Kindergarten 1 Students: A Case Study at Kindergarten 1B of Satit Bilingual School of Rangsit University

Thai and English Vocabulary Development of Kindergarten 1 Students: A Case Study at Kindergarten 1B of Satit Bilingual School of Rangsit University

Rina Wahyu Setyaningrum
A Graduate Programme in Bilingual Education Student
Faculty of Education of Rangsit University


Rationale of the Study
In an increasingly diversified and multilingual world, more and more young children find themselves in an environment where more than one language is used. Similarly, with job changes that involve moving to different parts of the world, parents can feel overwhelmed by the linguistic demands on them and their children. What can parents expect of their children? Do parents have anything to contribute to the process of early language development? Does it confuse children to learn two or more languages at once? Do children have to be especially intelligent to be able to cope with more than one language?
The condition when children learn the second or third language instead of only first language is not only because the parents must move from one country to another but also because parents want their children have language proficiency to face the globalization era. We can see from the condition when parents send their children to bilingual school. Some parents make their students learning second or third language early because the philosophy that the earlier learning language the better. In fact, it is important for parents to know that their expectation toward their children language ability must be realistic to the certain age.
The easiest way to make the children learning language early is by sending them to school. Bilingual School that provides them programmes of language development may be the chosen one. This school utilizes the first and the second language as medium of instruction. Satit Bilingual School (SBS) of Rangsit University is one of the demonstration schools, which utilizes both Thai and English as medium of instruction at school. Technically, bilingual education refers to the programmes designed to give support to non-English speaking children, including program whose main focus is immersion in English-speaking classrooms.
Based on the SBS language immersion chart, the highest English language percentage for curriculum delivery goes to Kindergarten School (90% English and 10% Thai). This setting is mainly based on the school curriculum objective to encourage natural language acquisition in children so that they are able to master and sustain native-like language competency and appropriate communicative ability.
According to Santrock (2000), in case of bilingual education, adolescents make faster initial progress in second language, but their eventual success in their second language is not as great as children’s. He also explains that adolescents can become competent in second language, but this is more difficult task than learning it as a child. So, the percentage of language immersion applied at SBS suitable with this theory in the area of language reinforcement.
Today, Kindergarten 1 students are in the week 9 of school at SBS. It might be not the time to see their English mastery yet but their language development can be seen from their ability in understanding the two concepts of languages. Besides, this study can become the evaluation of the teaching and learning process in the SBS Kindergarten 1 so far.

Objective
The objective of this study is to know the Thai and English vocabulary development of Kindergarten 1 students of Satit Bilingual School of Rangsit University..

Methodology
The population of this study is the K1B students of Satit Bilingual School of Rangsit University, consists of 23 students – 8 females and 15 males. Their ages range from 34 months to 44 months.
This study is qualitative. The description of the students language development will be based on the data from the questionnaire of The Language Spoken at Home, Thai and English Vocabulary Test as well as the time to answer the test, and English language performance.
To analyze the data in order to get the clear information about the students Thai and English Language development, SPSS programme is utilized.


