Article Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Review - Article Example It is observed that once adults start to learn a language they easily grasp those words which are similar to their language to which they can easily relate too. For example, helicopterowhich is in Spanish and helicopter in English are cognates of each other therefore a Spanish child can easily relate to it.These are known as cross-linguistic cognates. There are also certain cognates which have the same meaning but not the same form. Cognates are easy to comprehend as an individual has a very vague idea about it and can join the dots in order to make a complete picture. "When two languages are close, learners will have access to a large number of cognate words" (Ellis, 1999). A lot of researches in the past are based on cognates and how easily one can understand them as a new language learner as compared to words which are not cognates. Cognates act like a stimuli reinforcing and making understanding easier. At times cognates can be semantically quite like each other, there can be res trictions because of grammar found in one language but not the other which can arouse problems occasionally (Odlin, 1989) . The purpose of this study was to understand whether these cognates act as a potential tool for language learning in Early Language Learners (ELL). The authors view on bilingual is that learning languages is essential and just to make it easier and comprehendible cognates are used. Learning English language is essential therefore emphasis is given on considering it as a second language. The author supports his position by providing examples from previous researches andwork done on the same content taking it a step forward. In order to understanding the effect of cognates in (ELL's) various methods were adopted such as research based questions, participation and features of the language. In this the children were allowed to determine and comprehend cognates with their own estimation independently or with certain support depending on his/her caliber. Initially the re wasn’t any drastic difference but gradually they showed improvement with cognates over noncognates. Different techniques were used such as visual and memory aid, age bar, phonological overlapping between the word and its cognate and the prior knowledge of the word. Direct strategy training was used for maximum benefit of 5th grade (ELL). Receptive and expressive help to develop the proficiency in language as well as the pathology of speech and language. Although there wasn’t any study that targeted the cognate status of language which are developing. It was observed that on cognate language of English the bilinguals performed better than the monolinguals but when it came to noncognates both were equal in performance. Statistics were used in order to show the cognate and noncognate items. It was deduced that Spanish students who were ELL did not merely benefit from L1 or L2 on test which were based on receptive vocabulary. An important issue in the methodology that a rises while using the PPVT is item difficulty. Lastly, it was investigated how fast and precisely children knowing only one language i.e. English could match Spanish words to one of the two pictures. This exercise was performed irrespective of language impairment. It was observed that phonological overlap effected performance and language impairment proved to be beneficial. Earlier nonverbal cognate effects were not considered but now