A Case Study On Child Second Language (English) Acquisition In Home Environment

With the development of economic globalization and world integration,second language(L2)competence is becoming increasingly important nowadays.To meet this requirement,not only are the governments trying to equip students with L2 competence in schools,but also families--the basic unit of a country--are exploring to help children acquire a L2 at an early age and outperform in the future.Despite some previous studies on child second language acquisition(CSLA),there are still research gaps needing further exploration.For instance,parental interventions that could be conducted to create a CSLA home environment with optimal input and a low affective filter is a field which requires deeper investigation.Moreover,assessment of the final CSLA attainment in home environment with authoritative instruments has not been conducted by previous researchers.In view of this,one objective of the present study is to operationalize the construction of a CSLA(English)environment with optimal input and a low affective filter by means of parental interventions,and the other is to assess the children’s final L2 attainment achieved in such an environment with authoritative instruments.The research questions are as follows:(1)To create optimal input for CSLA(English)in home environment,what parental interventions could be conducted?(2)To establish a low affective filter for CSLA(English)in home environment,what parental interventions could be performed?(3)In such a newly built home environment,what shall be done to assess the child’s English attainment?To answer the aforementioned three research questions,case study was chosen as the method of inquiry.This study has been conducted for 2 years and 3 months.The author’s daughter,Flora,who was aged 3;9,was selected as the participant.Data were collected mainly by means of participative observation.In addition,some video clips were shot and a few dairies were put down for reflection.Categorization was employed as the method to analyze the qualitative data.The final attainment of English acquisition was assessed with three scales of China’s Standards of English Language Ability(CSE)(2018),namely,Self-assessment Scale for Listening Comprehension(SSLC),Self-assessment Scale for Oral Expression(SSOE)and Self-assessment Scale for Pragmatic Ability(SSPA).The findings are as follows:Firstly,optimal input was actualized for CSLA in home environment by means of parental interventions.In order to achieve such a goal,first of all,the participative parent(the mother)guaranteed the comprehensibility and interest and/or relevance of input by selecting appropriate input materials and carriers as well as employing effective intervention approaches.Moreover,the participative parent avoided grammatically sequenced input on purpose by employing appropriate input resources and skillful input techniques.In addition,the participative parent achieved sufficient input by providing the child with substantial and frequent input.Secondly,a low affective filter with high motivation,self-confidence and low anxiety for CSLA was established by means of parental interventions.To foster high motivation,the participative parent ensured the participant’s intrinsic motivation to enjoyment by offering her interesting input and joyful input approaches,sparking the participant’s realization of the function of English,and dexterously avoiding boredom that would hinder her motivation.To cultivate self-confidence,the participative parent employed strategies to spare the participant’s embarrassment and complimented her excellent performance in English.To actualize low anxiety,the participative parent utilized tactics such as skillfully inspiring the participant’s interest,avoiding direct comprehension checking,permitting her use of L1 as scaffold,and giving tactful corrective feedback.Finally,the participant’s listening comprehension and oral expression abilities basically achieved the highest level of the elementary stage,and her pragmatic ability reached the beginning level of intermediate stage.Therefore,the participant’s pragmatic ability slightly outperformed the other two abilities.