As a consequence of large-scale migration movements in Europe, there has been a steady increase in the multiplicity of different L1s children speak at home. Due to the introduction of early foreign language learning in primary schools, young learners who speak another language than German at home consist a significant learner group today. For these learners, as for any young learner, the knowledge of their L1s represents "the most valuable resource … that a talking child brings to the classroom" (Hall 2016: 522). Nevertheless, minimizing the use of learners' L1s represents a commonly accepted practice in foreign language teaching today. This practice is in contrast with recent psycholinguistic findings on the workings of multilingual mind and has little empirical evidence (Cummins 2007). Research on the bilingual mental lexicon and on cross-linguistic influence have traditionally focused on the influence of existing languages on the foreign language learning process (De Angelis 2019: 163). These lines of research have recently demonstrated that "all the languages of an individual always and necessarily interact during comprehension and production" and that "that crosslinguistic effects arise among all the languages of a multilingual and across proficiency levels" (Ortega 2019: 25). It is thus necessary to consider learners' use of all their languages, not only the target language, when investigating learner interaction. It is only recently, however, that cognitive-interactionist studies on young learners' interaction has focused on learners' use of their L1s (Lazaro Ibarrola & Azpilicueta Martínez 2015, among others). Thus, the present study sets out to investigate young learners' utilization of their full linguistic repertoire in task-based learner-learner interaction in the EFL classroom. The focus of the study lies in learners' use of their existing linguistic repertoire in task resolution with peers who share the same migrant minority L1, which has not been investigated thus far. The overall objective is to investigate how learners use their first, second and the target language when working on a communicative task that has been found to be supportive for foreign language learning (Long 1996). Through the analysis of learner language arising during the task resolution and through stimulated recall interviews with learners, both learners' actual use of their repertoire and their perception of the utility of first and second language use for the task resolution and target language use will be investigated. Furthermore, the relationship between learners' proficiency in each of their languages and their use of the different languages will be analyzed. Questions for discussants: 1. Does the line of argumentation for the necessity to investigate the use of the existing linguistic repertoire in task-based learner interaction seem justified and convincing? Which concerns and doubts remain? 2. Based on the data excerpts from the pilot study, which purposes can be perceived for the L1 and L2 use? Do the purposes proposed by the presenter seem convincing? Angelis, G. (2019). Cross-Linguistic Influence and Multiple Language Acquisition and Use. In L. Aronin & D. Singleton (Eds.), Twelve Lectures on Multilingualism (pp. 163-177). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Cummins, J. (2007). Rethinking monolingual instructional strategies in multilingual classrooms. Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 10(2), 221–240. Hall, G. (2016). The Routledge handbook of English language teaching. London; New York: Routledge. Lázaro-Ibarrola, A. & Azplicueta-Martínez, R. (2015). Investigating negotiation of meaning in EFL children with very low levels of proficiency. International Journal of English Studies, 15(1), 1–21. Long, M. (1996). The Role of the Linguistic Environment in the Second Language Acquisition. In W. Ritchie & T. K. Bhatia (Eds.), Handbook of Second Language Acquisition (pp. 413–468). San Diego: Academic Press. Ortega, L. (2019). SLA and the Study of Equitable Multilingualism. The Modern Language Journal, 103, 23–38.
As a consequence of large-scale migration movements in Europe, there has been a steady increase in the multiplicity of different L1s children speak at home. Due to the introduction of early foreign language learning in primary schools, young learners who speak another language than German at home consist a significant learner group today. For these learners, as for any young learner, the knowledge of their L1s represents "the most valuable resource … that a talking child brings to the classroom" (Hall 2016: 522). Nevertheless, minimizing the use of learners' L1s represents a commonly accepted practice in foreign language teaching today. This practice is in contrast with recent psycholinguistic findings on the workings of multilingual mind and has little empirical evidence (Cummins 2007). Research on the bilingual mental lexicon and on cross-linguistic influence have traditionally focused on the influence of existing languages on the foreign language learning process (De Angelis 2019: 163). These lines of research have recently demonstrated that "all the languages of an individual always and necessarily interact during comprehension and production" and that "that crosslinguistic effects arise among all the languages of a multilingual and across proficiency levels" (Ortega 2019: 25). It is thus necessary to consider learners' use of all their languages, not only the target language, when investigating learner interaction. It is only recently, however, that cognitive-interactionist studies on young learners' interaction has focused on learners' use of their L1s (Lazaro Ibarrola & Azpilicueta Martínez 2015, among others). Thus, the present study sets out to investigate young learners' utilization of their full linguistic repertoire in task-based learner-learner i ...
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