Mandarin vocabulary growth, teacher qualifications and teacher talk in child heritage language learners

ABSTRACT

Teacher talk has been found to significantly affect children’s early language development during shared book reading; however, the mechanism of such influence remains unclear. The current study has zoomed in on vocabulary development in Mandarin as a heritage language (HL) in Singapore kindergartens, 1) exploring the linguistic features (i.e. lexical diversity and syntactic complexity) of these teachers; and 2) investigating the mediation effects of the significant linguistic feature(s) in teachers’ qualifications (i.e. degree, experience, and language proficiency) and children’s Mandarin vocabulary growth. 31 Mandarin teachers and 441 English-Mandarin bilingual children (4–5 years old) were investigated during their shared book reading sessions. Teacher talkwas transcribed with CHAT and two indicators of language complexity (D and Mean Length of Utterance in word) were calculated with CLAN. The mediation effects of teachers’ language complexity were explored using a path model. Results showed that after controlling for the children’s initial vocabulary, maternal education, nonverbal intelligence, and gender, teachers who used more complex syntax were found to be associated with children’s higher growth in Mandarin receptive vocabulary over a school year. Teachers’ qualifications (i.e. experience and Mandarin proficiency) had no direct influence on children’s language growth, but demonstrate their impact via teachers’ syntactic complexity.

KEYWORDS:

• Heritage language
• Mandarin input quality
• shared book reading
• bilingual children
• teachers’ qualifications
• mean length of utterance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Institute of Education: [Grant Number SUG 02/16 SH].

Notes on contributors

He Sun

He Sun is a research scientist at National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her major interests are 1) effective early English and Mandarin teaching and learning with shared paper book/eBook reading, and 2) individual differences in early bilingualism from the perspective of cognitive and environmental factors. Her publications have appeared in various journals, such as Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, Applied Psycholinguistics, and Journal of Child Language. She is the associate editor of Asian Pacific Journal of Education.

Marjolijn Verspoor

Marjolijn Verspoor is a professor of English language and English as a second language at the University of Groningen, Netherlands. She is known for her work on second language development and Complex Dynamic Systems Theory. Her publications have appeared in various edited books and journals.