Theories of Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
The discussion of the intellectual changes in children that accompany their physical growth cannot be separated from the influence of the famous Swiss Psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980) who is widely acknowledged to be one of the century’s most influential thinkers. Previously the discussion about the children cognitive development was dominated by the biological maturation perspective – nature component and nurture component. Piaget concentrated on the interaction between the child’s naturally maturing abilities and his or her interactions with the environment. However, Lev Vygotsky, a Russian psychologists who published his ideas in the 1930’s, played an important role to renew the theory in recent years. Vygotsky’s basic principles (Tappan in Santrock, 2000): 1) the child’s cognitive skills can be understood only when they are developmentally analyzed and developed, 2) cognitive skills are mediated by words, language and the forms of discourse, which serve as psychological tools for facilitating and transforming mental activity, and 3)cognitive skills have their origins in social relations and are embedded in a sociocultural background.
The following are the tables of Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development and Vygotsky’s Theory of Development.
Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development
Developmental Stage & Approximate Age Characteristic Behavior
Sensory Motor Period
(0 - 24 months)
Reflexive Stage
(0-2 months) Simple reflex activity such as grasping, sucking.
Primary Circular Reactions
(2-4 months) Reflexive behaviors occur in stereotyped repetition such as opening and closing fingers repetitively.
Secondary Circular Reactions (4-8 months) Repetition of change actions to reproduce interesting consequences such as kicking one's feet to more a mobile suspended over the crib.
Coordination of Secondary Reactions (8-12 months) Responses become coordinated into more complex sequences. Actions take on an "intentional" character such as the infant reaches behind a screen to obtain a hidden object.
Tertiary Circular Reactions
(12-18 months) Discovery of new ways to produce the same consequence or obtain the same goal such as the infant may pull a pillow toward him in an attempt to get a toy resting on it.
Invention of New Means Through Mental Combination
(18-24 months) Evidence of an internal representational system. Symbolizing the problem-solving sequence before actually responding. Deferred imitation.
The Preoperational Period
(2-7 years)
Preoperational Phase
(2-4 years) Increased use of verbal representation but speech is egocentric. The beginnings of symbolic rather than simple motor play. Transductive reasoning. Can think about something without the object being present by use of language.
Intuitive Phase
(4-7 years) Speech becomes more social, less egocentric. The child has an intuitive grasp of logical concepts in some areas. However, there is still a tendency to focus attention on one aspect of an object while ignoring others. Concepts formed are crude and irreversible. Easy to believe in magical increase, decrease, disappearance. Reality not firm. Perceptions dominate judgment.
In moral-ethical realm, the child is not able to show principles underlying best behavior. Rules of a game not develop, only uses simple do's and don'ts imposed by authority.
Period of Concrete Operations
(7-11 years)
Evidence for organized, logical thought. There is the ability to perform multiple classification tasks, order objects in a logical sequence, and comprehend the principle of conservation. thinking becomes less transductive and less egocentric. The child is capable of concrete problem-solving.
Some reversibility now possible (quantities moved can be restored such as in arithmetic: 3+4 = 7 and 7-4 = 3, etc.)
Class logic-finding bases to sort unlike objects into logical groups where previously it was on superficial perceived attribute such as color. Categorical labels such as "number" or animal" now available.
Period of Formal Operations
(11-15 years)
Thought becomes more abstract, incorporating the principles of formal logic. The ability to generate abstract propositions, multiple hypotheses and their possible outcomes is evident. Thinking becomes less tied to concrete reality.
Formal logical systems can be acquired. Can handle proportions, algebraic manipulation, other purely abstract processes. If a + b = x then x = a - b. If ma/ca = IQ = 1.00 then Ma = CA.
Prepositional logic, as-if and if-then steps. Can use aids such as axioms to transcend human limits on comprehension.
(Table 1, http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/development/piaget.shtml)

Vygotsy’s Theory of Development
Process Remarks
The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development has a lower limit and an upper limit. The tasks in the ZPD are too difficult for the child to perform alone. The require assistance from an adult or a skilled child. As children experience the verbal instruction or demonstration, they organize the information in their existing mental structures, so they can eventually perform the skills or task alone.
Scaffholding The changing support over the course of a teaching session, with the more skilled person adjusting guidance to fit the child’s current performance level. As the student’s competence increases, less guidance given.
Language and Thought Young children use language not only for communication but also to plan, guide, and monitor their behavior in a self - regulatory fashion.
(Table 2, Santrock, 2000)

Comparison of Vygotsky’s and Piaget’s Theory
Topic Vygotsky Piaget
Constructivism
Social Constructivism Cognitive Constructivism
Stages No general stages of development proposed Strong emphasis on stages (sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational)
Key Processes Zone of proximal development, language, dialogue, tools of the culture Schema, assimilation, accommodation, operations, conservation, classification, hypothetical-deductive reasoning
Role of Language A major role; language plays a powerful role in shaping thought Language has minimal role; cognition primarily directs language
View on Education Education plays a central role, helping children learn the tools of the culture Education merely refines the child’s cognitive skills that already have emerged
Teaching implication Teacher is a facilitator and guide, not a director; establish many opportunities for children to learn with the teacher and more skilled peers Also views teacher as a facilitator guide, not a director, provide support for children to explore their world and discover knowledge.
(Table 3, Santrock, 2000)

The Children Language Development
The Linguist, Noam Chomsky (1957) believes as stated in Santrock (1997), that children are born into the world with the language acquisition device (LAD), a biological endowment that enables the child to detect the certain language categories, such as phonology, syntax, and semantics. The nativist approach is nature based, assuming that the children are born with language learning capacities which develops as they are mature (Cole and Cole in Knudtzon, 1998). The interactionist approach combines these fundamental arguments and suggests that language acquisition is environmentally and genetically based ( Cole and Cole in Knudtzon, 1998). However, children’s use of language occurs several months after they are able to understand the language, which according to Pinker in Knudtzon (1998) occurs before first birthday. In learning language, Santrock (2000) explains that there will be a critical period in which there is a learning readiness. In fact, Obler in Santrock(2000) states that most children learn one or more languages during their early years of development, so it is difficult to determine whether there is a critical period for language development.
The following is the infants language development based on their age (months):

