Language Games

Sonja Eisenbeiss

seisen@essex.ac.uk

http://essex.academia.edu/SonjaEisenbeiss/

09 May 2012

Copyright: Sonja Eisenbeiss

Overview

Why do linguists develop language games

for children?

How do you create such games?

How can parents, teachers, and therapists use

games to support language learning?

Where can you find resources to create your

own games?

Why do linguists develop language games?

We want to study how children acquire language.

We need rich data that are as naturalistic as possible.

We do not want to underestimate what children can do

by looking at the same situation over and over again

for instance by always recording children during meal

or play time with the same food or toys.

We do not want to overestimate what children can do

for instance by recording them in situations where they

can use fixed phrases and sentences that they have

heard many times before.

We want to make our projects fun for children.

How do Linguists Study Childrens Language?

Naturalistic data / spontaneous speech samples:

recordings in everyday situationsnaturalistic input or child data, but often lacking relevant utterances

Experiments:

controlled variables, fixed stimuli and proceduresgood control of variables, but often unnatural or not

appropriate for younger children

Elicitation games

games that encourage language usesome control over the words and structures children use, but still quite natural and fun

An Example: Possessives

Children over- or under-use possessive s: * This is John (=Johns) house. * This is mines.

We want to determine the reasons for such problems.

We want to support acquisition, especially in populations with language impairments.

Even long naturalistic recordings may not contain any examples of possessives in particular if the child is not fighting about possessions with other children.

Typically developing children are too young for production experiments when they produce these errors (around 2 years).

Some Elicitation Games for Possessives

Children have to find matching cards with possessors

and their possession (e.g. queen crown) in a Memory-style game.

Children are given toy characters and their possessions

and are asked to find out what belongs to whom. A silly

puppet will challenge them and encourage discussion.

Children have to tell another person whose balloon is

red in a picture with lots of people and their balloons.

The listener then has to colour in the balloons in their

own black-and-white copy (see e.g. Koch 2010, Bevan

2010).

Possessives: Naturalistic Data vs. Games

Eisenbeiss (2003): a comparison of 44 naturalistic

recordings and 20 possessive game recordings with

German children (age: 1;11-3;6).

70% of the naturalistic recordings did not contain a

single possessive.

10.969 naturalistic utterances only contained 29

possessives.

In contrast, the game recordings provided sufficient

examples for quantitative analyses.

We also found more variety of possessors (not just

mommys, daddys).

Game-Type I: Director/Matcher Games

A director describes a scene/object etc. and a matcher who is not able to see this scene/object, has to recreate it.

E.g.: The matcher has to build a toy house identical to the one created by the director who is hidden behind a screen.

Bevan (2010): Whose Ballon is red? Two sets of pictures, both with animals that have balloons, one with coloured and one with blank balloons.

Whose Balloon is red? (Bevan 2010)

Whose Balloon is red? (Bevan 2010)

Game-Type II: Speaker/Listener Games

A speaker provides information for someone who does not have access to the information.

Variant 1: speakers retell a story they have heard

while the listeners were out of the room.

Variant 2: speaker tells a puppet that cannot see what

is going on.

Game-Type III: Co-Player Games

All Participants are involved in a game and provide

each other with information to co-ordinate their

actions.

For instance, players can be involved in a construction

or puzzle game.

The Puzzle Task (Eisenbeiss 2009, 2011)

a task with co-players: child describes contrasting pictures on a puzzle board, adult finds the matching pieces, child puts them into the correct cut-out

exchangable pictures and puzzle pieces

can be used to elictitparticular forms or to elicit the linguistic encoding of particular meanings

Contrasting Puzzle Pictures (Eisenbeiss 2011)

Broad-Spectrum Tasks

general encouragement to speak

Frog Story: a picture book w/o words used to elicit narratives (Berman/Slobin 1994)

Bag Task: a bag with bag for blocks and animals of different sizes and colours. The bag has pockets that match the animals in colour an have coloured buttons, ties, etc.; and children frequently refer to colours, sizes and locations when they ask other players to help them hide or find animals in the pockets (Eisenbeiss 2009, 2010)

contrasts between colours, sizes, locations, etc.

Focused Tasks

form-focused: the elicitation of particular forms or constructions, for instance, picture-matching game for the elicitation of noun-adjective constructions (little cow -- big cow)

meaning-focused: the linguistic encoding of a particular meaning that can be encoded in different ways, e.g. my car / Sonjas car / ? the car of Sonja? In a game about people and their possessions

Stimuli

static (pictures, photos) for object/person properties

dynamic (video, cartoon) for events

realistic displays (photos) for easy recognition, independent of childrens knowledge of artistic conventions (3D, shadows, etc.)

drawings, cartoons for easy systematic variation

Trying Things out

Contrasted elements are more likely to be encoded:

Contrasting possessors (e.g. the panda) in Bevanswhose-balloon-is-red-task are mentioned.

