Exposure to More Foreign Accents Helps Children Grow Their Vocabulary Faster, Gamified Science
Exposure to More Foreign Accents Helps Children Grow Their Vocabulary Faster, Gamified Science
Exposure to More Foreign Accents Helps Children Grow Their Vocabulary Faster, Gamified Science Shows
October 4, 2022
By Andy Corbley
Summary
This was observed using some clever science and shows that it wasn't bilingual children, but children in a language class with multiple accents who learned and remembered new words at an accelerated rate.
"Until now, there was a lack of studies on the influence of regional and foreign accents on children's learning of new words," says Dr. Adriana Hanulíková at the German language department at the University of Freiburg.
"The children learn from other children while playing, not from adults, the latter being the focus of almost all studies to date. In addition, children are required to say and use these words in interaction, not to just passively recognize them. In this way, the experimental design resembles natural learning in everyday life."
The evaluation of the experiment showed that the children benefited from long-term experience with different accents: children with this experience found it easier to learn unfamiliar words from other children who spoke unfamiliar accents in this virtual game situation.
This effect occurred especially when children heard both regional and foreign accents in their daily life.
Whereas experience with regional accents alone also predicted learning, children who had experience with foreign accents showed, at least in tendency, similar effects.
Further studies are thus needed to investigate in more detail what type of experience in children's vocabulary acquisition leads to which effects, and how these might differ from the learning of new words by adults, says Dr. Hanulíková.
Reference
Corbley, A. (2022, October 04). Exposure to more foreign accents helps children grow their vocabulary faster, gamified science shows. Retrieved October 11, 2022, from https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/exposure-to-more-foreign-accents-helps-children-grow-their-vocabulary-faster-gamified-science-shows/