Acquisition of Hebrew Noun Plurals in Early Immersion and Bilingual Education

by

Robyn Rebecca Yunger

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts

Graduate Department of Human Development and Applied Psychology

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto

© Copyright by Robyn Rebecca Yunger 2010

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Acquisition of Hebrew Noun Plurals in Early Immersion and

Bilingual Education

Robyn Rebecca Yunger

Master of Arts

Graduate Department of Human Development and Applied Psychology

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

University of Toronto

2010

Abstract

This study examined the acquisition of Hebrew noun plurals in early immersion and bilingual

education by focusing on performance, as well as morpho-syntactic and semantic errors in

inflecting nouns. A total of 196 students from Senior Kindergarten (n = 86) and grades 1 (n =

58) and 2 (n = 53) were administered measures of inflectional morphology in Hebrew. Results

indicated that children applied high frequency, salient, simple to apply inflectional patterns

involving male-female nouns, as well as the basic way of noting plurality. Two major obstacles

in the pluralisation of Hebrew nouns were suffix regularity and stem transparency. Error

analysis revealed three categories of responses: rule-based, analogy-based and non-strategic

errors. The principal conclusion was that errors notwithstanding, young children learning

Hebrew as a foreign language are moving toward an understanding of plural formation. The

development of morpho-syntactic structures gradually develops over time and with exposure to

Hebrew instruction.

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Acknowledgments

This thesis would not have been possible without the encouragement, supervision and support

from my supervisor, Dr. Esther Geva. Sincere gratitude is also due to Dr. Becky Chen, the

second member of my thesis supervisory committee. Her expertise and knowledge proved to

be an invaluable asset.

I would like to thank Olesya Falenchuk and Norman Himmel for providing exceptional statistical

consulting.

I owe my deepest gratitude to my husband, son, parents and in-laws for all their love and

support throughout the duration of my studies.

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Table of Contents

Title Page…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….i

Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…………….ii

Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….….iii

Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………………………………………….……………..iv

List of Tables…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….vii

List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..viii

List of Appendices…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…ix

Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1

The Challenges of Hebrew Noun Pluralization ............................................................. 9

Morphological Development in Bilingual Children………………………………..…10

French Immersion ........................................................................................................ 13

Hebrew Immersion ....................................................................................................... 15

The Present Study…………………………………………………………………….15

Method .......................................................................................................................................... 17

Procedure……………………………………………………………………………...18

Measures………………………………………………………………………….,,,,,,.19

Nonverbal ability. ................................................................................................. 19

v

Receptive vocabulary in English and Hebrew. ..................................................... 19

Expressive Language ability. ................................................................................ 20

Inflectional Morphology. ............................................................................................. 22

Real Word Inflections. .......................................................................................... 22

Nonword Inflections ............................................................................................. 22

Analogies...................................................................................................................... 22

Results ........................................................................................................................................... 25

English Vocabulary……………………………………………………………………25

Hebrew Receptive Language………………………………………………………….25

Nonverbal Intelligence………………………………………………………………..25

Real and Non-Word Inflections ................................................................................... 26

Masculine/feminine plurals ................................................................................... 26

Singular/plural ....................................................................................................... 26

Zugiyim ................................................................................................................. 26

Hebrew Expressive Language. ..................................................................................... 27

Hebrew Expressive Word Analogies. .......................................................................... 28

Order of Acquisition ............................................................................................. 29

Error Analysis…………………………………………………………………………………..……………………….32

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Discussion ..................................................................................................................................... 37

Analysis of Inflectional Analogies……………………………………………………......39

Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research………………………………………..46

Tables……………………………………………………………………………………….49

References ..................................................................................................................................... 57

Appendices…………………………………………………………………………………….…65

vii

List of Tables

Table 1. Number of participants at Time 1 and 2. ................................................... …….49

Table 2. Descriptive Statistics for Real and Nonword Inflections in SK (n = 86), Grades 1 (n =

57) and 2 (n = 53) ................................................................................................ 50

Table 3. Descriptive Statistics for Real-word and Non-word Inflectional Pairs by Grade 51

Table 4. Descriptive Statistics for Real and Nonword Inflectional Pairs in SK (n = 86) and

Grade 1 (n = 57) .................................................................................................. 52

Table 5. Descriptive Statistics for Hebrew Expressive Language (SK, Grades 1 and 2, n = 104). . 54

Table 6. Descriptive Statistics for Hebrew Word Analogies in SK (n = 86), Grades 1 (n = 57)

and 2 (n = 53). ..................................................................................................... 55

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List of Figures

Figure 1. Regular nominal inflection in Hebrew ................................................................. 6

Figure 2: Hebrew Noun Acquisition in Monolingual Children………………………………………….8

Figure 3. Hebrew Expressive Language Items.................................................................. 21

Figure 4. Hebrew Word Analogy Items ............................................................................. 24

Figure 5. Percent of children who provided the correct answer for the Hebrew Word Analogies

across grades and programs (immersion vs. non-immersion)………………………………………..47

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List of Appendices

APPENDIX A – Hebrew Expressive Language ..................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

APPENDIX B – Hebrew Word Analogies ............................................................................ 68

APPENDIX C – Interrater Reliability for Hebrew Word Analogies .................................... 69

APPENDIX D – Sample Errors for Hebrew Word Analogies…………………………..66

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Acquisition of Hebrew Noun Plurals in

Early Immersion and Bilingual Education

Morphological awareness, or the ability to reflect on word components and their

functions, is a multifaceted construct that consists of phonological, semantic, syntactic, and

orthographic knowledge (Ravid & Malenky, 2001). Research has demonstrated that the

morphological awareness of school age children makes a significant contribution to their

reading ability (e.g., Carlisle, 2000, 2003, Ravid & Schiff, 2006), as well as their writing skills

(Levin, Ravid & Rappaport, 2001; Ravid & Schiff, 2004). A dearth of literature exists on the

development of Hebrew morphology among children learning Hebrew as a second language.

Given the importance of this construct and the scarcity of studies to date, this study seeks to

investigate the developmental acquisition of noun plurals in early Hebrew immersion and

bilingual education.

Hebrew Morphology

Morphology is particularly salient in the highly synthetic Hebrew language where word

structures convey a wide array of semantic and morpho-syntactic notions (Deutsch & Frost,

2003; Geva, 2007; Ravid & Schiff, 2006). Oral and written Hebrew is composed of both

concatenative and non-concatenative principles (Bentin & Frost, 1995) that are expressed as

two morphological structures: 1) non-linear interdigitated consonantal root with an affix (e.g., a

three or four letter root is combined with a pattern to yield various word combinations) and 2)

linear concatenated stem and suffix (e.g., two morphemes are combined to create a new word)

(Ravid, 2001). Concatenation refers to the unification of morphemes, which are the smallest

2

unit of meaning (Princeton University, 2006). For instance, the word ‘talmidim’ (masculine

plural, “students”) is composed of two morphemes: ‘talmid’ + ‘im’. In contrast, non-

concatenative word formation involves modifying the root without stringing morphemes

together (Haspelmath, 2002). Thus, instead of attaching an affix directly before or after the

stem, the affix is interwoven within the root (e.g., gadal “he grew”, gidel “he was raised”, gudal

“he was raised”) (Kramar, 2007).

There are two basic types of morphemes: unbound and bound.

“Unbound or free-standing morphemes are individual elements that can stand

alone within a sentence, such as <cat>, <laugh>, <look>, and <box>. Bound

morphemes are meaning-bearing units of language, such as prefixes and suffixes,

that are attached to unbound morphemes. They cannot stand alone. Their

attachment modifies the unbound morphemes in such things as number or

syntactic category. Adding the bound morpheme <s> to the unbound morpheme

<cat> changes the noun's number; the addition of the <ed> to <laugh> changes

tense. Similarly, the addition of <er> to <run> changes the verb to a noun (Kucer

& Silva, 2006, p.12)."

In the non-linear Hebrew structure, a word’s base is composed of two bound

morphemes: a triliteral (occasionally four) consonantal root combined with a fixed and

primarily vocalic word-pattern (mishkal) (Ravid, 2001). While the root is associated with a core

meaning, patterns indicate ontological categories such as agent, instrument, place, collective

and abstract nominals (Clark, 2003). For example, the root K-T-V can yield the following word

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combinations: katavti (first person singular, past tense, active voice: “I wrote”), nikhtavim

(masculine plural, present tense, passive voice: “they are being written), as well as hakhtivi

(feminine singular imperative: “dictate!”). The combination of roots and patterns create various

consonant-vowel (CV) prosodic templates that are subject to modification by linear derivational

and inflectional processes (Ravid, 2002).

Linear structures refer to a concatenation of stem and suffix. Nouns have obligatory

gender and number inflections and optional possessive and locative inflections. Adjectives are

inflected for gender and number and verbs and prepositions have obligatory gender, number,

and person inflections. Verbs also have obligatory tense inflections (Schiff & Calif, 2007). There

are four Hebrew adjective inflectional patterns: two for masculine nouns (singular and plural)

and two for feminine nouns (singular and plural). The inflectional endings are adjoined to the

word stem to form various gender and number properties of the adjective. For example, the

adjective ‘tov’ (“good”) can be conjugated in the following ways: tov (masculine singular), tova

(feminine singular), tovim (masculine plural) or tovot (feminine plural) (Parsons, 2009). Thus,

linear affixation produces morphemes that are identifiable, distinct and pronounceable units

(Ravid & Malenky, 2001).

The combination of root with pattern and, similarly, stem with suffix, creates

linguistically complex words. Comprehension of complex words is facilitated by the frequency

and transparency of a word (Carlisle, 2003). Transparency relates to the degree to which the

sounds and the meaning of a complex word can be recovered from its internal morphological

structure (Elbro & Arnback, 1996). Nagy and Anderson (1984) provide the following example:

‘redness’ is semantically transparent, and thus easier to comprehend than ‘groovy’, which is

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semantically opaque. Highly frequent and morphologically complex words may be stored in

memory as intact wholes, whereas lower frequency words may be retrieved though their

morphological composition (see Bybee, 1995).

