| How children acquire a second language has been a topic of debate. In the past researchers have shown only peripheral interest in questions concerning the social aspects of language learning. While adequate language input and practice is assumed to be important for second language learning, practitioners have learned little from researchers on how this process affects language learning.; This study investigated the effects of teachers and teacher aides talking "in English" and effects of the child talk "in English" on the second language acquisition of children while they interacted on a science curriculum. It also explored the relationship between initial language proficiency and improvement in English language proficiency.; The setting for the study was nine bilingual education classrooms in San Jose, California. The sample consisted of 99 second, third and fourth graders. Weekly observations of selected target children were analyzed as they interacted on a science curriculum with their peers, and adults. Observers used a special interaction scoring device that measured performance outputs. In all verbal interaction, frequencies for both Spanish and English were noted. Observational data were then related to gains in language proficiency as measured by the Language Assessment Scales.; For both hypotheses, results from Pearson correlations showed that the coefficients were not statistically different from zero. In order to understand the failure of the data to support the original hypotheses, other analyses were carried out. For these analyses, it was decided to take into account the children's degree of Spanish language proficiency. Correlations demonstrated statistically significant relationships between the rate of the child's talk in Spanish and gain scores in English. The target children were then divided into groups based on their relative language proficiency in Spanish and English.; Results of this study indicated that Spanish monolingual students made the greatest gains in English language proficiency. (They talked much more in Spanish than in English.) Other student groups who initially had equally low English proficiency talked less, and made much less of a gain in English; they also had much lower social status. Thus, their failure to talk more appears to have limited their potential for gain. However, it is difficult to tell if these children are not being talked to because of their low status, or whether they had low status because they talk very little. The Spanish monolinguals, on the other hand, talked a lot in Spanish, made the most gains in English, and had relatively high social status. Monolingual English and Bilingual students talked frequently, mostly in English, and had high social status. Results from this study seem to indicate that knowing a language well allows you the facility to talk and be talked to while at the same time having high social status. Children who had developed one language did better than children who had developed neither language. |
