Literacy and education in mutli-lingual contexts: Impacts on learning

• In Event: Addressing marginalization in Ethiopian education: relationship between language transition, social, economical, physical and personal barriers with student performance and policy

Proposal

Millions of children in Ethiopia – and across the world – are educated in multilingual contexts. In these contexts, literacy is acquired in two or more languages, and the acquisition of each language has a significant impact on learning to read the others. Furthermore, learning to read in Ethiopia entails the need to acquire two types of scripts – the Fidel-based script, and alphabetic-based scripts. Each of these have different cognitive demands and learning trajectories (Nag & Perfetti, 2014; Share & Daniels, 2015). There is no evidence for making effective Medium of Instruction (MOI) policy decisions in these contexts, especially to inform development of standards for timing the transition from Mother Tongue (MT) to English in order to promote biliteracy development.

This study – conducted as part of the USAID-funded READ M&E project – addresses this gap, by identifying if and when there is an threshold level of “sufficient” MT reading skills to facilitate English reading acquisition. Determining such a threshold will allow decisions makers to know when a child is ready to begin reading instruction in English. The study utilizes the Transfer Facilitation Model of biliteracy acquisition (Koda, 2008) that underscores that children will not only transfer their L1 reading ability to their L2 reading development, but that their L1 skills will facilitate the development of their L2 reading through shared metacognitive and metalinguistic resources. Specifically, we asked if there is a threshold level reading ability in the local Ethiopian Mother Tongue language to support English reading? And, secondly, we also asked if there is a threshold level English oral language ability to support English reading?

The study focuses on four MT languages: Afaan-Oromo, Amharic, Berta, and Wolayttato; and transition to English in each. Data is collected on phonological awareness (language-specific phonological structures are tested – either syllable or phoneme or some combination), decoding (real and pseudowords) listening comprehension, and reading comprehension. Data will be collected from approximately 44 schools for each language pair. In order to test for a threshold of “readiness” for English instruction, we will utilize a non-parametric lowess regression that will let us to identify whether – and where – there might be a structural break in which the relationship between the MT and English reading outcomes are likely increase. For the second research question, we will employ the same method testing for a break in the structural relationship between English oral language proficiency and English reading comprehension. This method was used in a similar transition study in India and found significant thresholds that inform the development of effective biliteracy policy development (Nakamura, de Hoop, & Holla, 2018).

The findings can guide the development of standards for effective transition timings from the Mother Tongue to English by providing empirical thresholds of “readiness” for biliteracy. The results will also be relevant for multilingual education theories of change and policies globally where children learn to read in multilingual contexts.

Authors

• Pooja Reddy Nakamura, American Institutes for Research

• Juan Bonilla, American Institutes for Research