Linguistically complex words can be categorized as: inflectional, derivational or

compound words (Wang, Cheng, & Chen, 2006). Inflectional morphology involves the

systematic marking of grammatical information on a word stem. A grammatical change may

reflect gender, tense, number and/or person (Verhoeven & Perfetti, 2003) (e.g., kelev chamud

*masculine singular, “cute dog”+ and klavim chamudim *masculine plural, “cute dogs”+).

Derivational morphology “concerns the principles governing the construction of new words,

without reference to the specific grammatical role a word might play in a sentence” (Wang et

al., 2006, p.542).

Crystal (1999) explains that in English,

derivation is used to form new words, as with happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or

determination from determine. A contrast is intended with the process of inflection,

which uses another kind of affix in order to form variants of the same word, as with

determine/determine-s/determin-ing/determin-ed (p. 179).

Similarly, one can use derivation to form new words in Hebrew, as with kos’it (“wine glass”)

from kos (“cup”) and shakran (“liar”) from sheker (“lie”). Due to the obligatoriness, general

applicability, frequency, transparency, and regular and predictable semantics of inflectional

systems, children tend to acquire a command of inflections earlier on than derivations in both

English (Bybee, 1985; Ku & Anderson, 2006) and Hebrew (Berman, 1985; Ravid, 1995).

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Research has shown that kindergarten aged children possess an implicit awareness that many

words are combinations of morphemes (Berko, 1958); however, explicit knowledge of

morphological structure does not appear until grade school (Carlisle, 2003). Finally, compound

words refer to the fusion of two bases within a single word to reflect the meaning of both (e.g.,

playhouse, butterfly) (Wang et al., 2006). In Hebrew, compound words involve two nouns,

where the first is the possessed and the second is the possessor (Bindman, 2004; e.g., Beit Sefer

“House of Books”, i.e., school or Beit Xolim “House of the Sick”, i.e., hospital).

Morphological Development in Monolingual Children: Acquisition of Hebrew Nouns

Due to the prevalence of morphologically complex words, native Hebrew speakers

demonstrate familiarity with internal word structures from an early age (Ravid, 2001). Children

as young as age two are able to discriminate between number and gender, followed by verb

tense and person (Dromi, 1987; Kaplan, 1983; Levy, 1980; Ravid, 1997). Productive use of all

obligatory inflectional markings on nouns, verbs and adjectives are typically acquired by age

three. Mastery of stem changes and idiosyncratic forms are seen by age seven (Berman,

1981a,b, 1983, Ravid, 1995a,b). An understanding of rule exceptions and literate forms is not

gained until grade school age (Ravid & Malenky, 2001). Morphological awareness continues to

strengthen with formal reading and writing instruction (Berman, 1985; Ravid, 1995).

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Figure 1. Regular nominal inflection in Hebrew

Singular Plural

Masculine ילד , yeled (boy)

shomer (guard) ,שומר

יםילד , yeladim (boys)

ים shomrim (guards) ,שומר

Feminine הילד , yelda (girl)

תשומר , shomeret (guard)

ותילד , yeladot (girls)

ותשומר , shomrot (guards)

Hebrew nouns are marked for both gender and number (see Figure 1). Feminine nouns

commonly end with the phonemes -ה /a/ or –ת /t/ (e.g., ילדה ‘girl; שומרת ‘guard [s])’, whereas

masculine nouns are typified by lack of marking (e.g., ילד ‘boy; שומר ‘guard [s]) or by -ה /e/ suffix

(e.g., ורהמ ‘teacher’). In most cases, masculine nouns are pluralized by adding the suffix -י ם ‘im’

and feminine nouns by adding the suffix –ות ‘ot’ to the base. However, there are irregular forms

that defy the regularity of the basic inflectional rule. For example, a masculine noun may be

pluralized in the classic feminine form (e.g., shulxan/shulxan-ot ‘desk/s’, instead of the

predicted regular shulxan-im), and vice versa (e.g., beitza/beitz-im ‘egg/s’, instead of the

expected regular beitz-ot). The zugiyim, or dual nouns, are used in expression of time and

number that refers to pairs (e.g, shavuah “week”; shvu’ayim “weeks”), as well as paired body

parts (e.g., ayin “eye”, aynayim “eyes”). When pluralized, dual nouns adopt an ‘ayim’ suffix.

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Despite appearing similar in ending to regular masculine plural nouns, dual nouns are generally

feminine. Furthermore, although the dual nouns seem to follow a pattern, most irregular

nominals must be memorized (Ravid & Shiff, 2009). Thus, the marking for gender and number

are not straightforward; there are often irregularities that do not follow basic grammatical

rules.

Irregular forms are often problematic for young language learners. Ravid and Schiff

(2009) followed a group of Israeli Hebrew-speaking children from the beginning to the end of

first grade. They discovered that nouns with changing stems are more difficult than nouns with

non-changing stems, and that irregular suffixation is more challenging than regular suffixation.

The authors propose that:

Even though the semantics of pluralization is easy, transparent and predictable,

mastering all of plural categories requires familiarity with a host of morphophonological

systems and patterns. Learning this variegated system is a long and protracted process

which constitutes part of later language development — linguistic acquisition during the

school years, and lasts into adolescence and adulthood (p.58).

According to Slobin’s (1985) maxim of Formal Simplicity, children prefer to retain the original

structure of singular forms when pluralizing them, e.g., yad/yadim ‘hand/s’ instead of the

correct yad/yadayim or adom/adomim ‘red/s’ instead of correct adom/adumim. Thus,

although pluralization is one of the first grammatical categories to be mastered, it takes time

before children learn all the nuances of grammar (e.g., stem change and irregular suffixation).

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Based on Ravid and Schiff’s (2009) study of nominal plurals in monolingual Hebrew

speakers, the following developmental pattern was observed (see Figure 2):

On the first and easiest category children reached ceiling at the start of the academic year; thus

no incremental improvement could be noted. However, significant improvement was seen in

the latter three categories, with increases of about 3%, 7% and 6%, respectively.

Figure 2: Hebrew Noun Acquisition in Monolingual Children

Category Singular to Plural Translation

1. Non-Changing Stem

and Regular Suffix

דורכ יםכ דור ‘kadur kadur-im’ ball/s

2. Non-Changing Stem

and Irregular Suffix

חלון xalon xalon-ot’ window/s‘ לונותח

3. Changing Stem and

Regular Suffix

זי ת יםז ית ‘zayit zayt-im’ olive/s

4. Changing Stem and

Irregular Suffix

בוע ש י יםש בוע

‘shavua shvu’a-im’ week/

two weeks

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The authors suggest that the developmental pattern may be explained by an increase in lexical

knowledge, a greater appreciation for phonology and emerging literacy skills. As children learn

how to read, they develop and strengthen their phonological abilities. Enhanced phonological

awareness is associated with greater reading skills and an improved ability to pluralize nouns

that require phonological changes (Ravid & Schiff, 2009). Children’s ability to inflect complex

noun plurals seems to increase in relation to their morphophonological knowledge. However,

noun pluralization may continue to challenge young monolingual language learners for various

reasons that will be explained in the next section.

The Challenges of Hebrew Noun Pluralization

There are two main obstacles in the pluralization of Hebrew nouns: suffix regularity and

stem transparency (Ravid & Schiff, 2009).

Suffix regularity. A suffix is identified as ‘regular’, or ‘predictable’ when a phonologically

unmarked noun takes the masculine suffix -י ם /im/ or when a feminine noun marked by -ה /ah/

takes the feminine suffix –ות /ot/. However, this is not always the case. Nouns frequently

assume irregular, or unpredictable plural suffixes that often violate gender and phonological

markings (Ravid and Schiff, 2009). In fact, there are approximately 80 masculine nouns that are

inflected with the –ות /ot/ suffix, and 30 feminine nouns inflected with the -י ם /im/ suffix

(Aranoff, 1994). Unpredictable suffixation may be challenging for young or L2 language

learners due to lack of exposure and developmental patterns in language acquisition.

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Stem change. The pluralization of a Hebrew noun may require no more than the

addition of a suffix (e.g., יםש /ירש יר ‘song/s’ or חתולי ם/חתול ‘cat/s’). However, more often than

not, it involves complex morphophonological changes to the noun stem (Ravid & Schiff, 2009).

Ravid (1995) describes five types of stem changes in plural formation:

a) vowel deletion (e.g., חפ יםפ/ר רח , perax/praxim ‘flower/flowers’);

b) vowel change (e.g. יםז /זי ת ית , zayit/zaytim ‘olive/olives);

c) insertion/deletion of ‘t’ (e.g., חנויות/חנות , xanut/xanuyot ‘store/s’);

d) stop/spirant alternation (e.g., ז יכרונות/רוןכז י , zikaron/zichronot ‘memory/s’, יםפ א/אף ,

af/apim ‘nose/s) and;

e) full stem change (e.g., יםש נ/השא , isha/nashim ‘woman/women’).

Although plural formation is one of the earliest inflections to emerge in Hebrew speaking

children (Berman 1985; Ravid 1995a), suffix irregularity, compounded by a variety of stem

changes, creates an added layer of complexity that may impede a child’s ability to properly

pluralize nouns.

Morphological Development in Bilingual Children

A review of the literature yields a modest amount of research on the morphological

development of Hebrew in monolingual children. Recently, researchers have begun to focus on

the morphological development of Hebrew as L2 language learners (e.g., Bindman, 2004; Geva

& Shafman, 2010).

