Deck 8: Childhood Bilingualism

Question 1

Studies on whether and when bilinguals acquire phonological differentiation indicate that:

A) further research is required to get accurate results.
B) this occurs between 1-½ years and two years of age.
C) Spanish and English bilingual children acquire these skills at age three.
D) adults can clearly identify bilingual children's language through speech production when they are two years old.

Answer 1

D

Question 2

The timing of when bilingual children acquire phonology:

A) is similar for all children.
B) depends on the child's proficiency in the lexicon.
C) is determined by proficiency of the child's caretakers.
D) depends on a variety of factors.

Answer 2

B

Question 3

Applied research approaches to studying bilingualism generally focus on:

A) social and political aspects of educating children who are bilingual.
B) questions centering on issues regarding immigrant children in schools.
C) parents concerns regarding child development.
D) developing educational programs.

Answer 3

B

Question 4

Early studies on bilingual development were:

A) conducted in Europe.
B) focused on children with bilingual parents.
C) based on diary records of a linguist's child.
D) carried out in the 1920's.

Question 5

Morphosyntactic differentiation is an issue at the heart of bilingualism research because:

A) children mix the two languages in a variety of manners.
B) evidence indicates that children mix lexical items in stages that predict proficiency in both languages.
C) morphology and syntax vary across languages.
D) children are exposed to models with a range of levels of language proficiency.

Question 6

De Houwer (2005) reviewed studies on morphosyntactic differentiation and found that:

A) bilingual children mix the two language systems while they are learning grammatical rules.
B) bilingual children use the rules of one of their languages to produce sentences in the other language.
C) how bilingual children mix languages varies and is not fully understood.
D) bilingual children have degrees of language confusion and do not differentiate the morposyntactic systems of two languages.

Question 7

The fusion hypothesis states that:

A) children differentiate the two languages they hear and those one-language influences how the other language is learned.
B) children first create one system of language knowledge and then combine the two languages they are learning.
C) children learn one language first, and then acquire skills in the second language.
D) children learn the lexicon of one language, and then acquire the same knowledge in the second language.

Question 8

Simultaneous bilingualism is defined as:

A) learning two languages at one time.
B) learning one language after knowing a birth language.
C) being exposed to one language at birth and a second one after the first few years.
D) being exposed to two languages at birth and acquiring both.

Question 9

When children acquire two languages at birth, their bilingualism is:

A) referred to as natural bilingualism.
B) considered sequential bilingualism.
C) called simultaneous bilingualism.
D) referred to as prelingual bilingualism.

Question 10

Sequential bilingualism is defined as:

A) learning two languages at one time.
B) learning one language after knowing a birth language.
C) being exposed to one language at birth and a second one after the first few years.
D) being exposed to two languages at birth and acquiring both.

Question 11

Studies on how bilingual babies make phonemic distinctions indicate that:

A) at six and ten months of age, bilingual and monolingual children can distinguish two languages according to differing vowels sounds.
B) at ten months of age, monolingual babies cannot distinguish two languages according to differing vowel sounds that they could distinguish at six months of age.
C) monolingual babies and bilingual babies process phonemic units at different rates.
D) All of these statements are true.

Question 12

Research on how children differentiate between two languages indicates that:

A) one parent should consistently use one language and the other parent should use the other language.
B) the "one person-one language" principle is supported in the use of Spanish and English.
C) it is realistic for parents to speak predominantly one language only for the sake of the child's development.
D) typically, parents who are using two languages with one child do not adhere to the "one person-one language" principle.

Question 13

Studies of speech perception for infants who are bilingual indicate that they distinguish:

A) between two languages.
B) in the same way as monolingual children.
C) differently than monolingual children.
D) if the languages have the same prosody.

Question 14

Generally, research on bilingualism focuses on:

A) two major issues.
B) why bilingualism is good for children.
C) early bilingualism and language acquisition and simultaneous bilinguals.
D) three major hypotheses.

Question 15

In India, children are exposed to more than one language in:

A) school.
B) their home.
C) the community.
D) All of these answers are true.

Question 16

Studies comparing bilingual to monolingual children indicate that ______________ children acquire vocabulary at a ________ rate than/as __________ children.

