Abstracts - Earli

In this field, results accumulated over the last twenty five years showed that individual actions andenunciations solving a problem do not express only data processing operative mechanisms, butrather interpretative processes about various situational parameters: "Even if the individual seemsto lead on his own the sense making, no one can succeed without symbolic systems specific to theculture" (Bruner, 1996). Rational stakes of knowledge exist simultaneously with different stakes,social, relational, and depending on constraints, for instance semiotic. More precisely, our studyanalyses individual or social processes happening during the construction of a representation and asolution to physics problems. A simulative situation, called Marbles Moves, is presented tochildren (13 years old) and young adults (16-17 years old), for them to manipulate variables andunderstand various physics notions. Sequences analysis allows us to stress various "profiles"according to the task representations and problem solving strategies. It is noticeable for some ofthese results how much they are directly bound to the mediation tool.E 1929 August 2007 14:30 - 16:30Room: KonferenciaSymposiumEarly modern foreign language programs: processes and outcomesChair: Marianne Nikolov, University of Pécs, HungaryOrganiser: Marianne Nikolov, University of Pécs, HungaryDiscussant: Helena Curtain, Univesrity of Wisconsin Milwaukee, USARecently a worldwide increase has been documented in early foreign language programmes basedon claims of the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) and “the earlier the better” slogan. State-of-theartreviews (e.g., Johnstone, 2002; Kubanek-German, 1998; Nikolov, 2002), internationalcomparisons (Nikolov & Curtain, 2000; Nikolov & Mihaljevic Djigunovic, 2006), conferences andlanguage policy documents indicate that despite the “questionable impact” (DeKeyser & Larson-Hall, 2005, p. 101) of CPH-related discussions, there is an enormous interest in early programmes.The aim of the symposium is to discuss some important issues emerging from recent research(e.g., Blondin, Candelier, Edelenbos, Johnstone, Kubanek-German & Taeschner, 1998; Edelenbos& Johnstone, 1996, Moon & Nikolov, 2000) by examining processes and outcomes in fourEuropean contexts: Ireland, Croatia, Hungary, and Poland. John Harris’s paper examines theexperiences and attitudes of Irish pupils to learning a second indigenous language, Irish, and athird foreign language besides English, their L1. Jelena Mihaljevic Djigunovic presents findingsobtained in comparative longitudinal studies on English, French, German and Italian introduced atage 7 in Croatia. Two studies present results on Hungarian language learners: Marianne Nikolovand Krisztián Józsa examine the impact of macro factors on 6th graders’ achievements in Englishand German, whereas Andrea Orosz zooms in on the relationship between vocabulary learning andfrequency and distribution of vocabulary items in teaching materials. Polish teachers of younglanguage learners were involved in a small-scale study conducted by Mariola Boguckadocumenting complex ways in which change initiated in European documents is integrated intoteaching practice. Although the educational contexts and conditions vary to a great extent, findingsof these studies may be relevant for other educational contexts. A special strength of thesymposium lies in the variety of target languages and in presenting both longitudinal and crosssectionalresearch involving both large and small numbers of participants.– 300 –