Immigrant Children Learning Dutch: Sociolinguistic and Psycholinguistic Aspects of Second-Language Acquisition 9783110867701, 9783110132724

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Immigrant children learning Dutch

René Appel

Immigrant children learning Dutch Sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic aspects of second-language acquisition

1984 FORIS PUBLICATIONS Dordrecht-Holland/Cinnaminson-U.S.A.

Published by: Foris Publications Holland P.O. Box 509 330 A M Dordrecht, The Netherlands Sole distributor for the U.S.A. and Foris Publications U.S.A. P.O. Box C-50 Cinnaminson N.J. 08077 U.S.A.

Canada:

CIP-DATA Appel, René Immigrant children learning Dutch : sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic aspects of second-language acquisition / René Appel. - Dordrecht [etc.] : Foris Publications With ref. I S B N 90-6765-083-8 S I S O 803.2 U D C 800.73-054.62-053.5 Subj. headings: second-language acquisition ; sociolinguistics / secondlanguage acquisition ; psycholinguistics.

I S B N 90 6765 083 8 ©1984 Foris Publications - Dordrecht. N o part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the copyright owner. Printed in the Netherlands by I C G Printing, Dordrecht.

Contents

Preface 1. General introduction 1 1.1. The field of second-language acquisition research 1 1.2. The present study 5 1.3. General methodological information: subjects 6 1.4. Datacollection: the language samples 8 2. Minority language education and second-language acquisition 13 2.1. Introduction 13 2.1.1. The education of minority children: minority languages in the school 13 2.1.2. The evaluation of bilingual education - the influence of minority-language teaching on second-language acquisition 22 2.2. Immigrant workers' children in the Dutch educational system in the seventies 27 2.2.1. A general description 27 2.2.2. The experimental bilingual program in Leyden 29 2.3. The problem 31 2.4. Method 33 2.4.1. Two groups of children: The Experimental group and the Comparison group 33 2.4.2. The assessment of oral language proficiency 37 2.4.3. The assessment of written language proficiency 47 2.5. Results and discussion 49 2.5.1. Results 49 2.5.2. Explanation and interpretation 51 2.5.3. Value of the results 58 2.5.4. Educational implications 65 3. Cultural orientation and second-language acquisition 67 3.1. Introduction 67 3.1.1. Socio-psychological factors and second-language acquisition 3.1.2. Cultural orientation and second-language acquisition 72

3.2. The problem 78 3.3. Method 78 3.3.1. Subjects 78 3.3.2. The assessment of language proficiency 79 3.3.3. The assessment of cultural orientation 81 3.4. Results and discussion 82 4. First-language influence on second-language acquisition 87 4.1. Introduction 87 87 4.1.1. Two conflicting theories of second-language acquisition 4.1.2. New perspectives on first-language influence 91 4.2. The problem 97 4.2.1. Differences between Dutch, Turkish, Moroccan-Arabic and Berber 97 4.2.2. Research questions 102 4.3. Method 104 4.3.1. Subjects 104 4.3.2. Analysis of the language samples 105 4.4. Results and discussion 109 4.4.1. Transfer and second-language acquisition 109 4.4.2. First-language influence on rate of development 113 4.4.3. Preference for certain target language structures 118 4.4.4. Acquisition stage and first-language influence 120 4.4.5. Relations between different types of first-language influence 122 4.4.6. Learning success and first-language influence 126 4.4.7. Cultural and social orientation and first-language influence 4.4.8. Summary and discussion 132 5. Age and second-language acquisition 137 5.1. Introduction 137 5.2. Research questions 139 5.3. Method 140 5.3.1. Subjects 140 5.3.2. Period of study 141 5.3.3. Analysis of second-language proficiency 141 5.4. Results and discussion 141 6. Summaries 149 6.1. Summary (English) 149 6.2. Samenvatting (Dutch) 152 6.3. || y ^ i--i 155 6.4. Ozet 159 Appendix 163 t / m 190 Bibliography 191 t/m 198

Preface

In trying to establish a new research project on the acquisition of Dutch by immigrant workers' children, I came into contact with Henk Everts from the 'School Advies Dienst' (a service institute for counseling and advising teachers and schools) in Leyden. Henk Everts was at that time spring 1977 - in the process of planning and organizing an experimental bilingual program for Turkish and Moroccan children. Although an evaluation of this E.E.C.-educational experiment was not foreseen, Henk Everts had a positive attitude towards my intention to evaluate the results of the experiment as far as the acquisition of Dutch was concerned. I wanted to find out how minority-language teaching affected the rate of second-language acquisition. In a later stage other (second-language) research topics were also considered: the relation between cultural orientation and second-language acquisition, first-language influence on secondlanguage acquisition, and age and second-language acquisition. These three topics were not inherently related to the educational experiment; they could also have been studied in other situations, or with other subjects. Besides the study I was planning, Henk Everts and Joop Teunissen developed other research initiatives on the children's social background, the development of their social and cultural orientation and their school achievement in arithmetic. Although we were not a real 'evaluation team' (we did not aim at a complete, full-scale evaluation; see Appel, Everts & Teunissen, forthcoming), we worked together to a certain extent, and I have profited a lot from the many discussions on the organization of the different studies, and our debates on various issues concerning the educational and social position of immigrant children. Besides that, Henk Everts and (especially) Joop Teunissen were kind enough to let me use some of their data and results. In doing the research reported here many people - mainly students at the Institute for Developmental Psychology at the State University of Utrecht - assisted me in gathering and analyzing the data. I would like to mention separately the contribution of Nelleke Altena, who was involved in the study from the beginning. She supported me in (planning) the

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Preface

empirical work, and I have benefited tremendously from our conversations on the theoretical and political aspects of the issues we wanted to study. Where I want to point to the fact that Nelleke Altena shared in the work done, in describing research activities I will use the personal pronoun we instead o f / . I should like to express my sincere thanks to the children who participated in this study, and also their teachers. My friend and colleagues at the Institute for General Linguistics of the University of Amsterdam (where I have been working since 1980) have offered much help and moral support during the preparation of this book, which was submitted as a doctoral thesis to the Faculty of Arts of the University of Amsterdam. Pieter Muysken especially has been very helpful to me with advice and stimulating words in periods of intellectual doubt or creative impasse. Most of all I am indebted to Ben Tervoort and Guus Extra, the two supervisors of this thesis. Since 1970 I have had the privilege of knowing Ben Tervoort, who has introduced me to the field of language acquisition research. I have greatly profited from his thorough knowledge of this field and his experience in writing a coherent text. Furthermore, I appreciate particularly his stimulating and supporting attitude and his willingness to think in the framework of another person's (i.e. my)opinion. Guus Extra offered invaluable advice on this thesis, which he discussed with me extensively. Many improvements on an earlier draft are due to his careful and accurate reading and comments. I also owe many thanks to Roel Otten for advising me on Berber and Moroccan-Arabic, and Dick Koopman for the information he provided on Turkish. I want to thank Elly Borghesi, Marie-Jose Hoi and Marian Verhallen who typed parts of the manuscript. Liz Savage was kind enough to correct my English. Undoubtedly, the text will contain a great many traces of my interlanguage, but in my opinion second-language learners should not be ashamed of their version of the target language. The summary was translated in Arabic by Thomas Milo, and in Turkish by Ahmet Kiziltepe. Finally, I want to say a few words about a problem of terminology: should I call Turkish and Moroccan children in the Netherlands 'migrant workers' children' or 'immigrant workers' children'? I have chosen the last option, in spite of the fact that most of the Turkish and Moroccan people in the Netherlands - at least the adults - consider their stay here to be only temporary. Immigrant seemed a more suitable term, because migrant gives the impression that the people involved are only staying for a short time, travelling from place to place, or are seasonal labourers. The facts are that they stay a long time, and that their residence is probably permanent. For that reason too the study of their second-language acquisition is so interesting and important.

Chapter 1

General introduction

1.1. The field of second-language acquisition research Many people have tried to learn a second (or third, fourth, etc.) language besides their first language or mother-tongue. They have had different reasons for their often very laborious efforts: multilingualism in their society; migration from one speech community to another speech community; commercial, cultural or literary interests or needs; and the simple existence of educational systems which force their students to learn a non-native language. This implies that there are many different secondlanguage learning situations. However, on an abstract level, types of second-language acquisition are generally distinguished according to two criteria: (a) foreign languages vs. second languages; (b) guided learning vs. naturalistic acquisition. A second language is a language which functions as a regular (or the only) medium of communication in the speech community in which the learner lives, partially or completely, while a foreign language is a language from outside the speech community: in Holland Dutch is a second language for Chinese people, and in China Dutch is a foreign language for Chinese people. Guided learning is learning within classrooms, with a textbook, or in other ways with the help of some kind of instruction, while naturalistic acquisition takes place when learners 'pick up' a language in the context of normal, daily interactions. Foreign language learning only occurs as guided learning, while guided second-language acquisition exists alongside naturalistic second-language acquisition. Although 'second-language acquisition' is often employed as a general term, covering all types of learning, it is also used for naturalistic secondlanguage acquisition which is often regarded as the (scientifically) most interesting acquisitional type, because learning efforts and strategies are not derived from instructional (and thus 'artificial') factors. In the present study I will use the term 'second-language acquisition' mainly in this way. Since about 1970 the empirical study of second-language acquisition has become a substantial branch of (psycho-)linguistics. Up till then, studies on second-language acquisition were mainly concerned with

2

Immigrant children learning Dutch

broad questions of language development and use, or they contained speculative reflections on second-language acquisition (cf. Hatch, 1977; McLaughlin, 1978). Ravem (1968) is one of the first of many empirical studies - appearing in rapid succession especially after 1974 - that are '(•••) centrally concerned with specific problems of theoretical interest, especially aspects of syntactic development and the question of interference between first and second languages' (McLaughlin, 1978: 103). That research on second-language acquisition has only a young tradition is further witnessed by the fact, that in 1978 the first comprehensive treatment of the literature on second-language acquisition (in childhood) was published (McLaughlin, 1978). Compared with other subdisciplines of linguistics, second-language acquisition research is still in its infancy, if the numbers of researchers, research projects, collections of readings, introductory textbooks etc. are considered. If one takes into account the importance of the field, it is (potentially) much bigger, because generally it can address itself to questions of theoretical, linguistic interest as well as to questions of practical, societal interest. Studies on second-language acquisition are relevant - or should be relevant - for: (a) theoretical work on the structure of language, linguistic and languagelearning abilities of man, and universal versus language-specific properties of the human mind; (b) the (practical) design and development of secondlanguage syllabuses or courses. Establishing the period round 1970 as the starting point for studies on second-language acquisition is one thing, but explaining the (fast growing) attention to this field is quite another matter. At least two factors should be considered in such an explanation: a factor relating to internal scientific developments, and a factor that takes into account socio-political influences. I cannot pretend to give a full account, but I want to point to a few possible explanations. With respect to the first factor, two things must be noticed. Since the early sixties //rsManguage acquisition research has become an important field of study. It took some time, i.e. nearly 10 years, before the attention to first-language development was transferred to second-language acquisition. Secondly, the initial enthousiasm of many researchers for the field of first-language research began to decrease. The high hopes of a fruitful application of the transformational-generative framework had to be reduced. The research field became more heterogeneous: syntactic, semantic and pragmatic perspectives were explored. In a phase of re-orientation, a new topic - second-language acquisition - could attract much attention. With regard to the second factor (socio-political influences) one can refer to the need for adequate second-language programs for members of

General introduction

3

linguistic minority groups, especially children in primary education. Research on (naturalistic) second-language acquisition was expected to discover strategies used by the learner to master the second language. Second-language programs should be designed in such a way that learners could employ these strategies. It is striking that around 1970 the interest in bilingual education for these children was also growing, especially in the United States (see Chapter 2). In the editorial introduction, accompanying an overview article by Hakuta and Cancino in Harvard Educational Review (Hakuta & Cancino, 1977), it is even stated that '(recent) concern with bilingual education has led to an increased interest in understanding the process of second-language acquisition' (p. 294). This remark is rather paradoxical: the main objective behind bilingual education for linguistic minority children is to give the minority language, i.e. the first language, an educational function, and this can not directly be related to 'an increased interest in understanding the process of second-language acquisition'. One could speculate extensively on the reasons why it lasted so long before the language situation of minority groups led to growing attention for minority-language teaching and second-language acquisition (at least in the United States, which has inspired many other Western countries as far as these issues are concerned). In the literature on bilingual education (for example Kjolseth, 1972; Macnamara, 1974) it is sometimes argued that bilingual education often has hidden assimilative goals: minority groups which form a potential danger for mainstream society must be integrated. The same argument can be applied to second-language acquisition; the (full) learning of the second language is stressed, because good secondlanguage ability is an important condition for adjustment to mainstream society. With these statements I do not want to imply that second-language researchers (in the United States) had assimilationist ideas. 1 only want to point to the fact that the development of a certain field of study can be related to socio-political trends, and that these trends might influence the choice of research topics, applications of research findings, etc. (cf. Haberland & Skutnabb-Kangas, 1979). It is my firm conviction that most researchers in this field have a positive attitude towards the cultural emancipation of minority groups, although they might differ widely with respect to their views on how this emancipation should be pursued. In Western-Europe the rise of second-language acquisition research was clearly stimulated by the fact that many countries were confronted with groups of immigrant workers and their family members who were in need of second-language education. Linguists were often motivated by these practical problems to explore the new field of second-language research.

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Immigrant children learning Dutch

There are two broad, general topics in the field of second-language research: - strategies used in the acquisition of a second language; - factors which influence the speed or the success of the learning process. Or to put it otherwise, one can make a distinction between studies on the structure of second-language acquisition and studies on the rate of secondlanguage acquisition (cf. Extra, 1982a). Studies on the structure of the acquisition process have addressed themselves mainly to questions about the role of first-language influence on second-language development and the existence of (universal) language learning strategies. Research in which the rate of the acquisition process is studied, is mainly aimed at gaining insight in the influence of factors like motivation, age and intelligence. However, this nice and surveyable distinction is bluTred by the fact that one can also study factors which potentially influence rate and structure of second-language acquisition. (This does not necessarily reduce the value of the distinction, which keeps its theoretical and practical relevance.) I will illustrate this with the example of research on the relation between age and second-language learning. One can study this relation by trying to establish whether age influences rate or success of secondlanguage acquisition: are people from age-group X faster second-language learners than people from age-group Y? But one can also try to find out whether different age groups employ different language learning strategies (for example because of different cognitive structures or different firstlanguage abilities): do second-language learners of age group X rely more heavily on their first-language (knowledge) than second-language learners of age group Y? Although in principle it is possible to study the influence of several factors on the structure of the second-language learning process, most of the research with regard to these factors, is directed at their influence on the rate of the learning process. It is not my aim to juggle with all types of distinctions, but I think insight in the research field may be increased by further distinguishing psycholinguistic from sociolinguistic aspects of second-language acquisition. In research on psycholinguistic aspects the individual learner is the object of study: the learning strategies he/she follows, and the psychological factors (like intelligence, age, cognitive style) which influence rate and structure of the learning process. In research on sociolinguistic aspects of second-language acquisition social or socio-psychological factors which influence the structure and the rate of the learning process are the object of study. These factors are not personal characteristics of the individual (like the psychological factors), but they must be placed outside the individual (e.g. type of schooling) or seen as the outcome of an interaction between internal psychological factors and environmental factors (e.g. attitude/motivation). To summarize, psycholinguistically oriented research

General introduction

5

is concerned with the structure of the second-language acquisition process, and the influence of psychological factors on structure and rate of secondlanguage acquisition. Sociolinguistically oriented research is concerned with the influence of social or socio-psychological factors on structure and rate of second-language acquisition. (Although, it might be better not to talk about the influence of socio-psychological factors, but about the relation between these factors and second-language acquisition, because for example level of second-language proficiency might influence a sociopsychological factor like attitude towards the target language community; see Chapter 3 for further discussion.) 1.2 The present study The research reported here was initiated as a part of the evaluation of an E.E.C.-educational experiment for Turkish and Moroccan immigrant workers' children in Leyden. Contrary to the regular educational practices, it was the aim of the experiment to form national classes (i.e. a Turkish and a Moroccan class) with a teacher from Turkey and Morocco for children of primary school age arriving directly from their country of origin in the Netherlands. The minority language was to be the medium of instruction in these classes, and Dutch was to be taught as a subject by Dutch teachers. Gradually a transition was to be made from minority language to Dutch education (for further information, see Chapter 2, especially section 2.2., and Appel, Everts & Teunissen, forthcoming). The initial, principal aim of the present study was to find out more about the effect of minority-language teaching for immigrant workers' children on their second-language acquisition. It was socially motivated research, because it was hoped that this study (together with the results from other projects) would provide information on the potential linguistic consequences of bilingual education for minority children. The second objective was to study the structure of the second-language learning process, especially the influence of first-language skills on secondlanguage acquisition. It was expected that this kind of insight into the language learning process might be useful in designing second-language programs (for minority children). Because the children in the sample were not the same age (they ranged from 6 till nearly 12 years old when they came to the Netherlands), the age question was also studied: are there differences in second-language learning abilities between younger and older children? In a later stage of the research project I also got interested in another issue: the relation between socio-psychological variables (especially cultural orientation) and the rate of second-language learning.

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Immigrant children learning Dutch

Apart from the subject of second-language teaching, the four topics studied in this research project and discussed in this book, can be considered as the most important topics in the field of second-language acquisition research. Two topics evidently have to do with sociolinguistic aspects of secondlanguage acquisition: the influence of minority-language teaching on rate of second-language acquisition, and the relation between cultural orientation and second-language acquisition. The third topic (the structure of second-language learning, as far as first-language influence is concerned) has both psycholinguistic as well as sociolinguistic aspects: first-language influence is studied more or less in isolation, i.e. without considering social variables (the psycholinguistic approach), and in relation to social variables (the sociolinguistic approach). The fourthtopic is psycholinguistic in nature: the influence of age on rate of second-language acquisition. For me, the present study has been a kind of exploratory expedition into the field of second-language research. During the research period I was confronted with many views and discussions. Gradually I began to develop a critical attitude towards some of these views, I began to form personal opinions, sometimes supported by tentative empirical results. This book is an outcome of this process. In chapters 2 to 5 the four topics mentioned above are discussed. There I present the current opinions, theories, and discussions, my own critical comments and views, and the empirical findings of this study. I would like to stress that it neither was - nor is my aim to pretend to give a completely new view on four topics in secondlanguage acquisition research. With this book I want to contribute to ongoing discussions in this still young and fast developing field of research. I hope that these contributions are useful not only for the further development of theories, but also for the practical task of educating children from linguistic minority groups. Before turning to the four topics of this study in Chapters 2 to 5, I will give some general information on the research project in sections 3 and 4 of this chapter. The information on practical, methodological aspects applies to all four of the following chapters. These four 'topic chapters' can be read more or less independently. In these chapters I will refer back to 1.3. and 1.4. for some of the general methodological information, or to the other 'topic chapters' if specific methodological information is presented there for the first time. 1.3. General methodological information: subjects 57 Children participated in this study; 24 children from the bilingual ex-

General introduction

7

périment and 33 children from other, 'regular' schools, i.e. schools with no minority-language teaching or only a minimal amount. Table 1.1. contains further quantitative information on the sample. Table 1.1. Information on the children studied. The mean age is given in years; months (in May 1978, at the time the first language samples were recorded). Age range is also given for May 1978.