A) monolingual; slower; bilingual
B) bilingual; similar; monolingual
C) monolingual; slower; bilingual
D) bilingual; slower; monolingual

Question 17

The majority of research comparing monolingual to bilingual children relies on:

A) large samples and standardized measures.
B) small samples and standardized measures.
C) case study analysis of small populations convenient to the researchers.
D) case study analysis of researchers' children and families.

Question 18

Individuals interested in bilingualism and its effect on children include:

A) parents.
B) policymakers.
C) educators.
D) All of the statements are true.

Question 19

Issues in research on language differentiation in lexical development include:

A) comparing and contrasting languages for redundancy in vocabulary.
B) how the languages use similar phonology.
C) whether children are exposed to two languages in different degrees.
D) examining the nature and degree of overlap between the vocabularies of the child's two languages

Question 20

More recent case studies of bilingualism in children demonstrate that children:

A) do not differentiate the two languages until after 5 years of age.
B) utilize vocabulary from one of the two languages first, then the other and simultaneously acquire proficiency in grammar.
C) acquire bilingualism in a wide variety of patterns, developing phonology, lexicon and grammar in a number of different ways.
D) None of these answers are true.

Question 21

Researchers, including _______________, described how children acquire second languages in childhood in terms of dyadic interactions.

A) Wong Fillmore (1991)
B) Heath (1983)
C) Bates, Bretherton, & Snyder, (1998)
D) All of these researchers.

Question 22

Studies regarding cognitive consequences during the 1930's and 1940's focused on:

A) genetic inferiority or superiority of immigrants.
B) poor performance of bilingual immigrants in schools.
C) questions about brain functioning.
D) All of these answers are true.

Question 23

Second language learning is influenced by:

A) the socio-cultural environment and group acceptance of immigrants new to the community.
B) cognitive and linguistic characteristics.
C) social and personality characteristics.
D) All of these answers are true.

Question 24

Bialystok (1991) found that children who are bilingual have an advantage over monolingual children in having awareness about how language works. This is called:

A) linguistic awareness
B) higher level thinking skill development
C) cognitive psychology
D) met linguistic awareness

Question 25

Canonical babbling for bilingual children:

A) reflects the phonology of the languages they are learning.
B) is the same as for monolingual children.
C) differs according to the dominant language the parents use.
D) changes as the babies get older.

Question 26

That children should be exposed to bilingual learning environments from birth is:

A) discussed in dichotomous terms, from opposite views.
B) supported by most researchers.
C) argued against by most researchers.
D) None of these answers are true.

Question 27

Children attending bilingual school programs generally:

A) speak their home language the most.
B) use both languages equally.
C) use the community's dominant language the most.
D) None of these statements are true.

Question 28

The Universal Grammar approach to understanding second language acquisition takes into account:

A) research regarding the rate at which bilinguals acquire their second language competency.
B) the view that language is culturally determined.
C) evidence that the child's native language determines the type of errors he or she produces in the second language.
D) data on how short term and long-term memory relate to language development.

Question 29

The effect of ______________ on language learning is more pronounced when children are exposed to the second language in a natural manner.

A) personality
B) family variables
C) cognitive functioning
D) age of the learner

Question 30

Children who learn a second language by moving to a new community:

A) acquire the second language quickly.
B) learn the second language in a process called "language transfer."
C) require a longer time to learn the second language than generally thought.
D) produce more errors in the first language while learning the second language.

Question 31

Recent research on bilingualism and cognitive functioning indicates that children who are bilingual have:

A) cognitive disadvantages.
B) cognitive advantages.
C) increased difficulties in schools.
D) confusion and delays in literacy development.

Question 32

Three major studies that compared grammatical development in bilinguals to monolinguals indicated that:

A) bilinguals develop grammatical knowledge in the same process and timeframe as monolinguals.
B) bilinguals have difficulty acquiring grammatical knowledge.
C) bilinguals mix languages and frequently produce errors.
D) monolinguals are slower than bilinguals to acquire proficient use of grammar.

Question 33

Linguists study code switching from the perspective of _____________________.

A) sociolinguistics
B) psycholinguistics
C) linguistics
D) All of these answers are true.

