Nikolov Marianne
University of Pecs, English, Department Member
- Early Language Learning and Teaching, Language Testing, Teaching EFL to Young Learners, Testing for Learning, Research on young language learners, Teachers of Young Language Learners, and 8 moreLearning Styles, Learner Autonomy, Motivation, Beliefs and attitudes, Intercultural Education, Plurilingualism, Study skills, and Applied Linguisticsedit
... In M. Nikolov & J. Horváth (Eds.), UPRT 2006: Empirical studies in English applied linguistics (pp. ... 10 UPRT 2006: Empirical studies in English applied linguistics Attitudes and motivation The importance of attitudes and... more
... In M. Nikolov & J. Horváth (Eds.), UPRT 2006: Empirical studies in English applied linguistics (pp. ... 10 UPRT 2006: Empirical studies in English applied linguistics Attitudes and motivation The importance of attitudes and motivation in FL learning is not questioned any more. ...
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The aim of this chapter is to present a framework for assessing young learners of foreign languages for diagnostic purposes. The first section outlines the most important trends in language assessment and describes the educational context... more
The aim of this chapter is to present a framework for assessing young learners of foreign languages for diagnostic purposes. The first section outlines the most important trends in language assessment and describes the educational context where the project was implemented. Then, the chapter discusses how children between the ages of 6 and 12 develop in a foreign language and outlines the most important principles of assessing young language learners. The actual framework was designed for the four skills; it aimed to cover the first 6 years of primary education in Hungarian public schools. The document used the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR, 2001) as a point of departure and includes age-specific ‘can do statements’ and task types corresponding to them. Readers are encouraged to critically reflect on how the findings could be adopted in their own contexts.
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This introductory chapter aims to achieve multiple goals. The first part outlines the most important recent trends in early language learning, teaching and assessment and frames what the main issues are. The second part discusses the most... more
This introductory chapter aims to achieve multiple goals. The first part outlines the most important recent trends in early language learning, teaching and assessment and frames what the main issues are. The second part discusses the most frequent challenges policy makers, materials designers, test developers, researchers and teachers face. The third part introduces the chapters in the volume and explains how they are embedded in the trends. The last part suggests ideas for further research and points out some implications for educational and assessment practice.
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The paper analyzes research published over the last five years. The first part looks into policy documents, types of programs, and surveys to identify (a) reasons why an early start to learning languages is seen as beneficial and under... more
The paper analyzes research published over the last five years. The first part looks into policy documents, types of programs, and surveys to identify (a) reasons why an early start to learning languages is seen as beneficial and under what conditions; (b) possible threats; and (c) the aims and expected outcomes that are predicted by various models. The second part discusses studies on learners, including what they do in classrooms, how they perform on tasks, how their languages interact, and how they develop in different skills. A separate section reviews individual differences in the affective, cognitive, and strategic domains, as well as the role of learners’ socioeconomic status and their learning difficulties. In the third part, we draw on classroom observation and interview studies to discuss teachers’ roles, proficiency and uses of languages, and beliefs and practices. In the fourth part, we focus on the assessment of young learners; more specifically, we review what the cons...
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In the past quarter century, Hungary has offered fertile ground for innovative developments in foreign language (FL) education. The appropriate, albeit disparaging, label applied to Hungary in the mid-1970s – ‘a land of foreign language... more
In the past quarter century, Hungary has offered fertile ground for innovative developments in foreign language (FL) education. The appropriate, albeit disparaging, label applied to Hungary in the mid-1970s – ‘a land of foreign language illiterates’ (Köllő 1978: 6) – no longer applies. In the wake of the dramatic changes of 1989, the number of FL speakers rose quite rapidly. As a beneficial side-effect, applied linguistic and language education research, areas which used to be relegated to the lowest rung of the academic ladder, began to be recognised as legitimate fields of scientific inquiry, offering young researchers the opportunity to embark on an academic career. As a result, Hungarian authors are now regular contributors to distinguished journals, and researchers from Hungary are welcome speakers at international conferences. However, Hungarian authors often choose to publish their research studies in local journals and volumes which are not easily accessible to the internati...
A Third Language at Primary Level in Ireland: An Independent Evaluation of the Modern Languages in Primary Schools Initiative - John Harris and Denise O LearyCan Today's Early Language Learners in England Become Tomorrow's... more
A Third Language at Primary Level in Ireland: An Independent Evaluation of the Modern Languages in Primary Schools Initiative - John Harris and Denise O LearyCan Today's Early Language Learners in England Become Tomorrow's Plurilingual European Citizens? - Janet Enever Young Learners of Croatian as a Second Language: Minority Language Speakers and their Croatian Competence - Zrinka Jelaska and Lidija Cviki?Cognitive Skills in Young Learners and their Implications for Foreign Language Learning - Thomai Alexiou An Investigation into the Relationship of l 2 Motivation and Cross-Cultural Contact Among Elementary-School Students - Kata Csizer and Judit Kormos The Impact of Learning Conditions on Young FL Learners' Motivation - Jelena Mihaljevi? Djigunovi?Early Modern Foreign Language Programmes and Outcomes: Factors Contributing to Hungarian Learners' Proficiency - Marianne NikolovUsing the Early Years Literacy Programme in Primary EFL Norwegian Classrooms - Ion DrewThe A...
