Perception of English phonetic contrasts by Dutch children: How bilingual are 
early-English learners?

Goriot, Claire; McQueen, James M.; Unsworth, Sharon; Van Hout, Roeland

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0229902

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Perception of English phonetic contrasts by Dutch children: How bilingual are early-English learners?

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Goriot, Claire
Center for Language Studies , External Organizations;
International Max Planck Research School for Language Sciences, MPI for Psycholinguistics, Max Planck Society;

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McQueen, James M.
Research Associates, MPI for Psycholinguistics, Max Planck Society;
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, External Organizations;

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Citation

Goriot, C., McQueen, J. M., Unsworth, S., & Van Hout, R. (2020). Perception of English phonetic contrasts by Dutch children: How bilingual are early-English learners? PLoS One, 15(3): e0229902. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0229902.

Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0005-DD34-8

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate whether early-English education benefits the perception
of English phonetic contrasts that are known to be perceptually confusable for Dutch
native speakers, comparing Dutch pupils who were enrolled in an early-English programme
at school from the age of four with pupils in a mainstream programme with English instruction
from the age of 11, and English-Dutch early bilingual children. Children were 4-5-yearolds
(start of primary school), 8-9-year-olds, or 11-12-year-olds (end of primary school).
Children were tested on four contrasts that varied in difficulty: /b/-/s/ (easy), /k/-/ɡ/ (intermediate),
/f/-/θ/ (difficult), /ε/-/æ/ (very difficult). Bilingual children outperformed the two other
groups on all contrasts except /b/-/s/. Early-English pupils did not outperform mainstream
pupils on any of the contrasts. This shows that early-English education as it is currently
implemented is not beneficial for pupils’ perception of non-native contrasts.