Turkish Moroccan

Bilingual exp.

Regular schools

Boys

Girls

Age range

Mean Age

11 13

15 18

13 18

13 13

7,0-12 ;4 7;1-12;6

9;4 9;6

The children had come to Holland in the period August - December 1977. At the time of the first linguistic data collection (May 1978) the mean length of residence was 8 months. 24 Children lived in Leyden, 9 in Amsterdam, 6 in Gouda and 18 in Utrecht. Information on the children's social background was gathered by Henk Everts and Joop Teunissen, with the help of the children's teachers (especially Turkish and Moroccan teachers) by means of an oral questionnaire. In Appel, Everts & Teunissen (1979) the results are described. I will give a summary here.

Moroccan children The Moroccan children came from families which were (with regard to Dutch standards) fairly large: the mean number of children was five. Family reunions had taken place in 1977; i.e. at that time the wives (together with the children) joined their respective husbands, who had already been working for some time in the Netherlands. The fathers had been alone in the Netherlands (and in some cases also in other countries), before the family reunions, for a fairly long time: a mean period of nearly 10 years. Nearly all of the Moroccan families were from rural villages in the North of Morocco. In Holland they lived mainly in or close to the city centres in old working-class neighbourhoods. In Morocco about 50% of the fathers were employed in agriculture, and most of the others had done semi-skilled or unskilled labour. In the Netherlands nearly all the Moroccan fathers had this type of work in factories. The mothers did not have a job outside the home. Most of the fathers and mothers had not attended primary school in Morocco; some of them had gone to the Koran-school. Except for the

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Immigrant children learning Dutch

children who were still too young at that time, all the children from the sample had attended primary school in Morocco. For some of the families Berber instead of Moroccan-Arabic was the language of the home.

Turkish children The families from which the Turkish children in the sample came had on average 3 children. In nearly half of the cases family reunion took place in 1977: the mothers came to the Netherlands with their children. The reunion process in the other families was somewhat different: the mother with one or more children had come to the Netherlands before 1977 while the other children stayed in Turkey (for example with their grandparents). In later years these children also joined their family (in the case of the children from the sample, in 1977). The mean period during which the fathers were separated from their families was much shorter for the Turks than for the Moroccans: 4Vt years. The Turkish families came from various parts of Turkey, except for the relatively most industrialized area with the highest density of population, the Western part of Turkey. Like the Moroccan families, in the Netherlands, they lived mainly in or close to the city centres in old workingclass neighbourhoods. In Turkey the fathers had different types of work: in agriculture, factories or as (small) shopkeepers, or tradesmen. Most of them did semiskilled or unskilled work in factories in the Netherlands. Nearly half of the Turkish mothers had an unskilled job outside the home. Most of the fathers and almost 50% of the mothers had received primary education in Turkey. All the children from the sample had attended primary school in Turkey. For all the families, Turkish was the language of the home. The group of 57 children formed the initial sample for the present study. In the second and third year of study the size of the group was somewhat reduced because of various causes: a few children went back to Turkey or Morocco, some of the children went to other schools were no data could be collected, and sometimes when data were collected a few children were not at school, for example because of illness. In each of the chapters 2-5 I will give information about the numbers of children who participated in the three successive years in the part of the study dealt with.

1.4. Data collection: the language samples Data on Dutch language use were gathered on three occasions: at the end of the first, second and third school year the children were in the Netherlands (May 1978, May 1979 and May 1980). The da,ta collection took

General introduction

9

place in the schools which the children attended. Except for a test of written language proficiency (see 2.4.3.), this was done individually in sessions with one child and one experimenter. The experimenters were psychology students, who had received detailed written instructions on the way the data collection should take place. After the students had done a trial session with immigrant children who did not form part of the sample, the instruction was discussed extensively. Each year the data collection for every child was done in two sessions, each about 30 minutes long. Between the two parts there was minimally half a day and maximally two days. In the successive years of study roughly two types of data were gathered: the children's reactions to various tests of Dutch language proficiency and samples of the children's spoken Dutch in more or less spontaneous, naturalistic settings. Here I will only describe the collection of the spontaneous language samples, because the tests were not used in all of the following four partial studies (see 2.4.2. for the tests). In relation to the notion of 'language proficiency' I will discuss in 2.4.2. the problems which arise in gathering data on spontaneous, naturalistic speech. In this section I will present concrete information on the way we elicited spoken Dutch from the children. In the first year of study we used the following elicitation devices: (a) Bilingual Syntax Measure (BSM). In fact, the BSM consists of some (series of) pictures about which the Experimenter can talk with a child. The BSM was developed by Burt, Dulay & Hernández (1973) for the assessment of the English and Spanish language proficiency of English-Spanish bilingual children. The BSM is structured in such a way (i.e. certain questions are asked about the pictures) that it is possible to test children's morphological abilities. We translated the English version of the BSM into Dutch, which meant that certain questions had to be changed or deleted because of morphological differences between English and Dutch. We also added a few questions. The elicited speech was not only used for a morphological analysis but also for an analysis with other variables. (b) Pictures series. The children were shown three series of four pictures each; the four pictures consisted of a series of consecutive events, and the children were asked to tell the story while they had the pictures in front of them. If a child could not, or would not produce a story, he/she was prompted by the experimenter with some questions. After the story was told, more or less completely, the experimenter asked a few questions in connection with the pictures (see for an example of one of the picture series Appendix 1.1.).

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Immigrant children learning Dutch

(c) Conversation. The experimenter talked with the children about their activities outside school: contacts with other children, games, experiences on the streets, etc. A list with eighteen questions was compiled beforehand, which served as a rough guide-line for the experimenter in the conversation, in order to guarantee some comparability between the samples. But not all the questions had to be asked, or a conversation could go in a new direction as a result of the child's contribution. The second year of study the following elicitation devices were employed: (a) Pictures series. The experimenter showed the children seven series of (three or four) pictures, each constituting a story. As in the first year, the children were asked to tell the story. The experimenter asked some further questions about four of the series. (b) Drawing task plus conversation. The experimenter proposed to the child that each of them should make a drawing of his/her house. After that the experimenter told something about his/her own house and its environment (a list with several topics was made up in advance: number of rooms, domestic animals, neighbours, traffic, etc.). Next the child was asked to tell something about his/her house. Finally the experimenter asked some questions about brothers and sisters (every child had siblings) and school experiences. In the third year spoken language was sampled in the following contexts (a) Series of pictures and photographs. This elicitation device was comparable to the ones used in 1978 and 1979, with the difference that not only drawings were used, but also series of photographs (see Appendix 1.2. for an example). We had four series of four pictures and two series of five photographs and one series of seven photographs. (b) Isolated pictures. We used four larger pictures. The first one was called the 'destination picture'. It was a drawing of a school, a factory, a mosque, a shop and a doctor, and a family with a father, a mother and three children. The children were asked which family member would go to which destination to do what. In connection with this the experimenter asked the child something about his or her own experiences with regard to illness, going to the mosque, and the work his or her father and mother did. Furthermore, we had two large photographs of immigrant workers and some of their children who were at the slaughter-house preparing the ritual slaughtering of sheep. Some questions were asked about the photographs and the sacrificial feast in the Netherlands and in Morocco or Turkey.

General introduction

11

Finally, we had a colorful drawing of a fire: the children had to talk about everything they saw in the picture (police, fire-brigade, helicopter trying to save people, curious spectators, etc.). (c) Conversation. The experimenter started the conversation with a question about the child's leisure time and hobbies. If possible, the conversation continued about subjects the child mentioned. If not, the experimenter asked some questions about activities outside school and watching television (it is known, that in the houses of immigrant workers' families the television is often on continuously). Reviewing the elicitation procedures, it is still difficult to say which device was the most effective one. The BSM turned out to be not very attractive for the children. Two of the people who designed the BSM wrote that '(the) administration of the BSM is like chatting with a child about some pleasant pictures' (Dulay & Burt, 1974a: 40). In our experience, a lot of children did not think the pictures very pleasant. The subjects of the pictures have hardly anything to do with the things immigrant children see and hear in their environment. Presenting the children with photographs as well as drawings (in the third year) was a good idea. In general, children who were fairly talkative did not need very much stimulation; they talked a lot and seemed to enjoy the language sampling sessions. On the other hand there were children who were more reserved. They often gave minimal answers. Asking more questions seemed to make the conversation more tense. Perhaps an experimenter needs to take a long time to become friendly with such children, but that approach could not be applied in the present study. Each year the language samples were recorded on a simple cassette-recorder. The recorder was clearly visible. The first time, the children were shown how the recorder operated. The experimenters did not get the impression that the presence of the recorder influenced the children's speech.

Chapter 2

Minority language education and second-language acquisition

2.1.

Introduction

2.1.1. The education of minority children: minority languages in the school The education of children from linguistic minority groups has been a problem for centuries all over the world. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say: everyone should have experienced it as a problem, but, unfortunately, this has not been and is not the case. The people who really feel the burden of the problems (besides the teachers involved) are the minority groups themselves, who are in many cases the most vulnerable groups in society. Traditionally, the general situation is the following. The population of a country consists of a majority community and one or more minority groups. The majority is not always a majority in purely quantitative terms, but it is always socially, politically, economically, and culturally the most powerful group. It is the ruling class in society, like the Danishspeaking people in Greenland or the English, French or Dutch speaking elites in the former respective colonies. Minority groups differ from the majority in their language, culture, socio-economic position, and often in their political view-points. The majority has hardly any problems with minority education: it should be like majority education with the majority language as the medium of instruction. It is not always clear what arguments are used to support this type of education for minority children. The following motives (which may partially overlap) can be distinguished. (a) The cultural unity of a country will be promoted if everybody is educated in the same (majority) language (cf. Edwards, 1981). (b) The political unity of a country will be promoted if everybody is educated in the same national language. In the United States the slogan 'one nation, one flag, one language' was used in this context. It is supposed that the minority language has an important cultural and political meaning for minority groups. The use of minority languages in the schools will strengthen the political identity of minority groups. This could be dangerous for political unity, especially in the case of regional and ethnic independance

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movements which stand up for the rights of the minority language, for example the Basques in Spain, (cf. Cummins, n.d.; Fishman, 1976). (c) The social unity of a country will be promoted if everyone is educated in the same language. If different groups are being educated in different languages, the social barriers between these groups will become stronger; it could lead to segregation (cf. Fishman, 1977). (d) To ensure a positive socio-economic future, minority children should receive majority language education. This is the best way to guarantee good proficiency in the majority language; this proficiency is needed to promote academic achievement and socioeconomic success (cf. De Vries, 1981; Beleidsplan, 1981). Cummins (n.d.) states that political, cultural and social arguments against the use of minority languages in the school are often rationalized in what he calls 'psychoeducational terms': it is said that if minority children are deficient in the majority language then they need instruction in that language, not the minority language. But behind this argument lies the fear that minoritylanguage teaching will lead to social fragmentation and separatist movements. Skutnabb-Kangas (1978) points to a possible fifth argument. This argument is never clearly expressed by the people or institutions (for example governments) who plea for majority-language education for minority children. The content of this 'hidden' argument, which in fact runs counter to argument (d) is: (e) Majority-language education keeps minority children in their disadvantaged or oppressed positions; this is favourable for certain societies and economic systems that are in need of cheap labour forces. According to Skutnabb-Kangas (1978) exclusive majoritylanguage education is not effective for minority children: the competence in both the minority and the majority language will not fully develop: the result of this is called semilingualism. Skutnabb-Kangas (1978: 233) states that '(•••) one of the main goals of school is to function as a selective instrument. Semilingualism, produced by the institutional organization of the minority child's environment, among others the educational system, which operates on the majority terms to ensure the continuation of the present power relationships and the division of labour, sees to it that the minority children are neatly sorted out from the educational system and the decision making positions at an early age.' In general the situation was and is that minority children receive majority-

Minority language education and second-language acquisition

15

language education; and that the minority language is neither permitted as a medium of instruction, nor taught as a subject. But there are many exceptions to this situation. This is not the place to present an extensive overview of all efforts to introduce minority languages in education (see Ferguson et al., 1977; Andersson & Boyer, 1978; Spolsky & Cooper, 1978). I will only give a few arbitrarily chosen examples. In the ninetheenth century and in the first decades of the twentieth century many immigrant groups organized mother-tongue education, especially the Germans (see Fishman and Nahirny, 1966). In the Soviet-Union immediately after the Revolution educational innovations were started to promote the use of various national languages besides Russian in the schools (see Lewis, 1977). The Frisians are the traditional linguistic minority in the Netherlands. From 1907 on Frisian was taught, but these courses had to be organized outside the schools. In 1937 the Dutch educational laws were changed so that it became possible to teach Frisian in schools. Since 1955 Frisian has been permitted to be used as the medium of instruction in the first three grades of primary schools, and since 1974 also in the last three grades (Boelens, 1975;Zondag, 1982). There are dozens of examples of minority language education, but that does not really alter the fact that minority languages in general have had a marginal function in the educational system, and - possibly as a consequence of this - many minority children have been functioning marginally themselves too. Since about 1950 minority children education has been discussed more widely and frequently than before, and there is an increasing interest in the introduction of minority languages into the educational system. In this context, 1951 is an important year, because in this year the UNESCO meeting of specialists on the use of vernacular languages in education was held. A famous statement in the report of the meeting is: 'It is axiomatic that the best medium for teaching a child is his mother tongue' (UNESCO, 1953: 11). In the United States the educational rehabilitation of minority languages started in the early sixties. In 1963 the Wade County public schools in Florida established the Coral Way School with a Spanish-English program to meet the needs of an increasing number of Cuban children. In 1967 the Bilingual Education Act (Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act) was accepted, which allocated funds for bilingual programs (Andersson & Boyer, 1978). In Western Europe the position of minority languages in the educational system improved in the seventies, which was also expressed in directives and resolutions of the E.E.C. and the Council of Europe. Two factors, which also exerted their influence in other parts of the world (e.g. the United States) led to this development. In the first place an important role was played by political movements which were fighting for further democratization of society and the emancipation of oppressed groups. The

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Immigrant children learning Dutch

struggle was not only for economic emancipation, but also for cultural emancipation of minority groups. This implied that the value of the minority culture - and as a part of this also the minority language - was stressed. The second factor concerns the concrete, actual situation: quite suddenly large numbers of minority children entered the schools, mainly children of immigrant workers, as in Germany and Sweden, or children from former colonies as in Great Britain. In this new and complex educational situation many people argued for the introduction of minority languages in the schools, i.e. the organization of bilingual education. In the discussions on this subject the following partially overlapping arguments are given in favour of a certain amount of minority-language teaching. The first five arguments ((a)-(e)) concern the position and the educational future of individual minority children. (a) The first language of the child must be used as an initial medium of instruction to ensure that academic progress is not retarded, while the majority language can be learned as a subject. Educators agree that a child's mother tongue is the best normal instrument for learning, especially in the early stages of school, and that reading and writing in the first language should preceed literacy in the second (Bowen, 1977). (b) The minority child's general cognitive development will be retarded if it does not receive education in the mother tongue, and if the mother tongue is not further developed in the school. Cummins has formulated the threshold hypothesis (Cummins, 1978) to account for the results of studies on bilingual education. According to this hypothesis minority children must attain a certain level of competence (the threshold level) in their first language (and the majority language) to avoid cognitive disadvantages. When the children's first language has a low prestige in society (as is the case with the languages spoken by immigrant workers), language development is not stimulated outside the school, so it is an educational task (see for a discussion of Cummins' ideas also section 2.5.2.). (c)

Minority-language teaching is a requirement for a healthy development of the child's personality and the development of a positive self-image. If schools don't provide any minority-language teaching, then for immigrant children the school becomes '(•••) a place where neither their language nor culture exists, possibly where they are not even accepted, a place where their social identity is questioned and undermined, a place where they ought to abandon their language and their norms to get by, and instead learn to adopt the language usage, norms and values (...) of the linguistic majority.' (Toukomaa & Skutnabb-Kangas, 1977: 20). Christian (1976) states that the self-image of minority children will be harmed if,

Minority language education and second-language acquisition

(d)

(e)

17

in the school, literacy in the mother tongue (besides literacy in the majority language) is not developed. When minority children only learn to read and write in the majority language - even if their first language is for some time the medium of instruction and do not learn that school subjects exist in their first language, then that language '(•••) must almost inevitably be considered a second-rate means of communication. It is not far from that conclusion to the conclusion that those who speak the home language are second-rate people.' (Christian, 1976: 28). As an extension of argument (c), it can be argued that the use of the minority language as a medium of instruction will relieve the cultural shock which minority children can experience at the transition from the home to the school (Ad-hoc subcommissie, 1982). It is the mother-tongue that is the link between child and his/her home community (Ure, 1981). This argument can also be related to argument (c) about the development of the child's selfimage. Minority-language education is necessary to develop the child's first language and this in its turn, is a necessary prerequisite for the succesfull acquisition of the majority language (Skutnabb-Kangas, 1978). Regarding this issue Cummins has formulated the developmental interdependence hypothesis, which proposes '(•••) that the level of L2 competence which a bilingual child attains is a function of the level of the child's LI competence at the time when intensive exposure to L2 begins.' And an '(• • •) initially high level of LI competence makes possible the development of similar levels of competence in L2. However, when LI is poorly developed, as in the case of many lower-class or "disadvantaged" children, intensive exposure to L2 can impede the continued development of LI skills. In turn, the fact that LI skills remain poorly developed will exert a limiting effect on the development of L2'. (Cummins, 1978: 405). Because it lies at the heart of the present study, I will go further into this matter in 2.5.2.

The following two arguments have more to do with general aims concerning social/cultural groups and society as a whole than with individual minority children. (Of course, the division between the two types of arguments is only made for reasons of clarity. Ideas proposed in the 'individual arguments' have consequences for society, and vice versa). (f) Minority-language teaching will help to prevent the forced linguistic and cultural assimilation of minority groups (SkutnabbKangas, 1978). Cultural pluralism and multilingualism can be seen as an enrichment for society as a whole. Minority languages

18

(g)

Immigrant children learning Dutch are often a fundamental part of a minority group's cultural identity (Wijnstra, 1976; Tosi, 1979). Besides that, a country can profit from the fact that it has many languages, and therefore many bilingual citizens, within its borders. Recognition of the language (and culture) of minority groups will improve the social and cultural relations between these groups and the rest of society. The strengthening of the cultural identity of minority groups (influenced by minority-language teaching) will help to reduce the chances of polarisation and social-political tension between minority groups and the rest of society (Ad-hoc subcommissie, 1982).

