A study of literacy acquisition in English as a foreign language amongst native Hebrew and Arabic speaking pupils

Abstract

ABSTRACT Israel has two official languages: Hebrew and Arabic, and one semi-official language, English. Within this multilingual environment, the national English curriculum relates to all learners as one homogenous population. There are no specific directives regarding the linguistic needs of diverse language backgrounds. Studies of literacy acquisition in English as a foreign language (EFL) to date have focused primarily on Hebrew or Arabic speakers without considering unique characteristics of each language population that might influence the EFL acquisition process. These unique characteristics include typological characteristics of each language and the fact that Hebrew speakers learn English as their second written language, whereas Arabic speakers learn Hebrew as their second written language and English as their third written language in school. The present study examined beginning EFL literacy amongst fourth grade Hebrew and Arabic speakers within a cross-sectional framework. Two issues were examined: the role of universal versus language specific factors in EFL acquisition and the contribution of multilingualism. These issues were examined within the framework of the central processing hypothesis [Geva, E., and L. Siegel. 2000. “Orthographic and Cognitive Factors in the Concurrent Development of Basic Reading Skills in Two Languages.” Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal 12: 1–30] and the linguistic and orthographic proximity hypothesis [Kahn-Horwitz, J., M. Schwartz, and D. Share. 2011. “Acquiring the Complex English Orthography: A Triliteracy Advantage?” The Journal of Research in Reading 34 (1): 136–156]. Findings have theoretical and practical implications regarding the role of multi-lingual backgrounds in EFL acquisition.