Bilingual children's long‐term outcomes in English as a second language: language environment factors shape individual differences in catching up with monolinguals

Abstract

Bilingual children experience more variation in their language environment than monolingual children and this impacts their rate of language development with respect to monolinguals. How long it takes for bilingual children learning English as a second language (L2) to display similar abilities to monolingual age-peers has been estimated to be 4-6 years, but conflicting findings suggest that even 6 years in school is not enough. Most studies on long-term L2 development have focused on just one linguistic sub-domain, vocabulary, and have not included multiple individual difference factors. For the present study, Chinese first language-English L2 children were given standardized measures of vocabulary, grammar and global comprehension every year from 4 ½ to 6 ½ years of English in school (ages 8½ to 10½); language environment factors were obtained through an extensive parent questionnaire. Children converged on monolingual norms differentially according to the test, with the majority of children reaching monolingual levels of performance on the majority of tests by 5 ½ years of English exposure. Individual differences in outcomes were predicted by length of English exposure, mother's education, mother's English fluency, child's use of English in the home, richness/quality of the English input outside school and age of arrival in Canada. In sum, the timeframe for bilinguals to catch up to monolinguals depends on linguistic sub-domain, task difficulty and on individual children's language environment, making 4-6 years an approximate estimate only. This study also shows that language environment factors shape not only early-stage but also late-stage bilingual development.

Children's Second Language Acquisition of English Complex Syntax: The Role of Age, Input, and Cognitive Factors

“…Descriptions for these variables are in Table 2. For more details about ALEQ administration and scoring, see Paradis (2011) and Paradis and Jia (2016).…”

The acquisition of tense morphology over time by English second language children with specific language impairment: Testing the cumulative effects hypothesis

“…Leonard and colleagues have hypothesized that memory and processing limitations could interfere with the uptake of language input and, in so doing, be one proximal cause of the language learning difficulties exhibited by children with SLI (Leonard, 2014; Leonard et al, 2007; but see Oetting & Hadley, 2009). Bilingual children, both simultaneous bilinguals from birth and sequential bilinguals/second language (L2) learners, experience more variation in their linguistic environment than monolingual children: they receive less input, on average, in each language than monolinguals; the relative amount of input in each language can be unequal and change over time; the diversity of interlocutors and contexts for use can differ between their languages; and in the case of sequential bilinguals, their learning of each language is staggered in age of onset (e.g., Grüter & Paradis, 2014; Paradis & Jia, 2016). Because bilingualism and SLI have consequences for children's experiences with linguistic input and for their potential uptake of that input, it has been hypothesized that dual language learning would be extraordinarily difficult for children with SLI (Crutchley, Conti-Ramsden, & Botting, 1997; Jordaan, Shaw-Ridley, Serfontein, Orelowitz, & Monaghan, 2001; Orgassa, 2009; Orgassa & Weerman, 2008; Steenge, 2006; Verhoeven, Steenge, & van Balkom, 2011; Verhoeven, Steenge, van Weerdenburg, & van Balkom, 2011).…”

Syntactic development in early foreign language learning: Effects of L1 transfer, input, and individual factors

“…Hence, we investigate whether similar acquisitional patterns arise in early FL development. In quantitative terms, we pursue the question whether nonimmersed FL learners can approximate monolingual levels of comprehension accuracy within the same time span as naturalistic child L2 learners who live in an L2 environment (Paradis & Jia, 2016). Several studies suggest that naturalistic child L2 learners take between 4 and 6 years of sustained exposure to reach similar levels as their monolingual peers (Hakuta, Goto Butler, & Witt, 2000;Saunders & O'Brien, 2006), with older learners demonstrating speedier initial learning (Paradis, 2011).…”

“…Hence, we operationalize type of input via type of school. From an applied perspective, then, this study determines the amount of input required for EFL children to approximate or reach monolingual performance in complex syntax (see Paradis & Jia, 2016), and it gauges the effects of early partial immersion schooling (Wesche, 2002).…”