Language skills in Greek-English bilingual children attending Greek supplementary schools in England

Abstract

Many parents in the UK enrol their children in Greek supplementary schools so the children can learn and maintain the Greek language and culture in parallel with English mainstream education. Despite fears about the effects of this heritage language (Greek) use on children's skills in the majority language (English), research on these somewhat hidden schools to date is limited and qualitative in nature. The current study is the first quantitative study which examines the effect of attending a Greek supplementary school on the vocabulary and grammar scores of Greek-English bilingual children. We administered a battery of language tests in both languages to 31 Greek-English bilingual children, aged 5-13 years, and closely looked at the participants' language history using parental questionnaires. Using multiple regression analyses we examine the relationship between relevant variables, such as language use and years in supplementary school and we find that the higher the use of Greek, the higher the scores in the Greek language tasks, although no significant relationship was detected between years in supplementary school and the development of language skills. Crucially, the use of Greek does not negatively predict scores in the English language tasks. Implications of our results and future directions are discussed.

Beyond accuracy

“…Moreover, many studies report an immigrant advantage (e.g., Hao & Woo, 2012). The positive correlations are consistent with results reported in other studies (e.g., Papastergiou & Sanoudaki, 2021;Pham, 2016;but cf. Simon-Cereijido & Gutierez-Clellen, 2009), and the fact that many bilinguals perform as well if not better than their monolingual peers, despite lower exposure, strongly suggests a positive transfer of L1 skills to L2.…”

“…Research into differences between monolingual and bilingual performance and processing is not only relatively new, but has also produced conflicting findings, which fuels the existing social ambivalence relating to the acquisition of two languages in childhood. As a result, many parents and teachers worry that speaking a minority language at home or at school may hamper their children's achievement in the dominant language (see Gundarina & Simpson, 2021), despite a large body of more recent research that debunks this common belief (e.g., Papastefanou et al, 2019;Papastergiou & Sanoudaki, 2021). However, studying Heritage Speakers (HS), or early bilinguals of a minority language* (Montrul, 2008, p. 161), is important, not only from the point of educational policymaking, but also for our understanding of the architecture of language cognition.…”

A study on the executive functioning skills of Greek–English bilingual children – a nearest neighbour approach

“…The group of bilingual children taking part in the current study attend a Greek complementary language school, a group not studied before in the U.K. for their executive functioning skills linked to language. The majority of these children are predominately exposed to Greek in the household and English at school (also see Papastergiou & Sanoudaki, 2021).…”