Bindman (2004) examined two groups of primary school children (6-10 years old) with

English as L1, learning Hebrew as L2, who held varying degrees of proficiency in the modern,

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spoken form of Hebrew. Regression analyses were conducted to determine whether

morphological awareness in Hebrew could predict morphological awareness in English and vice

versa. Results demonstrated that children learning Hebrew as L2 could transfer metalinguistic

knowledge of grammar between their languages, despite surface-level dissimilarities between

them. Bindman (2004) mentioned the “experience of Hebrew as a meaningful, comprehensible

spoken language (p. 15)” as a factor in developing an awareness of syntax and morphology in

meaningful contexts. Individuals who possess a more limited understanding of Hebrew may

analyse morphology in single words when attempting to translate text from Hebrew to their

native English (Bindman, 2004). Thus, it was concluded that morphological knowledge is

transferable between two dissimilar languages and that transferability of skills is also affected

by linguistic proficiency. That is, having a strong foundation in one’s native language can

positively influence one’s ability to speak a second language.

In an exploratory study by Geva and Shafman (2010), they investigated primary level

children whose dominant language was English and who were attending an English-Hebrew

day-school in Canada. They found that syntactic skills and vocabulary are moderate predictors

of emerging English and Hebrew inflectional morphology skills. Taken together, these variables

explained between 30 to 40 percent of the variance on morphological receptive skills, and over

50 percent of the variance on a task of expressive morphology using analogies. Syntactic skills

were assessed by means of sentence completion, with a focus on awareness of inflectional

patterns related to nouns (e.g., tense, gender, number, possession) and verbs (e.g., gender,

number). General vocabulary knowledge was assessed by forced choice; however, familiarity

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with Hebrew lexical items was more important in inflecting specific words than general

vocabulary knowledge alone.

Morphological development in Hebrew language acquisition may shed light on specific

aspects of second language acquisition. This area examines how individuals learn a L2, as well

as the benefits and possible disadvantages of being multi-lingual. Certainly, there is evidence

to suggest that being bilingual is advantageous. Bialystok and Hakuta (1994) mention that “the

knowledge of two languages is greater than the sum of its parts (p.143).” That is to say,

proficiency in more than one language enables a person to be more sensitive to the phonemes,

or individual units of sound, that comprise a language. That sensitivity, or heightened

awareness of phonemes, aids in the acquisition of basic literacy skills such as learning the

association between letters in print with sounds. Indeed, the complexity of learning multiple

languages has been implicated as a linguistic advantage in terms of increased metalinguistic

awareness and the transference of comparable skills across languages (Bialystok, Luk, Kwan,

2005). The literature has found positive transfer of literacy skills across typologically distant

languages such as English and Hebrew (e.g., Geva & Siegel, 2000; Geva, Wade-Woolley, &

Shany,1997; Oller & Eilers, 2002) and L1-L2 transfer of phonological awareness skills in

languages such as English, Spanish and French (Comeau, Cormier, Grandmaison, & Lacroix,

1999; Durgunoglu, 1988; Durgunoglu, Nagy, & Hancin-Bhatt, 1993; Lindsey, Manis, & Bailey,

2003), but also in the case of more distant languages such as Arabic-English (Saiegh-Haddad &

Geva, 2008). Bialystok et. al (2005) suggest that the transfer of skills between languages is

facilitated if they used the same system (e.g., alphabetic). In sum, studies on second language

13

acquisition suggest that there are a number of advantages to learning multiple languages. This

topic is further elaborated on in the next section with a particular focus on French Immersion.

French Immersion

Contemporary knowledge of second language acquisition is founded on long-term

research evaluations of Canadian French Immersion Education. The immersion program aims

to promote L2 proficiency while maintaining and developing L1. This is achieved through a

minimum of 50% instruction in the target language (Cummins, 1998). Johnson and Swain

(1997) have identified eight central features that uniquely characterize the Canadian French

immersion program:

Instruction is provided in L2;

Parallel curriculums are offered in both L1 and L2;

Availability of overt L1 support;

The program seeks to attain additive bilingualism (i.e., the notion that bilingualism can

positively affect both intellectual and linguistic progress);

L2 exposure is limited to the classroom;

Students enter the program with partial L2 proficiency;

Educators are bilingual;

Students are from a similar L1 community.

14

Over the last 40 years, researchers have examined the benefits of bilingualism and have

consistently found that in early immersion programs (starting in kindergarten or grade 1),

students achieve fluency and literacy in French without impeding their English academic skills

(Cummins, 1998). Supported by a large corpus of evidence, Cummins (1998) concludes:

The development of additive bilingual and biliteracy skills entails no negative

consequences for children's academic, linguistic, or intellectual development. On the

contrary, although not conclusive, the evidence points in the direction of subtle

metalinguistic, academic and intellectual benefits for bilingual children (p.4).

Nevertheless, Cummins acknowledges that the immersion program isn’t perfect; there have

been problems with the program’s implementation and the relatively high dropout rate in some

immersion programs. In comparison to native French speakers, immersion students’ receptive

language skills are better developed than their expressive skills (Harley, Allen, Cummins, &

Swain, 1991). Studies have also shown that despite high levels of comprehension, the oral and

written fluency of French immersion students is noticeably non-native, particularly its

grammatical features (Swain, 2000). Grammatical errors and lack of expressive skills may be

attributed to the relatively few opportunities that students have to use their French (Cummins,

1998; Swain, 2000). Cummins (1998) suggests that immersion programs could be improved by

encouraging students to use their oral or written French for creative or problem-solving

activities. In order to acquire native-like fluency, students must be given the opportunity to use

their target language in as many contexts as possible.

15

Hebrew Immersion

Unlike the well-established French Immersion program, Hebrew Immersion is still in its

infancy. Based on the French Immersion literature, it is known that while exposure does not

guarantee native-like fluency, students are able to achieve higher levels of oral and written

fluency than in more restricted programs by the end of high school. Ravid (1995) and Shimron

(2006) emphasize that given the complexity of the language, exposure to Modern Hebrew is

essential in order for morphological awareness to develop. This is particularly true for young

children who are acquiring Hebrew as a second language within an academic context.

The amount of exposure to Hebrew varies in Jewish Day Schools across the Diaspora.

School programs differ in their educational approach: some provide English instruction for

Hebrew biblical texts, some focus on communicative Hebrew, and others integrate Hebrew

language with religious studies. Relatively new to the North American educational scene is

Hebrew immersion education. Considering grammatical knowledge is largely communicated to

children through spoken language, the amount of exposure to Hebrew language is critical.

Although it is reasonable to assume that the high level of exposure to the target language will

likely benefit the young Hebrew language learners, further study is needed before any

conclusions are drawn.

The Present Study

In this research we focus on one aspect of Hebrew Language proficiency, namely,

inflectional morphology. Not much is known about the development of Hebrew morphology in

16

Hebrew as a foreign language (HFL). Scholars have only recently begun to investigate

morphological awareness in bilingual learners of various languages (see Geva & Shafman, 2010;

Saiegh-Haddad & Geva, 2008, Ramirez, Chen, Geva & Kiefer, 2009; Ramirez, Lam, & Chen,

2009), though very few studies have focused on English-Hebrew bilinguals (e.g., Bindman, 2004;

Geva, 2007; Geva & Shafman, 2010; Wade-Wooley, 1998). While a rudimentary understanding

of morphological awareness may be transferred from L1 to L2, many questions remain

unanswered. Perhaps most important is the hypothesis that children learning Hebrew as a

foreign language would follow the same developmental trajectory as L1 children, albeit at a

slower pace which is likely dependent on contextual factors such as amount of exposure, and

intra-individual cognitive-linguistic skills (Geva & Shafman, 2010). The present study aimed to

delineate the development of inflectional morphological skills in young children learning

Hebrew as a foreign language (HFL). Of particular interest was whether HFL children follow the

same path in the acquisition of Hebrew noun plurals as native Israeli children. It was

hypothesized that:

1) The development of inflectional morphological skills in children learning Hebrew as a

foreign language (HFL) will follow the same route as native Hebrew speaking children,

albeit at a slower pace. The age at which these skills are acquired will be related to the

onset and amount of Hebrew language exposure.

2) The types of errors that HFL children provide will become progressively more

sophisticated with the introduction of formal literacy (reading/writing) in grade 1. Use

of syntactic (‘rule’) and analogy strategies will increase in grades 1 and 2, while

inefficient guessing (‘wrong’) will decrease. Further, knowledge of rudimentary

vocabulary and receptive skills will be related to increased morphological awareness.

17

Method

Participants were drawn from a Hebrew day-school in Toronto, Canada. A total of one

hundred and ninety-six children in Senior Kindergarten (n = 86), Grade 1 (n = 58) and Grade 2 (n

= 53) participated; all were from mid- to –high socioeconomic status backgrounds. The Senior

Kindergarten children were drawn from five classes (n = 13, 18, 18, 20 and 18, respectively),

totalling 39 males and 50 females, with a mean age of 71.13 months (sd = 3.88). The Grade 1

children were drawn from five classes (n = 9, 10, 12, 13, 13, respectively), totalling 26 males and

31 females, with a mean age of 82.65 months (sd = 3.40). The Grade 2 children were also

drawn from five classes (n = 7, 9, 10, 12, 15, respective), totalling 26 males and 27 females, with

a mean age of 94.68 months (sd = 3.197). Forty-three percent of SK children were the same as

the Grade 1 children (n = 37), and 40% of the Grade 2 children were the same as the grade 1 (n

= 21). There were 49 new children in SK and 32 new children in grade 2 (see Table 1). Consent

was given for 75% of children to participate in the study.

All participants spoke English as their first and home language and were learning

Hebrew as L2 in a bilingual day-school program. Students study the required Ontario English

curriculum half the day, with the other half devoted to the Hebrew language, literacy and

cultural components. From Grade 1 onwards children were exposed to approximately two and

a half hours of Hebrew per day, five days a week (total 12-13 hours per week), with most of the

Hebrew exposure involving working with Hebrew print and text. Four Hebrew teachers were

native speakers of Hebrew, two teachers grew up in a Hebrew-speaking Canadian home, and

two teachers learned Hebrew as a L2 in the Canadian Hebrew day school system. All the

English teachers (n = 8) were native English speakers.

