Language Richness at Home and Teachers’ Knowledge are Related to Dual Language Learners’ Language Skills

• In Event: Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Topic - Language, Communication

Abstract

There is a growing number of dual language learners (DLLs) in early childhood education (ECE) programs in the U.S. Many DLLs live in poverty and tend to lag behind in English and academic skills, yet skills in both English and the home language are important for DLLs’ positive development and long-term success. It is thus critical to investigate how DLLs’ dual language skills develop in early childhood and how the family and ECE contexts affect DLLs’ development. Presently, the ECE workforce lacks adequate professional preparation to best support DLLs and few studies have assessed ECE teachers’ knowledge in these areas. In this study, we examined the English and Chinese receptive vocabulary and sentence comprehension skills of preschool (3-year-old) and pre-kindergarten (4-year-old) Chinese DLLs, an understudied group that faces additional challenges in learning English and maintaining the home language. We also examined how language richness at home and ECE teachers’ knowledge related to children’s dual language development.

Participants were 56 Chinese preschool and pre-k children (1-3 children per classroom), one parent of each child, and 32 lead teachers recruited from 6 early childhood programs in a northeastern U.S. city. In fall (Wave 1) and spring (Wave 2), we assessed DLLs’ receptive vocabulary with PPVT-4 and sentence comprehension skills with a short version of the Mandarin English Receptive Language Screener (MERLS, Author reference) in both English and Chinese. A parent interview conducted at Wave 1 provided information on the relative language exposure and the richness of DLLs’ English and Chinese experiences at home (i.e., engagement in literacy activities). Lead teachers of the DLLs completed a teacher questionnaire between the two waves, which gauged teachers’ knowledge of dual language development (e.g., Is “Young bilingual children are often confused about which language to speak in social situations” true or false?).

Chinese DLLs’ receptive vocabularies showed significant increases from Wave 1 to Wave 2 in both English and Chinese. The growth rate of the two languages did not differ from each other (Table 1). However, neither group showed significant growth in either language across the two waves in their sentence comprehension skills.

At both waves, the language richness at home was a significant predictor of the receptive vocabulary and sentence comprehension skills in the respective language (except for PPVT English at Wave 2) after controlling for family demographic and background variables that were significant at the bivariate level (Table 2). Preliminary analysis with Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) also suggested that teachers’ knowledge about dual language development was a significant predictor of DLLs’ English outcomes in addition to English richness at home.

To summarize, Chinese DLLs’ receptive vocabularies in English and Chinese increased in preschool and pre-k years. However, their sentence comprehension skills seemed to require longer time to show progress. The relation found between DLLs’ language skills and the richness of language exposure at home signifies the role of family language context. Furthermore, the relation between teachers’ knowledge and DLLs’ English development reveals another important pathway for dual language development in the early childhood.

Authors

• Lulu Song, Brooklyn College CUNY
  Presenting Author

• Li Sheng, University of Delaware
  Non-Presenting Author

• Eva Liang, Brooklyn College, City University of New York
  Non-Presenting Author

• Molly Ye, Hunter College, City University of New York
  Non-Presenting Author

• ShingKit Wong, Brooklyn College, City University of New York
  Non-Presenting Author

• Danyang Wang, University of Delaware
  Non-Presenting Author

• Rufan Luo, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Karen E McFadden
  Non-Presenting Author

• Yingying Lao, Brooklyn College, City University of New York
  Non-Presenting Author