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... They pursued the specific features of teaching English with particular reference to young learners and to the integration of English in other curriculum areas. ... The compulsory programme comprises 1,290 teaching hours plus teaching... more
... They pursued the specific features of teaching English with particular reference to young learners and to the integration of English in other curriculum areas. ... The compulsory programme comprises 1,290 teaching hours plus teaching practice in English, and 93 ECTS points. ...
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In this chapter young learners’ motivation for language learning is presented as a construct distinct from motivation of more mature language learners. Based on their critical overview of research to date, the authors trace its dynamic... more
In this chapter young learners’ motivation for language learning is presented as a construct distinct from motivation of more mature language learners. Based on their critical overview of research to date, the authors trace its dynamic and complex nature reflected in interactions with contextual factors (valued others, immediate learning environment, out-of-school exposure to the target language) and with other individual learner differences (age, gender, self-concept and anxiety). Two novel ideas are stressed: the key role that tasks play in shaping children’s motivation and the reciprocal relationship between young learners’ and their teachers’ motivation. The highlight of the chapter is a comprehensive framework for researching young learners’ motivation, integrating the stages of motivational development and shifts in roles of valued others.
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Trends, Issues and Challenges in Assessing Young Language Learners by Marianne Nikolov.- Do Developments in Assessment Represent the 'Coming of Age' of Young Learners English Language Teaching Initiatives? The International... more
Trends, Issues and Challenges in Assessing Young Language Learners by Marianne Nikolov.- Do Developments in Assessment Represent the 'Coming of Age' of Young Learners English Language Teaching Initiatives? The International Picture by Shelagh Rixon.- A CEFR-Based Inventory of YL Descriptors: Principles and Challenges by Veronica Benigno and John de Jong.- A Framework for Young EFL Learners' Diagnostic Assessment: Can Do Statements and Task Types by Marianne Nikolov.- Examining Content Representativeness of a Young Learner Language Assessment: EFL Teachers' Perspectives by Ching-Ni Hsieh.- Developing and Piloting Proficiency Tests for Polish Young Learners by Magdalena Szpotowicz and Dorota E. Campfield.- The Development and Validation of a Computer-Based Test of English for Young Learners: Cambridge English Young Learners by Szilvia Papp and Agnieszka Walczak.- Learning EFL from Year 1 or Year 3? A Comparative Study on Children's EFL Listening and Reading Comprehension at the End of Primary Education by Eva Wilden and Raphaela Porsch.- A Longitudinal Study of a School's Assessment Project in Chongqing, China by Jing Peng and Shicheng Zheng.- Individual Differences and Young Learners' Performance on L2 Speaking Tests by Jelena Mihaljevic Djigunovic.- The Role of Individual Differences in the Development of Listening Comprehension in the Early Stages of Language Learning by Eva Bacsa and Csaba Csikos.- Self-Assessment of and for Young Learners' Foreign Language Learning by Yuko Goto Butler.- The Relationships between Peer- and Self-Assessment and Teacher Assessment of Young EFL Learners' Oral Presentations by Yu-ju Hung, Beth Lewis Samuelson, and Shu-cheng Chen
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Providing feedback on students’ writing is considered important by both writing teachers and students. However, contextual constraints including excess workloads and large classes pose major and recurrent challenges for teachers. To... more
Providing feedback on students’ writing is considered important by both writing teachers and students. However, contextual constraints including excess workloads and large classes pose major and recurrent challenges for teachers. To lighten the feedback burden, teachers can take advantage of a range of automated feedback tools. This paper investigated how automated feedback can be integrated into traditional teacher feedback by analyzing the focus of teacher and Grammarly feedback through a written feedback analysis of language- and content-related issues. This inquiry considered whether and how successfully students exploited feedback from different sources in their revisions and how the feedback provisions helped improve their writing performance. The study sample of texts was made up of 216 argumentative and narrative essays written by 27 low-intermediate level students at a Myanmar university over a 13-week semester. By analyzing data from the feedback analysis, we found that Gr...
... in a workshop on Theme-based Foreign Language Teaching to Young Learners: Integrating Language ... with participants from 20 countries: Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic ... have been hesitant how to... more
... in a workshop on Theme-based Foreign Language Teaching to Young Learners: Integrating Language ... with participants from 20 countries: Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic ... have been hesitant how to arrange the articles so that we do justice to ...
