Grammatisk och fonologisk utveckling på svenska och arabiska vid tvåspråkig undervisning

Abstract

Swedish-Arabic pupils, who received instruction in both languages, were assessed longitudinally in Swedish and Arabic during the three first years of primary school. Altogether 189 assessments of the pupils’ grammatical development and 80 assessments regarding phonological development were carried out. The assessment instruments used were tandem tests generating comparable results in both languages. Tests based on a second language theory, Processability Theory, were used for grammatical assessment. For phonological assessment tests regarding phonological awareness and repetition of non-words were employed. All pupils developed grammatically as anticipated in both languages, although the grammatical development in their second language Swedish was somewhat slower for some pupils than predicted by Processability Theory. The results underscore the importance of a sufficient exposure to both languages. Phonological awareness was well developed in both languages, which was also expected since access to two or more phonological systems enhances the development of metalinguistic abilities.