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ORAL LANGUAGE PROFILES OF ENGLISH SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNERS IN ADOLESCENCE

COGNITIVE AND INPUT FACTORS INFLUENCE HOW THEY COMPARE TO THEIR MONOLINGUAL PEERS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 March 2020

Adriana Soto-Corominas Open the ORCID record for Adriana Soto-Corominas [Opens in a new window] ,
Johanne Paradis ,
Brian V. Rusk ,
Stefka Marinova-Todd  and
Xuan Zhang
Adriana Soto-Corominas*
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
Johanne Paradis
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
Brian V. Rusk
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
Stefka Marinova-Todd
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia
Xuan Zhang
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Adriana Soto-Corominas, Department of Linguistics, University of Alberta Edmonton, Canada AB T6G 2E7. E-mail: [email protected].
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Abstract

It is often claimed that child English L2 learners take up to seven years to attain English skills commensurate with those of monolingual peers; however, existing research is insufficient to know if this claim is valid for oral language abilities in particular. This study examined the lexical and morphological abilities of English L2 learners and their monolingual peers (ages 12–15; N = 227) in Canadian middle schools to determine the timeline for convergence with monolinguals, and what factors predict individual differences among L2 learners. Having seven or more years of schooling was insufficient for all L2 learners to converge with monolinguals on all measures; moreover, growth in English abilities slowed after seven years. Regression analyses revealed that use of English with friends, parental education, and cognitive skills predicted individual variation in the L2 learners’ English abilities and, thus, contributed to their potential for convergence with monolinguals.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , September 2020 , pp. 697 - 720
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Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2020

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Footnotes

We thank all the students and their parents for participating in this research. We would like to acknowledge the cooperation of Edmonton Public Schools, the Vancouver School Board, and Aurora Charter School in this research, as well as the support from the teachers and principals at the participating schools. We also thank the student research assistants who collected the data: Keren Hernandez, Anisha Monga, Kristyna Becker, Brian Park, Caitria Chan, Eun Kim, Megan Choh, Ruka Miller, and Ziyu Yang. Finally, we are grateful for the funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Insight Grant 435-2015-0034 awarded to Paradis) that supported this research.

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