Maintaining a minority language: A case study of Hispanic teenagers . John Gibbons and Elizabeth Ramirez (original) (raw)
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Language Problems and Language Planning. Vol. 30, No. 1. Pp. 86-89., 2006
John Gibbons and Elizabeth Ramirez report on the results of a study on language maintenance among 106 Spanish-speaking teenagers in Sydney, Australia. Both authors point out the multiple benefits of language maintenance for the individual, the family, the community, and the nation. The also note other benefits including employment and travel, and increased literacy in other languages. The authors seek to define proficiency and measure it. They look at a variety of factors that determine language maintenance, e.g., society, interpersonal contact, education and media use of literacy, and attitudes and beliefs. The authors provide a step-by-step account of the theory, procedures, and results of the study.
Spanish Language Acquisition among
2014
The Impact of Multilingualism on Spanish Language Acquisition among Immigrants in Spain This article uses micro-data from the Spanish National Immigrant Survey to analyze the acquisition of Spanish language skills for immigrants in Spain. The motivation of the paper is threefold. Language skills are important for an individual's labour market performance, Spain offers an important non-English speaking country instance and the main novelty of our paper is to explore the impact of speaking multiple foreign languages on host language learning for immigrants. The results reveal a strong positive association between multilingualism and the probability of reporting good or very good Spanish language proficiency for immigrants in Spain.
Language Problems and Language Planning, 2006
Reviewed by Frank Nuessel The 129th volume in the Multilingual Matters series under the general editorship of John Edwards (St. Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia) contains the results of a study on language maintenance among 106 Hispanic teenagers in Sydney, Australia. Gibbons, a professor of English at Hong Kong Baptist University, and Ramírez, a doctoral student at the University of New South Wales, have already carried out important research in bilingualism and related issues. Minority language maintenance is a challenging area that requires the collaboration and cooperation of an entire community as well as the society in which it is embedded. Gibbons and Ramírez point out its obvious benefits (p.
Development and Validation of the Spanish–English Language Proficiency Scale (SELPS)
Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 2013
Purpose This study examined the development and validation of a criterion-referenced Spanish–English Language Proficiency Scale (SELPS) that was designed to assess the oral language skills of sequential bilingual children ages 4–8. This article reports results for the English proficiency portion of the scale. Method The SELPS assesses syntactic complexity, grammatical accuracy, verbal fluency, and lexical diversity based on 2 story retell tasks. In Study 1, 40 children were given 2 story retell tasks to evaluate the reliability of parallel forms. In Study 2, 76 children participated in the validation of the scale against language sample measures and teacher ratings of language proficiency. Results Study 1 indicated no significant differences between the SELPS scores on the 2 stories. Study 2 indicated that the SELPS scores correlated significantly with their counterpart language sample measures. Correlations between the SELPS and teacher ratings were moderate. Conclusions The 2 stor...
Dual language and literacy development of Spanish-speaking
Journal of applied developmental …, 2007
This article describes oral language and early literacy skills in Spanish and English for a sample of 319 bilingual children in Massachusetts and Maryland (ECS) and a comparison group of 144 monolingual Spanish-speaking children in Puerto Rico (PRC). Children were assessed as they entered and exited pre-kindergarten programs. Data collection included four subtests of the Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery and a researcher-developed phonological awareness task. Results show that, on average, children in the ECS sample performed below average in both English and Spanish when compared to monolingual norms and, despite some early literacy and oral language gains during their pre-kindergarten year, continue to lag behind monolingual children of the same age. Children in the ECS sample performed better in the early literacy tasks than in the oral language tasks in both English and Spanish. On average, the PRC sample scored significantly better than the ECS sample in Spanish oral language skills, but lower in phonological awareness skills. Educational implications and directions for future research are discussed.
Studies in English Language Teaching
The increased number of Spanish Heritage Language (SHL) speakers in American schools has called for the need of new research focused on SHL students, their parents, their teachers, and a profound analysis of best instructional practices for this individualized group of students. The purpose of this thorough analysis of peer-reviewed literature is to evaluate language programs for the growing SHL student population in elementary schools. A careful look into this growing population will help evaluate the educational programs provided to SHL students such as the Dual Language (DL) immersion program and the Transitional Bilingual Education program (TBE). This review addresses why students walk into an elementary classroom as an SHL and English language bilingual and subsequently become monolinguals as they progress in their elementary school years. Recognizing the factors that lead to a student’s language preference can assist parents, teachers, and the education system in developing an...
Oral and written language abilities in young Spanish/English bilinguals
International Journal of Bilingualism, 2017
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare oral and written language abilities in English and Spanish of young bilinguals residing in the USA. Methodology: Sixty-two participants (mean age = 23.7; SD = 3.50), consisting of 42 bilinguals (born of Spanish-speaking parents) and 20 English monolinguals, were administered a battery of 15 language tasks. Analysis: Bilinguals were divided into two groups: (a) US-born (simultaneous bilinguals who had been exposed to English and Spanish since birth and educated primarily in English) and (b) Latin American-born (early sequential bilinguals who were educated in Spanish and English, although exposed to Spanish at birth and to English before the age of 10). Findings: Higher lexical ability was demonstrated in English compared to Spanish in bilinguals. Performance in grammar tests of the two languages was inconsistent. Reading/writing ability in English was similar for participants born in the USA and in Latin America; however, participant...
What you hear and what you say: language performance in Spanish–English bilinguals
International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 2010
Purpose. This study assesses the factors that contribute to Spanish and English language development in bilingual children. Method. Seven hundred and fifty-seven Hispanic prekindergarten and kindergarten-age children completed screening tests of semantic and morphosyntactic development in Spanish and English. Parents provided information about their occupation and education as well as their children's English and Spanish exposure. Data were analyzed using zero-inflated regression models (comprising a logistic regression component and a negative binomial or Poisson component) to explore factors that contributed to children initiating L1 and L2 performance and factors that contributed to building children's knowledge. Results. Factors that were positively associated with initiating L1 and L2 performance were language input/output, free and reduced lunch, and age. Factors associated with building knowledge included age, parent education, input/output, free and reduced lunch, and school district. Conclusion. Amount of language input is important as children begin to use a language, and amount of language output is important for adding knowledge to their language. Semantic development seemed to be driven more by input while morphosyntax development relied on both input and output. Clinicians who assess bilingual children should examine children's language output in their second language to better understand their levels of performance.