18

Students in Senior Kindergarten had varying degrees of exposure to Hebrew oral

language. Children in the Hebrew immersion program had daily half a day of Hebrew

instruction, with a focus on communicative Hebrew, whereas children in the regular, or non-

immersion program were primarily taught with English instruction. Hebrew language and

literacy in the non-immersion program was fostered through direct teaching of vocabulary and

linguistic patterns. Regardless of program of entry (Immersion or non-immersion), all students

received the same level of Hebrew instruction in Grades 1 and 2. In Grades 1 and 2 the daily

half a day Hebrew program involved oral and literacy skills.

Procedure

The data presented here are part of a larger longitudinal study, and include findings

from two time points, namely, Spring 2007, when the children were in SK, hereafter, Time 1,

and Spring of 2008, when the children were in grade 1, hereafter, Time 2. Within the larger

study data have been collected with both English and Hebrew measures; however, for the

purpose of this study only findings focussing on Hebrew language measures are reported.

Measures were divided into three batteries: one involving one-on-one, and two small group

testing sessions. All instructions for Hebrew measures were given in English in order to ensure

that the child had a complete understanding of what was being asked. Measures were only

administered once the examiner was confident that the child understood the task at hand.

Only those with parental consent were tested (85% of Senior Kindergarten students, 81% of the

Grade 1 students and 60% of the Grade 2 students). Testing was done by undergraduate and

graduate students who were English-Hebrew bilinguals.

19

Measures

Nonverbal ability.

Nonverbal ability was measured using the Matrix Analogies Test – Expanded Form

(MAT; Naglieri, 1985). This is a standardized measure that requires the child to point to the

missing piece of a design from a group of possible fillers.

Receptive vocabulary in English and Hebrew.

Receptive vocabulary was measured using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test – Fourth

Edition (PPVT-4) in both English and Hebrew. This is a standardized measure that requires the

child to point to the picture that best illustrates that word’s meaning. For each item, the child

had to choose from four full-coloured pictures. The Hebrew version of the Peabody Picture

Vocabulary Test – Third Edition was developed by Solberg & Nevo (1979) and standardized for

use among Hebrew monolinguals. As with the English version, students were asked to select

one picture out of four which matched the stimulus word. As the test was designed for native

speakers of Hebrew, only the first 39 items were administered to all children in order to reduce

participant frustration.

20

Expressive Language ability.

Hebrew Expressive language ability (see: Appendix A) was measured using an

experimental expressive language task developed by Geva and Shafman (2010). This task

measured a child’s ability to: a) repeat a three to four word sentence (e.g., The examiner says,

Hayeled mashke et ha-praxim’; ‘The boy is watering the flowers’) and the‘ ;’הילד משקה את הפרחים‘

child must repeat the phrase verbatim; b) answer a question through repetition (e.g., ‘?הילדים

Ha’yeladim koreim sefer ba’ohel. Ma os’im ha’yeladim?’; ‘The‘ ;’הילדים קוראים ספר באוהל. מה עושים

children are reading in the tent. What are the children doing?’) and; c) answer a question that

requires a unique response (e.g.,’ ?מה הם אוכלים ושותים’; ‘Ma hem oxlim v’shotim?’; What are

they eating and drinking?). Task instructions were provided in English so as to ensure

understanding of the directions. There were 15 items on this task. Only three items that

necessitated an understanding of plurals in conversational Hebrew were used in this study (see

Figure 3). Basic understanding of the task was facilitated with pictures. This measure had high

internal consistency (α = .915)

21

Figure 3. Hebrew Expressive Language Items

Task Instructions Item

Part A.

repetition

I am going to show you a picture

and tell you a sentence about it in

Hebrew. Just repeat the sentence

exactly the way I say it. Ready?

.הפרחים הילד משקה את

Part B.

Repetition

through question

I am going to show you a picture

and say something about it. Then

I will ask you a question about it.

Let’s try one.

.באוהל ספר קוראים הילדים

מה עושים הילדים?

Part C.

Question Only

Now I am going to show you a

picture and ask you a question

about it. I want you to tell me the

answer. Let’s try one.

מה הם אוכלים ושותים?

22

Inflectional Morphology.

Real Word Inflections. This experimental task was modeled on Shatil (1997) and

included 14 real, high-frequency Hebrew word pairs. For example, the child would hear:

shvu’ayim, shavuah (two weeks, week), and would be asked in English, “Which word says that

there are two? Shvu’ayim or shavuah?” Only high frequency lexical items were used.

Non-word Inflections. This task was modified from Shatil (1997) in order to create

simplified, age-appropriate inflections for Hebrew L2 children. It included 14 non-word Hebrew

pairs that follow Hebrew inflectional conventions. For example, the child would be asked:

“galvas, galvasit. Which one says that it is for a girl? Galvas or galvasit?” (correct answer:

galvasit).

Analogies. Geva and Shafman (2010) developed this experimental expressive word analogy

task (see: Appendix B) to measure a child’s ability to produce the inflected version of a word, in

a manner analogous to a pair presented first (e.g., perax-praxim;shir-? [answer: shirim]).

Colourful finger puppets were used to make the task more understandable and appealing to

the children. Of the original eighteen items, only six that focused on singular-plural noun

inflections are targeted in this study (see Figure 4). Children’s responses were documented and

coded as either correct or incorrect by both native and non-native Hebrew speakers. In

addition, children’s responses were recorded and their errors were later classified and

analyzed. Errors were classified as (a) erring by analogy (e.g., using the previous item as a

model for one’s response), (b) erring by rule (e.g., employing an incorrect morpho-syntactic

principle) or (c) responses that were simply wrong (e.g., guessing, no response, ‘don’t know’).

23

An interrater reliability analysis using Cronbach’s Alpha was performed to determine

consistency among two independent raters. The analysis revealed moderate to strong

reliability among raters.

24

Figure 4. Hebrew Word Analogy Items

Item Translation

?-שיר; פרחים-פרח

perax—praxim; shir—?

flower (masc., sing.)— flowers (masc., pl.);

song (masc., sing.) – ?

?-יד;עיניים-עין

ayin—eynayim; yad – ?

eye (fem., sing.); eyes (fem., pl. zugiyim);

hand (fem., sing.) – ?

?-כסא;שולחנות-שולחן

shulxan—shulxanot; kiseh – ?

table (masc., sing.) – tables (masc., pl.);

chair (masc., sing.) – ?

?-זיתים;ביצה-ביצים

beitzim—beitza; zaytim – ?

eggs (fem., pl.) – egg (fem., sing.);

olives (masc., pl.) – ?

?-שבועיים;נעל-נעליים

na’alayim—na’al; shvu’ayim – ?

shoes (masc., pl. zugiyim) – shoe (masc., sing.);

two weeks (masc., pl. zugiyim) – ?

?-עצים;פח-פחים

paxim-pax; eitzim – ?

garbage can (masc., pl.) – garbage cans (masc., sing.);

trees (masc., pl.) – ?

25

Results

English Vocabulary. The average standard scores for English vocabulary were 107, 106

and 103 for Senior Kindergarten and Grades 1 and 2, respectively. In all grade levels, the mean

on this receptive language measure were similar and slightly above average (ranging from the

58th to 68th percentile. There were no significant differences on English vocabulary for children

in Senior Kindergarten immersion (M = 107, sd = 10.478) and non-immersion (M = 106, sd =

11.457) programs; t(85) = -.516, p = .607.

Hebrew receptive language abilities were measured using the Hebrew edition of the

PPVT. Standard scores are not reported due to the normative sample consisting of Hebrew

monolingual children. Nevertheless, the mean raw scores were 16.39 (sd = 5.579) in Senior

Kindergarten, 19.84 (sd = 6.114) in Grade 1 and 21.79 (sd = 5.858) in Grade 2. No significant

grade differences were observed (F = (29, 203) = 1.181, p = .250). However, significant program

main effects were noted between children in the Senior Kindergarten immersion (M = 19.06, sd

= 5.112) and non-immersion (M = 12.03, sd = 2.963) programs; t(85) = -7.182, p = .000.

The average standard scores for nonverbal intelligence, as measured by the MAT, were

110, 108 and 109 for Senior Kindergarten (immersion and non-immersion) and Grades 1 and 2,

respectively. In other words, the immersion and non-immersion groups did not vary on their

English vocabulary and non-verbal ability. However, Hebrew immersion children had better

Hebrew vocabulary.

26

The development of inflectional morpho-syntactic skills

Real and Non-Word Inflections.

The real and non-word Hebrew inflectional morphology tasks examined the

development of rudimentary aspects of familiarity with morpho-syntax in Hebrew L2 children.

This task required children to identify the correct inflection from two possible options.

Masculine/feminine plurals: Results (see Table 2) indicate that the mean number of

correctly identified inflections significantly increased by grade (that is, from senior kindergarten

to grade 2) for masculine/feminine real words (χ²= (8, n = 196) = 25.593, p = .001, Ø = .361) and

masculine/feminine non-words (χ²= (8, n = 196) = 37.961, p = .000, Ø = .440).

Singular/plural: Students were required to identify which of two words indicated

singularity or plurality. There was a significant increase by grade on both singular/plural real

words (χ²= (4, n = 196) = 18.344, p = .001, Ø = .306) and singular/plural non-words (χ²= (4, n =

196) = 23.709 p = .000, Ø = .348) (see Table 2).

Zugiyim: With regard to the special category of real word zugiyim (pairs) there was a

grade effect as well (χ²= (4, n = 196) = 27.913, p = .000, Ø = .377), However, there was no

significant grade effect on non-word zugiyim (pairs) (χ²= (4, n = 196) = 4.922, p = .295) (see Table

2).

Performance on real and non-word pairs was also examined between students in the

immersion and non-immersion program in Senior Kindergarten and Grade 1 (see table 4). In

Senior Kindergarten, children in the immersion program performed significantly better than

27

those in the non-immersion program on real word zugiyim (pairs) (χ²= (2, n = 86) = 6.355 p =

.042, Ø = .272) and singular-plural non-words (χ²= (2, n = 86) = 5.980, p = .050, Ø = .264). All

other categories yielded comparable (and low) performance between programs. Similarly, no

program differences were observed in Grade 1 on real and non-word tasks.

