Language and Literacy Development of ESL Children in French Immersion

• In Event: Roundtable Session 27
  In Roundtable Session: Nurturing Second-Language Literacy Skills With Immersion, Corrective Feedback, and Multimedia Book Reading

Abstract

This study examined English and French language and literacy skills of English Second Language (ESL) students as compared to English L1 (EL1) students in a Canadian French immersion program. All children were tested at three time points across grades 1 and 2. The two groups performed similarly on English phonological awareness, word reading, and English reading comprehension. Although ESL students lagged behind on English receptive vocabulary, they experienced a faster growth on expressive vocabulary and caught up with EL1 students at the end of Grade 2. The two groups had no differences in French phonological awareness, receptive vocabulary and reading comprehension while the ESL students performed better than EL1 students on French word reading at the end of Grade 2.

Authors

• Xi Chen, University of Toronto - OISE

• Karen Au-Yeung, University of Toronto - OISE

• Adrian Pasquarella

• Helene Deacon