Keys to Understanding the Writing Development of Emergent Bilingual Students

Introduction

Children are typically interested in writing long before they begin school, (Ferreiro & Teberosky, 1982; Tolchinsky, 2016; Whitehurst & Lonigan, 2001). They scribble on walls, paper and sidewalks to communicate their ideas (Graves, 1983). As they become aware of the relationship between oral and written language, young writers begin to use their knowledge of oral language to guide their writing attempts. Initially, they represent the most salient sounds in the words they are writing with letters. As their understanding of letter sound correspondences increases, they represent more of the sounds in words with letters. Eventually, they use conventional spellings for some words and then for most words (Tolchinsky, 2003). Bilingual students replicate that process when they are learning to write in a second language. However, there is a key difference. In the process of becoming biliterate, students do not unlearn their first language when they learn an additional language. Beginning when they first acquire a second language and for the remainder of their lives, students access more than one phonological and lexical system, often resulting in cross-linguistic transfer of knowledge and skills (Edelsky, 1986). That is, they use their knowledge in one language to support their learning in the other (Cummins, 1979; Sun-Alperin & Wang, 2008).

This is true for emergent bilingual children from all language groups. Languages differ in their phonological and morphological structures and their orthographies, important language features when writing. The extent to which two languages share features facilitates or hinders transfer (Bialystok et al., 2005). The ten most common languages in U.S. public schools are Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Vietnamese, Somali, Haitian, Hmong, Tagalog, Portuguese, and Russian (Office of English Language Acquisition, 2018). These languages differ on one or more of the three features (i.e., phonology, morphology, and orthography) when compared to English. For example, Arabic, Chinese, and Russian alphabets differ from the Latin script used for English. Students who have learned to write in those languages would have to learn the English letters and their sounds but may not need to learn to compose text if they have acquired those skills in their L1 (home language). The extent to which there are phonological similarities between languages will also impact writing. In languages in which the sounds of letters overlap, such as English and Spanish, students can use their knowledge of sounds in their L1 to spell words in English. However, across languages students may need additional instruction to learn English sounds that are not part of their L1. Most will also need to develop English vocabulary to compose texts.

Students may also engage in translanguaging when writing in a second language. Translanguaging refers to the strategic use of language features to make sense of the multilingual context in which they are immersed in school (García, 2009). Students may plan a composition in their first language and then write in the second language when writing an informative text, or may read source material in English and make notes in their L1 before writing the text in English. These processes, which may be more evident when they begin formal schooling and are required to complete tasks in a specific language (Howard et al., 2012; Rubin & Carlan, 2005), continue after they become proficient. Understanding which skills and knowledge transfer from one language to another is essential to understanding bilingual writing development and providing students appropriate writing instruction.

However, in practice, students’ use of cross-linguistic strategies and translanguaging is often not recognized. Instead, when emergent bilingual students begin to write in English, their writing is interpreted through a monolingual lens that does not recognize the coexistence of languages within an individual (Butvilofsky et al., 2020; Flores & Rosa, 2015). Spelling, often a proxy for appropriateness in writing, serves to support monolingual language ideology. As a result, bilingual students’ writing is often regarded as inadequate. An alternative is to regard spelling and writing as a sociocultural practice and to recognize that bilingual spellers are operating along a continuum in which their spelling errors and approximations provide evidence of cross-linguistic transfer and increasing language proficiency.