Development of English and French Language and Literacy Skills in EL1 and EL French Immersion Students in the Early Grades

Abstract

In this article, we report two studies that compared the development of English and French language and literacy skills in French immersion students identified as native English speakers (EL1s) and English learners (ELs). In study 1, 81 EL1s and 147 ELs were tested in the fall and spring terms of grade 1. The EL1s and ELs had similar outcomes and comparable gains in English phonological awareness and word reading. Comparable performance was observed on all the French measures (phonological awareness, receptive vocabulary, word reading, and reading comprehension). Only in English receptive vocabulary did the EL1s outperform the ELs. In study 2, a subset of the students in study 1 was followed into grades 2 and 3 (36 EL1s and 33 ELs). Overall, the EL1s and ELs demonstrated similar performance and gains in English phonological awareness, word reading, and reading comprehension in grades 2 and 3. The EL1s outperformed their EL peers in English expressive and receptive vocabulary across all grades, despite more rapid growth among the ELs. At the same time, outcomes on all of the French measures were comparable between the two groups. The findings of remarkably comparable performance by the EL1s and ELs suggest that overall, French immersion does not impede English language and literacy skill development in ELs, making it a viable option for these students.

The Role of Awareness of Cross‐Language Suffix Correspondences in Second‐Language Reading Comprehension

“…We also need to consider the sample within which these results occurred (e.g., Deacon & Cain, 2011). Reflecting an increasingly diverse society (Au-Yeung et al, 2015), more than half of our participants were exposed to a language at home other than English or French. It is remarkable that these ELs had vocabulary levels on par with native English speakers, based on a standardized receptive vocabulary task.…”

“…Students enrolled in this program study came from diverse linguistic backgrounds; they spoke either the dominant societal language of English or a minority language (other than French) at home. This sample reflected the diversity that exists in current French immersion programs and enabled us to generalize our findings to the increasingly diverse classrooms that are increasingly common in a range of educational contexts in today's society (e.g., Au-Yeung et al, 2015).…”

“…Regardless of their first-language background, all students used English to communicate on the school playground and in the broader community, as English was the societal language. This sample reflected the current diversity in French immersion programs (e.g., Au-Yeung et al, 2015). None of the participants are native speakers of French.…”

“…The French phonological awareness task was an experimental task designed by the research team based on the test structure of the Elision subtest of the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte, 1999). This task was successfully used in a number of previous studies conducted by the research team (e.g., Au-Yeung et al, 2015). In this task, students were asked to delete a syllable from a multisyllable word in the first three items (e.g., souris sans dire sou fait ris; mouse without saying the French ris syllable) and to delete a single phoneme from each word in the remaining 17 items (e.g., cou sans dire /k/ fait ou; neck without saying /k/ in the French word cou).…”

Creating Successful French Immersion Programs in North America

“…This fact is especially true in Canada, where French is an official language, although a growing number of Americans are beginning to realize how advantageous having a second language can be in modern society. Generally, students in immersion classrooms are taught primarily in a language that is not their native language (henceforth known as first language or L1) although there are some exceptions (Au-Yeung, Hipfner-Bocher, Chen, Pasquarella, D'Angelo, & S. Helene, 2014;Deacon, Commissaire, & Chen, 2013;Wise & Chen, 2015). In immersion education there is typically a primary or target language of instruction and the majority (from 100% in full immersion programs to 50% in dual language or bilingual programs) of classes and social interaction are conducted in the target language (L2).…”