However, the balloons do not contrast with other

toys and are often not mentioned.

You can avoid pointing instead of talking:

Use a puppet that cannot see so that the child has to speak to the puppet (e.g. a fish above water, a

mole with broken glasses, a turtle in its shell, etc.).

Make sure that the childs hands are occupied (e.g. by holding a puppet, fishing rod, etc.).

Input Properties that Support Learning

short, but mostly correct and complete utterances

slow, with longer pauses than adult-directed speech

high, varied pitch, exaggerated intonation and stress

identification of word and phrase boundaries

restricted vocabulary

reference mostly restricted to here and now

word learning

high proportion of imperative and questions

more repetitions than in adult-adult speech

sentence structure and grammar

Supporting Language Learning in Games

Feedback:

positive re-inforcement

explicit corrections, but this can be demotivating and does not involve presentation of correct forms

expansions, rephrasing:daddy car -> Yes, that is daddys car

Modeling:

frequent repetion of words/phrases in isolation

repetition and variation: variation sets

Feedback: Reformulations instead of Corrections

In their analysis of English and French child-directed speech, Chouinard & Clark (2003) showed that:

Adults often reformulate children's non-target-like utterances; e.g. Child: I want more car! Parent: Do you really need more cars?.

Adults produce this type of feedback significantly more often than they repeat target-like utterances such as I want more cars! .

Feedback: Effects of Reformulations

Reformulations contrast childrens non-target-like forms with the target form for the intended meaning and thus suggest that the childs form is inappropriate.

Experimental studies have demonstrated that learners can benefit from such input (Saxton 1997, Saxton et al. 1998, 2005, Valian and Casey 2003).

However, it is unclear how universal reformulations are across cultures and languages.

Models: Variation Sets

Variation sets are series of adult utterances with

a common theme and a constant intention,

but variation in form:

adding or deleting a word or phrase,

replacing one word with another,

changing the word order, etc.

(Eisenbeiss 2003, Kntay/Slobin 1996, Slobin et al. 2011)

English Variation Set (Slobin et al. 2011)

VERBOBJECT GOAL1 lets put Js bottles in the refrigerator2 want to put them in the refrigerator with me3 lets put Js bottles in the refrigerator4 well put it in the refrigerator5 lets put it in the refrigerator6 well put it in the refrigerator7 you can put it in8 Ill let you put it in yourself9 you put it right in10 you put it in there11 put it right in the refrigerator

How could Variation Sets support Learning?

Variation sets provide clues about the target language:

adding or deleting a word or phrase

=> which elements can be omitted?

replacing one word with another

=> which types of elements fulfill similar functions?

changing the word order, etc.

=> which word order variations are possible?

The Frequency of Variation Sets

In the Turkish data analysed by Kntay & Slobin(1996), about 25-30% of child-directed utterances occurred in variation sets. On average, variation sets were 3 sentences long (range 2-25).

Slobin et al. (2011) documented variation sets for 8 further languages from around the world (Latin America, Europe, Asia), suggesting that they might be a universal feature of childrens input:

Effects of Variation Sets

Children produce words that they have heard in variation sets more often than words they have heard in other utterances even when frequency is controlled for (ongoing research by H. Waterfall).

Adult learners learn artificial languages more easily when their training involves variation sets (Onnis et al. 2008).

A Pilot Study with Variation Set Training (Horgan 2012)

Pre-Test with the Koch (2010) version of the Balloon task: comprehension and production of complex possessive constructions The boys mothers fathers balloon.

Puzzle task training with variation sets:

Group I: complex possessives the ladys sons girls balloon

Group II: complex coordination the woman and the daughter and the son and the girl

Re-Test with variant of the Koch (2010) tasks

Whose Balloon is red? (Koch 2010)

Puzzle Task Pictures for Training (Horgan 2012)

Training with Variation Sets

Complex Possessive Group:

This is the ladys son; and this is the sons girl; and this is the girls balloon. So, this is the ladys sons girl and her balloon. So, this is the ladys sons girls balloon.

Coordination Group:

This is the lady and the son; and this is the son and the girl; and this is the girl and the balloon. So, this is the lady and the sons girl and her balloon.

Training Effects

Both Groups improved equally in their use of nouns.

The complex possession group improved more in their production of s-markers.

The tests and training sessions were challenging but motivating for the children.

Future Plans

Testing of Games in different cultural and social environments.

