Improving the general language skills of second-language learners in kindergarten: A randomized controlled trial

Improving the general language skills of second-language learners in kindergarten: A randomized controlled trial
By José L. Arco-Tirado, Faculty of Education, University of Granada (Spain)
A study published in the Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness reports on the efficacy of an intervention to improve kindergarten second-language learners’ general language skills (vocabulary, grammar, language expression, and comprehension) in their second language. The importance of this study lies in the sizable challenge that second-language learners face in kindergarten and school and the surprising scarcity of rigorous intervention studies adopting a randomized control trial design(RCT).
The 18-week intervention conducted by kindergarten teachers included 115 children (mean age = 5.5) and targeted general language skills using a broad scope of activities, including training in vocabulary, grammar, and narratives, and focusing more on expressive rather than receptive language due to second-language learners' higher needs on the former. The intervention was constructed so that the levels of difficulty could be adapted to the initial language level of the participants, including instructions for teachers to adapt their discussions to the children and to facilitate the activities using concrete activities and repetitions when necessary.
The results show that treatment effects did not differ as a function of initial language status and that children in the treatment group demonstrated significant improvements on a custom measure of taught vocabulary for both the first posttest (d = .55, p = .001) and the second posttest (d = .45, p = .023) seven months after the instruction, and also on standardized measures reflecting expressive language skills (posttest 1) (d = .55, p = . 000) and seven months later (posttest 2) (d = .26, p = .037).
These findings suggest that (a) intervention programs designed to enhance second-language learners’ expressive language in the second language can be successfully implemented in kindergarten settings; (b) second-language learners can benefit from general language instruction even when they begin from a low initial point; and (c) general language intervention for second-language learners should include long-term instruction to enhance retention of the intervention learning.
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