Measuring productive elements of multi-word phrase vocabulary knowledge among children with English as an additional or only language

Smith, Sara A.; Murphy, Victoria A.

doi:10.1007/s11145-014-9527-y

Cited by 27 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Their stronger metaphor comprehension plausibly stems from more well-developed knowledge of words, and their extended meanings and usage. Particularly for the systematic verbal metaphors, older children's stronger comprehension may be supported by implicit knowledge of the structures underlying them, and be a first indication of the 'burst of multi-word vocabulary' that has been reported for children in years 4-5 (Smith & Murphy, 2015). However, we also know that metaphor comprehension is more than recalling word meanings.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 83%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other studies have investigated collocations such as pay attention (Smith & Murphy, 2015) and idioms such as It's raining cats and dogs (McKendry, 2014). A cross-sectional study with children aged seven to ten found that learners of EAL not only knew fewer single words across all years, but that older EAL children also did not produce many more collocations correctly than their younger peers, unlike monolinguals who experienced a 'burst of multi-word vocabulary' (Smith & Murphy, 2015). While differences between the age groups could be due to convenience sampling from the highly heterogeneous EAL population (Strand et al, 2015), the findings suggest that monolinguals' growth in multiword vocabulary serves to increase the gap in vocabulary knowledge depth between monolingual learners and those with EAL in the later years of primary school.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, those difficulties likely extend into literacy. For example, children's performance on the collocational measure in Smith and Murphy (2015) made a significant and unique contribution to their reading comprehension scores. Measuring EAL comprehension of different types of vocabulary is particularly interesting as it is likely to help offer greater precision in our understanding of why some children with EAL struggle with (reading) comprehension, and how their processing patterns of different linguistic features contribute to their difficulties.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Understanding how time flies and what it means to be on cloud nine: English as an Additional Language (EAL) learners’ metaphor comprehension

Hessel

Murphy

2018

J. Child Lang.

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We explored the vocabulary and metaphor comprehension of learners of English as an additional language (EAL) in the first two years of UK primary school. EAL vocabulary knowledge is believed to be a crucial predictor of (reading) comprehension and educational attainment (Murphy, 2018). The vocabulary of five- to seven-year-old children with EAL was compared to that of English monolinguals (N = 80). Comprehension was assessed for both verbal (e.g., time flies) and nominal metaphors (be on cloud nine) of varying frequency. Results showed that children in year 2 (age six to seven years) had better comprehension than their younger (age five to six) peers, particularly for low-frequency metaphors. Children with EAL had weaker metaphor comprehension than their monolingual peers, particularly on a reasoning task. The results document how metaphor comprehension develops over the first critical years of schooling and indicates where learners with EAL differ from monolingual peers, thereby supporting targeted vocabulary teaching at primary schools.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 83%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Understanding how time flies and what it means to be on cloud nine: English as an Additional Language (EAL) learners’ metaphor comprehension

Hessel

Murphy

2018

J. Child Lang.

Self Cite

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“…It has been widely accepted that the mastery of vocabulary is the key to learning the English language (Smith & Murphy, 2015). Naturally, vocabulary is acquired through daily interactions with the speakers of the language, for instance, the family members, the peers, the teachers and/or the neighbors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The teaching of English vocabulary through pictorial reading texts and games to a group of primary school students in East Jakarta

Silva

2020

raje

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This community service is a free English tutorial for a group of primary schools’ students aged ten years old residing in Duren Sawit, East Jakarta and its surroundings. The program is part of a bigger tutorial program called Bimbingan Belajar Mita (Bimbel Mita) conducted by a non-profit organization that was initiated by the Maria Clarist congregation sisters around eight years ago. The participants of the six-month program were ten students. The method of the community service was teaching the basic English vocabulary through pictorial short English texts and vocabulary games. The former technique was used for the first half of the semester and the latter for the second half of the period. During the tutorial, the students have acquired a number of the targeted English nouns related to objects in the house, garden, animals, colors, professions, fruits, vegetables; verbs related to daily activities at home and adjectives related to descriptions of objects and human beings and some adverbs. In learning the English vocabulary, they show more enthusiasm for games rather than the pictorial reading texts.

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The impact of multi‐word units in early foreign language learning and teaching contexts: A systematic review

Schulz

Hamilton

Wonnacott

et al. 2023

Review of Education

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This systematic review reports on research investigating the impact of multi‐word unit (MWU) input on young learners' second language (L2) attainment in instructed settings. Recent findings suggest that L2 learners can generalise from MWU input, abstract patterns and employ such schemata productively via slot‐filling, indicating that MWUs are key catalysts of learners' L2 development. Simultaneously, primary school L2 instruction is on the rise worldwide and the importance of MWUs is acknowledged in curricula, teacher education and teaching materials. Therefore, the incentive of this review is to systematically report the state of the art of research regarding the impact of MWU instruction in early L2 teaching contexts. The review covers English, German and French research into typically developing monolingual children aged 5–12 learning an L2 in instructed teaching settings. Only two of the total results (n = 2233) met the inclusion criteria. Following quality assessment using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool and based on a narrative synthesis of available results, we cannot report trustworthy evidence of the effectiveness of teaching MWUs to young L2 learners. We highlight the lack of research evidence and conclude that existing research lacks robust evidence that MWU input already established in teaching contexts has a measurable effect on specific aspects of students' L2 attainment, such as productive skills. Although we promote MWU's potentially facilitating role in L2 development, we call for more classroom‐based intervention research on MWUs in primary school contexts to enable much‐needed evidence‐based recommendations for L2 teaching to support L2 learning outcomes in primary schools. Context and implicationsRationale for this studyResearch has shown that multi‐word units (MWUs) are key catalysts for L1 and L2 learning. MWUs are crucial to current primary school L2 teaching and their importance is acknowledged in curricula. This review systematically examines the scientific evidence for the effectiveness of MWU instruction on L2 attainment.Why the findings matterOur review cannot report trustworthy evidence of the effectiveness of teaching MWUs to young L2 learners. This lack of evidence is striking since early L2 instruction is on the rise worldwide and MWUs are already integral parts of L2 curricula, teacher education and teaching materials.Implications for the research community and policy makersGiven our findings, we call for more research in instructed settings to better understand the impact of MWU input on specific aspects of students' L2 attainment, such as productive skills. Based on such work, researchers could provide policy makers and practitioners with evidence‐based recommendations that help integrate MWU input into L2 curricula and teaching in such a way that is most beneficial for young students' L2 attainment.

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Measuring productive elements of multi-word phrase vocabulary knowledge among children with English as an additional or only language

Cited by 27 publications

References 44 publications

Understanding how time flies and what it means to be on cloud nine: English as an Additional Language (EAL) learners’ metaphor comprehension

Understanding how time flies and what it means to be on cloud nine: English as an Additional Language (EAL) learners’ metaphor comprehension

The teaching of English vocabulary through pictorial reading texts and games to a group of primary school students in East Jakarta

The impact of multi‐word units in early foreign language learning and teaching contexts: A systematic review

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