Concerning the position of immigrant workers minority groups, another argument can be added : (h) Educational policy makers as well as immigrants themselves can argue for minority-language education because of the intentions of immigrant families to stay only temporarily in the 'host country'. Return to the country of origin is much easier if the children are competent in the minority language (cf. Khan, 1980). In the seventies and early eighties many articles and books were published containing several arguments in favour of minority-language education. The view according to which minority children should follow majoritylanguage education has become rather unpopular among educational psychologists and sociolinguists. Still there are some people who, sometimes rather tentatively and carefully, have objected to the dominant opinion. Ekstrand (1979) doubts whether Cummins is right in his idea that the first language should be developed further in school before minority children can start the task of second-language acquisition. De Vries (1981) does not believe in the positive social and cultural effects of minority-language education. She points to the situation of immigrant workers' children in Dutch schools. In her opinion minority-language and culture education has more to do with the country of origin than with the quite new situation of the immigrant workers in the Netherlands. Apart from that, in minority-language education the immigrant children are often confronted with a language other than the language they speak at home, which can be a dialect or a minority language in the country of origin. Edwards (1981) attacks one of the presuppositions in the minority language approach. He wonders whether cultural pluralism is really good and why ethnic diversity (especially as this is manifested through language maintenance) should be encouraged. He also states that language maintenance is not always necessary to support ethnic identity: 'communicative language use is one of the most visible manifestations of identity

Minority language education and second-language acquisition

19

most susceptible to change and decline. Attempting to artificially prop it up is therefore running counter to powerful outside-the-school trends' (p. 39; see also Epstein, 1978b). Even one of the most passionate advocates for the use of minority languages, Fishman, admits that programs which are aimed at language maintenance can have a (negative) segregative effect (Fishman, 1977; see also Stolting (1977)) on the national classes for immigrant workers' children in Germany). Until now, I have used expressions like 'the introduction of minority languages in the school' and 'minority-language education' without explaining what this actually means or what the position of minority languages in the school is. Education in which a minority language has a certain function next to the majority language is mostly called bilingual education. I will not try to describe all possible types of bilingual education (see Mackey, 1970). Although other distinctions are possible (cf. Extra, 1982b), I will only mention two prototypes, which were discussed in Kjolseth (1972): the pluralistic model and the assimilationist model. In the pluralistic model linguistic pluralism is promoted. The minority language is not considered as a problem; it has a value of its own and it is as important as the majority language. It is not only used as an initial medium of instruction, but also in later grades of the elementary school. In the assimilationist model the minority language is only used in the early grades, because its main function is to bridge the gap between the home and the school. In fact the minority language is used in school to make it easier for the child to adjust to the demands of the school; according to Macnamara (1974) the minority language is seen as a disease from which the child must be cured. Pluralistic models are often called maintenance programs and assimilationist models transitional programs (cf. Fishman & Lovas, 1972). The arguments in favour of minority-language teaching presented above are not to be applied to any type of bilingual education. In my opinion all the arguments except (a) (i.e. the use of initial minoritylanguage teaching to promote academic progress) are more maintenance oriented. Argument (a) is typically a transitional argument, and argument (e) partly: for all types of bilingual programs it can be argued that first-language development is a prerequisite for second-language acquisition (or, to put it differently: that minority-language teaching does not harm or hinder second-language acquisition). I have presented quite a few arguments for and against minority-language teaching, but until now I have not discussed the status of these arguments. Are they based on scientific research, on certain beliefs, on ideological grounds, or perhaps on ideological scientific research about matters the

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Immigrant children learning Dutch

researchers believe in? Reading the literature on minority-language teaching and bilingual education, it becomes clear that various authors reproach their opponents for basing their opinions solely on ideological or political and not on scientific grounds. For example Toukomaa & Skutnabb-Kangas (1977), who are well-known advocates of intensive and lasting minoritylanguage teaching say: 'All psychological, pedagogic and sociological as well as most linguistic reasons argue for education in one's mother tongue, whereas the arguments that can be presented against this principle are principally political and economic' (p. 22). Cummins (n.d.) holds more or less the same viewpoint. In his opinion certain socio-political assumptions lead to a fear of bilingual education. Therefore the arguments against minority-language teaching are socio-political in nature, although they are sometimes presented as scientifically based arguments. Edwards (1981) fights the adherents of bilingual maintenance programs like Toukomaa & Skutnabb-Kangas and Cummins. He defends the value of transitional bilingual education. He argues that '(•••) opposition to transitional bilingual education and support for the maintenance variety are predicted upon certain political and social values and assumptions' (p. 31). Epstein (1978a) also blames the advocates of bilingual education (especially bilingual education aimed at language maintenance) for presenting ideological views as scientific arguments: 'It is the tendency of some scholars, in their eagerness to influence public policy, to confuse rhetoric and research, to blur the critical distinction between their scholarship and their ideologies, between what they know and what they believe' (p. 670). The question is: who knows (scientifically) and who believes (ideologically)? In my view the situation is as follows. Adherents of bilingual (language maintenance) education certainly have some ideological viewpoints. It is easy to see that they believe in the cultural emancipation of minority groups, in the rights of minority groups to maintain their language and culture, and that they argue therefore for a pluricultural and multilingual society in which no culture dominates other cultures and no language dominates other languages. According to this view, bilingual education may help to realize such a society. These principally ideological arguments are then supported by scientific arguments (although one can dispute the non-ideological, objective character of scientific research on this subject, cf. Skutnabb-Kangas, 1978). This scientific knowledge is derived from studies on the educational, linguistic, and cognitive effects of minority-language teaching. Most of the research results support the view that minority-language teaching has positive effects for minority children. (I will deal with the results of research on linguistic effects of minority-language teaching in section 2.1.2. Evaluation of bilingual education. ) I think that the arguments in favour of the majority language approach

Minority language education and second-language acquisition

21

are almost completely ideologically based because of the above mentioned research results. The main point in these arguments is, that linguistic and cultural adaptation to the majority norms and values gives the minority child the best opportunity to succeed in school and in society. At best, this is a form of wishful thinking, because, as far as I know, there are hardly any research results available which support this opinion. Looking at the social and economic position of the Hispanics in the USA, there are more grounds for saying that education aimed at linguistic and cultural adaptation (which the majority of the children have received and are still receiving) does not warrant a real opportunity. To end this section, I want to discuss another matter of politics, which as far as I know - is not explicitly dealt with in the literature on bilingual education: what is the position of the minority-language teaching adherents on the political scale progressive-conservative? In my view, the general opinion in the late seventies was that minority-language teaching for minority children (especially aimed at maintenance) was progressive and majority-language teaching conservative. Skutnabb-Kangas' writings on the issue of education for minority children and semilingualism had a strong influence on this opinion (see e.g. Skutnabb-Kangas, 1978). But later on it turned out that the situation was not so clear. Minority-language education can be organized in such a way that minority children are really cut off from the social and educational opportunities which mainstream society offers, and this can even be a preconceived aim, as the educational and political situation in South-Africa shows (cf. Angogo, 1978). Even in a progressive country, minority languages can be excluded from the educational system: in the Peoples Republic of Mozambique all education is in Portuguese, while the majority of Mozambican children do not have Portuguese as their mother tongue. Skutnabb-Kangas has also more or less changed her opinion. In a later article (Skutnabb-Kangas, 1981) she argues that the way education for minority children is organized must depend on social and political conditions in the respective countries. For example, in Sweden minoritylanguage teaching is recommended, because of the non-segregative character of Swedish society, while in Western Germany integration in German classes must be aimed at, because there are some dangerous segregating trends in majority society. (But Skutnabb-Kangas adds to this diagnosis: '(...) the education which the (migrant, RA) children get, despite very different circumstances, helps to reproduce the powerless status of the parents, at the same time as it helps to maximize profitability, minimize costs, and retain control over the future destinity of the migrant workers' (p. 90)). If one's position is at the progressive end of the political scale, which

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Immigrant children learning Dutch

implies that the cultural, social, political and educational interests of minority groups must be defended against majority interests, there is not a single, satisfactory solution for the (language) educational problems of minority children. Minority-language teaching can be profitable for them, but that depends on social and political circumstances. Everything I have said about the potential pay-off of bilingual education rested on the assumption that minority-language teaching is not harmful for second-language acquisition, or that it even stimulates the learning of the majority language (see argument (e) above in favour of this type of education). But can this assumption be validated? And can it be validated for all types of minority groups and all kinds of social and political situations? This question was the starting-point for the research which is reported in this chapter. I will go deeper into this question in section 2.1.3. where the research problem will be described. Before that, in section 2.1.2.1 will discuss the results of evaluations of bilingual education, as far as the influence of minority-language teaching on second-language acquisition is concerned. 2.1.2. The evaluation of bilingual education - the influence of minoritylanguage teaching on second-language acquisition In general the evaluation of educational innovation confronts researchers with many methodological problems (cf. Tawney, 1976). Perhaps, this applies even more to evaluation studies of bilingual education. Engle (1975) in one of the first overviews of research in this field complains about the methodological flaws in research designs. According to her, it is very difficult to draw conclusions on the possible effects of bilingual education. Mackey (1977) paints a frightening picture for future researchers on this subject. In his article on the evaluation of bilingual education he gives a 'checklist of variables' and 'some relevant questions' (p. 274-281): in all more than a hundred variables and questions which should or could be taken into account in a research design. But Mackey also makes some comforting remarks, e.g.: 'We can only evaluate specific types of bilingual schooling one at a time for a particular group in an attempt to answer such specific questions as: to what extent do the modifications in the language behavior of this school population in these classes enable this group of learners to achieve this particular linguistic or educational objective?' (Mackey, 1977: 227). Looking at the results of research on bilingual education, it should also be considered that there have never been many research funds. Troike (1978) writes that the acceptance of the Bilingual Education Act in the USA was largely 'an act of faith, with little research to support it' (p. 1), but in the original legislation no provision for funding of research was

Minority language education and second-language acquisition

23

included. The Office of Bilingual Education did not include it in their budget request until 1976. In 1978 Troike (p. 2) stated that '(•••) although over $500 million - half a billion - has been spent on bilingual education in the last 10 years, less than one-half of one percent of that total has been spent on research (...)'. In Western Europe the situtation is the same, or even worse. For example, for many years in Western Germany bilingual education has been recognized which aimed at stimulating second-language acquisition and the maintenance and promotion of skills in the minority language. Often these bilingual programs degenerate into complete classes in the native language or monolingual German assimilationist classes. Not one research report has come to light describing the consequences of these programs for minority-language competence and second-language acquisition. Also in the Netherlands new educational measures were taken, and educational experiments were organized without any (financial) guarantee of proper evaluation of the functioning and the effects of the experiments. The research reported here (which was part of a wider research program, see Chapter 1) was undertaken completely voluntarily. It was purely by accident that some researchers became interested in the first Dutch educational experiment with immigrant children in which minoritylanguage teaching was incorporated as a fundamental part of the program. Otherwise, the results of the experiment would probably not have been evaluated, and valuable information which could be used in formulating a policy for minority education would have been lost. It was not until 1981 that in the Ministry of Education's Policy Paper on minority education it was stated that research on this subject should be stimulated, but still no concrete plans were revealed (Beleidsplan, 1981). Along the lines of thinking of Mackey (1977), who stated that research results only apply to specific situations, I will give a few examples of studies on the effects of bilingual education on second-language acquisition. I will only present a short description of the conclusions. More information can be found in Cohen (1975), Bowen (1977), Troike (1978), Cummins (n.d.), Baker & De Kanter (1982), and of course in the various research reports mentioned in these studies. Wijnstra (1976) studied the (written) second-language proficiency of Frisian children in bilingual schools in Friesland, a bilingual province in the northern part of Holland. He shows that the written Dutch proficiency of children from schools with bilingual programs was not retarded compared to the proficiency of children who followed a completely monolingual (Dutch) program. Much cited is Modiano's study of bilingual education in the Chiapas highlands of Mexico (Modiano, 1968). According to her, children who received initial minority-language teaching had higher reading scores than children who were educated completely in Spanish.

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Immigrant children learning Dutch

Toukomaa & Skutnabb-Kangas ( 1977) show that the second-language acquisition of Finnish children in Sweden profited from using Finnish as the medium of instruction in the preschool, but Ekstrand (1979) states that most of their conclusions are disputable, especially on methodological grounds. Hanson (1979; summarized in Cummins, n.d.) found that Swedish performance improved when Finnish children attended a school in which Finnish was used as the major language of instruction till grade 3. Well-known is the Rock Port Study on bilingual education for Navajo children in the USA (Rosier & Farella, 1976). It was found that the acquisition of English reading skills profited from the use of Navajo as a medium of instruction and the delay of English reading instruction until Navajo reading skills were well-established. Cummins (n.d.) summarizes the results of a study on a bilingual program for francophone students in Manitoba ( USA): the amount of Frenchmedium instruction showed no relationship to children's achievement in English, or, in other words: minority-language teaching was neither a retarding, nor an accelerating factor in second-language acquisition. Most of the research on the effects of minority-language teaching has been conducted in the context of bilingual education for Spanish-speaking children in the USA. In evaluating a bilingual program in West-Texas Moore & Parr (1978; summarized in Baker & De Kanter, 1982) concluded that monolingual English classes scored significantly higher than bilingual classes on measures of reading and language achievement in English. In Cohen's study the results with regard to English proficiency were about the same for Mexican-American children from Spanish-English programs and from English only programs (Cohen, 1975). Other studies demonstrated positive effects of Spanish as medium of instruction on English language skills (e.g. Legaretta, 1979;Leyba, 1978). Different studies were conducted on the introduction of Tagalog as a medium of instruction in Philippine schools, where for a long time English was used exclusively with Tagalog being studied as a subject since 1940. Cohen (1975: 26) summarizes the results as follows: 'The Philippine experience does not tend to support the argument that it is best to begin education in the vernacular alone as a means for achieving bilingual ability and academic success. Those students who started in the second language alone appear to have emerged more proficient bilinguals and academically more sucessful. Apparently, when students began their studies in the vernacular and in English simultaneously (...) these students emerged as proficiently bilingual as students beginning their studies in English alone. However, students who began their studies only in the vernacular were experiencing a lag (...)'. In the research literature on bilingual education there is much controversy

Minority language education and second-language acquisition

25

over the effects of minority-language teaching, although it is quite remarkable that in these debates the effects on the development of the minority language are hardly ever taken into account. There is much disagreement on the methodological designs of many studies (for example, the comparability of groups of students, the use of certain tests), and therefore also about the results (see Baker & De Kanter, 1982, and further discussions in Cummins & Skutnabb-Kangas, forthcoming). In spite of this controversy, one must conclude that in different situations with minority groups differing in many respects (socio-economic position, indigeneous vs. non-indigeneous, prestige of minority language etc.), the use of the minority language in school, generally, is not a retarding factor in the acquisition of the majority language; it can even foster secondlanguage learning. Only in a few cases minority-language teaching seems to harm or hinder second-language acquisition. Even Baker & De Kanter (1982), who are highly critical about (transitional) bilingual education and research on the effects of minority-language teaching, and who disregard the conclusions of many research reports, because of certain methodological flaws in these studies, found more studies reporting positive effects than studies reporting negative effects on the development of majority-language skills. An important question for people involved in the education of immigrant workers' children in Western Europe is: can this conclusion also be applied to the education of these children? One thing can be said for sure: compared with other minority groups, their situation differs strikingly. This difference is to a great extent caused by the fact that most of the immigrant workers and their family members as well as many members of the majority population consider the stay of the immigrants as only temporary (although it must be said that in this respect the situation in the Scandinavian countries is not the same as in other West European countries; for example in Sweden immigrant workers are considered as permanent residents). The return idea is very strong in the midst of the immigrant workers. Even Turkish people who have lived for about ten years in the Netherlands, with their children (some of them born in the Netherlands), have built a house in Turkey, because 'some time' they want to return to their country of origin (cf. Lalleman, 1983). It is often asserted that this is a major cause for the low level of second-language proficiency of the immigrant workers (e.g. Werkgroep Taal Buitenlandse Werknemers, 1980). It is easy to see that this belief in the temporary character of the stay in the new country can also affect the attitudes of the immigrant workers' children. Why should they be motivated to learn the second language, if they might go back to Turkey or Morocco soon? Perhaps this negative motivation has an even stronger influence in educational situations where minority-language teaching is provided.

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Immigrant children learning Dutch

This broad analysis of the situation underlines the earlier cited words of Mackey (1977): evaluations of bilingual education in specific situations can not be applied to all types of situations. Therefore, an evaluation of the effects of minority-language teaching on the second-language acquisition of immigrant workers' children is necessary. The number of immigrant workers' children is increasing very fast in Western Europe. According to an estimation made for UNESCO in 1976 in the year 2000 one third of the young European population will have an immigrant background (Skutnabb-Kangas, 1978). It was expected that in 1990 44% of the young people in Amsterdam (0-19 years old) will have a non-Dutch ethnic background, i.e. mainly Surinamese, Turkish and Moroccan (de Volkskrant, 5-11-1982). Horst (1982) gives a prognosis for another city, Utrecht: in 1986 probably 32% of the primary school children will have a non-Dutch ethnic background. In a study on the future of the non-indigeneous population in the Netherlands, Van Praag & Kool (1982) make clear that the number of Turks and Moroccans will not grow as fast as expected earlier, mainly because hardly any new family reunions will take place anymore (see below), and there is a growing trend for Turkish and Moroccan families to return to their country of origin, because of the deteriorating economic situation in the Netherlands. Still, now and in the future, many minority-language children (will) enter Dutch schools. The educational system in West European countries is not up to the task of schooling large groups of minority-language children, among other things because of their long monolingual tradition with the national, standard language as an undisputed norm. The educational systems must be changed or adapted to the educational needs and possibilities of children who have another language as their first language. In discussions on the type of educational changes which must be introduced, the role of minority-language teaching is an important issue (see e.g. De Vries, 1981). One of the most important questions concerns the possible effects of minority-language teaching on the second-language acquisition of immigrant workers' children. The present study was aimed at giving a first answer to this question in absence of research results from other West European countries. Before I describe more extensively the research questions, the research methods and the results of the study (respectively in section 2.3., 2.4. and 2.5.) I will first give some information of the educational situation of immigrant workers' children in the Netherlands in the seventies, and the experimental bilingual school model for Turkish and Moroccan children, in which educational context this study was conducted.

