“In writing, I simply do not distinguish between the sounds:” The metacognitive experience of emergent biliterate children.

Abstract

The role of children as social agents in applied linguistics research has been mostly ignored to date. In this qualitative study, we investigated how first-grade students experienced literacy acquisition in two Semitic languages (Arabic and Hebrew) simultaneously by adopting a sociolinguistic approach. We held dialogic conversations with seven children and observed their behavior during literacy lessons. Through these data sources, we explored children's general metacognitive knowledge about biliteracy acquisition as well as about the challenges facing them and their peers in this process. To increase the credibility of children's testimonies, we triangulated their reflections on emergent biliteracy with our observations during their classroom interactions with peers and teachers. We found consistency between scientific data from psycholinguistic research and our sociolinguistic data on how our children experienced learning Arabic and Hebrew scripts. The pedagogical implications of the findings are that teachers must explicitly address the salient orthographic similarities and differences between these languages, to enhance children's learning experience.