Explicit cognate instruction facilitates vocabulary learning by foreign language learners with developmental language disorder

Abstract

This article is one of the first attempts to study the mechanisms of foreign language learning by children with DLD. We test the effectiveness of a cognate intervention aiming to enhance cross-linguistic awareness of Dutch-speaking primary-school pupils with DLD, as part of their English as a Foreign Language (EFL) curriculum. The participants were learning English as a school subject in the last three years of special primary education in the Netherlands (ages 8;11–13;8). The intervention group ( n = 41) received 12 short lessons on cognate relationships over the course of 14 weeks. The control group ( n = 46), matched to the intervention group on the amount and intensity of foreign language instruction, received their regular English lessons that were mainly implicit and skill-based. The study used a pre-test–post-test design and compared the development of English word recognition in the two groups, at the same time controlling for the amount of prior EFL instruction and out-of-school exposure to English. The performance at pre-test was already high, particularly on cognates. Word recognition in the control group did not improve over the course of the 14 weeks. The performance of the intervention group showed significant improvement from pre-test to post-test. After the intervention, they recognized not only more of the words practised in the lessons but also more nontreated cognates, which demonstrates that the intervention participants developed a cognate strategy that allowed them to recognize more English words based on similarity to Dutch. We conclude that explicit cognate instruction implemented in a regular classroom setting facilitates the development of EFL vocabulary in special primary education.

Age of Onset, Motivation, and Anxiety as Predictors of Grammar and Vocabulary Outcomes in English as a Foreign Language Learners with Developmental Language Disorder

“…Although our study only included a business-as-usual curriculum, there are reasons to assume that the lack of progress was (at least partly) due to the implicit teaching approach, which did not include explicit explanation of grammar rules or cross-language comparisons. These results are in line with the prior findings for primary-school children with DLD, demonstrating that pupils with DLD do not make progress in EFL skills if their English curriculum is implicit and skill-based (Tribushinina et al, 2022(Tribushinina et al, , 2023b. According to Ullman and Pierpont (2005), procedural learning is impaired in children with DLD.…”

“…Metalinguistic approaches to both vocabulary and grammar teaching appear even more vital in foreign language teaching to children with DLD because in this case the deficits are aggravated by limited exposure. Tribushinina et al (2022Tribushinina et al ( , 2023b compared EFL learning gains in Dutch-speaking primary-school children with DLD (age 9-12) following either a business-as-usual curriculum (implicit) or an explicit intervention raising metalinguistic and cross-linguistic awareness. Their results revealed significant progress in the intervention group after 12 weeks of explicit vocabulary (Tribushinina et al, 2023b) and grammar (Tribushinina et al, 2022) instruction, but no progress was observed in the business-as-usual group.…”

“…Tribushinina et al (2022Tribushinina et al ( , 2023b compared EFL learning gains in Dutch-speaking primary-school children with DLD (age 9-12) following either a business-as-usual curriculum (implicit) or an explicit intervention raising metalinguistic and cross-linguistic awareness. Their results revealed significant progress in the intervention group after 12 weeks of explicit vocabulary (Tribushinina et al, 2023b) and grammar (Tribushinina et al, 2022) instruction, but no progress was observed in the business-as-usual group. The latter group received English lessons that were very similar to the English curriculum of our participants, but at a less advanced (primary school) level.…”

“…Therefore, in school settings, the negative effects of the disorder are likely to be aggravated by the limited classroom time devoted to foreign languages. Thus far, only six published studies have addressed English as a foreign language (EFL) learning by children with DLD (Stolvoort et al, 2023;Tribushinina et al, 2020Tribushinina et al, , 2022Tribushinina et al, , 2023aTribushinina et al, , 2023bZoutenbier & Zwitserlood, 2019). Despite the lack of research on this topic, in countries such as the Netherlands, children with DLD receive English lessons in both primary and secondary school, like children with typical language development (Thijs et al, 2011).…”

Bilingual advantages in foreign language learning: evidence from primary-school pupils with developmental language disorder

“…In contrast to the rich literature on FL learning by typicallydeveloping pupils, there are only a few studies focusing on pupils with DLD learning English as a school subject (Zoutenbier and Zwitserlood, 2019;Tribushinina et al, 2020Tribushinina et al, , 2022Tribushinina et al, , 2023aStolvoort et al, 2023). Their findings suggest that pupils with DLD learn English slower and attain lower scores than peers without DLD (Zoutenbier and Zwitserlood, 2019;Tribushinina et al, 2020), even though their EFL learning can be enhanced by using teaching methods tailored to the specific needs of this population (Tribushinina et al, 2022(Tribushinina et al, , 2023bStolvoort et al, 2023).…”