ABSTRACT

The purpose of the current study was to examine the influence of L1 (i.e. Spanish) receptive vocabulary on both expressive and receptive knowledge of target vocabulary words taught through L2 (i.e. English) instruction and intervention. Participants were Bilingual US kindergarten students determined to be at-risk based on English receptive vocabulary. To determine student vocabulary level in Spanish, we administered a receptive Spanish vocabulary assessment. Students were grouped into matched clusters within classrooms. Clusters were randomly assigned to receive whole group vocabulary instruction only in L2 (i.e. the control group, n = 172) or whole group plus small group vocabulary instruction in L2 (i.e. the treatment group, n = 179). Findings indicated that bilingual students with high receptive vocabulary knowledge in Spanish significantly outperformed bilingual students with low receptive vocabulary knowledge in Spanish. Effects of Spanish vocabulary knowledge were maintained one year later, at the end of first grade, as measured by a researcher developed expressive vocabulary measure in English. We did not find an interaction effect between condition and student level of Spanish receptive vocabulary. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

摘要

本研究的目的是检查 L1（即西班牙语）接受词汇对通过 L2（即英语）教学和干预教授的目标词汇的表达和接受知识的影响。参与者是双语美国幼儿园学生，他们根据英语接受词汇确定有风险。为了确定学生的西班牙语词汇水平，我们进行了接受性西班牙语词汇评估。学生被分组到教室内匹配的集群中。集群被随机分配接受仅在 L2 中的全组词汇教学（即对照组，n  = 172）或全组加上 L2 中的小组词汇教学（即治疗组，n = 179)。研究结果表明，西班牙语词汇接受能力高的双语学生明显优于西班牙语词汇接受能力低的双语学生。一年后，一年级结束时，西班牙词汇知识的影响得以保持，这是由研究人员开发的英语表达性词汇测量方法所测量的。我们没有发现西班牙语接受词汇的条件和学生水平之间的交互作用。讨论了对研究和实践的影响。