MONTHS LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
3 – 6 Begin to show interest in sounds, play with saliva and respond to voices. Bubble, emitting such sounds as “goo-goo” and “ga-ga”
6 – 9 Begin to understand their first words. The growth of receptive vocabulary.
9 – 12 Begin to understand instructions such as “Wave bye-bye”.
Understand more at the estimated 12 words.
10 – 15 Significant language milestones have already occurred.
15 - 24 Spoken vocabulary rapidly. It reaches 200 – 275 words.
Utter two-word statements.
(Table 4, Santrock, 2000)

Cole and Cole in Knudtzon (1998) explains that one word utterances or holophrases are sometimes believed to stand for phrases or sentences. At the 18 months, language development is quickly developing; children are increasing their vocabulary at the phenomenal rate of a new word every two hours (Pinker). Furthermore Pinker in Knudtzon (1998) conceptualizes the stage when children rapidly acquire the vocabulary and grammar:
Between the late twos and the mid-threes, children’s language blooms into fluent grammatical conversation so rapidly that it overwhelms the researchers who study it, and no one has worked out the sequence. Sentence length increases steadily, and because grammar is a discrete combinational system, the number of syntactic types increases exponentially, doubling every month, reaching thousands before the first birthday.

Children acquisition of word and word meaning is a complex process. For example, when the caregiver labels something as an animal while pointing a family dog, the child needs to recognize different levels categorization: the caregiver could be giving the general word, animal or dog, the type of dog, or some aspects of the dog’s physical appearance. Hutchinson and Markman in Knudtzon (1998) proposes that the children expect labels to refer to objects of the same kind or category, not thematic related reference.
Verbs presents another complex feature of children’s language acquisition, as their meaning is less apparent in speech than noun meanings. One hypothesis by Gleitman suggests that in most cases, the meaning of verb is determined by the context of a particular situation. Besides, grammar acquisition also presents an amazing feature of acquiring language. Children do not merely acquire grammar by hearing language, rather they begin to form general rules to which they apply to their increasing vocabularies (Cole and Cole in Knudtzon, 1998). This is the process that develops naturally in language-exposed children.

The Vocabulary Development of K1B Students of SBS
So far, the students have been familiar with the Thai and English expressions. When they come to school, they say “sawatdii kha/ khrap” to Thai teachers and directly switch the language into English when they meet the foreign teachers by
saying “good morning teacher”

Thai Vocabulary Development of K1B Students of SBS
It is stated previously that the highest English language percentage for curriculum delivery goes to Kindergarten School (90% English and 10% Thai). In fact, students used Thai language more than English did at school.
As Thai is the students mother tongue, they have been very familiar with the used of expressions in Thai. So far, only the spoken Thai language that they master. At school the Thai lesson emphasizes on the proper Thai language and the Thai culture through the Thai songs and Thai stories, and the familiarity with Thai alphabetical and counting system. The students do not have difficulty in understanding the Thai vocabulary used by the teachers. Some that might become emphasis on the vocabulary development is the objects naming.
The weekly topics for the students for Thai and English is the same, only the way the teachers’ teaching is different. The following is the weekly topic, along with the emphasized vocabulary in Thai:
1. Welcome to School: “What is your name?” (“ Che a’rai?”) “How are you?” (“Sabai di mai?”) “I’m fine, thank you.” (“Sabai di, khop khun”) and “See you tomorrow!” (“Phop kun prungni”)
2. Class Rules and Expected Behaviour: Listen to the teacher, Share with your friends, Be nice to your friends (no hitting, no kicking, no taking their toys, no running), Wait for your turn, as well as Sit down, Stand up, Line up, and other such classroom commands.
3. My Body: head, shoulders, arms, hands, belly/tummy/stomach, legs, knees, feet, and toes.
4. My Face: eyes, ears, mouth, nose, cheek.
5. My Feelings: I’m happy, sad, angry, frustrated, scared, lonely, shy.
6. Health and Hygiene: Wash your hands, Take a bath, Brush your teeth, Go to sleep, Drink your milk, Eat your vegetables, play and exercise.
7. Healthy Foods: fruits: apple, orange, pineapple, banana, mango, watermelon; vegetables: beans, cabbage, lettuce, carrot, cucumber; grains: rice, bread; meat: fish, pork, beef, chicken.
8. Senses – Seeing: What do you see? I see…, Can you see…? What does it look like? Is it beautiful/ugly?
9. Senses – Hearing: What do you hear? I hear…, Can you hear…?, What sound is it? Does it sound good?
10. Senses – Smelling: What do you smell? I smell…, Can you smell…?, Does it smell good?, followed by adjectives good, bad, strong, ect.
11. Senses – Tasting: What do you taste? I taste…, Does it taste good? Is it yummy?, followed by adjectives sweet, sour, bitter, salty, delicious, tasty, yummy, etc.
(all of the listed vocabulary must be translated into Thai…..I’ll do it Then)

