Differentiated bilingual vocabulary assessment reveals similarities and differences compared to monolinguals: Conceptual versus single-language scoring and the relation with home language and literacy activities

Abstract

Purpose: As bilingual students often achieve lower scores than monolinguals in single-language vocabulary assessments, a deficit-oriented view of bilingualism is widespread in educational institutions. This study examined whether this alleged difference remains when the conceptual vocabulary scores of bilingual primary students are considered, and when home language and literacy activities are taken into account. Methods: Extensive expressive vocabulary measures were administered in both the environmental language (German) and the heritage language (Turkish) to simultaneous and sequential bilingual students, and to their monolingual peers. Their parents provided information about the frequency of home language and literacy activities. Data: The study included 302 students (5;9–10;9 years). 83 were simultaneous bilingual, 55 sequential bilingual and 164 monolingual. Comparisons on vocabulary were conducted via separate multiple regression analyses with frequency of home language and literacy activities as a control variable. Findings: In single-language vocabulary scores of the environmental language, simultaneous and sequential bilingual students scored lower than monolinguals. In contrast, and most importantly, there were no differences between either bilingual group and monolinguals with regard to conceptual vocabulary and the relationship between conceptual vocabulary and frequency of home language and literacy activities. Controlling for frequency of home language and literacy activities did not change these findings. Originality: This study compared the expressive single-language and conceptual vocabulary scores of simultaneous and sequential bilinguals with the scores of monolinguals in a large sample of primary students, for the first time additionally controlling for home language and literacy activities, with the German and Turkish languages. Implications: Because bilingual students have the same conceptual vocabulary scores as monolinguals, lower single-language vocabulary scores do not reflect a language deficiency.

Word form processing at school age: Evidence for similarities between bilingual and monolingual children

“…The same outcome was shown for bilingual children acquiring Spanish and English simultaneously compared to monolingual English-speaking children aged 5 to 7, but the expressive conceptual vocabulary was significantly larger in the monolingual compared to the bilingual group (Gross et al, 2014). In contrast, Ehl et al (2020) did not discover any significant differences between simultaneous and sequential 5- to 10-year-old Turkish–German bilinguals and German monolinguals concerning the size of the expressive conceptual vocabulary. Two further studies did not find any disadvantage regarding the expressive vocabulary in 4- to 7-year-old and 6- to 10-year-old Russian-German bilinguals compared to monolinguals (Klassert, Gagarina & Kauschke, 2014; Montanari, Abel, Graßer & Tschudinovski, 2018).…”

“…So far, the majority of studies on lexical competence in bilinguals has been based on the assessment of vocabulary size, often using word-picture matching or picture naming tasks (e.g., Ehl, Bruns & Grosche, 2020; Hoff & Ribot, 2017; Hoff, Rumiche, Burridge, Ribot & Welsh, 2014; Karlsen, Lyster & Lervåg, 2017; Schaefer, Ehlert, Kemp, Hoesl, Schrader, Warnecke & Herrmann, 2019; Vermeer, 2001). These traditional tasks do not allow a distinction between different components of word processing – in particular, between the semantic system or the phonological input and output lexicons.…”

Relations between oral language skills and English reading achievement among Spanish–English bilingual children: a quantile regression analysis

“…In a conceptual vocabulary scoring framework, all children who know the word in at least one language receive equal credit (i.e., a child who knows both apple and manzana receives equal credit as a child who knows manzana but not apple ). Consequently, conceptual vocabulary is thought to represent children’s complete vocabulary knowledge more accurately than measuring vocabulary in Spanish or English alone (e.g., Ehl et al, 2020 ). The EOWPVT-4 SBE was normed for administration with Spanish–English-speaking individuals in the USA and has high internal consistency reliability (α =0 .95).…”

Einbezug von Alter und Sprachkontaktdauer in die Wortschatzdiagnostik bei Mehrsprachigkeit

“…In einer Sitzung von 45 Minuten wurden zuerst der AWST-R und nachfolgend der WWT 6 -10 von geschulten Testleiterinnen und Testleitern durchgeführt. Die türkischsprachigen Kinder wurden zusätzlich mit türkischen Sprachversionen der Wortschatztests untersucht, die Ergebnisse sind jedoch für die vorliegende Studie nicht relevant (siehe hierzu Ehl, Bruns & Grosche, 2020). An einem separaten Tag wurde der CFT 1-R in Kleingruppen von 10 bis 15 Kindern durchgeführt.…”

“…Hierbei werden Items korrekt gewertet, wenn sie in mindestens einer der beiden Sprachen benannt werden. Im konzeptuellen Wortschatz können mehrsprachige Kinder mit einsprachigen Kindern vergleichbare Leistungen zeigen (Ehl, Bruns & Grosche, 2020). Insbesondere für die diagnostische Fragestellung, ob eine Sprachentwicklungsstörung besteht, ist der Einbezug aller Sprachen hilfreich, da eine Sprachentwicklungsstörung u. a. daran zu erkennen ist, dass sie sich in allen Sprachen des Kindes manifestiert (Håkansson, Salameh & Nettelbladt, 2003).…”