Dr Sun He Publishes Articles on Bilingualism and Language Development

Research Scientist Dr Sun He from NIE’s Centre for Research in Child Development recently co-published articles on language development in early language learning and bilingualism in four journals.

In her article “Instructional strategies and linguistic features of kindergarten teachers’ shared book reading: the case of Singapore” published in Applied Psycholinguistics, Dr Sun and her co-authors describe the impact of teachers’ instructional strategies and language practices on language development in young children. The findings shared in this article arose from the study “Quality of Preschool Teachers’ Language Practices in Singapore: Develop a Reliable Coding Scheme for Instructional Strategies and Linguistic Features Used in Shared Book Reading”.

Findings from the Singapore Kindergarten Impact Project informed the other three articles Dr Sun co-published.

In “Child, Family, and School Factors in Bilingual Preschoolers’ Vocabulary Development in Heritage Languages” published in Journal of Child Language, Dr Sun and her co-authors explain how the family and preschool factors can play a more significant role than child characteristics in promoting language development in young children.

For “Mismatches between teacher beliefs, practices and reasons for English use in preschool Malay language classrooms” published in Journal of Language and Education, Dr Sun and her co-authors share their analysis of Malay Language preschool teachers’ perceptions and practices and describe their implications for children’s classroom language output.

Finally, in “Teacher's code-switching and bilingual children's heritage language learning and cognitive switching flexibility” published in Journal of Child Language, Dr Sun and her co-authors explain the influence of teachers’ code-switching practices in the classroom on preschoolers’ language output and vocabulary development.