Abstract
Three common assumptions concerning bilingual children’s language proficiency are: (1) their proficiency in two languages is usually unbalanced; (2) low socioeconomic status (SES) indicates low proficiency in both languages; and (3) encouraging parents to speak some societal language at home will promote its development. Examining the vocabulary scores of 282 bilingual Singaporean kindergartners (167 Chinese, 70 Malay, and 45 Tamil), the current study found that these young children were evenly divided among four language profiles: strong in ethnic language (Chinese, Malay or Tamil) or English, strong in both languages, or weak in both. Children with high proficiency in both languages were proportionally represented in the low, middle and high SES groups, demonstrating the achievability of strong vocabulary in two languages for children of different SES. However, low SES children were most at risk for low proficiency in both languages, although many achieved high proficiency in ethnic language or both. Middle and high SES children were most likely to demonstrate low ethnic language with high English proficiency. Children mostly exposed to one language from different sources generally showed strength in that language. Children exposed to both languages at home were most likely to show low proficiency in both languages, although plenty of children exposed to both languages developed high proficiency in English or both. These results affirm previous findings that SES and home language exposure influence bilingual children’s proficiency. Implications include the importance of teachers assessing bilingual children’s proficiency in both languages and collaborating with parents to develop bilingual children’s vocabulary.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
August, D., & Shanahan, T. (2006). Developing literacy in second-language learners: Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Dixon, L. Q. (2011). The role of home and school factors in predicting English vocabulary among bilingual kindergarten children in Singapore. Applied Psycholinguistics, 32, 141–168. doi:10.1017/S0142716410000329.
Dixon, L. Q., Zhao, J., Quiroz, B., & Shin, J. -Y. (in press). Home and community factors influencing bilingual children’s ethnic language vocabulary development. International Journal of Bilingualism.
Baker, C. (2006). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism (4th ed.). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Dunn, L. M., & Dunn, D. M. (1997). Peabody picture vocabulary test (3rd ed.). Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.
Duursma, E., Romero-Contreras, S., Szuber, A., Proctor, P., Snow, C. E., August, D., et al. (2007). The role of home literacy and language environment on bilinguals’ English and Spanish vocabulary development. Applied Psycholinguistics, 28, 171–190. doi:10.1017/S0142716406070093.
Escamilla, K. (2006). Semilingualism applied to the literacy behaviors of Spanish-speaking emerging bilinguals: Bi-illiteracy or emerging biliteracy? Teachers College Record, 108, 2329–2353. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9620.2006.00784.x.
Gathercole, V. C. M., & Thomas, E. M. (2009). Bilingual first-language development: Dominant language takeover, threatened minority language take-up. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 12, 213–237. doi:10.1017/S1366728909004015.
Gathercole, V. C. M., Thomas, E. M., & Hughes, E. (2008). Designing a normed receptive vocabulary test for bilingual populations: A model from Welsh. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 11, 678–720. doi:10.1080/13670050802149283.
Hammer, C. S., Davison, M. D., Lawrence, F. R., & Miccio, A. W. (2009). The effect of maternal language on bilingual children’s vocabulary and emergent literacy development during Head Start and kindergarten. Scientific Studies of Reading, 13, 99–121. doi:10.1080/10888430902769541.
Hart, B., & Risley, T. R. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children. Baltimore, MD: Brookes.
Hoff, E. (2003). The specificity of environmental influence: Socioeconomic status affects early vocabulary development via maternal speech. Child Development, 74, 1368–1378. doi:10.1111/1467-8624.00612.
Hoff, E., & Elledge, C. (2005). Bilingualism as one of many environmental variables that affect language development. In J. Cohen, K. T. McAlister, K. Rolstad, & J. MacSwan (Eds.), ISB4: Proceedings of the 4th international symposium on Bilingualism (pp. 1034–1040). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Lambert, W. E., & Taylor, D. M. (1996). Language in the lives of ethnic minorities: Cuban-American families in Miami. Applied Linguistics, 17, 477–500. doi:10.1093/applin/17.4.477.
Lim, S. E. A. (1998). Preschools in Singapore: A historical overview. Early Child Development and Care, 144, 5–12. doi:10.1080/0300443981440102.
McBride-Chang, C., Chow, Y. Y. Y., & Tong, X. (2010). Early literacy at home: General environmental factors and specific parent input. In D. Ararm & O. Korat (Eds.), Literacy development and enhancement across orthographies and cultures (Vol. 2, pp. 97–109). New York, NY: Springer.
Miccio, A., Tabors, P., Páez, M., Hammer, C., & Wagstaff, D. (2005). Vocabulary development in Spanish-speaking Head Start children of Puerto Rican descent. In J. Cohen, K. McAlister, K. Rolstad, & J. MacSwan (Eds.), ISB4: Proceedings of the 4th international symposium on Bilingualism (pp. 1614–1617). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Oller, D. K., & Eilers, R. E. (2002). Language and literacy in bilingual children. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Pearson, B. Z., Fernandez, S. C., Lewedeg, V., & Oller, D. K. (1997). The relation of input factors to lexical learning by bilingual infants. Applied Psycholinguistics, 18, 41–58. doi:10.1017/S0142716400009863.
Saravanan, V. (2001). The significance of bilingual Chinese, Malay and Tamil children’s English network patterns on community language use patterns. Early Child Development and Care, 166, 81–91. doi:10.1080/0300443011660107.
Scheele, A. F., Leseman, P. P. M., & Mayo, A. Y. (2010). The home language environment of monolingual and bilingual children and their language proficiency. Applied Psycholinguistics, 31, 117–140. doi:10.1017/S0142716409990191.
Singapore Department of Statistics. (2010). Key household income trends. Singapore Government. Retrieved from http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/papers/people/op-s16.pdf.
Tabors, P. O., Páez, M. M., & López, L. M. (2003). Dual language abilities of Spanish-English bilingual four-year-olds: Initial findings from the early childhood study of language and literacy development of Spanish-speaking children. NABE Journal of Research and Practice, 1, 70–91.
Tan, J. (2009). Private tutoring in Singapore: Bursting out of the shadows. Journal of Youth Studies, 12, 93–103.
Zhao, S., Liu, Y., & Hong, H. (2007). Singaporean preschoolers’ oral competence in Mandarin. Language Policy, 6, 73–94. doi:10/1007/s10993-006-9044-1.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Dixon, L.Q., Wu, S. & Daraghmeh, A. Profiles in Bilingualism: Factors Influencing Kindergartners’ Language Proficiency. Early Childhood Educ J 40, 25–34 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-011-0491-8
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-011-0491-8