Children's prosodic development and its path to early English education

研究表明，工作记忆中的语音循环在儿童词汇习得中起着重要作用。因此，本研究的第一个目的是明确儿童重复语音模式的能力，即外语学习中的基本练习，与通过非单词重复任务发展母语语音循环的过程之间的关系。下一个目标是确定我们应该什么时候开始教孩子们英语。通过为期两年的纵向研究，我们首先收集了儿童在重复日语非单词时所犯的错误，然后分析了儿童获得日语语音模式的过程，即母语语音的发展，我们探索了儿童获得的日语语音知识在多大程度上干扰了他们的非单词重复表现。2005年，我们利用非单词重复任务和图片词汇测试进行了研究，结果表明：(1)日本儿童在3岁和4岁时的非单词重复表现与词汇量有关，非单词重复表现与年龄有关，但(2)儿童在5岁时的非单词重复表现暂时没有提高。日语儿童的语音系统习得率与英语儿童的语音系统习得率存在显著差异，其表现与三岁至八岁的词汇量有关。这一结果表明，日语儿童的语音知识似乎比说英语的儿童获得得更早，这干扰了他们在5岁和6岁时的表现。2006年，我们的研究结果表明，儿童非单词重复的表现在7岁时恢复，此时非单词重复的表现与词汇量之间的个体差异很小。因此，我们得出结论，开始教孩子英语的最佳时间是在七岁。少

It has been said that the phonological loop in working memory plays an important role in the vocabulary acquisition of children. The first aim of this study is, therefore, to make clear the relationship between the ability of children o repeat sound patterns, i.e. basic practice in foreign language learning, and the process of developing the phonological loop of the mother tongue through non-word repetition tasks. The next aim is to determine when we should start teaching English to children. After a two-year longitudinal study, in which we first collected the errors children made in repeating Japanese non-words, and then analyzed their process of acquiring Japanese sound patterns, i.e. their mother tongue phonological development, we explored to what extent Japanese phonological knowledge children acquired actually interfered with their performance of non-word repetition.In 2005, we conducted research using non-word repetition tasks and picture vocabulary tests, and the results sugges … More ted the following points : (1) the performance of non-word repetition among Japanese children relates to vocabulary size, at the age of three and four, and their performance of non-word repetition relates to their age, but (2) their performance does not improve any more at the age of five temporally. There is a distinctive gap between phonological system acquisition rates of Japanese-speaking children and English-speaking children, whose performance relates to vocabulary size from the age of three to the age of eight. This result shows that phonological knowledge among Japanese children seems to be acquired earlier that that of English-speaking children, and it interferes with their performance at the ages of five and six.In 2006, our results suggested that children's performance of non-word repetition recovers at the age of seven, when there is little individual difference between the performance of non-word repetition and vocabulary size. Therefore, we conclude that the best time to start teaching English to children is at the age of seven. Less