In sum, the real word and non-word inflectional morphology tasks revealed that the

rudimentary aspects of familiarity with morpho-syntax in Hebrew L2 children increased over

time and by grade. Further, it appears that children in the immersion program had a slight

advantage over their non-immersion peers on tasks that involved real word zugiyim and

singular-plural non-words.

Hebrew Expressive Language.

Descriptive statistics pertaining to the emergence of Hebrew conversational skills are

presented in Table 5. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated a significant grade

effect in children’s ability to repeat Hebrew sentences verbatim (F = (100, 3) = 16.703, p = .000)

and repetition through question (F = (100, 3) = 13.300, p = .000) from Senior Kindergarten to

Grade 2. The Tukey HSD procedure revealed that all pairwise differences among grade means

were significant, ( p <0 .05), with the exception of Grade 1 and SK immersion, whose means

were not significantly different. Significant grade effects were also found in children’s ability to

respond to a question based on the statement (F = (100, 3) = 4.802, p = .004) from SK to Grade

2. Post-hoc Tukey’s HSD tests showed that children in Grades 1 and 2 had significantly higher

scores than children in the Senior Kindergarten non-immersion program. All other comparisons

were not significant. Further, it was noted that there was a floor effect among children in the

28

SK non-immersion when answering a question through repetition (M = 0, sd = 0). This is in

contrast with children in the immersion program where there was somewhat more variability;

some children scored slightly higher, and the mean score was 0.86 (sd = 1.458). Similar

immersion and non-immersion differences were observed on the question only sub-component

of this task. Children in the non-immersion program were less able to answer the questions in

Hebrew, and more likely to provide partial answers (M = .08, sd = .277). In the immersion

program children seemed more likely to offer a partial answer in Hebrew than none at all (M =

0.51, sd = .887). Based on the data, it appears that there is a trend for the Hebrew immersion

students to consistently achieve slightly higher scores than children in the non-immersion

group on tasks that measure Hebrew conversational skills.

Hebrew Expressive Word Analogies.

The proportion of students who answered the Hebrew expressive word analogy task

correctly was .26, .43 and .55 in Senior Kindergarten (SK), Grade 1 and 2, respectively (see

Figure 5). A chi-square test revealed that the difference in proportions is significant, χ 2

= (12, n

= 195) = 71.697, p = .000, Ø = .518. With the exception of item 7, significant differences in

performance were observed across grades. Descriptive statistics for the inflectional

morphology analogy task are presented in Table 6.

In sum, inflectional morpho-syntactic skills appear to develop gradually, and over time.

This was seen by significant increases in performance by grade across all measures. Children

progressively attained greater familiarity with the rudimentary aspects of morpho-syntax and

29

demonstrated some improvement in basic conversational skills. A comprehensive and

qualitative analysis of the Hebrew Expressive Analogy Task provides an illustration of how these

morpho-syntactical skills emerge in young Hebrew language learners.

Order of Acquisition

Our exploratory study was designed on the premise that children would gradually

acquire morpho-syntactical structures; however, it was expected that they would differ as to

when one might see the emergence of various structures. More specifically, based on Ravid

and Shiff’s (2009) study of Hebrew monolingual children, it was expected that Hebrew

Language Learners would also acquire command of Hebrew nouns in stages. For example,

nouns with non-changing stems and regular or irregular suffixes were predicted to result in

higher performance scores than nouns with changing stems and both regular and irregular

suffixes. Error analysis revealed that children learning Hebrew as L2 perform at varying levels

depending on the classes of nouns. Items were divided in terms of relative difficulty (i.e., low,

moderate, and hard) on the basis of both baseline performance and performance over time.

Item difficulty for the Hebrew Expressive Analogy Task is presented in Figure 4; sample errors

are presented in Appendix D. The mean interrater reliability was high, Kappa = 092, ranging

from Kappa = 0.829 to 1.000 (see Appendix C).

30

Low Difficulty.

Item 2 (perax-prachim; shir- ?” *answer: shirim+) targets regular plurals. It

demonstrated a high rate of accuracy among students in SK (69%) and grade 1 (89%), reaching

ceiling by grade 2 (100%). This grade effect was significant (χ² = (2, n = 196) = 25.369, p = .000, Ø

= .360).

There was an interaction of grade by program: Children in the SK immersion program

provided twice as many correct responses than those in the non-immersion program (χ 2 = (1, n

= 86) = 8.190, p = .004, Ø = .295); however, no group differences were observed in grades 1 or 2

Moderate Difficulty.

Item 3 (“Ayin-Eynaim; Yad-?” *answer: Yadayim+) which targets the pluralisation of

zugiyim demonstrated a significant effect for grade (χ² = (2, n = 195) = 37.315, p = .000, Ø =

.401). Likewise, significant increases in response accuracy were observed on items 12

(“Shulxan-Shulxanot; Kiseh-?” *answer: Kis’ot+) which measures the ability to inflect a noun with

a changing stem and irregular suffix, and item 16 (“Paxim-Pax; Eitzim-?” *answer: Eitz+) which

measures the ability to transform a regular masculine noun from plural to its singular form ( χ² =

(2, n = 195) = 7.272, p = .026, Ø = .190 and χ² = (2, n = 195) = 37.279, p = .000, Ø = .401,

respectively).

No program differences were found between Senior Kindergarten immersion and non-

immersion children on items 3 (χ² = (1, n = 86) = .079, p = .778) and 16 (χ² = (1, n = 86) = 3.470, p

31

= .062). However, a significant program effect was seen on item 12 ; children in the immersion

program performed significantly better than those in the non-immersion program (χ² = (1, n =

86) = 6.786, p = .009, Ø = .281).

High Difficulty.

The two items that yielded high difficulty both targeted a child’s ability to singularize an

irregular noun with a changing stem and either a regular or irregular suffix (e.g., item 6:

Beitzim-Beitza; Zaytim-Zayit and item 7: Na’alayim-Na’al; Shvu’ayim-Shavuah ). Both items

were difficult for all participants across grade levels, with negligible gains despite three years of

exposure to the Hebrew language. Correct responses were observed in five SK immersion

children (9.43%) but none of the SK non-immersion children (0%). In grade 1, 5% of students

responded correctly to items 6 and 7. By grade 2 the total percentage of correct responses

increased to 16%. The proportion of students who demonstrated an increase in correct

responses from SK to grade 2 was found to be significant among students in the non-immersion

program (Item 6: χ 2 = (2, n = 124) = 8.435, p = .015, Ø = .261; Item 7: χ 2 = (2, n = 124) = 7.072, p =

.029, Ø = .239), but not among students in the immersion program (Items 6 and 7: χ 2 = (1, n =

71) = .191, p = .662).

In sum, gradual command of morpho-syntactical structures (i.e., Hebrew noun plurals) is

acquired over time and with exposure to Hebrew instruction. The ability to inflect regular

plurals was acquired early and rapidly; performance reached ceiling by grade 2. In contrast,

regardless of the Hebrew program they attended, students in all grades had difficulty with

32

singularizing irregular nouns with changing stems and regular or irregular suffixes. Finally,

moderate abilities were seen in the children’s ability to inflect zugiyim (pairs), changing stems

with irregular suffixes and transform a regular plural noun into its singular form. In general,

students in the immersion program had a higher rate of accuracy than their non-immersion

peers.

Thus far, analyses have focussed on overall rates of accuracy. The following section will

examine the various strategies that children employed when solving word problems.

Error Analysis

Morpho-syntactic errors were subdivided into three categories: analogy-based, rule-

based, and wrong (the latter category includes random, non-strategy-based guesses and both

verbal and nonverbal indications that the child ‘does not know’ the answer). In addition to

responses that were considered ‘wrong’, some errors appeared to be based on reliance on

analogies or the application of a rule. The latter two were conceptualized as reflecting higher-

order linguistic strategies. In order to observe qualitative changes in strategy use, response

patterns will be described within level of item difficulty as determined by overall trends (see

above).

33

Low Difficulty.

Item 2 (“Perax-Praxim; Shir-?” *answer: Shirim+).

Errors were noted only among students in SK and grade 1; mastery was achieved by

Grade 2. Two children per grade (SK and grade 1) responded to the problem ‘perax-praxim;

shir-?; by a combination of analogy and rule (e.g., shirxim instead of correct shirim). Others

correctly added the suffix ‘im’ to the root ‘shir’, but erred by making an incorrect vowel shift

(e.g., sharim, sherim) or by adding an additional consonant (e.g., shirnim). Random guesses

were only observed in SK; in grade 1 one child incorrectly added the typical female plural suffix

‘ot’ (e.g., shirot; rule strategy), while two children did not respond.

Moderate Difficulty.

Item 3 (“Ayin-Aynayim; Yad-?” *answer: Yadayim+)

The percentage of students who were able to correctly answer the problem: “ayin –

eynayim; yad - ?” (Eye-Eyes. Hand-?) increased from SK (27%) to Grade 1 (69%), reaching a

relative plateau by Grade 2 (74%). A common error was for children to apply the regular

masculine plural suffix /im/ to the stem, thereby stating ‘yadim’ instead of correct ‘yadayim’.

