Children learning English as an additional language (EAL) are a growing population of learners in English primary schools. These children begin school with differing levels of English language proficiency and tend to underperform in relation to their non‐EAL peers on measures of English oral language and reading. However, little work has examined the developmental trajectories of these skills in EAL learners in England. EAL learners and 33 non‐EAL peers in Year 4 (age 8–9 years) were assessed at three time points over 18 months on measures of oral language (vocabulary, grammar and listening comprehension), phonological processing (spoonerisms and rapid automatised naming) and reading skills (single‐word decoding and passage reading). At t1, EAL learners scored significantly lower than non‐EAL peers in receptive and expressive vocabulary (breadth but not depth), spoonerisms and passage reading accuracy. Contrary to previous research, no significant group differences were found in listening or reading comprehension skills. With the exception of passage reading accuracy, there was no evidence for convergence or divergence between the groups in rate of progress over time. After three years of English‐medium classroom instruction, EAL learners continue to underperform relative to their non‐EAL peers in breadth of English vocabulary knowledge. This discrepancy in vocabulary knowledge does not appear to narrow as a result of regular classroom instruction in the run up to the final stages of primary school, pinpointing vocabulary as a key target for intervention.

中文翻译：

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在英格兰小学学习英语的儿童的语言和阅读发展

在英语小学中学习英语作为一种额外语言（EAL）的儿童正在不断增长。这些孩子上学时的英语水平各不相同，在英语口语和阅读水平方面，与非EAL同龄人相比，他们的表现较差。但是，很少有工作检查英格兰EAL学习者中这些技能的发展轨迹。在18个月的三个时间点上，通过口语（词汇，语法和听力理解），语音处理（spoonerism和快速自动命名）的三个时间点对4年级（8-9岁）的EAL学习者和33个非EAL同行进行了评估。和阅读技巧（单字解码和段落阅读）。在t1，EAL学习者在接受和表达的词汇量（深度但不是深度），口感和段落阅读准确性方面的得分显着低于非EAL同行。与先前的研究相反，在听或读理解能力上没有发现明显的群体差异。除通过阅读的准确性外，没有证据表明随着时间的推移，两组之间的趋同或趋异。经过三年的英语-中级课堂教学，EAL学习者在英语词汇知识的广度方面相对于非EAL同行仍然表现不佳。在小学期末阶段，由于定期的课堂教学，词汇知识的差异似乎并没有缩小，因此将词汇定位为干预的主要目标。