In light of the dramatic growth of Chinese learners worldwide and a need for cross-linguistic research on Chinese literacy development, this study drew upon theories of visual complexity effect (Su and Samuels, 2010) and dual-coding processing (Sadoski and Paivio, 2013) and investigated (a) the effects of character properties (i.e., visual complexity and radical presence) on character acquisition and (b) the relationship between individual learner differences in radical awareness and character acquisition. Participants included adolescent English-speaking beginning learners of Chinese in the U.S. Following Kuo et al. (2014), a novel character acquisition task was used to investigate the process of acquiring the meaning of new characters. Results showed that (a) characters with radicals and with less visual complexity were easier to acquire than characters without radicals and with greater visual complexity; and (b) individual differences in radical awareness were associated with the acquisition of all types of characters, but the association was more pronounced with the acquisition of characters with radicals. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings were discussed.

Despite the rising number of linguistically diverse students in countries where English is the primary medium of instruction in schools, there is a relative lack of research on how these students learn to write in English and respond to common classroom literacy practices. One practice found in early childhood classrooms is literacy-enriched play, but little research explores how young English language learners respond to this particular intervention. This exploratory study examines three linguistically diverse kindergarten students' use of writing materials in a literacy-enriched block centre in their classroom. Observational notes and writing samples produced by the students during block play were analyzed to determine the frequency and variety of their writing behaviours. The results indicated that all the students, regardless of language background, incorporated drawing and writing into their block play with similar frequency, although they sometimes used different writing strategies. These findings indicated that literacyenriched centres can provide linguistically diverse students with meaningful opportunities to practice writing.

Scholars use the term emergent biliteracy as children's ability to think, write, read, speak and listen in two languages (Reyes, 2006, p. 269). In this regard, one of the abilities that are in the spot of research is emergent writing, which is defined by Byington and Kim (2017) as young children's first attempts at the writing process; however, several studies have been focused on emergent writing development in children's first language. Hence, the aim of this research project was to articulate and determine translanguaging and play-based and their impact on children's emergent writing development in English. Five lessons were implemented considering translanguaging and play-based strategies with 10 kindergarten children from a private school in Pereira. Results from the analysis provide evidence that the emergent writing aspects such as stages, features, constructive aspects, and domains, were affected by translanguaging goals and strategies and play-based abilities. Implications for understanding emergent writing development as means of lesson plans, categories of emergent writing, and theory are discussed.

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