The Impact of the Spanish-to-English Proficiency Shift on the Grammaticality of English Learners

Abstract

Purpose The general aim of this study is to enhance our understanding of the patterns of language growth in Spanish and English during the school years. In this study, we used a longitudinal retrospective approach to explore the growth of the percentage of grammatical utterances (PGU) in both Spanish and English in 2 groups of English learners (ELs): ELs attending English-only instruction and ELs attending Spanish–English bilingual instruction. Method The participants included 1,080 ELs. ELs produced at least 3 story retells in both Spanish and English between kindergarten and 2nd grade. All stories were transcribed and coded for errors, and PGU was calculated for each story. Results At the onset of the study, children showed higher PGU in Spanish and lower PGU in English. Growth curve analysis indicated that PGU in English improved over time, whereas PGU in Spanish declined in both instructional groups. However, those children who were in bilingual programs showed a slower rate of decline in Spanish PGU and a slower rate of improvement in English PGU. By the age of 9 years, children in English-only programs had approximately a Spanish PGU of 65% in Spanish, whereas children in bilingual instruction had an average Spanish PGU of 80%. The improvement in English PGU was steady with a small difference in the rate of growth benefiting children in English-only programs. Conclusion The results of this study document a shift in language proficiency from Spanish to English during the school years. This study offers evidence of a temporary period of relatively low grammaticality in both languages that seems to be the result of a shift in proficiency from Spanish to English.

A corpus study of child heritage speakers’ Spanish gender agreement

“…la f party f rather than el m party f because fiesta f is feminine) (Liceras et al, 2016). Thus, while age tends to correlate with increased use of English and decreased use of Spanish in the US (Castilla-Earls et al, 2019; Shin et al, 2019), more direct measures of language exposure, dominance, and proficiency are needed to further understand child heritage speakers’ command and use of grammatical gender across their development.…”

“…Our second question was whether older child heritage speakers would produce more mismatches than younger ones due to the common experience of increased exposure to English and decreased exposure to Spanish with age among Spanish-speaking children in the US (Castilla-Earls et al, 2019; Shin et al, 2019). Although we did not find a main effect for age, there was a significant interaction between feminine nouns and the 9–11 age group.…”

“…Yet, the nature of these children’s heritage language grammatical development is not fully understood. In a recent study of 1080 children who spoke Spanish at home and were acquiring English at school, Castilla-Earls et al (2019) calculated percent of grammatical utterances produced in oral narratives. Upon entering school, the children produced an average of 95% grammatical utterances in Spanish.…”

“…Further, children who experience reduced exposure to the heritage language mismatch more than children who experience more exposure (Mitrofanova et al, 2018). With age, child heritage speakers of Spanish in the US tend to experience increased exposure to English and, concomitantly, decreased exposure to Spanish (Castilla-Earls et al, 2019; Shin et al, 2019). As such, we might expect older child heritage speakers to mismatch more than younger ones.…”

Assessment Selection for Multilingual Learners’ Reading Development

“…Furthermore, students generally showed an English‐dominant receptive and expressive vocabulary knowledge profile. This is expected, as U.S. multilinguals often shift to English as their primary and preferred language due to the increased exposure and use of English in schools (Castilla‐Earls et al, 2019).…”