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Conceptual vocabulary in Grade 2 isiZulu-English and Grade 1 Afrikaans-English bilinguals

Paper · 2021 · Heila L. Jordaan, Ashleigh van Zyl and Tracey O'Brien

Summary

In South Africa, many children from homes where English is not the main language are taught in English from their first school year. Their vocabulary is usually measured only in English, which can hide what they actually know. This study tested whether counting knowledge across both languages gives a fairer picture.

The authors assessed 30 Grade 2 isiZulu-English bilinguals and 30 Grade 1 Afrikaans-English bilinguals at two English-medium Johannesburg schools, along with age-matched monolingual English classmates. They used the English picture-vocabulary tests EOWPVT-4 and ROWPVT-4, plus adapted isiZulu and Afrikaans versions, to measure understanding and naming of words. They also applied conceptual scoring, which credits a concept if the child knows it in either language.

Both bilingual groups scored higher in English than in their home language. Conceptual scores were higher than single-language scores. Even so, the isiZulu-English children stayed below their monolingual peers, while the Afrikaans-English children matched or exceeded theirs.

The findings argue for dual-language assessment and for supporting home languages in schools.

Key points

  • Participants were 30 Grade 1 Afrikaans-English and 30 Grade 2 isiZulu-English bilinguals, each group paired with age-matched English monolinguals, at two Gauteng schools where English is the medium of instruction from Grade 1.
  • The instruments were ROWPVT-4 (receptive: the child picks a picture) and EOWPVT-4 (expressive: the child names a picture), plus adapted isiZulu and Afrikaans versions. Some test words had no isiZulu equivalent.
  • Under conceptual scoring, the isiZulu-English group was still significantly below monolinguals on both modalities. The Afrikaans-English group was significantly above monolinguals receptively and not significantly different expressively.
  • Older vs. younger monolinguals scored 90.9% vs. 82% receptively and 89.2% vs. 75% expressively. Their results were in line with the tests' published norms for 7–8-year-olds.
  • Receptive scores exceeded expressive scores, and the two were positively correlated. The authors link the gap between bilingual groups to exposure history: isiZulu speakers likely learned English later (sequentially), Afrikaans speakers likely learned both languages from early on.

Interesting ideas

  • I1. Conceptual scoring measures coverage at the level of concepts, giving credit if any channel knows a concept, so knowledge split across sources is not undercounted.
  • I2. The singlet/doublet distinction separates concepts reachable through only one route from those reachable through two, which shows where knowledge is fragile.
  • I3. Comprehension and production are tested separately, because understanding usually runs ahead of producing and one score would blur the two.
  • I4. A second group with a similar pattern was used to rule out an artifact: because Afrikaans speakers also scored lower in their home language, flaws in the isiZulu translation could not explain the result.
  • I5. The tests were sanity-checked by confirming that scores rose with age and matched external norms before trusting them.

For Mova

How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests:

  • I1 (world): Measure lexicon and ontology coverage per concept as the union of WordNet, FrameNet and Wikidata, rather than judging each resource alone against a test list.
  • I2 (world): Tag each knowledge-graph concept by how many independent sources attest it, so that single-source entries are flagged for checking or extra sourcing.
  • I3 (back): For each phenomenon, evaluate the text → graph direction and the graph → text direction independently, so a parser that understands a construction is not assumed to generate it.
  • I4 (learn): Add a contrast condition or dataset that shares the suspected confound, to check whether an evaluation gap reflects real behaviour or a test-construction artifact.
  • I5 (answer): Before relying on a school-course test set, confirm that it separates known-weaker from known-stronger system versions and agrees with any external baseline.

Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.

 Institutions

🎓University of the WitwatersrandJohannesburg · South Africa3 works · 308 citations

📚 Shelves 4The field of science this work belongs to (OpenAlex fields).Arts and Humanities · 9,296 worksLanguage and Linguistics · 9,206 worksPsychology · 798 worksDevelopmental and Educational Psychology · 260 works

🧭 Topics 1Research subjects and languages the work is about.English · 1,373 works

Cite

Cite as Heila L. Jordaan, Ashleigh van Zyl and Tracey O'Brien. 2021. Conceptual vocabulary in Grade 2 isiZulu-English and Grade 1 Afrikaans-English bilinguals. South African Journal of Childhood Education 11.

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. DOI 10.4102/sajce.v11i1.866

@article{jordaan2021conceptual,
  title = {{Conceptual vocabulary in Grade 2 isiZulu-English and Grade 1 Afrikaans-English bilinguals}},
  author = {Heila L. Jordaan, Ashleigh {van Zyl} and Tracey O'Brien},
  journal = {South African Journal of Childhood Education 11},
  year = {2021},
  doi = {10.4102/sajce.v11i1.866},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.4102/sajce.v11i1.866}
}

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