Minority language education and second-language acquisition

27

2.2. Immigrant workers' children in the Dutch educational system in the seventies 2.2.1. A general description Mainly because of tensions on the job market (a shortage of unskilled labourers) in the period 1960-1966 the first wave of immigrant workers came to the Netherlands. In 1966 there were about 50.000 workers from Mediterranean countries. In 1969-1972 again many immigrant workers were recruited. The law regulating the reunion of immigrant workers' families made it possible that in the seventies many women and children came to join the men. In 1979 there were about 200.000 people from Mediterranean countries who had labour migration contracts with the Netherlands (the immigrant workers who stayed illegally in the Netherlands not included; in 1981 their number was estimated at 30.000 by Vermeer (1981) who gives a quantitative survey of linguistic minorities in the Netherlands). About 40% had Turkish nationality and approximately 25% was Moroccan. The number of immigrant children (i.e. immigrant workers' children) went up very fast in a short time. In 1972 there were 10.000 immigrant children in Dutch primary education, and in 1979 about 40.000 (Van den Berg-Eldering et al., 1980). It can be expected that in the future the number of immigrant children will keep growing, although not as fast as was expected formerly (cf. Van Praag & Kool, 1982). In 1979 the immigrant children accounted for 3.2% of the primary school population. This percentage seems to be low, but one should realize that the immigrant families mainly lived (and still live) in a few industrial areas. Most of the immigrant children were to be found in the big cities (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, Eindhoven), and in Twente and the South of Limburg. In the cities the immigrant families were mostly housed in old neighbourhoods with small houses in poor conditions. As a consequence of this, many schools in these neighboorhoods had more than 50% immigrant children; some even more than 90%, an outcome of two opposite streams: an increasing number of immigrant children came to the school (because there was some expertise in the educational reception of these children among the teachers), and an increasing number of Dutch children were sent to another school by their parents, because they expected that the education would deteriorate with so many immigrant children. In 1977 38% of the Dutch primary schools had immigrant children among their pupils. For all these schools this caused some or many problems, because there was no tradition in the education of children with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. In 1974 the Ministry of Education formulated for the first time some

28

Immigrant children learning Dutch

main lines for the educational policy towards immigrant children (Penninx, 1979). This policy is often characterized as a 'two track policy', but it can also be interpreted as an ambiguous policy. On the one hand it was aimed at the integration of immigrant children in the Dutch educational system to guarantee as much as possible that they should have the same educational (and socio-economic) possibilities as Dutch children. On the other hand, it was taken into account that immigrant children might return to their country of origin sooner or later. 'Integration with maintenance of minority identity' became a key notion. In fact, the educational policy towards immigrant children was not supported by clear ideas on the position and the future of immigrant workers and their families in the Netherlands. Nor was there any clear view on the reorganization of the form and content of the educational system required to meet the needs of the new situation with immigrant children in the schools. The main part of the policy was the so-called facilities arrangement. On the basis of this arrangement schools, or groups of schools, with a relatively large number of immigrant children could engage special teachers for the first reception and the teaching of Dutch, and a foreign teacher in charge of classes in the minority language and culture (for about four hours a week). It should be noted that many schools did not utilize this last opportunity, because the reception of the immigrant children and the integration in the Dutch classes already caused too many problems. It was often expected that the classes in minority language and culture would to a greater or lesser extent obstruct this integration, because of (a) the time spent on it, and (b) the non-Dutch content. Because the content and form of the education for immigrant children was not settled, everywhere schools experimented with the reception and the teaching of immigrant children in a provisional, often not very wellthought out way. In fact 'experiment' is not a proper word here, it was more improvising on the basis of more or less casual circumstances and personal preferences of teachers. For example, nobody knew how to teach Dutch as a second language, how to teach reading and writing to older children, or how to integrate the classes in the minority language and culture which were mostly considered as superfluous extra baggage. In the second part of the seventies, the entering of immigrant children in Dutch schools was in nearly all cases educationally organized in one of the following two ways: (a) Immigrant children, directly from the country of origin or already a few years in the Netherlands, were placed at once in regular Dutch classes. They received daily for about 30-45 minutes extra courses in Dutch language proficiency outside the regular classes with small groups consisting of 3 to 8 children. The Dutch

Minority language education and second-language acquisition

(b)

29

courses were given by a special teacher (see above); it was called 'aanspreekbaarheidsonderwijs' which could be paraphrased as: courses which should ensure that children have enough receptive skills of Dutch to participate in the Dutch classes, Immigrant children were placed together in a so-called reception class in which they received education from a special teacher. This 'reception education' was also totally in Dutch. After about one year the children were placed in regular Dutch classes. This organization type was mostly put into practice at schools with many immigrant children who came directly from their country of origin.

In both organization types courses in minority language and culture could be given by a foreign teacher for about 4 hours a week. The further education of immigrant children had roughly the following form. The children received the same education as Dutch children in regular classes. Besides that, for the first two or three years their Dutch language proficiency was improved in extra courses with special teachers for about three hours a week; in these courses most attention was paid to reading and writing. In many schools there was also the opportunity to follow courses in the minority language and culture for about three hours a week. It must be stressed that the two aims of the educational policy towards immigrant children could only be obtained in a minimal way. Integration in the Dutch classes was not very successful; the immigrant children could not participate fully in the activities of the Dutch children, because they had to spend much time on tasks which were set by the special teachers. Integration was also impeded by the fact that the immigrant children did not feel at ease in the Dutch classes. There was a pedagogical and didactic climate which they were not used to. Their self-confidence was undermined because in the classes many activities were going on which they did not understand, or could only partly understand. The realization of the second aim, maintenance of identity, was nearly impossible in an educational situation with such a marginal share of minority-language and culture teaching. In fact the children's identity was more or less demolished, while insufficient provisions were made for building a new identity (see for a description of the education of immigrant children in the Netherlands at this time also Penninx (1979)). 2.2.2. The experimen tal bilingual program in L eyden In the mid-seventies in the city of Leyden (in the Western part of Holland) the initial education of immigrant children from Turkey and Morocco was

30

Immigrant children learning Dutch

also very problematic. Everyone involved - Dutch teachers, foreign teachers, children, parents - experienced many difficulties with the current educational system, which was comparable to the model described under (a) in 2.2.1. In order to prevent these difficulties as much as possible, and to improve the education of Turkish and Moroccan children a new 'reception'-model for immigrant children was planned. The main features of the model, which was new for the Dutch educational situation, were: - Moroccan and Turkish children of primary-school age who came directly from their respective countries of origin were given the opportunity to go to a school with national classes which were especially organized for them: a Moroccan class with a Moroccan teacher and a Turkish class with a Turkish teacher. These classes were associated with a regular Dutch school. - The first year, the children were instructed in all subjects in the minority language. For nearly one hour every day, Dutch was the subject (as well as the medium) of instruction in lessons given by a Dutch teacher. - As soon as the immigrant children were able to understand and speak some Dutch, they joined Dutch children for a few hours a week in activities (gymnastics, music, and crafts) which were meant to encourage their integration in Dutch school life. - In the second year, school subjects were taught about half the time in the minority language (by foreign teachers) and half the time in Dutch (by a Dutch teacher). The teaching of Dutch and the integration promoting activities were continued. - After two years the Turkish and Moroccan children went to 'regular' schools in their neighbourhood. This new experimental model, which was for the first time put into practice in the school year 1977-78, can be considered as a transitional bilingual model. The main aim was to promote the smooth transition from Turkey (and Turkish school life) and Morocco (and Moroccan school life) to Holland and Dutch school life. The assumption was that in the bilingual program the children could become socially and psychologically more secure and less vulnerable, and therefore more capable of coping with and participating in the Dutch educational system and in society in general. Besides that, it was also considered to be important for the children to have more education in the minority language and culture than in the regular schools with immigrant children; in this way the children could attain or maintain some literacy in the language of their country of origin. The fact that the experimental program was not a maintenance model (see 2.1.1.) was not a conscious choice, but a consequence of the situation

Minority language education and second-language acquisition

31

that minority languages were only taught marginally in regular schools. If minority-language teaching in these schools had been more extensive, this teaching in the bilingual program could have had a real continuation, and the bilingual program should have functioned as the first stage of a maintenance model. It is important to note here, that in the planning of the bilingual program there were no clear expectations with regard to the effects on the acquisition of Dutch. The initiator and organizer of the experiment even took into account a potentially (slightly) negative effect (Henk Everts, personal communication). 2.3. The problem As stated before, the present study was directed at the following problem: Does minority-language teaching for immigrant workers' children have a retarding effect on second-language acquisition? This question was made more specific: Do immigrant children who follow a transitional bilingual program reach the same level of Dutch language proficiency as children who attend schools where hardly any or no minority-language teaching is provided? We decided to investigate this question at three moments: at the end of the first, and at the end of the second schoolyear the Turkish and Moroccan children had been in the experimental school, and at the end of their first year in a regular school (where they went to after having been two years in the experimental school). This last part of the research was included because we wanted to know whether eventual positive or negative effects of the bilingual model would disappear after the transition of the children to regular schools. At the end of the first year (1978) only the oral language proficiency was measured because the immigrant children had hardly received any Dutch writing or reading instruction. At the end of the second (1979) and the third year (1980) both oral and written language proficiency were taken into account. As I stated in the first, introductory chapter, the present study was explorative in nature. This means that during the research period initial ideas and expectations were sometimes changed or adapted as a result of the reading of new research reports and theoretical papers on bilingual education, and our own empirical results. In the first phase of the research period we expected to find that the children from the experimental model would have a lower level of oral Dutch language proficiency than the children from the regular schools. We supported this expectation, which was formulated as a hypothesis (see Appel, 1978) with two arguments. The first argument was based on research results on immersion education in Canada. (Lambert & Tucker,

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Immigrant children learning Dutch

1972; Swain & Bank, 1976). Although we realized that the sociolinguistic situation in Canada differed immensely from the minority language situation in the Netherlands, we thought that the Canadian findings supported the view that children from linguistic minority groups should be placed in a kind of second-language bath to stimulate their language acquisition (for a more extensive discussion of immersion education, see section 2.5.). Our second argument was derived from the universalistic theory of second-language acquisition (Dulay & Burt, 1974a; 1974b), which was later often called 'creative construction theory'. In this theory the creative activities of the second-language learner are stressed. This second-language learner forms and tests continually hypotheses on second-language structures on the basis of the language of his/her environment. We thought that the children in the transitional bilingual school were in a disadvantaged position, because they had less opportunity to form and test hypotheses. So, our two arguments were in fact one argument (the importance of the verbal environment) which was fed by the empirical results in Canada, and considerations from second-language acquisition theory. Later on, we changed our expectations on the basis of the first findings and the examination of research results in other countries. I would like to stress the fact that we hypothesized initially the second-language superiority of the children in the regular schools, because in the discussions on (evaluation of) bilingual education it is sometimes suggested that researchers are not completely objective and get the findings they want to support their ideas in favour of minority-language teaching (cf. Epstein, 1978a). At this moment I prefer not to talk about hypotheses or expectations. This study is meant to be a description of the second-language proficiency of two groups of Turkish and Moroccan children in two different educational contexts, i.e. one with a considerable amount of minority-language teaching and one with no or a small amount of minority-language teaching. This implies that the outcomes of this research can not be considered as 'hard evidence' in favour of, or to the detriment of minority-language teaching for immigrant workers' children in Western-Europe, and certainly not as evidence pro or contra minority-language teaching for children from linguistic minority groups in general. In other words: the answer to the question at which this study is directed, does not allow full predictions on the outcomes of future bilingual experiments for minority children in the Netherlands or elsewhere. I will deal with the problem of the value of bilingual education research results again in connection with the discussion of the findings of the present study. In investigating the question which lies at the heart of this study, we were

Minority language education and second-language acquisition

33

confronted with a major difficulty, viz. often the minority language in bilingual programs is not the mother tongue of the pupils involved. In many cases the standard variety of the minority language will be used as a medium of instruction and be taught as a subject. For example, this could be the case with the Turkish in the experimental program in Leyden, and the Turkish spoken by the children. But the problem is even greater for many Moroccan children. About half of the Moroccan children who participated in the bilingual model had a Berber-language as their first language, and most of these children had learned Moroccan-Arabic as a second language. (This information was provided by the Moroccan teacher. In 1979 we administered a provisional test, made by a Dutch specialist on Moroccan-Arabic and Berber languages, to verify this information; for the test, see Appendix 2.1.). This implies that for these children the minoritylanguage teaching was not mother-tongue teaching. With regard to these children, we did not study the effect of the use of their first language as a medium of instruction, but the effect of the teaching of the school language from their country of origin. In the discussion of the results in section 2.5.2.1 will return to this problem. One of the aims of (transitional) bilingual programs is to promote minoritylanguage proficiency. I must point to the fact that we did not do research on the minority-language skills of the immigrant children. Our objective was to see what the effects of minority-language teaching on the acquisition of Dutch were. Perhaps the experimental program in Leyden also had positive affects on minority-language skills but we could not include this issue in our study (although we were quite convinced of its importance).

2.4. Method In chapter 1 general information on methodological aspects was given which concerned not only the research topic discussed in this chapter but also topics dealt with in the following chapters. In 1.3. the children who participated in the study were described, and in 1.4. the way the language samples were collected. In this section I will present information on the two groups of children whose Dutch language proficiency was compared (in 2.4.1.), on the assessment of oral language proficiency (in 2.4.2.), and written language proficiency (in 2.4.3.).

2.4.1. Two groups of children: The Experimental group and the Comparison group The research problem was: does minority-language teaching for immi-

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Immigrant children learning Dutch

grant workers' children have a retarding or hindering effect on secondlanguage acquisition? To give an answer to this question we wanted to compare the Dutch language proficiency of the group of children in the transitional bilingual program in Leyden (see 2.2.2.) with the language proficiency of a group of children who were being educated in regular schools, i.e. schools with no or a small amount of minority-language teaching. This second group should be as similar as possible to the group of children from the experimental model (the E-group). It was not possible to find such a group at one school or in one city. We had to compose the comparison group (C-group) with children from six schools in three cities: three schools in Utrecht, two in Amsterdam and one in Gouda. Of course, these six schools were not exactly the same. They differed to a greater or lesser extent with respect to the way the 'reception' (i.e. initial education) of the Turkish and Moroccan children was organized, and the relative number of immigrant workers' children in the school. But, for the purpose of this study, it is important to note that the six schools were very much alike on one factor: the amount of minority-language teaching, which was minimal or non-existent. In the second year, a few children from the C-group went to other schools; these were also regular schools with only a marginal amount of minority-language teaching, or none at all. In the third year, all E-children left the experimental program (which was in agreement with the planning of the experiment, see 2.2.2.); they went to 12 different schools. At that time, the children in Gouda were at 3 different schools, in Amsterdam also at 3 different schools, and in Utrecht at 7 different schools. In this third year there was no difference anymore between the two groups in the amount of minority-language teaching. Table 2.1. gives the percentages of minority-language teaching for the two groups in the three years covered by this study. It is quite clear that with regard to this factor ('the treatment variable') there were substantial differences between the E-group and the C-group. I have used 'minoritylanguage teaching' as a general concept, i.e. I have not discriminated between the use of the minority language as a medium of instruction and Table 2.1. Percentages of minority-language teaching for the two groups studied

1977-78 1978-79 1979-80 Mean over 3 years

E

C

75 40 10 41.7

13 17 10 13.3

Minority language education and second-language acquisition

35

the teaching of the minority language as a subject. It was not possible to gather exact information about this. However, for the present study the most important factor is the amount of time the children hear and use the minority language vs. the amount of time they hear and use Dutch in the classroom. As I said above, the C-group was composed in such a way that it was largely comparable to the E-group. This means that we tried to match the two groups on certain background variables as much as possible. Table 2.2. gives information on the numbers of children in the E-group and the Cgroup, Turkish and Moroccan children, boys and girls, the mean age and the age range of the children. Table 2.2. shows that the C-group was larger than the E-group, but that the two groups were quite comparable on the age variable and the nationality variable. There is one substantial difference between the two groups: in the E-group only one third of the children were girls, but in the C-group the girls formed about half of the sample. In the discussion on the value of the results (2.5.3.) I will come back to this difference between the two groups. Table 2.2. Numbers of children in the two groups studied. The mean age and age range is given in years ; months (in May 1978)

E-group C-group

Total

Turkish

Moroccan

Boys

Girls

Mean Age

Age range

24 33

11 15

13 18

15 16

9 17

9;7 9;4

7 ;2-12 ;6 7 ; 0—12 ; 6

During the research period we 'lost' a few children from both groups, in most cases because they had gone back to their country of origin. At the end of the second year, the E-group still consisted of 24 children and the C-group of 31 children; at the end of the third year there were 20 children in the E-group, and 26 in the C-group. The mean ages of the two groups remained about the same. The distribution with respect to the variables 'nationality' and 'sex' was in the second and third year comparable to the distribution in the first year. After the two groups had been composed, information was gathered on other background variables: non-verbal intelligence of the children, the socio-economic situation of the families they came from, and the educational level of the parents and the children before they came to the Netherlands. This part of the study was carried out by Henk Everts and Joop Teunissen. Here I will only mention the conclusions (see for a more detailed description of the results: Appel, Everts & Teunissen, forthcoming). The children's non-verbal intelligence was measured by means of the Raven Progressive Matrices Test; the scores on the Raven-test in the two

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Immigrant children learning Dutch

groups were about the same. The two groups were also comparable with respect to the socio-economic situation of the families (type of work of the father, housing situation, migration history), and the educational level reached by the children and the parents in their country of origin (see also Chapter 1). The present study is an example of a study with a quasi-experimental design (Nunnally, 1975; see also Cook & Campbell, 1979). As Nunnally writes '(•••) essentially a quasi-experimental design is one in which some potentially important confounding variables are not controlled. (...)what one does in this situation is to obtain extra information (over that which could be obtained from a true experimental design) in order to weave a net of circumstantial evidence regarding the "reality" of the observed findings' (p. 125). Educational and environmental factors which appeared during the 'treatment' could be confounding variables in this study. There is one factor which could have greatly influenced the results on Dutch language proficiency: the amount of time spent on special second-language instruction, and the way this instruction was organized. In the E-group as well as in the C-group, special second-language instruction was given for nearly 20% of the school time. We did not really study the way Dutch was taught to the children, but the following facts support the assumption that also on this issue the E-group and the C-group were quite similar: - the teachers for the E-children and the teachers for the C-children had had the same type of schooling; - the teachers for the E-children had given special second-language instruction for immigrant workers' children at regular schools before they came to work at the experimental school; - both the E-children and the C-children received special second-language instruction in small groups of about 5 children; - the teachers for the E-children and the teachers for the C-children used the same type of instruction material or methods (although one can hardly use the term 'method', because there was not a full method 'Dutch as second language for children'); - the E-teachers and the C-teachers were comparable in their experience with immigrant workers' children and teaching Dutch as a second language. Another potentially confounding variable concerns the amount and kind of target-language input and interaction with native speakers of the target language outside the school. However, the housing situations of the families were fairly similar for the children from the two groups: they lived in or close to the city centres in old working-class neighbourhoods where many other immigrant families live. This means that there were no

Minority language education and second-language acquisition

37

indications (also in the conversations with the children; see 1.4.) that the children from the two groups differed with respect to the way they spent their free time. Therefore, I do not assume that children from the one group had more contacts outside school with Dutch people than children from the other group. With regard to TV-watching (and listening!), an important source of second-language input, there were also no indications of differences between the two groups. In general, it can be concluded that in all probability the two groups were very similar concerning the variable target-language input and interaction (outside the school).

