The effects of phonological awareness of Zulu-speaking children learning to spell in English: a study of cross-language transfer.
BACKGROUND
Emergent bilingual Zulu-English speaking children in South Africa have spoken but no written proficiency in Zulu (L1), yet are required to learn to spell English (L2) via English-only literacy instruction. Little research exists on emergent bilingual's phonological awareness (PA) and spelling development, with no L1 formal literacy instruction. Thus, whether PA in a L1 impacts on literacy acquisition in the L2 remains unclear.


OBJECTIVE
Performance on monolingual PA, monolingual and emergent bilingual spelling was compared. In addition, PA and spelling in emergent bilingual Zulu-English speakers was explored to ascertain cross-language transfer relationships.


METHODS
Thirty emergent bilingual Zulu-English and thirty monolingual English children in grade 2 participated.


METHODS
Emergent bilinguals were assessed on Zulu PA, Zulu and English spelling skills. Monolinguals were assessed on English PA and English spelling skills.


RESULTS
Emergent bilinguals had more Zulu PA levels related to spelling English tasks than to spelling Zulu tasks, and both Zulu PA and Zulu spelling were positively related to English spelling tasks. Significant differences were found between L1 Zulu and English phoneme and rime PA levels, and L1 English and L2 English spelling tasks.


CONCLUSIONS
Findings support the language-universal hypothesis that L1 PA is related to spelling across languages in emergent bilinguals. In emergent bilinguals, both Zulu spoken proficiency and English-only literacy instruction influences the underlying repertoire of PA skills used to spell within the L1 and the L2. Rime and phoneme PA and spelling skills in Zulu/English rely on language-specific orthographic knowledge.
De Sousa
Diana Soares
DS
School of Human and Community Development, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa. diana_desousa04@yahoo.co.uk
Greenop
Kirston
K
Fry
Jessica
J
D001364:Awareness; D002648:Child; D003906:Developing Countries; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D019303:Multilingualism; D010700:Phonetics; D011932:Reading; D013019:South Africa; D014163:Transfer, Psychology; D014706:Verbal Learning; D014825:Vocabulary; D014956:Writing