Two children in SK responded ‘yads’, transferring their knowledge of English pluralisation to the

Hebrew context. The number of students who provided random responses dropped from 40%

in SK to 5% by Grade 2. Two children responded by analogy; one in Senior Kindergarten and the

34

other in Grade 1 (e.g., ‘yatayim’ and ‘ya-ayin’). No group differences were observed between

children in the immersion and non-immersion programs (χ 2 = (1, n = 86) = .079, p = .778)

Item 12 (“Shulxan-Shulxanot; Kiseh-?” *Answer: Kis’ot+)

Children in the immersion program were more than two times as likely to answer

“shulxan-shulxanot; kiseh-? ” accurately (i.e., responding with ‘kis’ot; SK: 38%, Grade 1: 65%)

than children in the non-immersion program (SK: 13%, Grade 1: 30%) in both SK (χ 2 = (1, n = 86)

= 6.786, p = .009, Ø = .281) and Grade 1 (χ 2 = (1, n = 57) = 5.970, p = .015, Ø = .324). By Grade 2,

accuracy was observed in more than half of all students (53%) (see: Table 6). Twenty-four

percent of students in Senior Kindergarten and 23% of students in Grade 1 responded with the

incorrect analogy of ’kisanot’. Another common error was for children to apply the suffix /im/

to the stem instead of the correct /ot/ (SK: 17%, Grade 1: 16%).

Item 16 (“Paxim-Pax; Eitzim-?” *answer: Eitz+)

Although merely a trend, a difference between programs was noted at the SK level (χ 2 =

(1, n = 86) = 3.470, p = .062), but not in Grade 1 (χ 2 = (1, n = 57) = .912, p = .340). In SK, 32% of

children in the immersion program responded correctly versus 6% in the non-immersion

program. One out of every two students was correct in Grade 1 (50%). By grade 2, 72% of

students achieved accuracy. The majority of children in Senior Kindergarten offered random

guesses (59%); that number decreased to 21% by Grade 1. Of the strategy-based errors,

35

children typically responded with ‘eitax’ (SK: 9%, Grade 1: 12%), ‘eitza’ (SK: 7%, Grade 1: 10%)

or ‘eitzima’ (SK: 2%, Grade 1, 5%).

High Difficulty

Item 6 (“Beitzim-Beitza; Zaytim-?” *answer: Zayit+)

Only 9% of children in the Senior Kindergarten immersion program and no children from

the non-immersion program answered this item correctly. By grade 1, the rate of accuracy was

6% for children had previously been in the immersion program and 3% for those who had been

in the non-immersion program. A modest increase was seen in Grade 2, with 17% of students

answering this item correctly.

In SK children in the immersion program were significantly more likely to respond to

“beitzim, beitza, zaytim...?” (eggs, egg, olives, ?) with the rule-based “zayta”, the feminized

form of the correct “zayt” (42%) than non-immersion children (approx 9%) (χ 2 = (1, n = 86) =

10.767, p = .001, Ø = .354). In grade 1, 65% of children in the immersion program and 40% of

children in the non-immersion program responded with the rule-based ‘zayta’. Based on the

available data, this strategy seemed to be prevalent among students in grade 2 as well.

Children in both programs were equally likely to answer by analogy, saying ‘zaysa’, instead of

correct ‘zayt’ (9.3% collectively; χ 2 = (1, n = 86) = .000, p = .986).

Another rule-based approach noted in some children was to provide the feminine

singular form of “zaytim” by adding the suffix /a/ (which is typically affixed to the stem only

after removing the feminine plural suffix /ot/). For example, they added the /ah/ phoneme to

36

the item, e.g. ‘zaytima’. Approximately one to three children in each grade level (or 2% of the

sample) were noted to provide this response. In Senior Kindergarten, two responses of

‘zaytima’ were offered by immersion students. In Grades 1 and 2, this particular response was

given by three non-immersion students, as well.

Children in SK, particularly those in the non-immersion program (SK: 81%, Grade 1:

40%), were more likely to provide incorrect guesses or were unable to provide any response,

whereas, 40% of the Senior Kindergarten immersion children and 12% of the Grade 1

immersion children employed an analogy or a rule-based strategy. By grade 1, half of all

children were employing some sort of strategy (50%), whether answering by analogy or

applying an inaccurate, but grammatically conceivable, rule.

Item 7 (“Na’alayim-Na’al; Shvuayim-? [answer: Shavuah])

Almost three quarters of children in SK (73%) and less than half of children in Grade 1

(41%) offered random guesses to the following item: “na’alayim-na’al; shvu’ayim-shavuah”

(shoes-shoes; two weeks/two weeks-week) (e.g., shmuel, shlu’im, shapu, mamet, etc.). Twenty

children in SK indicated that they did not know the answer or were unable to supply a

response. In contrast, children in Grades 1 and 2 were more likely to provide a strategy-based

response. Students frequently responded with fairly common Hebrew words that are

semantically different, but are similar in sound (e.g., shana (year), shavu’ot (festival of weeks),

shvu (sit [masculine, plural, imperative], and shtayim (two), etc.) This type of response was

37

seen in both Senior Kindergarten immersion and non-immersion children (26% and 6%,

respectively).

In conclusion, error analysis of the Hebrew Expressive Analogy Task revealed that in

addition to ‘wrong’ responses, children employed two specific linguistic strategies: reliance on

analogy and the application of a rule. Use of strategies was more prevalent among children in

the immersion program and increased by grade. Conversely, unsystematic guessing, repetition

of the example, or no response, were frequently observed in Senior Kindergarten, particularly

in the non-immersion group. Overall, improvement was seen in both higher-order strategy use

and total accuracy by grade.

Discussion

Learning a language is a multifaceted process that develops over time and with

exposure to the target language. Although a new language learner is initially dumbfounded by

the unfamiliar sounds, she eventually acquires the ability to distinguish between variations in

tone and intonation, followed by the ability to identify individual phonemes and common

linguistic patterns. A growing appreciation of morphosyntax and semantics is born out of

continued contact with the target language and literacy. Due to the inherent complexity of

acquiring a foreign language, it is likely that young language learners will make morpho-

syntactical errors. Indeed, the students in our sample made numerous errors that reflected

their burgeoning morpho-syntactic skills. Participant errors from the Hebrew Expressive Word

Analogy task were categorically analyzed in order to provide information regarding the types of

38

strategies used and the quality of responses over time. Errors notwithstanding, analyses

indicate that primary school children acquire the rudiments of various L2 inflectional skills after

only one to three years of exposure to Hebrew within a formal classroom context.

The results demonstrate that student performance improved from Senior Kindergarten

to Grade 2. Progress was noted in terms of enhanced lexical knowledge, as well as improved

morphological and syntactic skills. Our young language learners received increasing exposure

to the Hebrew language through classroom instruction and literacy. It is reasonable to assume

that the frequency in which any given word might be heard in the general population might

differ from that of the L2 classroom. An informal inquiry among several Hebrew teachers

revealed that words such as “zayit/zaytim” and “beitza/baytzim” are only used occasionally in

the classroom. In a Hebrew immersion classroom, words such as “eitzim, shirim, yadayim and

ki’sot” were reported to be used quite often, whereas they were used less frequently in the

non-immersion context. The different patterns of word usage between teachers of Hebrew

immersion and non-immersion programs confirmed that children in the immersion program

were more likely to be exposed to many of our target words with greater frequently and in a

communicative context.

Student performance on both real and non-word pair measures revealed a growing

awareness of inflectional morphology. Children were increasingly able to identify the correct

inflection out of two possible options, regardless of whether or not they were familiar with the

word. This suggests that young language learners are already able to recognize basic

grammatical principles. General rules are mastered early and can be applied to real and non-

words. However, in the case of zugiyim, which has a more specific rule, improvement is not

39

observed across grade on non-words. In other words, although children may be able to

differentiate between “eynim” and “eynayim” on the basis of familiarity, that knowledge is not

transferred for words which they lack a context. Further, the fact that immersion children

perform significantly better than their non-immersion peers on the zugiyim word pairs suggests

that the greater frequency of exposure contributed to their stronger ability in identifying

grammatically correct forms.

Analysis of Inflectional Analogies

The Hebrew Expressive Word Analogy task asked students to produce the inflected

version of a noun in a manner analogous to a pair presented first. More often than not,

students employed a strategy that reflected a growing awareness of morphological rules

alongside an upward ability to recognize and isolate morphemes that mark Hebrew inflections.

This task was particularly difficult because of its expressive nature; students were required to

generate a new answer based on an example. Independent of their knowledge of word stems,

children demonstrated an ability to use analogies involving fundamental rules for inflections of

nouns, based on gender and number, and then apply that information to produce

morphologically accurate inflections.

The types of responses that the children produced were perceived as a valuable source

of information as to what students have already learned, as well as what remains to be learned.

For that reason, it was essential to conduct a comprehensive error analysis to determine any

patterns in their errors. Three categories of errors were indentified: First, children were noted

to err by mimicking the pattern presented in the first pair. Accordingly, because their

40

responses were dependent upon the preceding word pair or “shell”, such responses were

labelled as ‘analogy’. Another common error was to inaccurately apply a grammatical rule

(e.g., apply a feminine suffix in lieu of a masculine suffix or vice versa). Some errors indicated

that children were simply guessing rather than employing a strategy (‘wrong’). Classifying

participant errors according to the aforementioned categories allowed us to gain a deeper

understanding of the development of early grammatical knowledge in children learning Hebrew

as a second language. We have learnt that the nature of errors varies between immersion and

non-immersion programs and changes over time. Improvement can be seen in both total

accuracy and an increase in usage of strategy-based responses by grade. In line with Ravid’s

(2009) findings on the developmental acquisition of nouns among Hebrew monolingual

children, our L2 sample was highly successful at solving problems that involved a non-changing

stem and regular suffix. For example, children were presented with the word pair perax-praxim

(flowers/s), followed by shir (song). They were expected to produce shirim (songs) and indeed,

many children did so with ease. By Grade 2, the number of correct responses reached ceiling,

signifying a strong understanding of inflecting regular nouns. Irrespective of response accuracy,

the vast majority of answers demonstrated an understanding of the basic task requirement to

transform a singular noun into its plural form. When it came to the error analysis, it was noted

that children in Senior Kindergarten and Grade 1 were equally likely to respond by mimicking

the previous word pair (e.g., shirxim for correct shirim). Similarly, others erred by adding an

additional consonant to the stem (e.g., shirnim) or by making an unnecessary vowel shift (e.g.,

sharim, sherim). Furthermore, unsystematic errors were restricted to Senior Kindergarten. The

ability to inflect a non-changing stem with a regular suffix was mastered by Grade 2 with all

responses being correct.