2.4.2. The assessment of oral language proficiency General description/explanation Jenkins et al. (1979) point to the fact that one of the main problems of educational evaluation research concerns 'the criterium of "measurability"' (p. 113). Of course, we also had our struggles with this problem. What is oral language proficiency (further: language proficiency), and how can it be assessed? These were the two important questions which we could not answer satisfactorily in the beginning of the research period, and although I have discussed this subject many times, and have given it many thoughts, I am still unsure about the answers. Language proficiency can be analyzed in different ways. In the first place, one can distinguish between productive and receptive language proficiency. Productive language proficiency is the capacity to produce utterances, and passive language proficiency is the capacity to understand utterances. Second, communicative language proficiency can be distinguished from formal language proficiency. Communicative proficiency refers to the capacity to process (i.e. understand or produce) meaningful verbal messages with a certain semantic pragmatic content appropriate in a certain situation, and formal proficiency refers to the capacity to produce well-formed utterances. Third, language proficiency can be studied on different linguistic levels: pragmatic or textual, syntactic, morphological, phonological, and lexical. Cummins (1980) has further proposed a new distinction: Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency is the type of language proficiency related to specific cognitive and literacy skills needed in educational or academic settings, and Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills are the skills used in everyday communication. I do not intend to discuss thoroughly all aspects of language proficiency, and all the problems involved in measuring it. With the distinctions described above I only want to give an impression of the complexity of the concept 'language proficiency'. Our original aim was to measure the childrens' language proficiency on the basis of analysis of the childrens' spoken language, collected in as

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Immigrant children learning Dutch

natural a setting as possible, and to make use of language tests to gather additional information. The language samples should be analysed on both formal linguistic as on more communicatively oriented variables. It was only partly possible to realize this objective. The following problems arose: - It was impossible to create 'as natural a setting as possible' for so many children in different schools. There were not enough opportunities and there was not enough time to realize this. Besides that, it should be noted that different children (and different researchers) probably have different ideas about what natural settings are: setting (A) might be quite pleasant and naturalistic with child 1, so that he/she can speak spontaneously, while the same setting is threatening and unnatural with child 2. In fact, this means that if one wants to elicit optimal language proficiency data, one has to find the optimal natural setting for each child. This is not only very difficult to organize, but it also creates all kinds of methodological problems (viz. the comparability of language samples). - Because we could only record language samples in a specific, more or less standardized situation, it was difficult to analyze the samples with communicatively oriented variables like 'how often does the child take verbal initiatives' or 'is the child capable of directing other childrens' behavior'. The conclusion is that the language proficiency of the children was determined on the basis of an analysis of not particularly spontaneous language samples, and some test scores. For this pragmatic solution of the operationalization problem the following arguments can be given. The way 'language proficiency' was operationalized in this study was not advantageous for one of the two groups, at least I cannot see why for example the E-group could 'profit' from the analysis with formal variables; they did not learn more 'formal Dutch' and the C-group 'more communicatively oriented Dutch', or anything like that. Another point is that communicative language proficiency presupposes to a certain extent formal proficiency. A speaker who does not apply the formal rules of a language will experience serious communication problems. Generally, second-language learners with a good formal linguistic competence will communicate more easily with target-language speakers than secondlanguage learners with a low level of formal linguistic competence will do. Finally, I must state that we measured the children's linguistic competence in a more extensive way than was done in most of the other research on this subject. For example, Cohen (1975) confined himself largely to ratings of spoken language samples by listeners. Most researchers use language tests or adapt them, for example Toukomaa& Skutnabb-

Minority language education and second-language acquisition

39

Kangas (1977) and Legarreta (1979). It turns out to be quite rare, that researchers collect language samples for analysis. In fact, it is somewhat over-optimistic to say that we measured the childrens' language proficiency. It cannot be made explicit which verbal capabilities make somebody less or more proficient. I can only say that we measured some aspects of language proficiency. For reasons of brevity and to avoid awkward constructions I will nevertheless use the term 'language proficiency' without 'some aspects o f . The reader should bear in mind that they are meant to be included. After this general explanation about the way we assessed the children's second-language skills, I will describe first for each research year the variables and tests planned (with a short motivation), subsequently the variables and tests actually used for the comparison of the groups, and finally the way we processed the language samples for analysis. The scoring instructions of the variables used for analyzing the language samples are summarized in Appendix 2.2.

Specification of variables and tests planned 1978

a. Mean Length of Utterance in Words (MLUJ MLU is often considered as a good variable to measure language proficiency, especially in the initial stages of language acquisition. According to the results of many studies, there is a strong correlation between MLU and other language measures; MLU can therefore be seen as a kind of 'overall'-measure (cf. Appel, 1972). The correlations mentioned above have been found in first-language research. Of course, it can be disputed whether MLU is also an adequate measure for assessing the language proficiency of second-language learners. We thought it could be, but we had no empirical data to support this claim.

b. Percentage of Subordinate Clauses or Subordination Index (SI) We considered SI to be a kind of specification of MLU: children who use longer sentences will perhaps also produce complex subordinated sentences.

c. Percentage of Coordinate Clauses or Coordination Index (CI) The motivation for CI was the same as for SI.

d. Word Order Quotient (WOQ) The WOQ was a variable we developed to measure the well-formedness of the children's utterances, i.e. correct word order in the utterances. Essentially, the WOQ was a ratio with two parameters: words in wrong position and number of words in the sample analyzed.

e. Absent Subject and/or Main Verb (ASM)

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Immigrant children learning Dutch

The ASM measured another aspect of well-formedness: the syntactic completeness of the utterances. We took two constituents/categories as indicators of syntactic completeness, i.e. the subject and the main verb. Cases where a subject or main verb were not present, but which were grammatical with respect to a discourse grammar (i.e. in elliptical sentences) were not counted in the calculation of the ASM. f. Number of Different Words (NDW) We expected the NDW to give a good indication of the productive vocabulary of the children. Of course, we realized we did not really measure the children's vocabulary. In fact, we planned initially to use a vocabulary test for this purpose, but there was no suitable test available. g. Type/Token-Ratio (Corrected) (TTR(Cj) The TTR(C) was planned as a measure of the diversity of the vocabulary the children used. The TTR(C) was computed according to the proposals of Carroll (1964) for language samples of unequal length; the unequalness is 'corrected' in the computation. The first three variables ((a) - (c)) were planned as variables for measuring the syntactic complexity of the children's utterances, variable (d) and (e) measure the syntactic well-formedness of the utterances, and variables (f) and (g) were lexical variables. As well as these three types of variables, we planned a fourth one: morphological variables. Initially, we intended to include ten morphological variables (which will be described below). We worked on the assumption that morphological items occur frequently (or: must occur frequently), and that they are easily counted. I am quite aware that this approach illustrates the opinion that language proficiency is generally not assessed as it should be, according to a (theoretical) vision on proficiency, but according to practical, pragmatic solutions (for example the availability of tests, and variables which can be scored easily). We planned to analyze the samples for the following morphological variables or functors: h. Article (Demonstrative Pronoun included) i. Conjugation of the verb third person singular present tense j. Pluralization of the noun k. Copula 'to be' 1. Past tense m. Perfect participle morpheme n. Auxiliary for the perfect tense o. Accusative personal pronoun third person singular p. Agreement demonstrative pronoun - noun q. Agreement adjective - noun

Minority language education and second-language acquisition

41

To supply the data on the children's language proficiency we planned to administer two tests, a comprehension test and an association test. Of course, the first one was meant to test the children's receptive skills for specific linguistic structures and elements. There was no Dutch comprehension test available, so we developed a test. The principle of this test was similar to the one used by Fraser, Bellugi & Brown (1963): two pictures were printed on one page, and two sentences described the respective pictures; the child had to point to the right picture after the experimenter had produced a sentence. In each pair of pictures one linguistic variable was tested; the two pictures differed from each other with regard to the linguistic variable tested. For example, the comprehension of the plural morpheme -s for certain nouns was tested with two pictures; one depicting a girl who takes one apple, and the other with a girl taking two apples. The matching sentences were (translated) 'Fatima takes the apple' and 'Fatima takes the apples'. The comprehension test consisted of 24 items. Three of them served to make the children acquainted with the test procedure (see for the list of the 24 pairs of sentences, Appendix 2.3.). After the first series of 24 sentences was administered, another part of the language sampling procedure was dealt with. Next, the second series of 24 sentences was administered. The idea behind the Association Test was that the test reactions could give us some more insight into the vocabulary of the children. The association test consisted of eight stimulus words: (translated) house, school, bread, sweater, to write, airplane, to sleep, cold. It was our intention that the children should give to each stimulus word as many responses or association words as he or she could provide. The experimenter demonstrated the procedure with the first word, the second item was a trial item for the child, and the next six items were the real test items. We expected that children who had a larger vocabulary would be able to provide more associations to a stimulus word. 1979 In 1979 the same classification for variables was made as in 1978: (a) (c) variables to measure the complexity of the children's language; variable (d) and (e) to measure the wellformedness of the utterances (word order and completeness); variable (f) as a lexical variable; and (g) - (i)being the morphological variables.

a. Mean Length of Utterance in Words (MLU) An important difference with the 1978 analysis was, that in 1979 actually we did not employ the utterance (including co-ordinated main clauses) as the basis for analysis, but the T-unit i.e. each main clause with possible sub-ordinated clauses (cf. Hunt, 1970). 'Mean Length of Utterance' should be read as 'Mean Length of T-unit'. In

42

b. c.

d.

e. f.

Immigrant children learning Du tch 1978 we had already struggled with the problem of dividing the stream of speech of some children into utterances. We expected that in the second year more and more children would conjoin their utterances with the often meaningless expression en toen/en dan ('and then'). In this way they could make their utterances very long without producing complex utterances. Working with the T-unit for the MLUvariable (and for other variables) was a solution to this problem. (N.B. Because this variable is essentially the same as variable (a) used in 1978, the motivation for its employment is not described here; the same goes for many of the other following variables for 1979 and 1980). Subordination Index (SI) Percentage of Complex Utterances (PCU) To gain more insight into the complexity of the children's language next to the MLU and the SI, the PCU was computed. Complex Sentences had to contain minimally a subject, a main verb, a direct object or a prepositional object, and an adverbial phrase or an indirect object. Wrong Place Verb (WPV) The WPV is comparable to the WOQ of the first year. An important difference was that in 1978 the analysis was directed at all kinds of wrong word orders, while in 1979 only the position of the verb was analyzed. Absent Subject and/or Main Verb (ASM) Number of Different Words (NDW)

In 1978 we were dissatisfied with the long list of morphological variables (see also below for the variables really used for the comparison of the groups). There were too many morphological variables, and most of the morphological items only occurred a few times. The scores could not be used in the analysis because there were not enough obligatory occurrences. Besides that, a long list of morphological variables as in 1978 keeps supporting the (wrong) impression that the researchers attach a great deal of value to the morphological aspects of language in determining proficiency. The following three morphological variables were included in the 1979 analysis: g. Article h. Conjugation of the verb third person singular present tense (Conj. verb) i. Preposition To gain extra information on the children's verbal capabilities, four language tests were administered (see for the tests, Appendix 2.4.) Con-

Minority language education and second-language acquisition

43

trary to the situation in English-speaking countries, there are not many language tests available in the Netherlands. And some tests which could perhaps be used, were not appropriate for our group of Turkish and Moroccan children. We employed three sub-tests of the draft version of the Nijmegen language test developed by Van Bon (the test was later published: Van Bon, 1982). To find out whether the tests were indeed appropriate for our subjects, we administered them with a comparable group of Moroccan and Turkish children who were, of course, not part of the E- or C-group (the group was comparable with respect to range of age, and length of stay in the Netherlands). After the trial testing only items which seemed suitable for the children in our sample were kept in the tests. The three tests were:

A Morphology Test, a Sentence Building Test, and a Presupposition Test. The Morphology Test had the following procedure. Subjects were presented with two (or in a few cases: three) pictures which differed with regard to the morphological aspect tested, for example pluralization of the noun. The experimenter pointed to the first picture, and said the matching utterance, for example, 'This is a bird'. Next he/she pointed to the second picture, and said an incomplete utterance, which the child should complete ('These are two '). The Morphology Test consisted of 3 trial items and 22 test items, mainly for testing the knowledge of pluralization of nouns and perfect participles. The Sentence Building Test was meant to measure the children's syntactic capabilities, in addition to the variables which measured the children's spoken language samples, like MLU and SI. In the Sentence Building Test pictures were also employed. The children were shown a picture, and the experimenter provided the matching sentence, which was, however, an incorrect description of the picture. Subsequently, the experimenter said the first words of the correct sentence (a kind of'prompt'), which the child should complete. The aim of the prompt was to 'force' the child into the direction of the specific syntactic construction which was tested. For example, there was a picture of a man dragged by a horse; the experimenter said: 'The horse is dragged by the man'; the prompt was: 'The man '. Without a prompt the child could have said: 'The horse drags the man', while this specific item should test the use of the passive voice. The Sentence Building Test consisted of 3 trial items and 16 test items. In the Presupposition Test the comprehension of implications or presuppositions underlying certain utterances was tested. This was done by showing the child two pictures, and providing one utterance; the child should point to the picture which matched the utterance. For example, on one picture there was a table and one glass on it, and on the other picture a table was depicted with two glasses on it; the matching utterance

44

Immigrant children learning Dutch

was 'There is another glass on the table'. The Presupposition Test consisted of 3 trial items, and 22 test items. The fourth test which we administered in 1979 was an Imitation Test. This test consisted of 16 sentences which the children had to imitate. The Imitation Test was meant to get more data on the children's grammatical abilities in producing different sentence types. 1980 The variables planned in this year can also be divided into syntactic, lexical, and morphological variables. a. Mean Length of Utterance in Words (MLU) As in 1979, the T-unit was again the basis for the analysis. b. Mean Length of Utterance of the 20 longest utterances (ML U-20) This variable was introduced to account for the children's maximal verbal capabilities with respect to complexity of utterances. c. Subordination Index (SI) d. Percentage of Complex Utterances (PCU) e. Wrong Place Verb (WPV) f. Absent Subject and¡or Main Verb (ASM) g. Number of Different Words (NDW) h. Article i. Conjugation of the verb third person singular present tense j. Conjugation of the verb: past tense k. Preposition 1. Pluralization of nouns In 1980 the following tests were planned (see Appendix 2.5. for the tests used in 1980). A Morphology Test which had the same procedure as the one employed in 1979. The Morphology Test consisted of 3 trial items and 31 test items which mainly tested the children's knowledge of plural nouns, present participle, and the comparitive and superlative degree of adjectives. An Imitation Test tested, as before, the children's syntactic skills. There were 16 items in the test. With the aid of an Anagram Test the children's sentence building capacities were tested. The following procedure was used. The children were shown a card with a short column of three or four words written on it in clear handwriting. The experimenter read the words aloud and the children got the instruction to form a sentence in which at least all the (3 or 4) words occurred. The word combinations were chosen in such a way that the children were directed to producing utterances with a certain syntactic and morphological structure. The (vertical) order of the words presented was the same as the (horizontal) order expected in the sentences. For example, one item was

Minority language education and second-language acquisition

45

meant to test the children's proficiency in constructing a complex utterance with a subordinated clause; the words on the card were: omdat ('because'), honger ('hunger'), eten ( t o eat'). The test consisted of 3 trial items and 16 test items. Specification of variables and tests used As stated earlier, the research reported here was explorative in nature. This concerned many aspects of this study; also the operationalization of language proficiency by means of a series of linguistic variables and tests. We did not know whether the variables and tests planned were adequate measures. Below, I will sum up the variables and tests used for the analysis, and I will explain why other variables and tests were excluded. (See table 2.3. on p. 00 for an overview of the variables and tests used). 1978 The following variables and tests were used for the analysis: MLU, SI, CI, NDW, Article, Conjugation verb, Pluralization noun, Copula, Comprehension Test (Part I). The Word Order Quotient was not an adequate variable, because many children produced only very short sentences; one or maximally two words. If the utterances contained two words, it was often a combination of an article and a noun, and it was never the case that the article was given the wrong place (i.e. behind the noun). Therefore, for these children it was hardly possible to produce sentences with incorrect word order. Because of this the WOQ scores were not used in the analysis. The ASM (Absent Subject and Main Verb) turned out to be an inadequate variable, because many children produced hardly any real spontaneous speech. Most of their utterances were answers following the experimenter's questions. Nearly always, in these (short) answers it was appropriate to delete many constituents. These children with low language proficiency (according to scores on other variables) had very good results on the ASM. We considered it wrong to use these results in the analysis. The TTR(C) was neglected for the analysis because of the immense differences between the language samples. On the one hand there were children who spoke very little (mostly answers to questions) and on the other hand there were children who were already quite competent in telling a story more or less spontaneously. The first type of children used hardly any function words, while the second already used several function words, like articles, pronouns and prepositions. Because of their nature function words occur frequently, and children producing many function words (i.e. having a fairly high language proficiency) will have a relatively low TTR(C)-score. In my opinion the TTR is not a suitable variable for analyzing and comparing language samples of children with a low proficiency in a second language.

46

Immigrant children learning Dutch

The following morphological variables were not taken into account in the analysis: past tense, perfect participle morpheme, auxiliary for the perfect tense, accusative personal pronoun third person singular, agreement demonstrative pronoun - noun, agreement adjective - noun. They were not used because many children had for many of these variables too few obligatory occurrences in their speech. According to Dulay & Burt (1974a) a criterion of 3 obligatory occurrences must be reached, before a score for the variable can be computed. Often there were less than 3 obligatory occurrences, while in my view, it can also be questioned whether 3 occurrences is really enough to get a proper impression of the child's capabilities concerning the variable analyzed. The second part of the Comprehension Test was not used, because for that part many children had lower scores than for the first part. The reason for this was clear to the experimenters who administered the test: the children showed an evident lack of interest; they had seen the pictures already, and were not motivated to carry out the task anymore. The data of the association test were not used in the analysis, because they were very heterogeneous in nature. The children turned out to interpret the association test in quite different ways, even after a few trial items. Some children told a story prompted by the stimulus word, other children repeated the same association words frequently, and there were also children who did not respond at all, or repeated the stimulus word. It was impossible to process the data in such a way that they could be used for the comparison between the two groups of children. 1979 All variables and tests planned were used for the analysis. 1980 All variables and tests planned were used for the analysis, except for the morphological variable 'Conjugation of the verb: past tense'. The reason for not taking into account this variable was that many children had no, or only a few obligatory occasions for this functor. It will be clear from the information presented here that the choice of variables and tests was in some way a matter of trial-and-error. We were more or less obliged to experiment (and by consequence: to make errors), because in the theoretical linguistic literature and in other studies on oral language proficiency we could not find clear directions on how to analyze the language proficiency of the second-language learners we studied. Also, in the Netherlands there is not a long tradition in testing children's proficiency in Dutch.

