The effects of heritage language use and free voluntary reading in English upon the acquisition of academic English by Korean -American students

This study examines the effect of parental use of heritage language (Korean) on their children's English development. It also investigates how the development of heritage language (Korean) skills at home facilitates academic English achievement in school. In addition, this study examines the relationship between children's reading in English for pleasure and the effect of such reading on their academic English achievement.;The results of this study support the conclusion that home use of the heritage language can actually accelerate the development of Academic English Proficiency (AEP) and that Free Voluntary Reading (FVR) contributes significantly to the acquisition of academic English. The rich interactions in Korean that Korean parents provide to their American-born children strengthens their relationship and helps the children to develop more meaningful interactions with other people in their community without retarding the children's academic English development.;This study concludes with recommendations to Korean immigrant parents as to how they can implement its findings and thereby accelerate their children's AEP development. It is also recommended that further research be undertaken to determine how the factors examined in this study affect other age groups and other heritage languages spoken by recent immigrants to the U.S. It would also be very valuable to further explore the impact that FVR in English has on learning English as a foreign language.