English Vocabulary Development of K1B Students of SBS
“Good morning, how are you? It’s nice to see you today.” The teacher moves and claps approaching the students to get them involved. That is one of the circle to begin the class in K1B every morning.
“Good morning everyone”
“Good morning teacher” all the students answer loudly.
“How are you today” and the students answer “I am fine thank you”
“How are you today Joe?”
“I am fine thank you and you?” usually some students do not reply the greeting and ask the teacher’s condition.
Memorizing is the main focus of developing the students’ vocabulary in English. Everyday activities pretty much the same.
1. Greetings
2. Colour of the day, different colour for each day of the weeks
3. Do some old chants, the students had been introduced some chants since their first weeks
4. Attendance cards, each student must memorize his or her own symbol for the name. They also try to memorize their friends’ symbols.
5. Letter of the week. The students are introduced the one alphabet to memorize, one alphabet for a week. By the end of July 2005, they know A – I.
6. Story time. The teacher is telling the story based on the big book shown to the students. Sometimes the teacher asks the students questions to make them involved in the story time.
7. Singing some children songs together. The students like to dance and move around the classroom.
In developing the students’ English vocabulary, the weekly topic is used as the guidance. By the end of July 2005, the students have been in the Week 11. The topics that have been covered are:
1. Welcome to School: “What is your name?” “How are you?” “I’m fine, thank you.” and “See you tomorrow!”
2. Class Rules and Expected Behaviour: Listen to the teacher, Share with your friends, Be nice to your friends (no hitting, no kicking, no taking their toys, no running), Wait for your turn, as well as Sit down, Stand up, Line up, and other such classroom commands.
3. My Body: head, shoulders, arms, hands, belly/tummy/stomach, legs, knees, feet, and toes.
4. My Face: eyes, ears, mouth, nose, cheek.
5. My Feelings: I’m happy, sad, angry, frustrated, scared, lonely, shy.
6. Health and Hygiene: Wash your hands, Take a bath, Brush your teeth, Go to sleep, Drink your milk, Eat your vegetables, play and exercise.
7. Healthy Foods: fruits: apple, orange, pineapple, banana, mango, watermelon; vegetables: beans, cabbage, lettuce, carrot, cucumber; grains: rice, bread; meat: fish, pork, beef, chicken.
8. Senses – Seeing: What do you see? I see…, Can you see…? What does it look like? Is it beautiful/ugly?
9. Senses – Hearing: What do you hear? I hear…, Can you hear…?, What sound is it? Does it sound good?
10. Senses – Smelling: What do you smell? I smell…, Can you smell…?, Does it smell good?, followed by adjectives good, bad, strong, ect.
11. Senses – Tasting: What do you taste? I taste…, Does it taste good? Is it yummy?, followed by adjectives sweet, sour, bitter, salty, delicious, tasty, yummy, etc.

Thai and English Vocabulary Development of K1B Students of SBS
The following is the description of the Thai and English language development of K1B students of SBS. Among the population (23 students), only 12 of them could become the samples because of the incomplete data of the rest. Three students did not both return the questionnaire and follow the vocabulary test. The other three did not return the questionnaire but followed the vocabulary test. The rest returned the questionnaires but did not follow the vocabulary test.
Some students did not follow the test because they were not interested in the test. They liked playing more than sitting to answer the teacher’s questions. Some of them were interested to follow the test but it took only a while before they left to play.
The Thai and Vocabulary test was administered by English teacher who conducted the time for test as well. When the teacher showed the pictures, some students spontaniuosly mentioned the English word although they were asked by Thai language. It maight because of the person who gave the questions. On the other hand, although the teacher asked them to mention the picture in English, they still mentioned the pictures in Thai. This latest condition might because they did not know the words for pictures in English. Some students quickly mentioned the words in Thai and in English. However, one students whose first language is English could mention both Thai and English very well but in mentioning the Thai words, he spent longer time than mentioning words in English. Generally, the students were good in understanding the single image showed by the pictures. Meanwhile, when the last three pictures (verbs, on which the students saw more than two images) the students mentioned the unexpected words. They mentioned one or more images showed other than mentioned the verbs