................. 38 4.1.1 Corpus of spoken language ............................................................................................ 39 4.1.2 ICLE - VOICE and CHILDES ....................................................................................... 41 4.2 The Potential of Corpus Linguistics for the Study of Language ...................................... 42 4.2.1 Lexical density .............................................................................................................. 43 4.2.2 Concordancing .............................................................................................................. 43 III 4.2.3 Word Frequency Lists .................................................................................................... 44 5 EMPIRICAL STUDY ................................................................................................. 46 5.1 The Playschool Linz ...................................................................................................... 46 5.2 An Outline of the Case Study ......................................................................................... 48 5.2.1 Research with five to six-year-old children .................................................................... 52 5.2.2 Considerations and observations .................................................................................... 54 5.3 An Evaluation of the Parental Questionnaire .................................................................. 56 5.4 Method of data elicitation .............................................................................................. 61 6 FINDINGS ................................................................................................................... 64 6.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 64 6.2 Individual Differences in Language Production .............................................................. 65 6.2.1 Sophie ........................................................................................................................... 66 6.2.2 David ............................................................................................................................ 67 6.2.3 Amelie........................................................................................................................... 69 6.2.4 Nina .............................................................................................................................. 70 6.3 Focus Areas in Corpus Analysis..................................................................................... 72 6.3.1 Nouns in the narratives .................................................................................................. 72 6.3.2 Verbs in the narratives ................................................................................................... 73 6.3.3 Grammatical patterns and vocabulary richness ............................................................... 74 6.3.4 German verbs and their English counterparts ................................................................. 76 6.4 Learner Self-Correction ................................................................................................. 78 6.5 Errors Related to Native Language Pattern ..................................................................... 79 6.6 Learner Strategies .......................................................................................................... 81 6.7 Summary of Findings .................................................................................................... 84 7 Conclusion.................................................................................................................... 86 References ................................................................................................................................ 89 Appendix A .............................................................................................................................. 93 Appendix B ............................................................................................................................ 103 Appendix C ............................................................................................................................ 104 IV Appendix D ............................................................................................................................ 111 Curriculum Vitae .................................................................................................................. 114 Eidesstattliche Erklärung ...................................................................................................... 115 V List of abbreviations L1 First Language L2 Second Language YL Young Learner NS Native Speaker NNS Non-Native Speaker TL Target Language EFL English as a Foreign Language ESL English as a Second Language ELT English Language Teaching TEYL Teaching English to Young Learners EU European Union e.g. exempli gratia
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