Minority language education and second-language acquisition

47

Processing of the language samples As already described in 1.4., the speech of the children was recorded on audio-cassette recorders. The speech was transcribed in non-phonetic form by the experimenter who had talked with the child. In these transcriptions the contributions of the experimenter were also included, in so far as they were necessary for interpreting the utterances of the children. Specific words, expressions or sentences were put between parentheses which meant that they were not included in the analysis (except when mentioned in the scoring instructions of certain variables, see Appendix 2.2.). The main reason for putting some of the verbal material between parentheses was that we wanted the measures of syntactic complexity (especially MLU) to be as 'fair' as possible. Words or expressions which did not contribute to the complexity of the utterance would not be counted in the analysis. This idea was mainly realized in the processing of the 1979 and 1980 language samples; 1978 was in many respects a 'trial year'. (For information on the verbal material which was put between parentheses, see scoring instructions for MLU in Appendix 2.2.). In 1978 utterances were the basis for the analysis. Intonation contours and pauses were used as cues for the division of speech into utterances. The complete language samples were employed in the analysis. In 1979 T-units were the basis for the analysis (for arguments, see under Variables planned in 1979: Mean Length of Utterance in Words). The first 75 T-units of both of the elicitation procedures were used (Pictures series and Drawing task plus conversation, see 1.4.). If a child had produced less than 75 T-units in a task, of course less than 150 T-units were used in all. In 1980 the first 40 T-units of the Conversation task and the first 110 T-units of the two pictures task (including photographs) were used in the analysis. Because of the elicitation procedures employed and the experiences of the first two years, we expected in 1980 to get a relatively small sample in the Conversation task. 2.4.3. The assessment of written language pro ficiency Initially we had only planned to measure the children's oral language proficiency, but during the research period we decided to pay attention to their written language proficiency too (that is: written proficiency). The children in the Experimental Program in Leyden spent many hours learning to read and write resp. Modern Standard Arabic (the Moroccan children) and Turkish. In contrast, the children in the Comparison group did not (or only in a very minimal way) learn to read and write resp. Modern Standard Arabic and Turkish. They spent more time in learning to read and write Dutch. Therefore, it could be expected that the C-group surpassed the E-group in Dutch written proficiency. Because reading and

48

Immigrant children learning Dutch

writing are important school subjects, we decided to include written proficiency in the research. There was not much opportunity to measure the children's written proficiency extensively. Looking for an adequate test for written proficiency which could be administered and analyzed easily, we thought a test based on the so-called cloze procedure would be a good instrument for our purpose. In a test based on the cloze procedure (or: a cloze test), after a complete introductory part every n word is deleted from a passage of prose (often a short story or an essay) and students are asked to supply the missing words; it is usual to choose for n a number between 5 and 10. This technique has been used to measure written second-language proficiency in adolescent or adult second-language learners (e.g. Oiler & Conrad, 1971), Swain et al. (1976) administered a French and an English cloze test to grade four students in their fifth year of a French immersion program. They found high correlations between the cloze test and other written language achievement measures. Wijnstra (1977) administered the cloze test to a group of Spanish children in the Netherlands to measure their written Dutch language proficiency. He concludes that the cloze procedure might be a useful proficiency measure. In their first year the Moroccan and Turkish children received hardly any written Dutch language education; the language education was nearly all directed at oral language proficiency. For this reason we did not measure the children's written proficiency at the end of the first year, but only at the end of the second and third year (1979 and 1980). There was not a Dutch cloze test available which was appropriate for our subjects (the level of Wijnstra's above-mentioned test was too high). In 1979 as well as in 1980 we developed a new cloze test. Both times the test was tried out with a comparable group of Moroccan and Turkish children, mainly to find out whether the level of our test was not too high or too low. To score a cloze test, one can choose between two systems: the 'exact' method and the 'semantic' method. According to the exact method students should supply the word which was deleted originally, and according to the semantic method students should give responses which are grammatically and contextually appropriate. We employed the semantic method; simply because we thought it more fair to children. After the research was done we found some support for the employment of the semantic method in Hinofotis (1980), who states that the semantic method yields a more accurate assessment of student's second-language skills than the exact method. The cloze tests 1979 and 1980 are given in Appendix 2.6.

Minority language education and second-language acquisition

49

2.5. Results and discussion 2.5.1. Results Table 2.3. gives the results of the analysis of the spoken language samples, the oral proficiency tests, and the written proficiency test for the two groups in the three years considered. In the description given below, for reasons of readability, the term Variable' will be used for both linguistic variables and oral proficiency tests. I will use 10% as the criterion for defining t h e better group', i.e. if one group has score y, then the other group must have a score o f at least 1.10 X y to have 'a better score'. In 1978 the E-group had better scores than the C-group on three variables, viz. SI, Article and Copula. The C-group had better scores only on the CI variable. Working with the 10% criterion all other scores were equal. It should be noted that the differences mentioned here did not Table 2.3. Mean scores of the two groups of children (E and C) o n variables for oral and written language proficiency for the three years of testing. Significant differences are indicated with an asterisk. A dash means that the variable was not included in the analysis. It should be noted that for two variables, viz WPV and ASM, a higher score means a lower proficiency. 1978

MLU MLU-20 SI CI PCU WPV ASM NDW Article Conjug. verb Plural, noun Copula Preposition Comprehension Test Morphology Test Sentence Building Test Presupposition Test Imitation Test Anagram Test Cloze Test

1979

1980

E

C

E

C

2.8

2.8

4.1

3,8

-

-

-

-

0.9 2.9

0.6 3.7

3.3*

1.3*

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

111.5 29.8 47.2 46.1 44.9

117.4 24.2 50.1 48.2 37.8

-

-

70.5 -

67.6 -

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

3.4 6.6 15.0 168.1 75.4* 85.4

3.7 5.3 15.0 157.1 61.4* 76.5

-

-

-

-

80.2 -

33.2 59.6* 66.5 57.5 -

52.1

77.7 -

34.1 40.6* 66.5 50.0 -

51.5

E 4.9 9.9 10.0*

C 4.4 9.2 5.4*

-

-

15.4 2.0 6.6 213.1 74.0 92.7 96.1

12.2 6.6 6.9 205.9 66.9 88.0 90.7

-

89.8 -

65.9

-

84.1 -

58.2

-

-

-

-

71.5 73.4 64.3*

57.7 59.7 50.9*

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Immigrant children learning Dutch

turn out to be statistically significant (T-test; p = .05). The conclusion for 1978 must be that the oral language proficiency of the groups was the same; there was a very slight tendency for the E-group to surpass the C-group. The second year the E-group had better scores on 6 of the 13 oral language variables, viz. SI, WPV, Article, Conjug. verb, Sentence building test and Imitation test. Half of the differences were statistically significant (T-test; p < .05; marked with an asterisk (*) in the table). On seven variables the two groups had equal scores. The tendency already present in the first year, was somewhat stronger in the second year: the E-group began to excel the C-group on some variables measuring oral language proficiency. On the cloze test for written proficiency the two groups had about the same scores. In 1980 the E-group had better scores on 9 of the 14 variables measuring oral language ability (MLU, SI, WPV, ASM, PCU, Article, Morphology Test, Imitation Test and Anagram Test), but only one of the differences was statistically significant (T-test; p < .05). The two groups had about the same scores on 5 variables. In 1980 the E-group scored better on the cloze test for written proficiency than the C-group, and the difference between the two groups was significant (T-test; p < .05). In the final year, the tendency of the E-group to have somewhat higher oral language ability than the C-group could again be observed, but in addition to that, the E-group also clearly excelled the C-group on written proficiency. In general, it can be concluded that the amount of time spent on minority-language teaching in the transitional bilingual school (the E-group) did not harm or hinder the second-language acquisition of the Turkish and Moroccan immigrant workers' children. At the end of the research period, these children were even somewhat ahead in oral and written secondlanguage proficiency as compared to children who were instructed entirely or almost entirely in Dutch. These results are in complete agreement with the conclusion of Cummins in his overview of studies on the role of primary language development. in promoting educational success for linguistic minority children. He states that '(• • •) the results of research on bilingual programs show that minority children's LI can be promoted in school at no cost to the development of proficiency in the majority language' (Cummins, n.d.: 31). However, the conclusions of Baker & De Kanter (1982) are not as favourable to bilingual education as Cummins' (in Cummins, n.d.) or Troike's (in his overview for the National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education; Troike, 1978). With regard to second-language proficiency, their conclusions are not unambiguous: both positive and neutral, as well as negative effects of minority-language teaching are reported (although the first two

Minority language education and second-language acquisition

51

- positive and neutral - form a clear majority). All this is rather disturbing. The picture is complex and unclear. Are there now enough positive results of bilingual programs (concerning second-language acquisition) to defend their application? I will return to this matter in 2.5.4. Educational implications. First I will discuss the results of this study: in 2.5.2. the (theoretical) explanation, and in 2.5.3. the value of the results.

2.5.2. Explanation and interpretation At the end of the seventies, 'input' became an important issue in research on second-language acquisition. Earlier, most of the studies on secondlanguage acquisition were directed at theories on acquisition strategies of second-language learners, and tried to find evidence for one of the two most discussed hypotheses on acquisition strategies: the interference or contrastive analysis hypothesis, and the universalistic or LI = L2 hypothesis (see also Chapter 4). As in studies on first-language development (cf. Snow, 1977), the attention of researchers has shifted for a large part from the psychological to the social, from the language processing properties and acquisition strategies of the learner to characteristics of the verbal environment, the language input (cf. Krashen, 1980). A superficial look at the results of studies on the relation between input and second-language acquisition, can lead to the simple conclusion: more input means a faster acquisition rate (later in this chapter I will show that this conclusion is not justified). Baker & De Kanter (1982) also arrive at this more or less common sensical conclusion: 'There is considerable literature suggesting that the key to learning English is to practice communicating in English (...). The time spent in the classroom in using the home language may be harmful because it reduces English practice' (p. 13). Our results show that minority-language teaching does not have to be harmful to second-language acquisition; it can even create conditions for somewhat faster second-language development. The paradoxical situation exists that more time for the minority language (and consequently less time for the second language) in school can result in higher second-language proficiency for minority children. How can this be explained? In my opinion, two types of explanations (or interpretations) must be considered. The first one has a cognitive orientation, and the second one is socio-psychological in nature. The first, cognitively oriented, explanation was proposed by Cummins, who leaned heavily on the work done by Skutnabb-Kangas & Toukomaa (1976) and Toukomaa & Skutnabb-Kangas (1977). In a short time Cummins became one of the leading theoreticians on bilingualism and bilingual

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Immigrant children learning Dutch

education. In Cummins (1978, 1979a, 1979b, 1980, n.d.) he discusses his views on the effects of minority-language teaching and the influence of (child) bilingualism on cognitive growth. Here, I will only deal with the first issue. Cummins (1978) starts with the observation that the literature on bilingual education contains a striking contradiction. On the one hand it is commonly believed '(• • •) that instruction through the medium of the mother-tongue for minority-language children in the early grades is a prerequisite for equality of educational opportunity. When instruction is through the medium of a second language (L2) and the school makes no concessions to either the language or culture of the minority-language child, the result is frequently low levels of competence in both LI and L2 and academic failure. The superiority of vernacular instruction over this "submersion" approach has been demonstrated in many studies' (p. 395). On the other hand, the success of immersion programs has shown that initial instruction through the medium of the second language can result in high levels of second-language proficiency at no cost to the first language. Initially, immersion programs were organized for English-speaking children in Montreal (Lambert & Tucker, 1972). Later on, they were also put into practice in the United States, for example, the Spanish program for English-speaking children in Culver City (California) (Cohen & Swain, 1976); the (positive) results were comparable to those in Canada. Cohen (1976) gives a list of seventeen characteristics of immersion education. The most important - in the context of this discussion - are: - All instruction initially (i.e. in kindergarten and Grade 1) is in the second language (French in the Canadian immersion programs). - In second, third or fourth grade first language arts (reading, writing and so on) are introduced in the children's first language. - By fifth grade, content subjects such as geography or history may be taught in the children's first language. - The teachers are bilingual, although they only speak the second language in the classroom (with exceptions for point two and three above). - In kindergarten, the children are permitted to speak in their first language until they are ready to use the second language. The teacher makes it clear that he/she understands the children's first language by reacting appropriately. - In first grade and beyond, the teacher requests that only the second language be spoken in class, except during classes in which the children's first language is explicitly used as medium of instruction. It should be noted that an important feature of immersion programs is, that they were planned for children from high-status groups, speaking a language with much prestige as their first language, i.e. English-speaking children in Canada and the United States.

Minority language education and second-language acquisition

53

Because of the (seemingly) contradictory findings Cummins raises the question '(...) of why a home-school language switch results in high levels of functional bilingualism and academic achievement in majoritylanguage children, yet leads to inadequate command of both languages and poor academic achievement in many minority-language children' (Cummins, 1978: 395). Cummins states that this paradox can only be truly understood if the findings are interpreted in one theoretical framework. To build such a framework he proposes two hypotheses: the threshold hypothesis' and the 'developmental interdependence hypothesis'. The first one is directed at the influence of bilingualism on cognitive development, so 1 will not describe it here. The second hypothesis concerns the relation between first- and second-language development. It states '(...) that the development of skills in a second language is a function of skills already developed in the first language. In situations where the mother tongue is inadequately developed, the introduction and promotion of a second language can impede the continued development of the first. In turn, the inadequate development of LI skills will limit the development of competence in L2. However, where the LI has been highly developed prior to the introduction of L2, intensive exposure to L2 is the most efficient means of promoting a high level of functional bilingualism at no cost to LI competence' (Cummins, 1978: 396-397). Cummins supports the hypothesis with findings of studies on the effects of bilingual education, and of studies on the relation between age and second-language development. These latter studies generally conclude that older children are better second-language learners than younger children; i.e. children with a higher level of proficiency in their first language are better equipped for the task of second-language learning (Cummins, 1979b). In Cummins (1980) the SUP-model and the CUP-model are introduced as theoretical constructs. Cummins says that people '(•••) who argue for English-only programs on psychoeducational grounds implicitly assume the validity of a Separate Underlying Proficiency (SUP) model of bilingual proficiency. They usually assume a direct link between amount of exposure to English in school (and home) and achievement in English literacy. It follows that instruction in LI will result in lower levels of L2 proficiency than instruction in L2' (p. 91). In the Common Underlying Proficiency (CUP) model it is hypothesized that for bilingual children experience with either language can promote the proficiency underlying both languages, if there is adequate motivation and exposure to both languages, either in or outside school. The CUP-model accounts for the fact that minority-language teaching for minority children can have positive effects on second-language learning; the common underlying proficiency grows which stimulates the development of the second language.

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Immigrant children learning Dutch

Although Cummins' theoretical framework (viz. the developmental interdependence hypothesis and the CUP-model) seems very attractive, in my opinion it has some weak spots, on which I will elaborate here. The first point I want to consider, concerns the simultaneous acquisition of two languages. McLaughlin (1978) gives a good overview of studies on children who grow up bilingually. From these studies it can be concluded that children are quite able to acquire two languages simultaneously;generally their levels of proficiency in each of the two languages are more or less the same as the levels reached by mono-lingual raised children of the same age. This runs counter to the idea that second-language development can only be succesful if the first language is already adequately developed, as is proposed by Cummins. If young children are able to acquire two languages at the same time, why would it be such a difficult task to start acquiring a second language when first-language proficiency is still at a rather low level? According to my knowledge, there are no cognitive-psycholinguistic data which could provide an answer to this question within Cummins' theoretical framework. Unfortunately, Cummins himself does not deal with simultaneous acquisition of two languages. The second weak spot in Cummins' hypothesis is related to the following statement: '(•••) when LI is poorly developed, as is the case of many lower-class or "disadvantaged" children, intensive exposure to L2 can impede the continued development of LI skills' (Cummins, 1978: 405; italics mine). With this statement Cummins touches the discussions on the language proficiency of children from lower social classes and ethnic minority groups, like black children in the USA. There is no reason here to repeat the (sociolinguistic) debate on this subject (cf. Williams, 1970). I think it suffices to say one can not neglect this discussion (for example, such highly respected opinions as Labov's; Labov, 1970), and merely give as a generally accepted truth that the first language of many lower-class or disadvantaged children is poorly developed. Cummins (1978: 398) gives a restrictive definition of 'competence in a language': '(...) in the present discussion (it) refers to the child's ability to make use of the cognitive functions of the language rather than to his surface fluency in the language'. But even with this restriction in mind, the statement on the language proficiency of lower class children (minority children included) lacks proper empirical evidence as support. The third point I want to mention, arises from the research reported in this chapter. In the E-group (i.e. the group with a considerable amount of minority-language education), there were some children who did not have the minority language as their first language. Half of the Moroccan children had a Berber language as their first language. For them the linguistic situation was very complex, because with other Moroccan children they used or had to use Moroccan-Arabic, the official minority language

Minority language education and second-language acquisition

55

in the school was Modern Standard Arabic, and they also learned Dutch. According to Cummins' developmental interdependence hypothesis the Dutch language proficiency of these children must have been very low, because second-language development (in fact: fourth-language development) did not start on the sound basis of a well-developed first language (Berber was not used in school, as in Morocco). These children could even have pulled down the total results of the E-group. But this did not turn out to be the case: the E-group did (somewhat) better than the Cgroup, and within the Moroccan E-group the Berber children generally did not perform at a lower level than the other Moroccan children did. One can add to this observation that in many cases the minority language in the school will not be the same as the real mother tongue (i.e. first language) of the children. Minority children will often speak a dialect which differs strongly from the standard language used in the school. It is unclear whether Cummins' ideas about first language stimulation in the school are also valuable in this type of situation. Summarizing, I must say that I have my doubts about the value of Cummins' developmental interdependence hypothesis as an explanation for the results of the research reported here (and perhaps also for results of other studies on the effect of bilingual education). In my opinion a more sociopsychologically oriented explanation must be considered as more valuable in accounting for the research results. Curiously, Cummins also points to this type of explanation. In his widely cited 1978 article he states that the source of the minority child's academic difficulties '(•••) lies in both the inadequate development of LI and in the cultural conflict engendered by pressure to assimilate and replace the LI by L2' (p. 410; original italics). The socio-psychological factor is further discussed in Cummins (1979a). In this article it is argued that motivational aspects may interact with the child's level of linguistic competence and educational treatments; as Cummins says: The motivation of children to learn L2 is closely tied to their attitudes towards L2 speakers' (Cummins, 1979a: 243). Cummins even questions his own explanation of research on acquisition of Swedish by Finnish immigrant children. Older children did better than younger children, and earlier this was explained by the fact that the first language of the older children was better developed when intensive exposure to Swedish began. 'However', Cummins must admit, t h e findings are equally susceptible to a motivational explanation' (Cummins, 1979a: 244). With his careful statements on motivational aspects, Cummins refers to observations well-known in the literature on second-language acquisition, i.e. observations on the effects of socio-psychological factors on secondlanguage acquisition; see for example Brown (1980) and Schuman (1978c) who both present long lists of relevant factors (and Chapter 3 of this

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Immigrant children learning Dutch

study). From these presentations it is clear that people will only acquire a second language successfully if their social-emotional state is not overly disturbed. Second-language learners have to feel more or less at ease; if that condition is met, they are better equipped for the task of secondlanguage acquisition (see also Extra, 1982b). Immigrant workers' children from Turkey or Morocco will probably experience a culture shock entering Holland and the Dutch school system. Schumann (1978c: 167) says that culture shock '(•••) c a n be defined as anxiety resulting from the disorientation encountered upon entering a new culture. The learner, when moving into a new culture, finds himself in a dependent state. The coping and problem-solving mechanisms that he has at his disposal often do not work in the new culture. As a result, activities which were routine in his native country require a great deal of energy in the new environment. This situation can cause disorientation, stress, anxiety, and fear. The resulting mental state can produce a powerful syndrome of rejection which diverts energy and attention from second language learning. The learner, in attempting to find a cause for his disorientation, may reject himself, his own culture, the organization for which he is working, and the people of the host country. Under such conditions the learner is unlikely to make the effort necessary to become bilingual.' This statement on the effect of culture shock on second-language acquisition can also be related to discussions on the possible differences between input and intake (cf. Hatch, 1979; Seliger, 1977). The language input, i.e. the verbal environment, is not processed the same way by all language learners. For some learners input will hardly be intake; they do not profit from the language input, and these low input generators scarcely participate in verbal interaction voluntarily (Seliger, 1977). In contrast, high input generators will participate in verbal interactions more frequently, and will reach a higher level of second-language proficiency. I am quite sure that the culture shock for the children in the E-group was not as serious as the shock for the children in the C-group. The Echildren were in a group with children of the same nationality and the same background. They had a teacher from their country of origin for most of the time, and they were educated in a language which is also the medium of instruction in their country of origin. Because they suffered less from a culture shock, the E-children were in a better social-emotional state to face the task of second-language learning. The Dutch language input to the E-children was less than the input to the C-children, but the E-children were more able to process their (limited) input, resulting in the same (or even a somewhat higher) second-language proficiency. Of course, my statements here are more or less hypothetical explan-

Minority language education and second-language acquisition

57

ations. We did not do empirical research on the culture shock experienced by the children. But Joop Teunissen collected data on the children's social and cultural orientation which might shed some light on this issue. The following conclusions could be formulated (see also Appel, Everts & Teunissen, forthcoming): - The 'reception' of the Turkish and Moroccan children in the national classes gave them a feeling of security and safety; also in contacts with Dutch children and teachers the children's own group was a safe home base. This gave them the opportunity to determine the character and the frequency of contacts with Dutch children. In the first three school years the mean percentage of 'problem children' in the C-group was nearly twice as high as in the E-group (24% vs. 13%). Social-emotional problems were exhibited in aggressive behavior, apathy, isolation, strong fear of failure, or a notable form of nationalism. - Initially there were no striking differences in cultural orientation between the two groups. At the end of the second school year 88% of the E-children and 71% of the C-children had a strong minority cultural orientation. At the end of the third year, the percentages were 72 and 76 respectively. A possible interpretation might be that for the Echildren a gradual cultural integration is attained; this is further supported by the fact that at the end of the third year 23% of the Echildren and only 10% of the C-children had an 'in-between' cultural orientation. Furthermore, many children from the C-group developed a growing feeling of resistance towards the dominant (Dutch) school culture. The E-children were able to cope better with two cultures. The school did not affect the 'hard kernel' of the cultural background of the children, but rather it affected the way cultural orientation was expressed in the classroom. Till now I have discussed the socio-psychological factor as an isolated phenomenon, but the contrasting results of immersion programs and bilingual education programs show clearly that this factor must be integrated in a wider theoretical framework in which also the effects of social factors are accounted for. Many authors on the subject of bilingual education have recognized that the potential effects of this type of educational program mainly depend on social or environmental factors, like socio-economic position of the minority group considered, prestige and status of the minority language, political and social attitudes towards the minority group etc. (see for example Paulston, 1974 and Bowen, 1977), Cummins (1979a) also notes the importance of social factors, as superordinated to other variables. Here I will not try to sum up at this point all the factors which might influence (as single factors or interacting) a bilingual education program.

