Questioning Patterns and Language Proficiency in Bilingual Students

Abstract

Abstract This study investigated the relationship between the relative language proficiency and the types of questions, as speech acts, produced by bilingual children in different settings. The main premise of the study was that in studying language proficiency of bilingual children, a holistic perspective should be used, and the whole language repertoire, in both languages and in different settings, should be taken into account. The subjects of the study were six third grade students attending a self-contained maintenance bilingual program in a midwest city. Video and audio taped data collected in the classroom and in informal settings were coded and analyzed for the study. The data showed that children produced the same question repertoire as previously found in studies with monolingual English-speaking children and adults. There were differences in the type of question patterns used both in Spanish and English and across settings. It is suggested that further study of the use of different speech acts, ...