41

In contrast to the previous item, there were two items that the children found to be

considerably challenging. Performance was poor in Senior Kindergarten, with negligible gains in

Grades 1 and 2 despite several additional years of exposure to the Hebrew language. These

items involved pluralizing nouns with stem changes (with or without suffix irregularities), a

category that Ravid and Shiff (2009) found to be acquired later than nouns that do not require a

stem change. Suffix irregularities, such as vowel shifts, have been suggested to be an obstacle

to young children’s ability to accurately pluralize nouns.

Difficulty was noted when the children heard the noun-pair beitzim-beitza (eggs/egg),

followed by zaytim (olives). They were expected to generate zayit, however many responded

with zayta or zaytza. Although unsuccessful in producing the correct answer, their responses

indicate an awareness of basic syntactical rules (namely, dropping plural suffix /im/ and adding

suffix /ah/ to denote feminine singular), as well as an ability to recognize and retain the word’s

stem. Children appeared to be confounded by this word-pair due to their unfamiliarity with

converting nouns from plural to singular. At the primary level, children are generally educated

in pluralisation without an emphasis on reverse transformation. This, however, may also reflect

biases in teaching methods. Adding to the complexity, this item also necessitated a vowel shift

in the stem. Of those children who singularized the noun, the majority added feminine suffix

/ah/ and retained the original vowel sound. A further explanation as to why this item yielded

low accuracy could be due to low word frequency. Although these foods (i.e., eggs and olives)

play an important role in Jewish culture, particularly around prominent agricultural holidays,

they are not heard with the same degree of frequency in the classroom setting as other words

(e.g., pencil, books, etc.).

42

Likewise, when children were given the noun pair na’alayim-na’al (shoes/shoe),

followed by shvu’ayim (two weeks), children frequently erred by mimicking the pattern

presented in the first pair (e.g., shvu’al instead of correct shavuah [week]) or by adding

singular feminine suffix /ah/ to the example (e.g., shvu’ah). It appears that when asked to

singularize a word, children tend to use strategies that they are familiar with, such as adding a

feminine suffix to the stem. The children’s responses are also akin to Slobin’s (1985) maxim of

Formal Simplicity in that children prefer to retain the original structure of word forms when

transforming them; however, in this case, the children retained the stem of the pluralized form

when singularizing them.

Furthermore, the previously mentioned word pairs are unique in that they belong to

the special category of zugiyim, or nouns that come in pairs. In typical Hebrew, the

pluralisation of masculine singular nouns involves the addition of /im/ (e.g., shir – shirim [song-

songs]). However, in the case of zugiyim, /ayim/ is affixed to the stem. This special class of

nouns may require more advanced knowledge of Hebrew, or perhaps greater exposure to the

target words in both their singular and plural forms. In light of the school’s emphasis on Judaic

and cultural study, the children would be familiar with the word shavuah in the context of

parashat ha’shavuah, or the study of the weekly Bible portion. They would also be somewhat

familiar with the holiday of Shavuot (literal translation: 3 weeks or more)1. Thus, while children

1 Shavuot is a Jewish holiday that commemorates the giving and acceptance of the Torah from

G-d to the Israelite nation. It is called ‘weeks’ because of the seven week period that elapsed

43

hear shavuah on a regular basis, and are aware of the holiday of Shavuot, they may be unaware

that the Hebrew lexicon distinguishes between two weeks (shvu’ayim) versus three or more

(shavuot).

There was another word pair that belonged to the category of zugiyim, but obtained

moderate accuracy. Children heard ayin– eynayim (eye/s), followed by yad (hand). A common

response was yadim instead of correct yadayim (hands). It seems as though many young

language learners have already acquired the basic concatenating rule of adding /im/ to the

noun, but they over-generalized this rule to the zugiyim, or plural noun pairs. Several Senior

Kindergarten children responded with yads. This distinctive response demonstrates language

transference, or the application of knowledge from their native English language to Hebrew.

Although nouns that belong to the special class of zugiyim are particularly challenging

for young Hebrew as L2 language learners, children were much more successful in providing the

correct inflection for yadayim than for shavuah. The variance in accuracy between the two

items may be due to several factors, including the direction that children are asked to inflect

the word (i.e., transforming the noun from singular to plural versus plural to singular). A

further difference is the extent to which children are familiar with the meaning of words. At

the primary level, body parts are heard frequently in everyday conversation (e.g., ‘Put your

between the Israelite’s redemption from Egypt (Passover) and the receiving of the Torah

(Shavuot) on Mount Sinai.

44

hands on the desk’), as well as through song (e.g., ‘Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes’).

Therefore, both noun regularity and word frequency are implicated as aspects of a child’s

success in correctly inflecting words.

Exposure also appeared to play a large role in the children’s ability to answer another

moderately difficulty word pair. Children were given the word pairs shulxan – shulxanot

(desk/s), followed by kiseh (chair) chairs. Although the expected answer was kis’ot (chairs),

children across all programs and grades frequently erred by responding with kisim (i.e.,

incorrect application of masculine plural suffix) and kisanot (analogy - mimicking the preceding

pattern). In the rule-based strategy, children used previously acquired morpho-syntactic

knowledge to solve the problem by affixing the regular masculine plural suffix /im/ to the stem

instead of the feminine plural suffix /ot/. Of those children who responded with the correct

suffix, errors were commonly noted in the absence or misuse of vowel shifts. The relatively

high number of problem solving strategies employed by even the youngest of our language

learners indicates that they have implicit awareness of the morphological structure of inflected

nouns. Indeed, as the children matured, not only did the rate of accuracy significantly increase,

but the amount of non-strategy based responses decreased.

Similarly, in yet a third item that yielded moderate accuracy, a high proportion of

students in Senior Kindergarten offered non-strategy responses (i.e., random guesses), whereas

by Grade 1, they demonstrated an ability to use higher-order strategies in their attempt to

solve the problems. Children were given the word pair paxim– pax (garbage cans/garbage can),

followed by eitzim (trees). The correct answer was eitz (tree). This item was particularly

challenging for children in Senior Kindergarten. Half of all children in the Senior Kindergarten

45

Hebrew immersion program and three-quarters of those in the non-immersion program either

guessed, abstained or verbally indicated that they did not know the answer. According to a

Hebrew Frequency Word List (Haramati, 1983), paxim, or garbage cans, is listed as an

uncommon word, whereas eitzim, or trees, is reported to have a relatively high word

frequency. A pattern that has become evident from this data is that children seem to have

difficulty with singularizing plural nouns. Nevertheless, because the word eitz was familiar to

the children, there was a steep increase in accuracy scores from Senior Kindergarten to Grade 1

(13% and 50%, respectively). In terms of strategies, a common analogy-based error was eitzax

(a combination of eitz and pax), whereas eitza and eitzima were categorized as rule-based

errors. In singularizing the noun, some children incorrectly affixed the feminine singular suffix

/a/ to the stem. Likewise, those who answered with eitzima, also attempted to make the noun

feminine singular, but retained the plural suffix /im/.

In sum, although children are moving in the direction of correctly inflecting words, they

tend to apply high frequency, salient, simple to apply inflectional patterns such as those

involving male-female nouns, as well as the basic way of noting plurality. Our findings are in

agreement with Ravid and Shiff (2009) in that suffix regularity and stem transparency were

found to be two major obstacles in the pluralisation of Hebrew nouns in this L2 sample.

Furthermore, much like young Hebrew monolingual children, our sample of Hebrew language

learners had difficulty with unpredictable suffixation (e.g., suffixes that violated gender and

phonological markings) and stem changes (e.g., vowel deletion/change). Taken together,

although children learning Hebrew as a foreign language had some difficulty with suffix

46

irregularity and stem changes, their errors indicate that they are moving towards an

understanding of plural formation.

Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research

Various factors limit the generalizability of the results and point to future research.

Possible limitations for the current study are that our sample was predominately from mid- to –

high socioeconomic status backgrounds. Furthermore, participants were taken from a school

that places a particularly strong emphasis on scholarly achievement. Therefore, we cannot

predict how students from marginalized or less affluent environments might perform on

measures of morphology. Secondly, because this study was part of a larger project, the

measures were not exclusively focused on Hebrew noun plurals. Analyses were limited to a

select number of pre-existing items that met our study’s inclusion criteria. We were also

limited by the fact that participants were novices. For this reason item types could not be

completely controlled. A further limitation is that our sample was unequal by grade and by

program size. Nevertheless, the results are highly informative as to how Hebrew noun plurals

are acquired in children learning Hebrew as L2.

Further research should continue to evaluate the acquisition of Hebrew noun plurals in

young language learners in a larger, more diverse sample. Measures should be expanded to

include items that evaluate the various categories of Hebrew noun plurals with a control of

frequency and item type. Although costly, a longitudinal study that follows several cohorts of

students from Senior Kindergarten throughout grade school would be the ideal method to

examine developmental trajectories.

47

Figure 5. Percent of children who provided the correct answer for the Hebrew Word Analogies

across grades and programs (immersion vs. non-immersion).

48

49

Table 1. Number of participants at Time 1 and 2.

Time 1 - Spring 2008 Time 2 - Spring 2008

SK Regular N = 13*

SK Immersion N = 36*

SK Non-

Immersion

N = 19* Grade 1 (Non-

Immersion)

N = 19**

SK Immersion N = 18* Grade 1 (IM) N = 18**

Grade 1 N = 21* Grade 2 N = 21**

Grade 2 N = 32*

* New participants

** Repeat participants

50

Table 2. Descriptive Statistics for Real and Nonword Inflections in SK (n = 86), Grades 1 (n = 57)

and 2 (n = 53)

Measure Grade Mean Range Percent Correct

χ²

Male/Female (Real words)

SK 1 2

2.22 2.65 3.00

0-4 56 66 75

χ²= (8, n = 196) = 25.593, p = .001, Ø = .361**

Male/Female Nonwords

SK 1 2

2.74 3.16 3.60

0-4 69 79 90

χ²= (8, n = 196) = 37.961, p = .000, Ø = .440**

Zugiyim (Pairs) Real words

SK 1 2

1.45 1.72 1.92

0-2 77 86 96

χ²= (4, n = 196) = 27.913, p = .000, Ø = .377**

Zugiyim (Pairs) Nonwords

SK 1 2

1.42 1.42 1.25

0-2 71 71 62

χ²= (4, n = 196) = 4.922, p = .295 (n.s.)

