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The English referencing behaviors of first- and second-grade Spanish–English emergent bilinguals in oral narrative retells

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 June 2021

Audrey Lucero Open the ORCID record for Audrey Lucero [Opens in a new window] ,
Kevin Donley  and
Bobbie Bermúdez
Audrey Lucero*
Affiliation:
College of Education, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR97403, USA
Kevin Donley
Affiliation:
College of Education, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR97403, USA
Bobbie Bermúdez
Affiliation:
College of Education, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR97403, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: alucero@uoregon.edu
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Abstract

This study investigated differences in the English referencing behaviors in the context of oral narrative retell between typically developing first- and second-grade Spanish–English emergent bilingual children in dual language immersion and English-only instructional contexts (N = 105). Children heard and retold Mercer Mayer wordless picture books, and analyses were conducted to examine how they used nominals and pronominals to maintain and switch reference to potential thematic protagonists in the story. Multivariate analysis of variance showed significant grade-level differences in the proportion of pronominals used to switch and maintain reference to BOY/S (boy and dog or frog), as well as to switch to BOY. In contrast, instructional context differences were significant only for reference to the DOG or FROG. The finding that second graders in both dual language immersion and English-only programs continued to demonstrate an overreliance on pronominal forms to switch reference in a second language suggests that differences in literacy and oral language development may extend beyond the grades that we investigated. It is therefore important to continue investigating the referencing behaviors of emergent bilingual children throughout the elementary years of schooling.

Keywords

emergent bilingualsSpanish–Englishoral narrative retellsreferencing
Type
Original Article
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 42 , Issue 5 , September 2021 , pp. 1243 - 1261
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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