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this is an edited book on research on young learners of English
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... 3. How do performances compare according to length of study, number of weekly classes, and size of group? 438 A comparative study of Croatian and Hungarian EFL students ... The study was carried out on a convenience sample totalling... more
... 3. How do performances compare according to length of study, number of weekly classes, and size of group? 438 A comparative study of Croatian and Hungarian EFL students ... The study was carried out on a convenience sample totalling 717 learners (distributed in 39 groups). ...
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ABSTRACT Presented at the American Association for Applied Linguistics Annual Conference, Denver, Colorado; 23 March 2009.
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Children who studied English as a foreign language in Hungary with a communication/content-based approach were compared with similar children who studied English with a form-based traditional approach. The former were slightly more... more
Children who studied English as a foreign language in Hungary with a communication/content-based approach were compared with similar children who studied English with a form-based traditional approach. The former were slightly more accurate in their production of grammatical morphemes in an oral interview, and were more fluent, confirming that communication-based approaches do not sacrifice accuracy for fluency.
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The present paper reports results of a longitudinal research project studying the contribution of cognitive skills and other factors to proficiency in a foreign language (L2) in the Hungarian educational context. The larger project aims... more
The present paper reports results of a longitudinal research project studying the contribution of cognitive skills and other factors to proficiency in a foreign language (L2) in the Hungarian educational context. The larger project aims to describe the levels of L2 proficiency of school-aged populations in order to explore the conditions and factors contributing to processes and outcomes in foreign language education in public schools. For this purpose, paper and pencil tests were administered in English and German as a foreign language to nationally representative student samples. The project also aims to find answers to some theoretical questions; therefore, a questionnaire and other assessment instruments complemented L2 tests to provide insights into how participants' cognitive, affective and first language (L1) variables, as well as their social and school variables interact with one another over time. Students' general thinking and learning abilities were assessed with an inductive reasoning test.In the present paper we focus on the relationship between students' proficiency in English or German and inductive reasoning skills to show how general cognitive abilities interact with levels of L2 proficiency. We use a multivariate context to explore complex relationships between L2 levels in English and German and inductive reasoning skills if influences of other variables are controlled. We present results of multiple regression analyses on L2 listening, reading, and writing tasks in the two target languages. In the present paper we use both cross-sectional and longitudinal data to examine the relationships between students' L2 proficiency in the first phase (2000) and two years later (2002). Thus, a longitudinal research design was implemented by repeating cross-sectional assessment at a two-year interval.
Research Interests: Psychology, Teaching English as a Second Language, Inductive Reasoning, Teaching of Foreign Languages, Longitudinal Research, and 14 moreLanguage Acquisition and Development, German, Individual differences in L2/FL learning, Foreign Language, Reading and writing, Multiple Regression, Language proficiency, Cross Section, Longitudinal Study, Cognitive Ability, Longitudinal data, Multiple regression analysis, Cognitive Skills, and Target Language
This study aimed to develop, pilot, and validate an aptitude test for Hungarian learners of English. A literature review on the construct and tests of aptitude is followed by two parts: a pilot phase on the development of a new aptitude... more
This study aimed to develop, pilot, and validate an aptitude test for Hungarian learners of English. A literature review on the construct and tests of aptitude is followed by two parts: a pilot phase on the development of a new aptitude test and a main study involving 419 12-year-old children in 10 schools. Data were collected on the aptitude test, English proficiency tests, and a measure of learners’ motivation. The article explores how aptitude scores relate to learners’ performances on the proficiency measure, motivation, gender, school achievements, and grades in English. The results of a multiple-regression analysis indicate that the variable of language aptitude explained over 20% of the variation in English language performance, thus proving to be the best predictor of outcomes.
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ABSTRACT The aim of this chapter is to provide a critical overview of the issues and research conducted since the most recent state-of-the-art article published in the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics by David Singleton (2001). First,... more
ABSTRACT The aim of this chapter is to provide a critical overview of the issues and research conducted since the most recent state-of-the-art article published in the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics by David Singleton (2001). First, we summarize what research has said about the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) in cognitive science and neurobiology, then we review recent findings of age-related studies since 2000 focusing on what late beginners and adults can achieve, and how early and later beginners compare in bilingual programs. The second part of the presentation explores language policy and classroom implications of the CPH for foreign language teaching. As English has become the lingua franca, early programs have mushroomed all over the world. However, besides overwhelming enthusiasm, more recently critical voices can also be heard. On the one hand, early exposure is often seen as a key to success and a solution to all problems in language education; on the other hand, it may be perceived as a threat to first language development and identity. Finally, we explore areas for further research.