Preservation of the mother tongue predicts second-language achievement among migrant children¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · theoreticalr3·q2
Currency · newest study 1979 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q2 i? In the UNESCO investigation of Finnish migrant children in Sweden, the hypothesis that children who best preserved their mother tongue were also best in Swedish was strongly supported. → Cummins 1979
Evidence¶
Cummins 1979¶
Cummins, James. (1979). Linguistic interdependence and the educational development of bilingual children. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED257312. doi:10.3102/00346543049002222
q2 · i? · theoretical · r3
The review reports the UNESCO investigation by Skutnabb-Kangas and Toukomaa (1976) of Finnish migrant children attending Swedish comprehensive school, which examined interdependence between mother-tongue and Swedish skills. The paper states "This hypothesis was strongly supported by the findings." Children who migrated at age 10 achieved Swedish skills comparable to those of Swedes.
"attention was paid to the interdependence between skills in the mother tongue and Swedish, i.e. the hypothesis was tested that those who have best preserved their mother tongue are also best in Swedish."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Preserving a bilingual student's heritage language supports rather than hinders English acquisition — possibly the same claim (merge candidate)
- A learner's first language predicts L2 phoneme perception more strongly than their proficiency level does. — related
- Mead argued that treating the mother tongue as inferior impedes movement between home and school language structures — related
- Semilingualism — less than native-like skill in both languages — is associated with detrimental cognitive and academic consequences — related
- Adolescents who use more language learning strategies are the more proficient ones, and strategy adoption varies with cultural background. — related
- Meta-analyses consistently validate extensive reading benefits across languages and populations, with program length as a moderator — related
- Mexican American children used more heritage language at home while Korean American children used more English — related
- L1 and L2 CALP are interdependent: strong promotion of L1 literacy in the early grades entails no adverse consequences for English — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
mother-tongue-preservation-predicts-l2-achievement |
title |
Preservation of the mother tongue predicts second-language achievement among migrant children |
description |
Preservation of the mother tongue predicts second-language achievement among migrant children |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
1979 |
generated |
by claude/unspecified on 2026-09-25 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — cummins-1979 |
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