Children's Form-Meaning Connections to Verb Phrases and Exemplar-Based Learning in Japanese Elementary School

Abstract

Children who learn English through verbal input in Japanese elementary schools are exposed to many exemplars and are given the opportunity to imitate and repeat what they hear and to connect the meaning with the English sound. This procedure, termed "exemplar-based learning", contrasts significantly with rule-based learning. VanPatten(1993) claims that "form-meaning connections (FMCs)", an essential process for successful communications, makes for better input-processing. The rationales indicate that children's adaptation to FMCs may represent how children notice FMCs. One of the objectives of this study is to analyze to what degree children can notice FMCs to verb phrases (such as need an umbrella, give a flower to X) at certain grade levels. The results demonstrated that the more input children absorbed, the more successfully they noticed FMCs, even to previously unfamiliar verbs. Secondly, we examine whether children from 4^<th> grade and up merely memorize "chunks" or begin to develop analytical learning of schematized patterns (such as need X, and give X to Y). The result suggested that the higher graders might find some schematized patterns transiently, however, to identify children's schematization, further data will need to be collected.