PREDICTING LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY IN BILINGUAL CHILDREN

• Published in: Studies in second language acquisition Vol. 42; no. 2; pp. 279 - 325
• Main Author: De Cat, Cécile
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Cambridge University Press 01.05.2020
• Subjects: Advantaged; Bilingualism; Children; Children & youth; Cognitive Ability; Correlation; Elementary School Students; Language acquisition; Language Enrichment; Language of Instruction; Language proficiency; Language Skills; Learning Experience; Lexical semantics; Memory; Native Language; Predictor Variables; Second Language Learning; Semantics; Socioeconomic Status
• ISSN: 0272-2631; 1470-1545
• DOI: 10.1017/S0272263119000597

Using advanced quantitative methods, this article demonstrates that cumulative exposure to the school language is the best language experience predictor of proficiency in that language (as indexed by sentence repetition, lexical semantic, and discourse semantic tasks) in a highly diverse group of 5-...