Witkowska, Disa;
(2024)
Development of English grammar in children learning English as an Additional Language and monolingual peers: implications for narrative and reading comprehension.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
There is a growing number of emerging bilingual children with a heritage language at home who access education in a societal language. While learning a heritage language is crucial for family communication and well-being, societal language acquisition is key to school achievement and social participation. This thesis investigates grammar development in bilingual and monolingual children in the societal language. The thesis contains general introduction and discussion chapters, with three substantive research chapters. Chapter 2 is a systematic, meta-analytic review of 88 cross-sectional and 12 longitudinal studies. Syntactic differences were reported in favour of monolinguals and moderated by longer societal language exposure and comparable socio-economic status (SES) in the two groups. Chapter 3 examines complex clause development in narratives of 61 children with English as an Additional Language (EAL) and 61 monolingual peers matched on sex, age and teacher rating of initial English-language proficiency. In Year 1 (age 5-6) and Year 3 (age 7-8), children with EAL and monolingual peers displayed similar syntactic complexity and diversity, while the rate of syntactic complexity growth was associated with early vocabulary levels. Chapter 4 presents a longitudinal structural equation model that tested the role of grammar in reading comprehension in a population sample of 529 monolingual children and 61 children with EAL. Both groups presented comparable reading comprehension, suggesting that similar length of exposure reduces the reading comprehension gap, at least early in reading development. Grammar and vocabulary were both important for reading comprehension, equally for the two groups. This thesis concludes that when bilingual and monolingual children are comparable in terms of age of starting school, initial societal language proficiency, societal language exposure length and SES, grammar differences between the groups are small. Therefore, accounting for these factors is essential to adequately measure grammar differences and identify which bilingual children need most support.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Development of English grammar in children learning English as an Additional Language and monolingual peers: implications for narrative and reading comprehension |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author [year]. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| Keywords: | bilingual, EAL, English as an Additional Language, monolingual, grammar, syntax, language development |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Language and Cognition UCL |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10197079 |
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