Individual differences in L2 achievement mirror individual differences in L1 skills and L2 aptitude: Crosslinguistic transfer of L1 to L2 skills

Abstract

Studies with U.S. secondary second language (L2) learners have revealed individual differences (IDs) in first language (L1) skills and L2 aptitude and shown that these IDs are related to L2 achievement and proficiency. In this study, U.S. students were administered measures of L1 achievement, L1 cognitive processing, and L2 aptitude; followed through 2 to 3 years of Spanish courses; and administered standardized measures of Spanish achievement at the end of each year. Students were divided into high‐, average‐, and low‐achieving groups according to their scores on the Spanish measures and compared on the L1 measures and L2 aptitude test. Findings showed significant overall group differences on most L1 measures and significant between‐group differences on most L1 measures and the L2 aptitude test. IDs in L1 literacy, L1 working memory, and L2 aptitude best discriminated among students who completed 2 versus 3 years of Spanish. Results support claims that IDs in L2 achievement mirror IDs in L1 skills and provide evidence for the crosslinguistic transfer of L1 to L2 skills.

Why reading is a challenge for U.S. L2 learners: The impact of cognitive, ecological, and psychological factors in L2 comprehension

“…Even at the end of third‐year Spanish, the average participant displayed a difference of over 3.0 SD s between Spanish word decoding and Spanish reading comprehension skills, for example, 50th percentile word decoding skill, <1st percentile reading comprehension skill. In another study with these participants, findings revealed little difference between the students’ Spanish reading comprehension and Spanish listening comprehension skills, even after 2–3 years of classroom instruction (Sparks, Patton, & Luebbers, ). That is, the students also achieved <1st percentile in Spanish listening comprehension, largely because they had acquired low levels of Spanish vocabulary (also <1st percentile).…”

“…Chapman and Tunmer () found that students’ self‐concept about their reading skill was moderately associated with their literacy skills in primary school. In a recent study with U.S. high school L2 learners Sparks et al () found that high‐achieving L2 learners displayed significantly more positive attitudes about L1 reading and engaged in significantly more L1 reading (print exposure) than average‐ and low‐achieving L2 learners.…”

Cross-country comparison of EFL teacher preparedness to include dyslexic learners: Validation of a questionnaire

“…This means that students who are poorer at L1 decoding, and have reduced vocabulary range and lower spelling, writing, and language analysis skills, will demonstrate smaller achievement in FL classes. Students who have weaker L1 literacy skills will develop weaker FL literacy skills (Sparks, Patton, & Luebbers, 2019).…”

The Relationship between L1 and L2 Reading Comprehension and Language and Reading Proficiency at the Tertiary Level

“…Despite the apparent differences between the L1 and L2, it has frequently been emphasized that the development of second/foreign language skills and knowledge is closely connected to the skills already existing in one's mother tongue (Gottardo & Mueller, 2009;Sparks, Patton, Ganschow, & Humbach, 2009). In addition, research has confirmed the existence of interlingual interactions and transfer between L1 and L2 (Mihaljević Djigunović, 2006;Sparks, Patton, & Luebbers, 2019), and the interaction has also been found to be bi-directional (Brown & Gullberg, 2008;Pavlenko & Jarvis, 2002). In other words, multilinguals' competences may best be described if viewed holistically as a global system with dynamically interacting subsystems (Cook, 1992;Herdina & Jessner, 2002), where the two (or more) languages are constantly interacting, thus contributing to either positive or negative transfer between the languages (see Koda (2004) for an overview of language transfer research).…”