Small-scale studies suggest age 15-16 with intermediate English proficiency (reading GE 5) is a good immigration age¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · review r1 · q2
Currency · newest study 2006 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? The author's small-scale studies suggest that arriving at age 15-16 with intermediate English proficiency (reading GE 5) and an intact L1 educational background allows underlying proficiency to transfer readily to English. → Roessingh 2006

Evidence¶

Roessingh 2006¶

Roessingh, H. (2006). BICS-CALP: An Introduction for Some, a Review for Others. TESL Canada Journal/Revue TESL du Canada, 23(2), Spring 2006. https://doi.org/10.18806/tesl.v23i2.57

q2 · i? · review · r1

The author reports findings from her own small-scale studies, hedged with "seem to suggest," that age 15-16 arrival with reading GE 5 proficiency supports transfer of L1 underlying proficiency. No sample sizes or effect sizes are printed.

"The small-scale studies we have conducted seem to suggest that age 15-16 (grade 10 placement) is a good age if the student comes with an intermediate level (reading GE 5) of English-language proficiency acquired from studying English as a foreign language (EFL)"

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Immigrant children acquire peer-appropriate conversational fluency in English within about 2 years but require considerably longer (5-10 years) to catch up academically in English — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it
• L1 and L2 academic proficiencies are developmentally interdependent, so instruction in either language can build underlying academic ability — a broader claim this one bears on
• Surface conversational fluency develops within about two years, but academic proficiency in English takes 5-7 years for immigrant students — related
• Older-arriving ESL learners transfer L1 knowledge efficiently, but learning slows once they outgrow their L1 — related
• Preserving a bilingual student's heritage language supports rather than hinders English acquisition — related
• L1 and L2 CALP are interdependent: strong promotion of L1 literacy in the early grades entails no adverse consequences for English — a broader claim this one bears on
• Youngest-arriving ESL learners risk acquiring neither L1 nor L2 at the level school demands — related
• Adolescents who use more language learning strategies are the more proficient ones, and strategy adoption varies with cultural background. — related
• BICS and CALP intersect developmentally but are not identical or reducible one to the other — related