Using Language Games to Study and Support Language

Using Language Games to Study and Support Language Development Sonja Eisenbeiss (University of Essex) seisen@essex. ac. uk http: //languagegamesforall. wordpress. com/

Studying Language Development • What is the typical course of language development? • Which milestones do children reach at which age? • How do children deviate from their target language? Which “errors” do they make? • Are there differences between monolingual and bilingual children and second language learners? • What are (early) signs of language disorders? • Which properties of children’s input support language development? • Can they be used in therapy or education?

Language Games for Children • Assessing children’s linguistic abilities: • research on language development • speech therapy • school • Supporting language development: • typically developing children • multilingual children who need more language input for one of their languages • children with speech and language impairments or general learning problems

Assessing Linguistic Abilities • What is the generalisation in the adult language? • Do children already confirm to this generalisation? Jane’s hat vs. the hat of Jane my mother’s hat vs. the hat of my mother my car’s wheels vs. the wheels of my car • What are their limits for building linguistic structure? Jane’s mother’s father’s dog’s tail

Co-Player All Participants are involved in a game and provide each other with information to coordinate their actions. For instance, players can be involved in a construction or puzzle game.

The Co-Player Bag Task The game involves a bag with pockets of different styles, colours and sizes for toys of different sizes and colours. Children refer to colours, sizes and locations when they ask others to help them hide or find toys in the pockets.

Using Contrasts Requires participants to be specific in picture descriptions: • different actors and objects: • action reversals: dog chases cat vs. cat chases dog • object properties: the big red balloon the small red balloon the big blue balloon the small blue balloon • different possessors: the lion’s balloon vs. the elephant’s balloon ….

The Co-Player Puzzle Task • The child describes contrasting pictures on a puzzle board, adult finds the matching pieces, child puts them into the correct cut-out • We use exchangeable pictures and puzzle pieces • This can be used to encourage the use of particular forms or the encoding of particular meanings

Some Puzzle Materials

Getting them to Talk, not Point • Whoever starts pointing looses a point (sticker, etc. ) • Give them something to hold: • a two-handled very deep drawstring bag with the rewards for the puppets: explain that you need help handing out rewards as the bag is so deep that you cannot pull out rewards easily; and explain that pouring them out will get the puppets fighting over them • a magnetic fishing rod that they can use to place items in the game

Al-Houti (Ph. D-Project)

Director/Matcher A “director” describes a scene/object etc. and a “matcher” who is not able to see this scene/object, has to recreate it. E. g. Bevan (2010): Whose Ballon is red? Two sets of pictures, both with animals that have balloons, one with coloured and one with blank balloons. The child “director” tells the matcher where to put the colour.

Wendy Bevan (Undergraduate 2010)

Whose balloon is red? (Wendy Bevan)

Nikola Koch (MA-Project)

Nikola Koch (MA-Project)

Language Support Games § Feedback: § positive re-inforcement § explicit corrections, but this can be demotivating and does not involve presentation of correct forms § expansions, rephrasing: daddy car -> Yes, that is daddy‘s car § Modeling: § frequent repetion of words/phrases in isolation § repetition and variation: variation sets

Models: Variation Sets Variation sets are series of adult utterances with a common theme and a constant intention, but variation in form: § adding or deleting a word or phrase, § replacing one word with another, § changing the word order, etc.

English Variation Set VERB OBJECT 1 let’s put J’s bottles 2 want to put them 3 let’s put J’s bottles 4 we’ll put it 5 let’s put it 6 we’ll put it 7 you can put it 8 I’ll let you put it 9 you put it 10 you put it 11 put it GOAL in the refrigerator with me in the refrigerator in in yourself right in in there right in the refrigerator

Variation Sets Support Learning § Variation sets provide clues about the target language: § adding or deleting a word or phrase § => which elements can be omitted? § replacing one word with another § => which types of elements fulfill similar functions? § changing the word order, etc. § => which word order variations are possible?

Current Joint Research with Students § new types of games § cross-cultural uses of games § (effects of) variation sets in § children’s natural input § effects of variation sets in language games

What Do Students Learn? § § § Academic knowledge: § grammatical properties of their language § children’s language development § principles of communication Transferable skills: § data analysis (including numerical skills) § IT- and multi-media skills § report writing and literature summaries Practical skills in material creation