Language learning in preschool children: an embodied learning account

ABSTRACT

In Romanian preschool settings, there is a tendency to use abstract strategies in language-learning activities. The present study explored if strategies based on an embodied cognition approach facilitate learning more than traditional strategies that progress from concrete to abstract. Twenty-five children between 4 and 5 years of age listened to a modified version of the ‘Town Musicians of Bremen’ story. They were split into two groups: one interacted with the content while listening to the story and the other listened to the story and looked at pictures depicting the narrative sequence. Results show that children in the first group subsequently recognized more newly introduced words and idioms and performed better in retelling the narrative sequence in order. Implications are discussed with regard to both learning accounts in general and teaching strategies for language development in preschool settings in particular.

KEYWORDS:

• Word learning
• storytelling
• embodied learning
• sensorimotor system

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the children who participated in the experiment, their parents, and Kindergarten Albă ca Zăpada in Cluj-Napoca, Romania for their involvement. The authors also wish to thank Anita Todd for editing the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Thea Ionescu is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Sciences of Education at Babes-Bolyai University, where she teaches topics related to Developmental Psychology. She is also a researcher in the Developmental Psychology Lab, and her main research interests are the development of cognitive flexibility and the implications of the grounded cognition approach for human development.

Adriana Ilie is currently a kindergarten teacher at Kindergarten Albă ca Zăpada in Cluj-Napoca. At the time this research was conducted (2014–2015) she was a master’s student in Counseling Psychology, Babes-Bolyai University, and since that time she is a collaborator of the Developmental Psychology Lab.

Notes on contributors

Thea Ionescu is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Sciences of Education at Babes-Bolyai University, where she teaches topics related to Developmental Psychology. She is also a researcher in the Developmental Psychology Lab, and her main research interests are the development of cognitive flexibility and the implications of the grounded cognition approach for human development.

Adriana Ilie is currently a kindergarten teacher at Kindergarten Albă ca Zăpada in Cluj-Napoca. At the time this research was conducted (2014–2015) she was a master’s student in Counseling Psychology, Babes-Bolyai University, and since that time she is a collaborator of the Developmental Psychology Lab.

Notes

1. We do not consider hearing the story an auditory cue, because this was the main activity for both groups.