Adriana Soto-Corominas

Refugee children's school adjustment is often associated with host country language proficiency, peer victimization, and school belonging, but longitudinal associations among these constructs may reflect both stable child differences and time‐varying school‐experience processes. This three‐wave longitudinal study examined English language proficiency, bullying victimization, and school belonging in 68 Syrian refugee children in Canada. We estimated a cross‐lagged panel model (CLPM) and a random intercept cross‐lagged panel model (RI‐CLPM), both with family‐clustered robust inference and controlling for child's age and gender, to distinguish stable child effects from time‐varying school‐experience processes. The former addresses correlation (e.g., children show trait stability in the three constructs and their associations over time) while the latter addresses whether time‐varying school experiences precede later change (e.g., bullying is followed by lower host country language proficiency). In the CLPM, significant cross‐lag paths showed that higher Wave 1 bullying victimization predicted lower Wave 2 English language proficiency, higher Wave 1 English language proficiency predicted higher Wave 2 school belonging, higher Wave 1 school belonging predicted higher Wave 2 bullying victimization and higher Wave 2 school belonging predicted higher Wave 3 English language proficiency. In the RI‐CLPM with the stable child effect removed, only two significant cross‐lags were seen: higher Wave 1 bullying victimization predicted lower Wave 2 English language proficiency (expected), and higher Wave 1 school belonging predicted higher Wave 2 bullying victimization (unexpected). The difference in the findings from the two models suggests that observed longitudinal associations between English language proficiency, bullying victimization, and school belonging are primarily stable between‐child differences, whereas early bullying was associated with lower later English language proficiency.

Little research has explored how language dominance may affect the development and ultimate attainment of morphosyntax in a situation of widespread and social bilingualism, where exposure to both languages starts early on and can be sustained over time. This study investigates the development of three nonpersonal clitics that have received little attention by empirical research cross‐linguistically, namely the partitive and two different oblique clitics. We investigated whether and how the development and ultimate attainment of these clitics in Catalan were modulated by language dominance. To this end, we tested child (ages 4–9) and adult Catalan–Spanish bilinguals with different degrees of language dominance. Our findings show robust differences among language dominance groups in the development and attainment of Catalan nonpersonal clitics. Specifically, despite continuous and widespread bilingualism, clitics emerge later in non‐Catalan‐dominant bilinguals, and later development does not lead to convergence with Catalan‐dominant bilinguals, even in adulthood.

Research on the implementation of CLIL at the onset of primary school is limited and has largely overlooked the role of other sources of individual differences. This study investigated the effects of the CLIL approach to English learning, together with the effects of out-of-school exposure to the language through media and other sources of individual differences, in a sample of Grade 1 students in Catalonia (Spain) using a longitudinal design. Participants (N = 176) from 14 different schools completed a test battery at the beginning and end of Grade 1 that assessed receptive and productive English skills. Results revealed that abilities at the onset of Grade 1 were the best predictor of abilities at the end of the year, and that CLIL was not associated with additional advantages in the students that followed the approach. In addition, certain characteristics of the linguistic and family background of participants predicted additional gains during the academic year: participants who engaged in more English extracurricular activities and participants with more educated mothers performed better at the end of Grade 1.

Although age of acquisition (AoA) is frequently used when examining the endpoint of second language (L2) learning, it is rarely used to examine the initial phases of L2 acquisition. The present study provided a unique look at the role of AoA in early language and literacy acquisition in the L2 by a priori selecting two groups of Arabic-English speakers based on their ages, 6–8-year-olds (N = 43) and 9–13-year-olds (N = 53). These Syrian refugees were matched on English experience, having immigrated to Canada and having learned English for two years or less. Raw scores on language and literacy measures were compared across groups. The older group had higher scores on all first language (L1) variables. The groups did not differ on most L2 variables except for English word reading. Additionally, L1 and L2 variables were examined in relation to English word and pseudoword reading with different patterns of relations found for the two groups. For the younger group, phonological awareness and vocabulary were related to reading, while for the older group phonological awareness and morphological awareness were key predictors. These finding points to the unique relations among age, age of acquisition, L1 skills, and L2 language and literacy skills.

