Language and Cognitive Aspects of Child Bilingualism

This book investigates the ways and the degree in which bilingualism affects language, cognitive and narrative abilities in bilingual children. The results of the research reveal the significance of biliteracy in the above areas. The book also provides research observations and classroom implications of the finds or the research.

This book investigates how bilingualism affects children's language, cognitive and narrative abilities. The data sample derives from 209 8-12 years old bilingual children, in three different targeted languages (Greek-English, Greek-German, Greek-Albanian) along with 100 monolingual Greek children. The children completed baseline and experimental tasks measuring their vocabulary, grammar, cognitive skills, and narrative production abilities. The outcome of this work reveals that learning to read and write in two languages is beneficial for the development of language and cognitive skills. A strong case can be made to the growing bilingual communities in Germany and beyond to provide literacy training in both languages within mainstream schools, afternoon classes outside of the curriculum or in community schools.

Autorentext

Maria Andreou is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cologne, participating in the SFB Project 1252 "Prominence in Language". Her scientific interests include bilingualism and multilingualism, literacy, language and cognitive abilities in typical development and in (developmental and acquired) language disorders and narrative development.

Klappentext

This book investigates how bilingualism affects children s language, cognitive and narrative abilities. The data sample derives from 209 8-12 years old bilingual children, in three different targeted languages (Greek-English, Greek-German, Greek-Albanian) along with 100 monolingual Greek children. The children completed baseline and experimental tasks measuring their vocabulary, grammar, cognitive skills, and narrative production abilities. The outcome of this work reveals that learning to read and write in two languages is beneficial for the development of language and cognitive skills. A strong case can be made to the growing bilingual communities in Germany and beyond to provide literacy training in both languages within mainstream schools, afternoon classes outside of the curriculum or in community schools.

Inhalt

Cognition - Dominance - Educational setting - Biliteracy - Narration - Micro-structure - Macro-structure - Classroom applications