28 September 2016

Sadler Seminar series on "young bilinguals and their language of schooling"

In England, 19.4% of the primary school population have a mother tongue other than English (Statistical First Release January 2015). Yet, in an increasingly multicultural UK society we still  know very little about the linguistic skills of children growing up with more than one language. Language proficiency has an impact on children’s ability to learn (spanning all aspects of the curriculum) and on their current and future ability to integrate in society.

This seminar series, funded by the Leeds Humanities Research Institute, brings together psychologists, education specialists and linguists to explore issues related to
  • the assessment of bilingual children's proficiency in the language of schooling; 
  • how to measure the amount and quality of bilinguals' experience in each of their languages; 
  • the complex relationships between language proficiency, cognitive development and well-being; 
  • intervention programmes aiming to support bilingual children's language development.

The talks listed below will all take place in Seminar Room 1 at the Leeds Humanities Research Institute.  The generous amount of time scheduled for each session is to allow time for informal discussion after the talk(s).  All welcome.

Programme:
Presenters TITLES
13-14 Oct  9:00-12:00 Philippe Prévost and Laurie Tuller (University of Tours, France) Language dominance based on a questionnaire for parents of bilingual children (PABIQ): child bilingualism in France
Sharon Unsworth (University of Nijmegen, NL) Quantifying bilingual experience: using the (U)BiLEC to estimate input quantity and quality
Cécile De Cat (University of Leeds) and Ludovica Serratrice (University of Reading) The Bilingual Profile Index: a gradient measure of bilingual experience
09-Nov 2:00-2:30 Ekaterini Klepousniotou and Amanda Waterman (University of Leeds) Planning for language testing in the Born in Bradford cohort
2:30-3:30 Meesha Warmington (University of Sheffiled) Cognition in Bilinguals: Comparative Evidence from the UK and India.
23-Nov 1:30-2:30 Allegra Cattani (University of Plymouth) Every bilingual child is different: Effect of exposure and additional language on the vocabulary at age 2
07-Dec 2:00-3:00 Silke Fricke (University of Sheffield) Early Language Intervention for Children learning English as an Additional Language 
3:15-4:15 Claudine Bowyer-Crane (University of Sheffield) Development of a vocabulary screener for young children speaking multiple languages 
26-Jan 2:00-4:00 Victoria Murphy (University of Oxford) Developing and supporting vocabulary knowledge in EAL pupils