This study reports an oral production experiment investigating the expression of existentiality in the Catalan of adult Catalan–Spanish early bilinguals (N= 58) with comparable proficiencies but different language dominance. The results show qualitative differences among the bilinguals in existential predicate selection and in their supply of partitive pronouns, modulated by language dominance. Balanced Bilinguals as well as Spanish-dominant bilinguals significantly produced moreestar(in detriment ofser-hiandhaver-hi) not only in locative contexts, where Catalan already presents optionality regulated by semantic differences, but also in existential constructions, where this optionality does not exist. We argue forindirectcrosslinguistic influence (CLI), when the bilingualperceivescertain structural overlap within constructions, mediating the influence from one structure to another one and expanding the limits of CLI. The qualitative differences found among bilinguals challenge the idea of a bilingualism continuum in Catalan–Spanish bilingualism with an identical mental representation.

Children who are refugees become bilingual in circumstances that are often challenging and that can vary across national contexts. We investigated the second language (L2) syntactic skills of Syrian children aged 6-12 living in Canada (n = 56) and the Netherlands (n = 47). Our goal was to establish the impact of the first language (L1 = Syrian Arabic) skills on L2 (English, Dutch) outcomes and whether L1–L2 interdependence is influenced by the length of L2 exposure. To measure L1 and L2 syntactic skills, cross-linguistic Litmus Sentence Repetition Tasks (Litmus-SRTs) were used. Results showed evidence of L1–L2 interdependence, but interdependence may only surface after sufficient L2 exposure. Maternal education level and refugee camp experiences differed between the two samples. Both variables impacted L2 outcomes in the Canadian but not in the Dutch sample, demonstrating the importance to examine refugee children’s bilingual language development in different national contexts.

Despite growing research on individual differences in child bilinguals, few studies have focused on the development of syntax, included both languages, and studied newly arrived school-age migrant children. Accordingly, this study investigated the syntactic development of heritage language (HL) Syrian Arabic and L2 English by Syrian refugee children (N = 119) recently arrived in Canada using a sentence repetition task. Regression analyses showed that a partially overlapping set of child-level (input and cognitive skills) and language-level (syntactic structure) factors accounted for performance in each language. HL performance was particularly sensitive to language, cognitive, and input variables indexing cumulative HL exposure. L2 performance, however, was sensitive to cognitive and environmental variables indexing current and cumulative L2 use. Finally, despite stronger performance in Arabic than in English, results revealed interdependence between the two languages, indicating that participants with stronger syntactic abilities in their HL tended to have stronger syntactic abilities in their emerging L2.

This longitudinal study examined morphosyntactic development in the heritage Arabic-L1 and English-L2 of first-generation Syrian refugee children (mean age = 9.5; range = 6–13) within their first three years in Canada. Morphosyntactic abilities were measured using sentence repetition tasks (SRTs) in English and Syrian Arabic that included diverse morphosyntactic structures. Direct measures of verbal and non-verbal cognitive skills were obtained, and a parent questionnaire provided the age at L2 acquisition onset (AOA) and input variables. We found the following: Dominance in the L1 was evident at both time periods, regardless of AOA, and growth in bilingual abilities was found over time. Cognitive skills accounted for substantial variance in SRT scores in both languages and at both times. An older AOA was associated with superior SRT scores at Time−1 for both languages, but at Time-2, older AOA only contributed to superior SRT scores in Arabic. Using the L2 with siblings gave a boost to English at Time−1 but had a negative effect on Arabic at Time-2. We conclude that first-generation children show strong heritage-L1 maintenance early on, and individual differences in cognitive skills have stable effects on morphosyntax in both languages over time, but age and input factors have differential effects on each language and over time.

Research on the bilingual development of refugee children is limited, despite this group having distinct characteristics and migration experiences that could impact language development. This study examined the role of language environment factors, alongside age and cognitive factors, in shaping the Arabic as a first/heritage language and English as a second language of recently arrived Syrian refugee children in Canada (N = 133; mean age = 9 years old; mean family residency = 23 months). We found that Arabic was the primary home language with some English use among siblings. Children did not engage frequently in language-rich activities in either language, especially not literacy activities in Arabic. Parent education levels were low: most had primary school only. Hierarchical regression models revealed that stronger nonverbal reasoning skills, more exposure to English at school, more sibling interaction in English, more frequent engagement in language-rich activities in English, and higher maternal and paternal education were associated with larger English vocabularies and greater accuracy with verb morphology. Arabic vocabulary and morphological abilities were predicted by older age (i.e., more first/heritage language exposure), stronger nonverbal reasoning skills and maternal education. We conclude that proximal environment factors, like language use at home and richness, accounted for more variance in the second language than the first/heritage language, but parent factors accounted for variance in both languages.