Youngest-arriving ESL learners risk acquiring neither L1 nor L2 at the level school demands¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · review r1 · q1
Currency · newest study 2006 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q1 i? The author, citing Roessingh & Kover (2002), states that many youngest-arriving learners appear to acquire neither L1 nor L2 to the level required for academically demanding school tasks. → 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

q1 · i? · review · r1

The author attributes this concern to Roessingh & Kover (2002), stating that many youngest learners "appear to acquire neither L1 nor L2" at the required level. This is an interpretive claim attributed to prior work; no data are printed here.

"The plight of the youngest learners is perhaps the most devastating because many appear to acquire neither L1 nor L2 to the level required to do the cognitive push-ups in school (Roessingh & Kover, 2002)."

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
• Older-arriving ESL learners transfer L1 knowledge efficiently, but learning slows once they outgrow their L1 — related
• BICS-level language can be acquired in about two years regardless of age on arrival and first language — related
• Small-scale studies suggest age 15-16 with intermediate English proficiency (reading GE 5) is a good immigration age — related
• L1 and L2 academic proficiencies are developmentally interdependent, so instruction in either language can build underlying academic ability — related