Question 34

Studies on the course of bilingual language development indicate that after 21 months of exposure to English, ______% of children acquired ________ skills, compared to monolinguals.

A) 90; grammatical morpheme
B) 65; receptive vocabulary
C) 40; story grammar
D) 60; conversational

Question 35

Code switching can involve mixing parts of a:

A) phrase or lexical item with any part of a sentence from another language.
B) sentence with parts of sentences from other languages.
C) Both of these answers are true.
D) Both of these answers are false.

Question 36

Current research on second language acquisition indicates that the major factor in how well an individual learns the second language is:

A) the age of the learner.
B) how similar the first language is to the second language.
C) the degree the second language learner assimilates into new the speech community.
D) the role and identity of the second language learner.

Question 37

Bilingual children acquire lexical knowledge in each language:

A) for the same words at the same time.
B) by learning words in one language and then using them in the second language.
C) various combinations, according to the child's development and exposure.
D) without mixing the two languages.

Question 38

An important factor in how bilingual children learn language regards:

A) the amount of input the children get from people speaking each language.
B) the child's innate ability to learn language.
C) how parents use the two languages with the child, what time of day and for what reason.
D) the degree of difference between the two languages the child is exposed to.

Question 39

Research regarding learning a second language indicates that:

A) child exposure to preschool experiences, book reading at home, and television watching are potential sources to learn language.
B) who does the primary caregiving for the child, the degree to which the child is exposed to each language, and how long the child is exposed to each language makes a difference.
C) the majority language in the child's community is a major factor in bilingual language development.
D) All of these statements are true.

Question 40

The study of differences in acquiring grammatical structures indicates that bilingual children acquire use of that-clause complements:

A) according to the degree of modeling in their caretakers.
B) at a faster pace than monolingual children.
C) at a slower pace than monolingual children.
D) None of these answers are true.

Question 41

Describe social, cultural, political and economic issues that impact bilingual language development programs.

Question 42

Comparisons of bilinguals with brain damage to those without brain damage indicates that differences in functioning and storing of language may be due to the:

A) age of the second language acquisition.
B) area of the brain that is damaged.
C) level of proficiency of the bilingual.
D) All of these answers are true.

Question 43

Early discussions on bilingualism centered on the performance of intelligence of bilingual children. Later findings overturned the results of early research. Describe the nature of the discussions, the social context and the varying perspectives on childhood bilingualism as it relates to cognition and the brain.

Question 44

Describe the course and process of childhood second language acquisition. Include discussion of the number of influences that affect each.

Question 45

Two topics in the study of the bilingual brain are:

A) brain damage and functioning of the bilingual individual.
B) the effect of brain damage on bilinguals and age of acquisition of language.
C) age of acquisition of language and neurological differences.
D) None of these answers are true.

Question 46

Describe what language differentiation is and how it occurs in early childhood stages.

Question 47

Identify the different ways that second language acquisition is different from first language acquisition and how outcomes are different for the learner.

Question 48

Present the issues relevant to the study of bilingual development as a topic and indicate the difference in bilingual first language acquisition from second language acquisition in childhood.

Question 49

Discuss how cultural perspective influences bilingual language development.

Question 50

Discuss the effect on children's language and cognitive development of growing up in a bilingual family or community.

Question 51

Describe research on factors that encourage second language acquisition. Discuss recent studies on the relationship of age to learning second languages.

Question 52

Describe the various kinds of bilingual education programs and pros and cons of their implementation. Cite research and program results discussed in the text.

Question 53

Bilingual programs reviewed by Cummins and Corson (1997) were reviewed according to:

A) whether the medium of instruction was a minority language or not.
B) the official status of the language of instruction or the minority language.
C) the language goals of the country.
D) All of these answers are true.

Question 54

The purpose of developing the immersion program in Canada was to:

A) establish a standard language system for French Canadian school programs.
B) experiment with new bilingual education practices.
C) compare how students develop competency in French in standard foreign language instruction programs.
D) replace French as a second language education programs.

Question 55

Children in the Canadian French/English bilingual program:

A) had higher academic scores than children in monolingual programs.
B) learned as much content material as children in monolingual programs.
C) spoke both languages fluently.
D) reported that they worked harder than students in regular school programs.