Sing./Pl. Real words

SK 1 2

1.65 1.74 1.98

0-2 83 87 99

χ²= (4, n = 196) = 18.344, p = .001, Ø = .306**

Sing./Pl. Nonwords

SK 1 2

1.28 1.53 1.81

0-2 64 76 91

χ²= (4, n = 196) = 23.709 p = .000, Ø = .348**

51

Table 3. Descriptive Statistics for Real-word and Non-word Inflectional Pairs by Grade

Measure

(Grade)

Mean SD Percent

Correct

X2

Masc./Fem (SK)

Real Words x

Non-words

2.22

2.74

.999

.870

56

69

χ²= (16, n = 86) = 10.148 p = .859

Masc./Fem (G1)

Real Words x

Non-words

2.65

3.16

1.009

.774

66

79

χ²= (12, n = 57) = 16.399, p = .174

Masc./Fem (G2)

Real Words x

Non-words

3.00

3.60

1.038

.631

75

90

χ²= (6, n = 53) = 7.805 p = .253

52

Table 4. Descriptive Statistics for Real and Nonword Inflectional Pairs by program (SK [n = 86]

and Grade 1 [n = 57])

Measure Program Mean Percent

Correct

χ²

Masc/Fem

(Real words)

SK Non-Immersion

SK Immersion

G1 Non-Immersion

G1 Immersion

2.06

2.31

2.55

2.88

52

58

64

72

χ²= (4, n = 86) = 3.098, p = .542 (n.s.)

χ²= (4, n = 57) = 3.382, p = .496 (n.s.)

Masc/Fem

Nonwords

SK Non-Immersion

SK Immersion

G1 Non-Immersion

G1 Immersion

2.84

2.69

3.18

3.12

71

67

79

78

χ²= (4, n = 86) = 7.475, p = .113 (n.s.)

χ²= (4, n = 57) = .975, p = .807 (n.s.)

Zugiyim

Real words

SK Non-Immersion

SK Immersion

G1 Non-Immersion

G1 Immersion

1.25

1.57

1.67

1.82

63

79

84

91

χ²= (2, n = 86) = 6.355 p = .042, Ø =

.272*

χ²= (2, n = 57) = 1.137, p = .566 (n.s.)

53

Zugiyim

Nonwords

SK Non-Immersion

SK Immersion

G1 Non-Immersion

G1 Immersion

1.38

1.44

1.50

1.24

69

72

75

62

χ²= (2, n = 86) = .627, p = .731 (n.s.)

χ²= (2, n = 57) = 2.355, p = .308 (n.s.)

Sing./Pl.

Real words

SK Non-Immersion

SK Immersion

G1 Non-Immersion

G1 Immersion

1.53

1.72

1.78

1.65

77

86

89

82

χ²= (2, n = 86) =4.156, p = .125 (n.s.)

χ²= (2, n = 57) = 2.434, p = .296 (n.s.)

Sing./Pl.

Nonwords

SK Non-Immersion

SK Immersion

G1 Non-Immersion

G1 Immersion

1.06

1.41

1.45

1.71

53

70

73

85

χ²= (2, n = 86) = 5.980, p = .050, Ø =

.264*

χ²= (2, n = 57) = 2.298, p = .317 (n.s.)

54

Table 5. Descriptive Statistics for Hebrew Expressive Language (SK, Grades 1 and 2, n = 104).

Task Grade M SD One-Way Analysis of Variance

Repetition SK-Immersion

SK Non-Immersion

1

2

2.09

0.46

2.56

3.75

1.522

0.776

1.520

0.789

F = (100, 3) = 16.703, p = .000

Repetition

through

question

SK-Immersion

SK Non-Immersion

1

2

.86

0

1.19

2.80

1.458

0

1.489

1.361

F = (100, 3) = 13.300, p = .000

Question

Only

SK-Immersion

SK Non-Immersion

1

2

0.51

0.08

1.19

1.25

0.887

0.227

1.390

1.410

F = (100, 3) = 4.802, p = .004

55

Table 6. Descriptive Statistics for Hebrew Word Analogies in SK (n = 86), Grades 1 (n = 57) and 2

(n = 53).

Item # Grade Mean SD Percent

Correct

χ²

2 SK

1

2

.69

.89

1.00

.467

.310

.000

44

88

100

χ²= (2, n = 196) = 25.369, p = .000, Ø = .339**

3 SK

1

2

.27

.68

.73

.445

.469

.448

17

67

74

χ² = (2, n = 195) = 37.315, p = .000, Ø = .401**

6 SK

1

2

.06

.05

.17

.235

.225

.382

4

5

17

χ² = (2, n = 195) = 6.588, p = .037, Ø = .181*

7 SK

1

2

.06

.05

.15

.235

.225

.364

4

3

15

χ² = (2, n = 195) = 4.867, p = .088, Ø = .156

56

12 SK

1

2

.29

.40

.52

.457

.495

.505

19

40

53

χ² = (2, n = 195) = 7.272, p = .026, Ø = .190*

16 SK

1

2

.20

.51

.71

.401

.504

.457

13

50

72

χ² = (2, n = 195) = 37.279, p = .000, Ø = .401**

Total SK

1

2

1.56

2.60

3.29

1.242

1.132

1.194

26

43

55

χ² = (12, n = 195) = 71.697, p = .000, Ø = .518

*Significant at the .05 level.

** Significant at the .001 level

57

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Appendices

APPENDIX A

Hebrew Expressive Language - Part A. repetition

If a child does not know a word- do NOT correct him/ her. Tell them to try their best and guess.

I am going to show you a picture and tell you a sentence about it in Hebrew. Just repeat the

sentence exactly the way I say it. Ready?

יושבת הילדה A

Keep repeating and correcting ‘A’ if necessary until child repeats correctly. Then say “let’s do

some more!”

1 לילדה יש יום הולדת

2 הכלב על המטה

3 הילד אוהב לשחות

4 הילדה בונה איש–שלג

5 הילד משקה את הפרחים

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Hebrew Expressive Language - Part B. repetition through question

I am going to show you a picture and say something about it. Then I will ask you a question

about it. Let’s try one.

B הילדה מציירת. מה עושה הילדה? הילדה מציירת

If the child is incorrect- repeat the question and tell them the answer. Keep repeating and

correcting ‘B’ if necessary until child understands what to do. Do not teach them how to do it-

simply keep repeating and telling them to answer the question. Then say, “let’s do some more!”

6 היא אוכלת גלידה. מה היא אוכלת?

7 הילד משחק בשלג. איפה הילד משחק?

8 הילד קורא ספור לאבא. למי הילד קורא ספור?

9 הילד מקפל את הבגדים שלו. מה עושה הילד?

10 הילדים קוראים ספר באוהל. מה עושים הילדים?

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Hebrew Expressive Language - Part C. Question only

Now I am going to show you a picture and ask you a question about it. I want you to tell me the

answer. Let’s try one.

בחבל קופצת C מה עושה הילדה? הילדה

If the child is incorrect- repeat the question and tell them the answer. Keep repeating and

correcting ‘C’ if necessary until child understands what to do. Do not teach them how to do it-

simply keep repeating and telling them to answer the question. Then say, “let’s do some more!”

11 מה צבע הבלון?

12 עם מי הילדה משחקת?

13 מה עושה הילד?

14 מה הם אוכלים ושותים?

15 ספר לי מה קורה פה?

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APPENDIX B

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APPENDIX C

Interrater reliability for Hebrew Word Analogies using Cohen’s Kappa.

Item

2

Item

3

Item

6

Item

7

Item

12

Item

16

Correct 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00

Analogy 1.00 .949 .876 .829 .926 .788

Rule .829 .940 .829 .896 .896 1.00

Wrong .896 .896 .905 .847 1.00 .952

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APPENDIX D

Sample Errors for Hebrew Word Analogies.

Item Example Errors

2 Perax-Praxim (flower/flowers);

Shir-Shirim (song/songs)

shirxim, sharim, sherim, shirnim, shivim, sherot,

shir-shir, shiri, shimunim, ganit, shevet, shir, etc.

3 Ayin-Aynayim (eye/eyes);

Yad-Yadayim (hand/hands)

yatayim, ya-ayin, yadim, yada, yadot, yad,

beyad, veyad, beyachad, apayim, yads, yarok,

yayin, yadi, yaldayim, etc.

6 Beitzim-Beitza (eggs/egg);

Zaytim-Zayit (olives/olive)

Zeitza, zeita, zeila, tzayta, zaytima, zayim,

zay’two’im, zayzay, zira, zayti, zaytilim, busy,

malbeka, etc.

7 Na’alayim-Na’al (shoes/shoe);

Shvuayim-Shavuah (weeks/week)

Shvu’al, shaval, sha’al, shvuah, shvusha, shvula,

shvu’at, shviya, shova, shvu, shtayim, shavuot,

shana, sha’al, shvi, etc.

12 Shulxan-Shulxanot (desk/desks);

Kiseh-Kis’ot (chair/chairs)

kisanot, kesinot, kixanot, kosnot, kiserim,

kisah’im, kasot, kisenim, kisim, kosim, kisanim,

kisanoset, koset, kisedet, kisoti, etc.

16 Paxim-Pax (garbage cans/garbage

can); Eitzim-Eitz (trees/tree)

yasax, eitzax, sax, eitza, atzima, atzit, eitzim,

eitzot, asara, aha, asira, asmexem, etc.

71