Narrative Competence in Monolingual and Bilingual School Children

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Narrative Competence in Monolingual and
Bilingual School Children

• Barbara Zurer Pearson
• University of Massachusetts
• University of Miami Bilingualism Study Group
• 1988-1998

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With special thanks to RAsPatti Ortega, Ana
Ferrer, Yael Wiesner, Esperanza Rodriguez, and a
host of UM students (all of whom spoke much
better Spanish than I did--and without whom I
could not have studied narrative).
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Questions? Linguality ML gt BL? IMS
Two-way gt EI ?for Hi-SES ?for Lo-SES?
Interdependence L1 predict L2
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The Core Design
Replicated at Kindergarten, 2nd and 5th Grades

• Monolinguals Bilinguals

Two-Way
English Immersion
ESH
OSH
ESH
OSH
Hi
Lo
Hi
Lo
Hi
Lo
Hi
Lo
Hi
Lo
SES
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Contribution of Narrative Analyses1. Can
HEAR the children. (Theyre not just
scores.)2. A SINGLE task combining both oral
language and the demands of literate
language.3. Encourage longer responses more
revealing than single word or short phrases of
the Woodcock-Johnson.
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Findings from Narrative AnalysesML gt BL
(mostly)Two-way EI (partly) in English
Two-way EI in Spanish Two-way gt EIL1
predict L2 oral language No
literacy Yes
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SAMPLE STORIES (4)Handout from page 144-145 of
LLBC (and on CHILDES archive and in SALT, U
WI)400 stories10 each from all cells of 2nd
and 5th graders 80 ML160 BL in
English160 BL in Spanish 24 2nd stories
from MLs (to test the effect of telling the story
twice).
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Frog, Where are You? By M. Mayer (Dial 1969)
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(No Transcript)
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(No Transcript)
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Story 1

1. The dog looked in the bottle and looked at
   the frog.
2. And the boy was sitting on a chair, and his
   sock and his shirt was laying on the floor.
3. And the light was on, and the window was opened.
4. When the the boy and the dog were sleeping
   the frog stuck his head out with his head and
   his arm out of the bottle.

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Story 2

1. One day a boy and his dog had found a frog.
2. They kept him in the big jar.
3. While the boy was asleep, the frog climbed out of
   the jar and ran away.
4. When the boy woke up the next morning, he was
   very upset to see his frog missing.
5. He searched everywhere. In boots and he turned
   over tables.

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Story 3

1. Once there was a little boy with his little dog.
2. It was already night time. They were looking at
   the little frog.
3. The little boy and his dog went to sleep.
4. The frog wanted to go out to see the w the
   world.
5. So he came out of the little can.
6. It was morning already. The puppy and the boy
   looked to the can and saw that their that the
   frog was not there.

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Story 4

1. One day there was a boy n a frog and a dog.
2. And then while the boy sleeps, he the frog
   came out.
3. And then when he wake up, the dog and the boy,
   the frog was gone.
4. He found everywhere and the dog found almost
   found in the bucket.
5. And the boy was calling to the frog.

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So..?

• Which one is a good story?
• Which one is not good?
• Which are from bilinguals? monolinguals?
• Motivation to split the task back up into
• ORAL LANGUAGE (Language Score)
• LITERATE LANGUAGE (Story Score)

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Oral Language Element Examples
1 2 3 4
fluency -- Pause for effect For word-finding --
vocab example Bottle vs Jar vs Can vs Bucket Found xx
Morpho-syntactic accuracy they was laying looked TO the can (boy with his dog) Boy sleeps, he wake up
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Narrative Element Examples
1 2 3 4
orientation none One day..had found Once there was One day
Affective/ cognitive info none (stuck head out) upset saw frog missing searched wanted to see the world saw the frog not there none
Temporal links when2 clause while when1 no clauses already night-morning while wrong tense when1
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What about Complex Syntax? Grammatical devices
(language) to introduce complexity and point of
view (story)

• In English
• Complement clauses
• he saw that the frog was not there.
• Non-finite verbs
• was upset to see his frog missing.
• Relative Clauses
• the boy who had the frog woke up
• In Spanish
• Perfect tenses vio que habian salido otras
  ranitas
• he saw that HAD COME OUT
  other frogs
• Subjunctive dijo que se callara
• he said that he
  was-to-be-quiet

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Complex Syntax (contd)

• Between Clauses
• Causal conjunctions
• in order to so that he could...
• Adverbs of simultaneity
• while when2
• Retrospective reference
• still already todavia
• Language or Story or both?

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Findings from Narrative Analyses(review)ML gt
BL (mostly)Two-way EI
(partly)L1 predict L2 oral language
No literacy Yes
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Question 1 ML outperform BLs (mostly) -- but not
equally in all aspects of the task.