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Immigrant children learning Dutch

I only want to point to two issues: (a) The way children behave and perform in a bilingual education program can be accounted for by analyzing the influence of socio-psychological factors, (b) These socio-psychological factors must be considered as intermediate factors; they are in their turn affected by social or environmental factors. An explanation of results of bilingual education programs along these lines is systematized in figure 2.1.

Figure 3.1. Factors influencing the effects of bilingual education.

Social factors exert their influence on socio-psychological factors, which determine the social-emotional state of children participating in a certain educational program. The educational program (e.g. minority-language teaching for minority children) affects the children's social-emotional state. The interaction between socio-psychological factors and program features gives a result in terms of school achievement, language proficiency, etc. 2.5.3. Value of the results In this section I will discuss some methodological issues which are relevant if one wants to judge the value of the results reported here. First I will repeat the general conclusion: t h e amount of time spent on minoritylanguage teaching in the transitional bilingual school (the E-group) did not harm or hinder the second-language acquisition of the Turkish and Moroccan immigrant workers' children'. The reader will have noticed that I have only described the outcomes of this specific bilingual program with regard to second-language acquisition. It is too early, the scale of the research was too small, and there is too much still unknown, to make predictive statements like: transitional bilingual education for minority children will not impede second-language acquisition. This approach is in agreement with Mackey's. He stated that the evaluation of bilingual education programs '(• • •) cannot provide us with a total guarantee that if

Minority language education and second-language acquisition

59

such programs are repeated the results will always be the same' (Mackey, 1977: 274). In this way the value of the research reported here is also restricted (see also section 2.1.2.). The size and the characteristics of the two groups investigated are other important methodological issues. We were forced to work with rather small groups, because there were simply not more children in the bilingual experiment (and at that time it was the first and only bilingual experiment for Turkish and Moroccan children in the Netherlands). In fact, we had to take what we could get. But, working with small groups also had a positive effect. It enabled us to investigate the language use of the children in a rather extensive manner. As I noted before (in 2.4.2.), in most research on the linguistic effects of bilingual education language tests are used as the only evaluation instruments. Recording, transcribing and analyzing language samples is a very time-consuming task, which can only be done when the number of research subjects is limited, as in our project. Here I touch on the old methodological problem of the conflict between research in depth and research in width. In my opinion, in this study we won in depth what we lost in width. As the reader will perhaps remember, the children were not randomly assigned to the two groups. Therefore, characteristics of the two groups could possibly have influenced the results. In 2.4.1. where the two groups were described, I already accounted for this methodological problem; in my view, the comparison of the two groups on different variables, which could affect the performance of immigrant workers' children in school, made clear that the two groups could be considered as equivalent, except for the relative numbers of boys and girls in the two groups (and the treatment variable, of course). In the E-group only one third of the children were girls, but in the C-group the girls formed about half of the sample. It has long been taken for granted that girls are better ///-si-language learners than boys, but recently this opinion has been questioned, for example by Macauly (1978) in an article on the 'myth' of the female superiority in language acquisition. There are no research data on a possible superiority of boys or girls in second-language acquisition. However, for the group of second-language learners studied here, it might be expected that boys reach higher levels of proficiency than girls, because of their social position in the family. In immigrant families, girls often do household work, or they look after little brothers and sisters, while boys are allowed more often to play in the streets. Therefore, boys could have more opportunities for contacts with Dutch children, which might stimulate their acquisition of Dutch. If girls have a lower rate of secondlanguage acquisition, they could keep the scores of the C-group relatively low, because of their overrepresentation in this group (compared to the Egroup). To find out whether this is the case, I have compared the mean

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Immigrant children learning Dutch

scores of the girls in the C-group to the mean scores of the total C-group in table 2.4.. This table clearly shows that for the three years of study, the scores of the total C-group and the girls in the C-group are highly comparable. This leads to the conclusion that the results of the C-group are not due to the relative overrepresentation of girls. Table 2.4. Mean scores of the total Comparison Group (T-C) and the girls in the Comparison Group (G-C) on variables for oral and written language proficiency for the three years of study. It should be noted that for two variables, viz. WPV and ASM, a higher score means a lower proficiency. 1978 T-C M LU MLU-20 SI CI PCU WPV ASM NDW Article Conjug. verb Plural, noun Copula Preposition Comprehension Test Morphology Test Sentence Building Test Presupposition Test Imitation Test Anagram Test Cloze Test

1979

G-C

T-C

1980 G-C

T-C

2.8

2.8

3.8

3.9

-

-

-

-

0.6 3.7

0.5 3.9

1.3

1.3

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

3.7 5.3 15.0 157.1 61.4 76.5

2.8 4.1 13.2 157.3 62.3 75.7

12.2 6.6 6.9 205.9 66.9 88.0

12.0 4.9 8.7 212.0 71.4 91.8

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

117.4 24.2 50.1 48.2 37.8

109.2 22.9 51.3 45.5 34.7

-

-

67.6

59.2

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

77.7 -

34.1 40.6 66.5 50.0 -

51.5

76.6 -

32.1 41.4 66.4 51.2 -

50.8

4.4 9.2 5.4

G-C

84.1 -

58.2

4.5 9.3 5.4

-

87.1 -

59.2

-

-

-

-

57.7 59.7 50.9

57.6 59.8 53.3

Compared to other evaluation studies, we investigated language proficiency more extensively, because we recorded and analyzed the children's more or less spontaneous speech. But still the question remains: to what extent was the 'real language proficiency' of the children measured? In 2.4.2. I dealt with this question, and more specifically with the problem of measuring the children's communicative language skills. In 2.4.2.1 wrote: 'Communicative proficiency presupposes to a certain extent formal proficiency (...). Generally, second-language learners with a good formal linguistic competence will communicate more easily with target-language speakers than second-language learners with a low level of formal linguistic competence will do.'

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With the language samples of the children and the scores on the formal linguistic variables at hand, in principle it can be seen whether this assumption can be validated. However, this aspect was not included in our original research question, and now I can only give a tentative, subjective view. In my opinion, most of the children who had the best scores on the formal linguistic variables also were the best talkers, especially the children who had high scores on the syntactic variables (e.g. MLU); some children with low scores on the morphological variables also communicated well, but they made the impression of talking rather carelessly or sloppily (the reader must bear in mind that here it is my aim to give a pre-scientific description). The children with the higher scores on the formal linguistic variables generally were better at understanding questions (mainly whyquestions), often expanded their answers beyond the matter actually asked, and took verbal initiatives. I must stress that this was not the case for all children, but only that it was a general trend. Below I will give a few examples of the two types of children: the ones with high scores on formal variables who communicate well, and the ones with low scores on formal variables who communicate less effectively. The examples are given in Dutch, and in English; in these translations I have tried to preserve as much as possible the special features (i.e. the deviations of the standard language). The speech of the experimenter is given in parentheses. 1978 Children are asked to tell a story depicted in a series of pictures. In the pictures a boy is lying down reading on the beach, a girl throws water on him, and hides behind a tree. There is also a dog present who barks at the girl. Child A has high scores on the formal variables, and tells the story after having been requested to do so. Hier jongetje lezen een boek. En hier slaapt een hond. En hier een meisje halen in die zee water. En nou achter boom wachten. En dan hier liggen op die jongetje water. En dan hond is bang worden. En nou jongetje zegt: jij maak. En hond kan niet verstaan. En hier meisje achter boom. En hier zegt die jongen: jij maakt die water liggen mij rug, zegt hij. ('Here boy read a book. And here a dog sleeps. And here a girl fetch in that sea water. And now behind tree wait. And then here lie on the boy water. And then dog is become afraid. And now boy says: you do. And dog can not understand. And here girl behind tree. And here that boy says: you make that water lie me back, he says.')

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Child B with low scores on the formal variables, does not tell the story at once, but must be prompted continually by the experimenter: (Zie je wat het meisje doet?) Watergooien. (Wat is de jongen aan het doen?) Lezen in boek. (En wat doet de hond?) Hond slapen. (En dan?) Gooien water. (Wat gebeurt er met de jongen?) Water. (Wat doet de jongen hier?) Huilen. (Wat doet de hond?) Rennen. ('(You see what the girl is doing?) Throw water. (What is the boy doing?) Read in book. (And what is the dog doing?) Dog sleep. (And then?) Throw water. (What happens to the boy?) Water. (What is the boy doing here?) Cry. (What is the dog doing?) Run.') In this second passage especially the utterances 'throw water' (after the question 'and then?') and 'water' (after the question 'what happens to the boy?') are striking, because they are communicatively inadequate: the replies are very incomplete, and the hearer does not get the information he/she needs to interpret the utterance properly. 1979 Child C (with a high formal language proficiency) answers some questions about school activities: (Wat vind je leuk op school? Wat voor lessen?) Handwerken en gym. (Handwerken en gym? Waarom?) Ja, omdat je, als je handwerken maken, wordt iets voor als moederdag. Dan maak je wat iets voor je moeder. Als je gymen, dan leert je wat iets. Als je kan niet springen, dan kun je wel springen. Of als je kan niet hardlopen, dan leren hardlopen. Dat vind ik wel leuk. (En wat vind je moeilijk?) Ik snap sommige woordjes niet. Taal en rekenen en Nederlands. ('What do you like at school? Which classes?) Needlework and gym. (Why?) Yes, because you, if you do needlework, becomes something for when Mothering Sunday. Then you make something for your mother. If you do gym, then you learn something. If you not can jump, then you can jump indeed. Or if you can not run fast, then you learn to run fast. That is what I like. (And what is difficult for you?) I do not understand some words. Language and arithmetic and Dutch.') With child D, who has a low formal language ability, the conversation is about school activities of the actual day. (En wat heb je op school gedaan?) Handenarbeid. (Ja, had je iets gemaakt?) Ja, ketting. (Is die al klaar?) Ja. (Mag ik die straks even zien?) Die is thuis. (Is die al thuis? Had je die vanmorgen op school niet gemaakt?) Ik heb op school gemaakt. (Ja, en wat heb je nog meer op school gedaan?) Weet ik niet. (En wat vind je leuk op school?) Alles.

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(En wat vind je moeilijk om te doen?) Rekenen. ('(And what did you do at school?) Crafts. (Yes, and did you make something?) Yes, chain. (Is it ready?) Yes. (Can I see it?) It is at home. (Is it already at home? Didn't you make it this morning?) I have made at school. (And what more did you do at school?) I don't know. (And what do you like at school?) Everything. (And what is difficult for you?) Arithmetic.') Very illustrative for the low communicative ability of child D is the answer 'I have made at school' following the question 'Didn't you make it this morning?'. 1980 Without being prompted by a question, child E (high formal proficiency) tells a story : De meester leest ons voor van 'Hodja en Fidja', van zoiets. Is heel leuk verhaal van een vliegend tapijt. Een jongen die zegt dat hij de wereld in gaat. En hij weet niet hoe het moet. Gaat-ie, komt-ie bij een ouwe man en die heet Elvazad. En die heeft een vliegend tapijt, en dat geeft de man hem. Hij zegt: ga maar de wereld in. En de jongen zegt: hoe moet ik hem nou sturen? Dan zegt de man: als je vliegen moet, moet je gewoon 'vlieg' zeggen. (Story continues). ('The teacher reads to us 'Hodja and Fidja', about something like that. It is very nice story about a flying carpet. A boy who says that he goes into the world. And he does not know how to do it. He goes, he arrives at an old man who is called Elvazad. And that man has a flying carpet, and the man gives it to him. He says: just go into the world. And the boy says: But how can I steer it? Then the man says: If you have to fly, you just say "fly".') Compare the way a low formal proficiency child F tells a story. The experimenter had asked which TV-programs she watched. Naar Remie. Vind ik leuk en ... eh. (Is dat met die hond?) Ja, met een wit, witte hond. Die is met, met zijn vriend naar zijn moeder gegaan toch. Was leuk. Maar die ene man is dood, en twee honden is dood. Een kleintje wit zo, en zo, en nog groter zwartje is dood. (Is wel een zielig verhaal.) Ja, vossen, vossen hebben doodgemaakt, vossen. (Vossen?) Ja, en ... eh, en die grote man die en ze gaan hoesten, hoesten. Ze gaan regenen, he? Ze gaan andere landen, en toen is die man dood. ('Remie. I like it and ... eh. (Is it the story with the dog?) Yes, with a white, white dog. He has gone with, with his friend to his mother yet. Was nice. But the other man is dead, and two dogs is dead. And little

64

Immigrant children learning Dutch white so, and so, and still bigger black one is dead. (Is certainly a sad story) Yes, foxes, foxes have killed, foxes. (Foxes?) Yes, and ... eh, and the big man he and they are going to cough, cough. They are going to rain, uh? They go other countries, and then the man is dead.')

I think these examples clearly show that there is often a strong relation between formal linguistic proficiency and communicative skills. The next methodological issue which I want to discuss briefly, concerns the so-called Hawthorne-effect. According to the Hawthorne-effect, the outcomes cannot be attributed to the independent variable (the amount of minority-language teaching in this case), but to the fact one group is the Experimental Group, which makes this group special, and makes the children (and their teachers!) think they are special; this stimulates them to perform better. In her overview of research studies on bilingual education Engle (1975) notes that this effect appears in many studies. I cannot say for sure that the Hawthorne-effect is not responsible for the findings of this study, but it seems highly improbable that the effect should work for 3 years. It should be borne in mind, that also one year after the E-children had left the bilingual school, and had gone to regular classes, they had a slightly higher language proficiency than the C-children. The fact that the effect of the program lasted, while the experimental conditions were not present anymore runs counter to the idea that the results of the E-children were caused by the Hawthorne-effect. Besides that, the following argument also has some value in this case. If the Echildren generally did better than the C-children because they got special attention (as a result of the experimental character of the program), then this can be seen as a support for the claim that education for immigrant workers' children needs special attention. In this section about the value of the results in the perspective of methodological problems, the product-character of the study is the last point which I will deal with briefly. Mackey (1977: 274) writes that '(•••) the evaluation of bilingual education programs may help us understand what is happening and why it is happening'. After the research reported here, I can only make statements about some of the results of the bilingual program, but not about what happened in the program, and certainly not about why it happened. A process evaluation would be needed to gain insight in this matter. This applies also to the process of second-language acquisition; in this study only the product - second-language proficiency - was analyzed. Jenkins et al. (1979) plead for evaluation which favours a process orientation to do justice to the many aspects of minority education.

Minority language education and second-language acquisition

65

Considering the discussion in this section, what is the value of the research reported in this chapter? I think there is not one methodologically supported balance on which this value can be weighed exactly. The outcome of this study must be interpreted in relation to the findings of other studies on the effects of bilingual education, viz. product and process evaluation. There is more (multi-perspective) research on bilingual education needed before justified predictive statements can be made about the consequences of bilingual education.

2.5.4. Educational implications In this section I want to return to the basic issues about education for minority children, dealt with in the beginning of this chapter. The last words of section 2.5.3. make it impossible to put forward firm, substantial claims about the most desirable type of education for immigrant workers' children. There is too much not yet known, there have only been a few experiments, which could not be evaluated sufficiently, adequately or extensively (i.e. from all possible perspectives; see also Appel, forthcoming). Also in this study, only two educational models were taken into account: a monolingual (Dutch) and a transitional bilingual model. The possible effects of a bilingual maintenance model (i.e. with continued, substantial minority-language teaching) have yet to be studied. Furthermore, an important issue is that the teaching of Dutch as a second-language is still in its infancy. There is no tradition in teaching Dutch to second-language learners, there are no full-scale courses available; there is no real expertise, etc. Therefore, it can always be argued that the transitional bilingual experiment should be compared with an experiment in Dutch as a second language (DSL) or something like that. In suchaDSLexperiment Dutch should be taught in a better, more adequate way by professionally trained teachers who work with a proper DSL-method. It is possible that children within such a DSL-program would attain better second-language results than children in a transitional bilingual experiment like the one which was (partly) evaluated in this study. The results presented here support the claim that minority-language teaching for immigrant workers' children does not need to have a retarding effect on second-language acquisition; it can even have a positive influence. So there is every reason to defend the application of minoritylanguage instruction for immigrant workers' children. But it should be noted that the subjects in this study came directly from Morocco or Turkey, and that they had no command of Dutch when they entered the schools. The number of immigrant workers' children of elementary school age who come with their mothers to the Netherlands has been reduced strongly. More and more Turkish and Moroccan children are being born in the Netherlands (cf. Miedema, 1982). Therefore, an important change in

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Immigrant children learning Dutch

the population of immigrant workers' children is taking place. Of course this change has effects on the language proficiency of the immigrant workers' children who go to Dutch schools. They will all speak and understand Dutch, although many of them will not have reached the level of proficiency attained by Dutch peers when entering school (cf. Lalleman, 1983). They will also speak the minority language, but not at the level children reach in their countries of origin (cf. Appel, 1983 and forthcoming). Now an important question is: in which language are the immigrant workers' children most proficient? If they have only a low minoritylanguage ability it would be rather paradoxal to teach them in the minority language, if the arguments for this type of education are mainly based on the assumption that initial schooling should take place in the children's 'best' language. But to this I must add that it could be considered as strengthening the position of minority languages. As I wrote in 2.1.1., minority-language teaching can improve the conditions for the maintenance of minority languages. It is also important for the immigrant communities that children have a good command of the minoritylanguage, because of verbal interaction within the communities (especially with older people), and with family members in the respective countries of origin. In discussions on the organization of bilingual education for immigrant children, the research results with regard to second-language acquisition should not be considered in isolation. Many other (sometimes more important) educational and social factors must be taken into account, for example, can minority-language teaching be integrated in the curriculum, is there enough co-operation between the foreign teachers and the Dutch teachers, and are there not too many segregative trends in society? I am quite aware that the short discussion in this section is not completely satisfactory, but that is a consequence of the state of the art in the field of bilingual education (research), and the changing social picture in the Netherlands (and in other West-European countries). In my opinion, there is much to say in favour of minority-language teaching: secondlanguage acquisition is not retarded, minority-language ability will improve, which will contribute to the maintenance of the minority language, and it does not have to lead to segregation of minority children. This is especially important in the currently unclear social-political situation: will immigrant workers and their family members stay in the Netherlands, or will they return to their respective countries of origin? When the social perspectives are so unclear, from the linguistic point of view, there are many arguments to advocate minority-language teaching for immigrant workers' children.

