Narrative Language Production: Examining How Young Spanish-English Learners Use the English Language
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Date
2024-12-19
Authors
Le, Trinh
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Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
The study was conducted by examining 37 language samples of 37 Spanish-English kindergartners and first graders from a larger sample of the Multitudes Project in California. The focus was on investigating how these young English language learners produced narratives in English, what language elements they included, and whether these elements were correlated or had a relationship with the learner’s English proficiency. The language elements examined were divided into three different levels: macro-structure including the identification of narrative problems and solutions, micro-structure such as the use of nouns, pronouns, and verbs, and language complexity including sentence markers and tier-two vocabulary. The results showed that, at the macro-structural level, students identified more correct problems and solutions than incorrect ones. There was no significant difference between the identification of problems versus solutions and between kindergartners and first graders. At the micro-structural level, a large number of children did not use plural forms of nouns and no students used possessive case "‘s", which were explained respectively by the requirement of such use according to the narrative topic and language transfer structures. The use of pronouns was also Spanish-influenced with gender mixing and redundancy. Results of the use of past-tense verbs showed that most students provided more incorrect forms than correct ones. Only one-fifth of these students provided all correct verbs, suggesting an emerging skill of conjugating verbs in past tenses. Lastly, language complexity was reported to be starting to develop at this age. As these Spanish-speaking students started to learn English, they did not use complex vocabulary and structures in their narrative production, providing evidence to advocate for the use of emerging English vocabulary and translanguaging in language assessment for young English language learners. Weak and moderate correlations were found between grade and the use of pronouns, and between verbs and language proficiency. However, regression analyses indicated no significant relationship between language proficiency and these elements. Study limitations such as a small language sample size and the report of socio-economic status are discussed.
Keywords: Language assessment, narrative assessment, narrative production, narrative language elements, multilingual learners, dual language learners, bilingual education, and bilingual development
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Keywords
bilingual education, dual language learners, language assessment, multilingual language development, narrative language elements, narrative production