• Remake fig 7.1 (p. 154) to emphasize story score
  equivalence and language score discrepancies.
• First for 2nd grade.
• Next page for 5th grade . (heading language gap
  narrows by 5th grade.)
• Next page (heading Language gap closes at HiSES,
  ESH table 7.10 p. 158.)
• Next page most persistent ML BL difference is in
  MS accuracy fig 7.6 (p. 160) (kids that dont
  talk so good cant think so good (but we saw in
  the story exerpts that that is not true, at least
  not in a circumstance of on-going 2nd language
  learning

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Question 1a MLs outperform BLs (mostly).
(ML red/ BL blue 2nd gr solid/ 5th
grade bars
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Question 1b MLs outperform BLs (mostly) Not
equally in all aspects of the task Story scores
more equivalent Most discrepancy in the
Language Score .
2nd grade Story vs Language
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Question 1c MLs outperform BLs (mostly) Less
so in the long term.
5th grade ML/BL gap narrows Story
Language Score
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Q1d Most persistent ML/ BL gap in MS Accuracy

(Story Lexicon and Complex Syntax catch-up)
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Question 1e ML outperform BLs but Gap in
Total Score closes at HiSES, ESH

Simple Effect -- Linguality Simple Effect -- Linguality Simple Effect -- Linguality
Frog Total ML ML BL BL
n M n M F p
All 2nd grade 40 63.0 79 51.3 35.6 .01
All 5th grade 40 67.3 81 64.4 3.29 .07
5th gr HiSES 20 70.6 40 67.0 2.59 .11
5HiSesESH 20 70.6 20 68.0 0.98 .33
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Hypothesis 2 2-Way EI (partly) IN ENGLISH yes
Remake figure 7.4 p. 159 w/o MLs make companion
graph for Story Score Next page look at MS
Accuracy-Lex-and comp. syntax for 2-way vs EI 2nd
to 5th (from scratch??) Next page the
interaction with SES and Language at home (figure
7.8 p. 162) Next page IN SPANISH no 2-Way gt EI
figure 7.9 (p. 165) bigger difference is in Home
Language
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Question 2a EI 2-way (partly) In ENGLISH
YES.
(EI green, 2-way blue) Story
Language
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Question 2b EI 2-way (partly) In SPANISH
NO.
(EI green, 2-way blue) (OSH orange, ESH
brown) IMS LSH
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Q2 b (cont)

• That is,
• For English IMS has little effect. SES the
  biggest factor. LLBC p. 156

• In Spanish, IMS has largest effect. SES has
  little effect LSH less potent than IMS. LLBC p.
  164

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Question 3a L1 predicts L2 In
Literacy Measures--YES
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Question 3b L1 predicts L2
In Oral Language-- NO
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Q3c A note about story length Despite .43
correlation to Narrative Score, length is NOT a
clear measure of story quality. ie. Story
quality is better at 5th grade for everyone, BLs
stories are getting longer MLs are getting
shorter. MLs tell BETTER stories with fewer
words (and presumably, eventually the bilinguals
will too.)
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Summary of Narrative Analysis Results

• Mirror the results from the Standardized tests
• EI 2 way in English 2-way gt EI in Spanish
• language of the home advantage for ESH (in
  English) disappears by 5th grade language of the
  home advantage for OSH (in Spanish) persists for
  oral language, NOT narrative skills (where IMS
  and SES are more potent influences).

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Key Contribution of Narrative Analysis Results

• Despite language deficits in lexicon and
  MS-accuracy relative to ML peers, BLs
  demonstrated age-appropriate skill in these
  DIFFICULT narrative tasks
• Creating a unified plot
• Motivating events through reference to internal
  states
• Providing narrators comments on the unfolding
  story
• Using compound time-referencing
• Using embedded structures which distinguished
  their own thoughts from those of the characters

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Limitations of Narrative Analysis Results

• Not standardized hard to replicate our scoring
  system, which would need to be simplified to be
  practical.
• Our subjects not the best bilinguals, possibly
  not representative of most bilinguals. (Spanish
  surprisingly weak.)
• All born in US (avoided Age-of-arrival
  variable), but children speak a contact
  variety most BLs in Miami have non-native
  English-language models AND non-native
  Spanish-language models.
• Bp check how lo-ses osh did wrt IMS.

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Final word (from p. 172)

• By using the factorial design of the larger
  study, which balanced the effect of each factor,
  we have enhanced our ability to generalize
  findings from the childrens stories.
• By expanding the performance demand on the
  children through the story task, we have provided
  an auditory snapshot of each individual, to add
  to the perspective provided by the standardized
  scores.

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Final word (cont)

• This snapshot
• enriches our ability to appreciate what the
  test scores are saying, and
• to have greater confidence in the messages they
  convey.
• --LLBC p. 172