TRILINGUAL TODDLERS AT DAYCARE CENTERS:

The role of caregivers and peers in language development

Presented by:
Kenneth Chan Bona
Brother Morris
 INTRODUCTION
• Which has a bigger impact/influence on language acquisition of
young children?
• Home or school?

• Social Interactionist Theory of Language Acquisition:

• ‘language emerges from the interplay between children’s linguistic and cognitive
capacities and their social language environment’
(Bohannon & Bonvillian, 2001, p. 292).
 INTRODUCTION
• Daycare Centers provide the perfect setting for young learners
• Peers for social development
• Caregivers for linguistic development

• Issues:
• Which language do the children use?
• Home vs. Daycare language
• Quality or Quantity?
• Caregiver vs. Peer Interaction
 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
• Two research questions served as the foundation of the study:

1. How well can trilingual children separate their home languages

from their daycare language?

2. What kinds of communicative interaction in the daycare setting

promote language development?
 METHODOLOGY OVERVIEW

Background of the two trilingual children

• Freddy • Xiaoxiao
• Mother: English only • Mother: Chinese only
• Father: German only • Father: English only
• Daycare: Japanese • Daycare: Japanese
• Observed Age: • Observed Age:
• Nine months • Four months
• 1;1.4 to 1;10.8 • 2;0.13 to 2;4.12
• 30 recorded sessions • 14 recorded sessions
• Dominant: Japanese • Dominant: Japanese
 RESEARCH QUESTION 1
• How well can trilingual children separate their home languages
from their daycare language?
 RESEARCH QUESTION 1
• 98.7% of Xiaoxiao’s clearly coded utterances were in Japanese, the
only language spoken by all the children and adults at the daycare.

• Freddy also demonstrates discourse separation at 95%, 5% above

the prescribed criterion of 90% by Paradis and Nicoladis (2007).
 RESEARCH QUESTION 1
• Xiaoxiao did produce a small amount of English (0.8%) as did Freddy
(4%).
• Both children also produced a very small number of mixed
Japanese-English utterances at 1% for Freddy and 0.5% for Xiaoxiao.

• Xiaoxiao’s five English utterances in the 14 sessions were:

• bicycle, soccer ball, daddy, giraffe and no.
• Three mixed Japanese-English utterances were very similar in form:
‘kore cake’ (this is cake), ‘kore, turtle’ (this, turtle) and ‘kore house’
(this is house)
 RESEARCH QUESTION 2
• What kinds of communicative interaction in the daycare setting
promote language development?

• The target children were able to acquire and become dominant in

their third language in the daycare setting.

• Two Paradigms:
• Linguistic vs. Gestural/Onomatopoeic (G/O)
• Caregiver vs. Peer
 LINGUISTIC VS. G/O
• Experimental studies have found that:

• children understand and remember spoken messages better

when messages are accompanied by symbolic gestures
(McGregor, Rohlfing, Bean, & Marschner, 2009; McNeil, Alibali, & Evans, 2000)

• they learn new concepts better when gestures accompany

speech than via speech alone.
(Valenzeno, Alibali, & Klatzky, 2003)
LINGUISTIC VS. G/O
GESTURAL
ONOMATOPOEIC
 GESTURAL AND ONOMATOPOEIC
• Onomatopoeic-like words are easy to acquire because syllable
reduplication and sound symbolism aid in associating the mimetic
words with their referents.
 CAREGIVER VS. PEER
• Within the daycare, better linguistic and social development have
been attributed to higher levels of caregiver rather than peer
speech. (McCartney, 1984; Phillips, McCartney, & Scarr, 1987)
 CAREGIVER RESPONSIVENESS
• Two conditions:
• Competency of caregivers in the target language
• (Positive) caregiver responsiveness

• Guidelines for successful interaction:

• Respond to vocalizations and gestures
• Convey a positive attitude
• Encourage children to talk by asking them easy questions
• Encourage children to learn by repetition
CAREGIVER RESPONSIVENESS
 PEER INTERACTION
• Does this mean that peer interaction is ineffective or unnecessary?

• While the quantitative data illustrate how input came more from
adult caregivers than from peers, peers can still be seen to play a
role in the trilingual toddlers’ language development.

• Without the presence of other children, a child would not be able to

‘practice’ the phrases he/she has learned.
PEER INTERACTION
 PEER INTERACTION
• Peers can contribute to the trilingual children’s language
dominance.

• We can see in (11) that language and other information learning

can come from peers, and older children can be models of
language behavior for younger ones.
 CONCLUSIONS
• What makes this study unique when compared to other studies?

• The subjects, being trilinguals fluent in a language outside the

home, can more clearly illustrate the impact that the daycare
environment had on the children’s preference for and
dominance in the societal language.
 CONCLUSIONS
• Research Question 1:
• How well can trilingual children separate their home languages
from their daycare language?
• The results show that trilingual children are able to suppress their two
home languages in the third language environment.
• Xiaoxiao’s second strongest language, Chinese, and Freddy’s
weakest language, German, were completely suppressed at their
daycare centers.
 CONCLUSIONS
• Research Question 2:
• What kinds of communicative interaction in the daycare setting
promote language development?

• Interactions couched in either linguistics or G/O expressions are

interlinked.
• G/O’s can make communication more transparent or easily
understood.
• It’s not a question of linguistics vs. G/O’s; it’s a question of which is
more easily accessible.
• Caregiver vs. Peer interaction is simply an issue of Quality vs. Quantity.
• In reality, it is actually a complex combination of both that affects
language acquisition.
 REAL LIFE IMPLICATIONS
• The impact and influence of daycare centers (and, by extension,
schools) cannot be underestimated.
• Interactions outside the home play just as large a role in language
acquisition as the interactions at home.

• Critical Questions:
• Is it really the daycare center that played the deciding factor in
determining the target children’s dominant language?
• Or is it because of the monolingual society, as a whole, of
Japan?
Q&A