Morgane Simonis - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
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Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique / French National Centre for Scientific Research
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Papers by Morgane Simonis
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition
A large sample study (n = 513) was conducted to investigate executive control performance in pupi... more A large sample study (n = 513) was conducted to investigate executive control performance in pupils following an immersion education program. We recruited 10-year-old children (n = 128) and 16-year-old adolescents (n = 127) who were enrolled in English or Dutch immersion education in French-speaking Belgium for at least 4 school years. They were compared to non-immersed children (n = 102) and adolescents (n = 156) on a number of executive control tasks assessing inhibitory control, monitoring, switching and attentional abilities. Several control variables such as receptive vocabulary, nonverbal intelligence, socioeconomic status and other potentially relevant background variables were also considered. Our results show significant gains in foreign-language proficiency for the immersed compared to the non-immersed participants. These gains were however not associated with any measurable benefits on executive control. Our findings make a unique contribution to understanding how languag...
In times of globalization, policies increasingly promote multilingualism as a strong social and e... more In times of globalization, policies increasingly promote multilingualism as a strong social and economic asset. One way to foster multilingualism in education is Content and Language Integrated
Learning (CLIL), a didactic method in which school subjects are taught in a different target language than the mainstream school language. In the French-speaking Community of Belgium, schools have been allowed to provide CLIL education in Dutch, English or German since 1998. To this day, however, we only have an incomplete and fragmented view on how CLIL differs from non-CLIL education and on how it impacts second/foreign language acquisition. The aim of this contribution
is threefold: (a) to discuss the particularities of CLIL education in French-speaking Belgium, (b) to give an overview of the research conducted on CLIL education in French-speaking Belgium, and (c) to briefly present the goals of a large-scale longitudinal and interdisciplinary study currently being conducted at Université catholique de Louvain and Université de Namur. This interdisciplinary study aims to make a strong empirical and theoretical contribution to both the public debate and the ongoing international scientific discussions on multilingualism in general and CLIL in particular.
In three experiments, we investigated Hebb repetition learning (HRL) differences between children... more In three experiments, we investigated Hebb repetition learning (HRL) differences between children and adults, as a function of the type of item (lexical vs. sub-lexical) and the level of item-overlap between sequences. In a first experiment, it was shown that when non-repeating and repeating (Hebb) sequences of words were all permutations of the same words, HRL was slower than when the sequences shared no words. This item-overlap effect was observed in both children and adults. In a second experiment, we used syllable sequences and we observed reduced HRL due to item-overlap only in children. The findings are explained within a chunking account of the HRL effect on the basis of which we hypothesize that children, compared with adults, chunk syllable sequences in smaller units. By hypothesis, small chunks are more prone to interference from anagram representations included in the filler sequences, potentially explaining the item-overlap effect in children. This hypothesis was tested in a third experiment with adults where we experimentally manipulated the chunk size by embedding pauses in the syllable sequences. Interestingly, we showed that imposing a small chunk size caused adults to show the same behavioral effects as those observed in children. Departing from the analogy between verbal HRL and lexical development, the results are discussed in light of the less-is-more hypothesis of age-related differences in language acquisition.
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition
A large sample study (n = 513) was conducted to investigate executive control performance in pupi... more A large sample study (n = 513) was conducted to investigate executive control performance in pupils following an immersion education program. We recruited 10-year-old children (n = 128) and 16-year-old adolescents (n = 127) who were enrolled in English or Dutch immersion education in French-speaking Belgium for at least 4 school years. They were compared to non-immersed children (n = 102) and adolescents (n = 156) on a number of executive control tasks assessing inhibitory control, monitoring, switching and attentional abilities. Several control variables such as receptive vocabulary, nonverbal intelligence, socioeconomic status and other potentially relevant background variables were also considered. Our results show significant gains in foreign-language proficiency for the immersed compared to the non-immersed participants. These gains were however not associated with any measurable benefits on executive control. Our findings make a unique contribution to understanding how languag...
In times of globalization, policies increasingly promote multilingualism as a strong social and e... more In times of globalization, policies increasingly promote multilingualism as a strong social and economic asset. One way to foster multilingualism in education is Content and Language Integrated
Learning (CLIL), a didactic method in which school subjects are taught in a different target language than the mainstream school language. In the French-speaking Community of Belgium, schools have been allowed to provide CLIL education in Dutch, English or German since 1998. To this day, however, we only have an incomplete and fragmented view on how CLIL differs from non-CLIL education and on how it impacts second/foreign language acquisition. The aim of this contribution
is threefold: (a) to discuss the particularities of CLIL education in French-speaking Belgium, (b) to give an overview of the research conducted on CLIL education in French-speaking Belgium, and (c) to briefly present the goals of a large-scale longitudinal and interdisciplinary study currently being conducted at Université catholique de Louvain and Université de Namur. This interdisciplinary study aims to make a strong empirical and theoretical contribution to both the public debate and the ongoing international scientific discussions on multilingualism in general and CLIL in particular.
In three experiments, we investigated Hebb repetition learning (HRL) differences between children... more In three experiments, we investigated Hebb repetition learning (HRL) differences between children and adults, as a function of the type of item (lexical vs. sub-lexical) and the level of item-overlap between sequences. In a first experiment, it was shown that when non-repeating and repeating (Hebb) sequences of words were all permutations of the same words, HRL was slower than when the sequences shared no words. This item-overlap effect was observed in both children and adults. In a second experiment, we used syllable sequences and we observed reduced HRL due to item-overlap only in children. The findings are explained within a chunking account of the HRL effect on the basis of which we hypothesize that children, compared with adults, chunk syllable sequences in smaller units. By hypothesis, small chunks are more prone to interference from anagram representations included in the filler sequences, potentially explaining the item-overlap effect in children. This hypothesis was tested in a third experiment with adults where we experimentally manipulated the chunk size by embedding pauses in the syllable sequences. Interestingly, we showed that imposing a small chunk size caused adults to show the same behavioral effects as those observed in children. Departing from the analogy between verbal HRL and lexical development, the results are discussed in light of the less-is-more hypothesis of age-related differences in language acquisition.