Chapter 3

Cultural orientation and second-language acquisition

3.1. Introduction 3.1.1. Socio-psychological factors and second-language acquisition There are a great many factors which can be related to rate of secondlanguage development. Some of these factors can be considered as learner characteristics, for example language aptitude, cognitive style and age. Other factors are more social in nature (i.e. they must be placed 'outside' the language-learning individual), for example the second-language input provided by a teacher in a guided learning situation, or by the targetlanguage community if naturalistic second-language acquisition is taking place. Also socio-psychological factors can be distinguished, that is, factors which are a 'result' of the interaction between learner internal (or psychological) variables and learner external (or social) variables. (For an overview of different factors, see Schumann, 1978c; Brown, 1980). It is a generally accepted fact that socio-psychological factors relate strongly to the achievement of second-language learners (cf. Gardner & Lambert, 1972; Gardner, 1979; McDonough, 1981). These factors are often loosely characterized with the terms 'attitude' and 'motivation'. Current opinions on this issue are mainly stimulated by the work of Wallace E. Lambert and Robert C. Gardner. Lambert (1963) was one of the first publications in which the outlines of a socio-psychological theory of second-language acquisition was sketched: 'This theory, in brief, holds that an individual successfully acquiring a second language gradually adopts various aspects of behaviour which characterize members of another linguistic-cultural group. The learner's ethnocentric tendencies and his attitudes towards the other group are believed to determine his success in learing the new language. His motivation to learn is thought to be determined by his attitudes and by his orientation toward learning a second language' (Lambert, 1963: 14; cited in Gardner, 1979). 'Attitude' and 'motivation' are often presented as coordinated terms, suggesting that they have the same status as variables (for example in the title of the classic study of Gardner & Lambert (1972)). In some articles the terms are also used as if they were synonyms (for example in: Werkgroep Taal Buitenlandse Werknemers, 1980). However, the quotation from Lambert (1963) already

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makes clear that the terms have a different status in the theory, and in the explanation of the success of second-language learners. Gardner (1979) elaborates on this point: 'It is suggested here (...) that social attitudes are relevant to second-language acquisition, not because they directly influence achievement, but because they serve as motivational supports. Since attitudes are formed through interaction with one's social environment, they make a direct link between the cultural milieu and the motivation to acquire a second language, and ultimately, proficiency in that language' (p. 205-206). I opened this section with the statement that it is generally accepted that socio-psychological factors relate strongly to the achievement of secondlanguage learners. But in fact, as often, reality is more complex. Some authors place a high value on the explanatory force of these factors. For example, Savignon (1976) states that attitude is the single most important factor in second language learning. According to Schumann (1978a: 29), '(•••) two groups of variables - social factors and affective factors (i.e. social and socio-psychological factors, RA) - cluster into a single variable which is the major causal variable in SLA' (= Second Language Acquisition). This position is not shared by Macnamara, one of the few dissidents in this field. In a provocative article (Macnamara, 1973) he argues that favourable attitudes are of only minor importance in the task of second-language learning. His opinion has been based among other things, on the fact that historically, language shifts in speech communities have generally been accompanied by unfavourable attitudes to the conquering people and their language, for example the negative attitude of the Irish towards the English and the English language. In a certain way, Teitelbaum et al. (1975), Oiler (1977) and Oiler et al (1977) support Macnamara's view with results from different research projects. Teitelbaum et al. studied the Spanish proficiency of American students who had English as their first language. They found that '(•••) in line with previous research findings, the present study indicates that there is a greater than chance correlation between self-reports of attitude and motivation and performance on a test of second-language proficiency. It must be added, however, that in the past this connection may have been somewhat overstated and that, as in the present case, the proportion of variance shared by attitudinal and proficiency variables has been quite small' (Teitelbaum et al., 1975: 265). Oiler et al. state that only a very weak relationship was found between socio-psychological factors and secondlanguage proficiency; a survey of research results pointed out that '(•••) the highest average correlation between a motivational variable and a language proficiency measure is only .21 (...) This correlation actually accounts for less than five percent of the variance in the language pro-

Cultural orientation and second-language acquisition

69

ficiency measure' (Oiler et al., 1977: 3). Oiler et al. (1977) even found that integrative motivation (the motivation to integrate in the targetlanguage community) was not a good predictor of second-language proficiency. Their study resulted in the observation that a factor defined as a desire to stay permanently in the United States (on the part of Chinese speaking graduate students in Albuquerque and El Paso) was negatively correlated with attained proficiency in English. But, despite these facts, Oiler is not a dissident like MacNamara. That becomes quite transparent in the following, in my opinion rather revealing statement. 'In spite of these observations, we are inclined to agree with the feelings of Lambert, Gardner, and others that there must be a significant and substantial relation between attitudes and attained levels of proficiency in a second language. Here, as in many empirical research paradigms, we are inclined to follow our intuitions further than might be justified by the empirical findings that may have been uncovered at a particular point in time'. (Oiler et al., 1977: 4; italics mine, RA). It is difficult to find out why such a strong belief in the relation between socio-psychological factors and second-language acquisition persists while at the same time a lack of strongly supporting research evidence can be observed. It may be the case that one assumes that attitude and motivation are not stable, but variable or changeable characteristics. Perhaps it is (implicitly) believed that via manipulation or changing of socio-psychological factors second-language acquisition can be stimulated, while other factors (like cognitive styl or intelligence) are because of their stability more difficult to manipulate. Therefore, socio-psychological factors are given a higher value than can be warranted from research results. A second explanation can be that researchers are impressed by nonscientific observations and convictions. Oiler et al. (1977) already suggest that till now the research done has not been sophisticated enough to validate what every layman already knows from personal experience. I think this is connected with the problem of the operationalization of socio-psychological variables. How can researchers really measure attitudes and motivations? How these problems are 'solved' is exemplified in the following paragraphs from Gardner et al. (1976: 199-200). In many o f these studies, attitudinal variables were related to the measures of motivation, leading to the conclusion that a sustained motivation to acquire a second language was related to attitudinal characteristics o f the students. In 1966, Gardner proposed that a considerable proportion o f the variability in second language achievement was related to a particular attitudinal/motivational configuration which he referred to as an Integrative Motive. Although the operational definition o f the integrative motive has varied somewhat from study to study in order to make allowance for the variables included in each study the

70

Immigrant children learning Dutch underlying characterization of the integrative motive is that it reflects a high level of drive on the part of the individual to acquire the language of a valued second-language community in order to facilitate communication with that group. Recently, the Language Research Group has been concerned with delineating components of the integrative motive. The various components identified to date are Motivation (Motivationel Intensity, Desire to Learn French, and Attitudes toward Learning French), Integrativeness (referring to favourable attitudes toward the second language community and an expressed interest in communicating with members of that community), Attitudes Towards the Learning Situation (i.e., the course and the teacher), Instrumentality (an interest in acquiring the language for utilitarian purposes), Parental Encouragement (the view by students that they are encouraged by their parents to learn the language) and French Classroom Anxiety (feelings of anxiety felt in the French classroom situation). The research has also examined more general attitudes of the type, Need Achievement, Ethnocentrism, and Interest in Foreign Languages.

Gardner et al. do not make clear why the components mentioned and their various aspects are chosen. Why not more components? Or less aspects? What is the relation between different components and aspects (e.g. the relation between the aspect 'Attitudes toward Learning French' and the component 'Attitudes Towards the Learning Situation')? Generally researchers present many questions to second-language learners about their personal situation and personal views. The answers of the language learners give some information about attitude and/or motivation, but it is not made clear whether they contain information about the relevant socio-psychological factors in toto. Researchers ask the questions which can be asked. If there is an Anomie Scale at hand, questions about a sociopsychological state called 'anomie' are asked, if there is an Ethnocentrism Scale, that one is used too, etcetera, etcetera (see for example the questions in Appendix A in Gardner & Lambert (1972); pity the poor students who had to answer all these questions). From a negative attitude towards these studies, I should state that so many questions about so many components and aspects are being asked, because of the researchers' strong wish to discover high and significant correlations between aspects related to the socio-psychological variable and second-language achievement. (For more discussion on this issue, see the debate between Oiler and Gardner in: Gardner, 1980; Oiler, 1982; Gardner & Gliksman, 1982). The state of the art in the field of socio-psychological factors and second-language acquisition has some potentially harmful consequences. One of these is the tendency to 'individualize' the socio-psychological factors; a tendency which is stimulated by the fact that so many questions are asked about the second-language learner's individual situation and views. For example, Brown (1980) describes the motivational variable in

Cultural orientation and second-language acquisition

71

his chapter on 'Personality and Language Learning' (while attitudes are discussed in the chapter 'Sociocultural Variables')- Carroll (1977) seems to consider motivation as a personal, individual factor, i.e. a factor for whose 'content' or 'load' the second-language learner is solely responsible. Statements like the following often occur in the literature on this subject. 'Instrumentally motivated persons learn a second language mainly for its practical value, such as to qualify for a better job; an integrative motivation reflects a personal interest in the people and their culture and involves learning a second language in order to learn more about the group, meet more and varied people and to be able to think and behave like members of the other group. While both motivational orientations proved essential for success, an integrative motivation was found to be the orientation which best sustained the long-term application needed for second-language learning' (Taylor et al., 1977: 102). I must add to this that Taylor et al. also point out that political-social determinants influence the motivation of individuals. Still I fear that many readers of the literature on the relation between attitude/motivation and second-language acquisition get the strong impression that second-language learners must be blamed themselves if they fail or only reach a low level of achievement. I would like to stress that motivation (as a socio-psychological factor) is not an individual personality variable. Second-language learners in 'natural' environments cannot be held 'responsible' for their failure in the acquisition task because of a supposed 'lack' of motivation. Perhaps it should be noted that the situation in foreign-language classrooms is different; in that case it is not so easy to point to the social or political determinants of motivation. The second negative consequence of the way research on socio-psychological factors and second-language acquisition is generally conducted, concerns the interpretation of the results. Because of the heterogeneous, often hardly theoretically based operationalization of the socio-psychological factors, research results can give rise to various interpretations which are frequently not validated by the facts (or are at least not completely validated). Here I want to focus on the role the variable 'cultural orientation' plays in these interpretations. According to many authors cultural orientation (or a comparable variable) is strongly related to the achievement of second-language learners (see next section). The research reported in this chapter adresses itself to the question of whether there is indeed such a strong relation. Before I want to research what is

deal with the variable 'cultural orientation' in the next section, I point to one (methodological and theoretical) problem in the on socio-psychological factors and second-language acquisition: the character of the (potential) relation between the factors

72

Immigrant ch ildren learning Dutch

studied and second-language acquisition? Many authors interpret it as a causality relation: socio-psychological factors are assumed to influence or determine the achievement in second-language acquisition (see for example the quotations of Lambert (1963) and Schumann (1978a) given above). But this is only an assumption, and research results have not made sufficiently clear that the direction of the causality is always from the factors studied to second-language acquisition. One could state that the direction might be the other way round: success in second-language learning fosters a positive attitude towards the target-language community and a strong motivation to learn the second language even better. Gardner (1979) also notes that second-language skills can influence motivational factors. A higher second-language proficiency improves contact possibilities with members of the second-language community; this might stimulate interaction, and subsequently second-language acquisition. Since the causality problem has not yet been solved, I will only discuss the relation between socio-psychological factors and second-language acquisition. 3.1.2. Cultural orientation and second-language acquisition In section 3.1.1. I pointed to the distinction drawn by many authors between integrative and instrumental motivation for second-language learning. Research results do not support the idea of a general secondlanguage superiority of integratively motivated second-language learners (see Brown, 1980). Besides that, it is often difficult to discriminate between integrative and instrumental motivation. Oiler et al. (1977) discuss the vagueness of the concepts 'instrumental' and 'integrative'. When do questions in an attitude questionnaire refer to the one concept and when to the other; 'Is a desire "to know more about the language, literature, and culture" necessarily integrative? Or is it instrumental?' (p. 4). Despite ambiguous research results and unclear conceptualization of the variables, there remains a strong tendency to speak about two types of motivation, and to emphasize the value of integrative motivation. In cases where the importance of integrative motivation is stressed, the question of what this type of motivation really means becomes especially pertinent. And here the concept 'culture' or 'cultural orientation' enters the picture. Many authors seem to interpret 'having an integrative motivation' as 'being oriented towards the culture of the target language community', 'wanting to grow into another culture', or 'wish to adapt to the cultural values of the second-language group'. I will illustrate this with a few quotations. It is apparent that culture, as an ingrained set o f behaviors and modes of perception, becomes highly important in the learning o f a second language. A language is part o f a culture and a culture is a part of a

Cultural orientation and second-language acquisition

73

language; the two are intricately interwoven such that one cannot separate t h e two without losing the significance of either language or culture. The acquisition of a second language, except for specialized, instrumental acquisition (...), is also t h e acquisition of a second culture'. (Brown, 1980: 124). (We) suggest that t h e more students identify strongly with their ethnic group and see their own language as a valued dimension of its membership and make insecure interethnic comparisons, the more they will be reluctant to learn the dominant group's language to anything like native proficiency. In such a case, the learning of a second language would 'subtract' from t h e students ethnic identities and arouse feelings of cultural anomie (...). (Giles & Byrne, 1982: 29). In t h e acquisition of a second language, the student is faced with the task of not simply learning new information (vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, etc.) which is part of his own culture, but rather of acquiring symbolic elements of a different ethnolinguistic community. The new words are not simply new words for old concepts, t h e new grammar is not simply a new way of ordering words, the pronunciations are not merely 'different' ways of saying things. They are characteristics of another ethno linguistic community. Furthermore, the student is not being asked to learn about them; he is being asked to acquire them, to make them part of his own language reservoir. This involves imposing elements of another culture in one's own lifespace. As a result, the student's harmony with his own cultural community and his willingness or ability to identify with other cultural communities become important considerations in t h e process of secondlanguage acquisition. (Gardner, 1979: 193-194).

Statements like these (see also Lambert (1967) and Carroll (1977)) imply that there is at the least a strong relation between cultural orientation and second-language proficiency. Furthermore, they suggest that cultural assimilation (or the adoption of important cultural values of the targetlanguage community) is an important condition for successful secondlanguage acquisition; in some formulations it even looks like a conditio sine qua non. As I argued in section 3.1.1., research data do not justify the interpretation of the relation between cultural orientation (or other socio-psychological factors) and second-language achievement as a causality relation. But I also doubt whether there is indeed a strong (neutral) relation. These doubts are based on arguments which have to do with: (1) the research results on which the theory that postulates a strong relation seems to be based; (2) studies of societal bilingualism; (3) the values of another socio-psychological theory o f second-language acquisition, developed by Schumann; and last but not least (4) potentially negative societalpolitical effects of the opinion that successful second-language acquisition asks for some sort of cultural assimilation or adaptation. I will discuss these points below.

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Appendix 4.6. Scores* of the Moroccan children that were used for selecting the group which showed most first-language influence in preferring certain target-language structures, and the group which showed least influence. Selection procedure. Moroccan

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Selection procedure - For the calculation of the total score: see Appendix 4.4. - Children with at least two plusses formed the 'Moroccan most preference group' and children with at least two minuses formed the 'Moroccan least preference group'.

*

mv: is missing value; a child was assigned mv for a variable if the child had less than four possible occurrences of the pattern considered (see 4.3.2.).

Bibliography

Ad-hoc subcommissie (taal)onderwijs aan anderstaligen van de ACLO-moedertaal i.o., 1982, Onderwijs in een multiculturele en multi-etnische samenleving, Enschede. Adiv, E., 1981, 'Language learning strategies: The relationship between LI operating principles and language transfer in L2 development', Unpubl. paper, The Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal. Alleyne, M.C., 1971, 'Acculturation and the cultural matrix of creolization', in: D. Hymes (ed.), Pidginization and creolization of languages, London, 169-186. Andersson, J. & M. Boyer, 1978, Bilingual schooling in the United States, Austin. Angogo, R., 1978, 'Language and politics in South Africa', Studies in African Linguistics, 9, 211-221. Appel, R., 1972, 'Het meten van de syntaktische complexiteit van de taal van het kind: een overzicht', Ms. Inst, voor Alg. Taalw., Univ. van A'dam. Appel, R., 1978, 'Tweede-taalverwerving van Turkse en Marokkaanse kinderen; Werkrapport 2: Over de Nederlandse taalvaardigheid van kinderen uit verschillende onderwijsmodellen na een schooljaar', Inst, voor Ontw. psychol., R.U. Utrecht. Appel, R., 1983, 'Buitenlanders en taalbehoud', TTT, 3, 152-166. Appel, R., forthcoming, 'The language education of immigrant workers' children in the Netherlands', in: J. Cummins & T. Skutnabb-Kangas (eds.), Education of linguistic minority children (tentative title), Clevedon. Appel, R., H. Everts & J. Teunissen, 1979, 'Onderzoek van het gewoon lager onderwijs aan Marokkaanse en Turkse kinderen; Vergelijking van een eksperimenteel onderwijsmodel te Leiden met het onderwijs op een aantal scholen in Amsterdam, Gouda en Utrecht, Iterim-rapport 2, Leiden. Appel, R., H.Everts & J. Teunissen (forthcoming), Marokkaanse en Turkse kinderen op de basisschool; Vergelijkend onderzoek naar de vormgeving van het onderwijs (tentative title). Baker, K. & A. de Kanter, 1982, 'Federal policy and the effectiveness of bilingual education', US Dept. of Education (Draft). Beleidsplan, 1981, Beleidsplan culturele minderheden in het onderwijs, 's-Gravenhage. Berg-Eldering, L. v/d., A.C. Adriaansen & H.W. Grebel, 1980, 'Van kansloos naar kansarm; Buitenlandse kinderen in het Nederlandse onderwijs', in: Tussen walen schip, 1980 (overdruk Intermediair, 1/2), 71-82. Bineth, G., 1966, 'A contrastive analysis between English and Turkish vowel systems', Language Learning, 16, 197-212. Boelens, Kr., 1975, Tweetalig lager onderwijs, inzonderheid in Friesland, 's-Gravenhage. Bon, W. van, 1982, Taaltests voor kinderen, Lisse. Bowen, J.S., 1977, 'Linguistic perspectives on bilingual education', in: B. Spolsky & R.L. Cooper (eds.), Frontiers of bilingal education, Rowly (Mass.), 106-118. Briere, E.J., 1978, 'Variables affecting native Mexican children's learning Spanish as a second language', Language Learning, 28, 159-174.

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