A bilingual experience in early childhood

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the language development of a small group of children in their early years in a Maltese bilingual setting within a formal context. The research was conducted with 25 pupils, attending a Church school in the centre of Malta. These children were assessed at the beginning and end of Year 1, for reading accuracy, comprehension and spoken language in both English and Maltese. The Macmillan's Individual Reading Analysis, the Sentence Comprehension Test and The Bus Story were used to assess English language skills. The Maltese Word-Reading Test, a Maltese word comprehension test and a Maltese spoken language test were used to assess Maltese language skills. Observation sessions were carried out to investigate the teacher's methods of instruction during the teaching of both languages. Interviews with the Head of school and with the class teacher were conducted to find out about the school's language policy and to determine how Maltese and English are taught in the classroom. Paired Sampled T-tests were used to establish whether there were statistically significant differences in children's achievement over time. Results indicated that there were statistically significant differences in all the Maltese tests, and most of the English tests. By the end of the year, pupils improved more in their native language. Children had more exposure to the native language even within the classroom context through interactions and classroom displays. The implications of these results are discussed.