Games for different group sizes (1 4 children)

Training studies with different strategies:

Feedback: explicit corrections vs. reformulations

Modelling: repetition in isolation vs. variation sets

References

Bevan, W. (2010). Semi-structured elicitation of possessive constructions in

children of pre-school age. Undergraduate dissertation, University of

Essex.

Chouinard, M. M., & Clark, E. V. (2003). Adult reformulation of child errors

as negative evidence. Journal of Child Language, 30:63769.

Eisenbeiss, S. (2003). Merkmalsgesteuerter Grammatikerwerb. Doctoral

dissertation, University of Dsseldorf, Germany. http://docserv.uni-

duesseldorf.de/servlets/DerivateServlet/Derivate-3185/1185.pdf )

Eisenbeiss, S. (2009). Contrast is the Name of the Game: Contrast-Based

Semi-Structured Elicitation Techniques for Studies on Childrens

Language Acquisition. Essex Research Reports in Linguistics, 57.7.

http://www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics/publications/errl/errl57-7.pdf

References

Eisenbeiss, S. (2010). Production Methods. In E. Blom, & S. Unsworth

(Eds.), Experimental Methods in Language Acquisition Research (pp.

11-34). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (pre-print downloadable:

http://essex.academia.edu/SonjaEisenbeiss/Papers/109274/Production

-Methods )

Eisenbeiss, S. (2011) CEGS: An elicitation took kit for studies

on case marking and its acquisition. Essex Research Reports in

Linguistics, 60,1.

http://www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics/publications/errl/errl60-1.pdf

Koch, N. (2010). Possessive Constructions in English Child Language: S-

Genitive and Of-Genitive. MA dissertation, University of Stuttgart,

Germany.

References

Kntay, A., & Slobin, D. I. (1996). Listening to a Turkish mother: Some puzzles for acquisition. In D. I. Slobin, J. Gerhardt, A. Kyratzis, & J. Guo(Eds.), Social interaction, social context, and language: Essays in honor of Susan Ervin-Tripp (pp. 265-286). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Onnis, L., Waterfall, H.R., & Edelman, S. (2008). Learn locally, act globally: Learning language from variation set cues. Cognition 109, 423-430.

Saxton, M., Kulscar, B. Marshall, & Rupra, M. (1998). Longer-term effects of corrective input: An experimental approach. Journal of Child Language 5: 701-21.

Saxton, M., Backley, P., & Gallaway, C, (2005). Negative input for grammatical errors: effects after a lag of 12 weeks. Journal of Child Language 32, 643672.

References

Saxton, M. (1997). The contrast theory of negative input. Journal of Child Language 24, 139-161.

Slobin, Dan I., Bowerman, Melissa, Brown, Penelope, Eisenbeiss, Sonja & Narasimhan, Bhuvana (2011) Putting Things in Places: Developmental Consequences of Linguistic Typology. In J. Bohnemeyer, & E. Pederson (Eds.), Event Representation in Language and Cognition.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. downloadable:http://essex.academia.edu/SonjaEisenbeiss/Papers/110813/Putting_things_in_places_Developmental_consequences_of_linguistic_typology

Valian, V. and Casey, L. (2003). Young children's acquisition of wh-questions: the role of structured input. Journal of Child Language, 30, 117-143

Webpages for Parents, Teachers, and Therapists

NOTE: I cannot take any responsibility for the content of websites.

http://letstalkds.org/

http://www.thecommunicationtrust.org.uk/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learning/

http://www.speechtx.com/language.htm

http://www.mes-english.com/

http://teachers.thelanguagemenu.com/games/

http://mommyspeechtherapy.com/

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/Home.html

http://www.health.sa.gov.au/Portals/0/Speech%20and%20language%20therapy%20interventions%20for%20children%20with%20primary%20speech%20and%20language%20delay%20or%20disorder%20update.pdf

Resources for Creating your own Games

Pictures/Cliparts: Art Explosion CDs (or similar), or http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/the-best-websites-for-free-clipart-downloads/; http://crl.ucsd.edu/experiments/ipnp/ )

Software for creating online games: Hot Potatoes (freeware; http://hotpot.uvic.ca/), Clicker (http://www.cricksoft.com/uk/products/tools/clicker/home.aspx )

Creating your own puppets: http://www.jimwestpuppets.com/activities/makepuppets/makepuppets.html ; http://dolldance.com/create_puppets.htm ; http://familycrafts.about.com/od/puppets/Puppet_Craft_Projects.htm )

Books

Plummer, D. (2011) Helping Children to Improve Their

Communication Skills: Therapeutic Activities for Teachers,

Parents and Therapists. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers,.

Griffin, S. (2009). Motivate to Communicate!: 300 Games and

Activities for Your Child With Autism. London: Jessica Kingsley

Publishers.