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Bilingual education, metalinguistic awareness, and the understanding of an unknown language*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2010

HAGAR TER KUILE ,
MICHIEL VELDHUIS ,
SUZANNE C. VAN VEEN  and
JELTE M. WICHERTS
HAGAR TER KUILE
Affiliation:
University of Amsterdam
MICHIEL VELDHUIS
Affiliation:
University of Amsterdam
SUZANNE C. VAN VEEN
Affiliation:
University of Amsterdam
JELTE M. WICHERTS*
Affiliation:
University of Amsterdam
*
Address for correspondence: Jelte M. Wicherts, Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Roetersstraat 15, 1018 WB, Amsterdam, The Netherlands[email protected]
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Abstract

An increasing number of schools offer bilingual programs, where lessons are taught in more than one language. Several theories state that bilinguals have greater metalinguistic awareness than monolinguals. We investigated whether this greater metalinguistic awareness is also related to an increased ability to understand an unknown language. To measure metalinguistic awareness and the ability to understand text written in an unknown language, we designed the Indonesian Language Test (ILT). The ILT consists of items regarding a story in Indonesian. Dutch high school students from monolingual and bilingual classes were administered the ILT, a Dutch Language Test, an English Language Test, and a general intelligence test. The ILT showed promising psychometric properties. Bilingual students scored significantly higher on the ILT than monolingual students. Multi-group confirmatory factor analyses showed (i) that ILT measures the ability to understand an unknown language, and (ii) that bilingual students score significantly higher than monolingual students on this ability. Both observations support the notion that bilingual education increases metalinguistic awareness and therefore the ability to understand an unknown language.

Keywords

bilingual educationmetalinguistic awarenesslanguage acquisitionIndonesian Language Test
Type
Research Notes
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , April 2011 , pp. 233 - 242
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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Footnotes

*

The preparation of this article was supported by VENI grant no. 451-07-016 from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO).

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