Bilingual teenagers in Montreal exhibit writing skills on par with their French unilingual peers’, new research shows

McGill researchers who examined the writing skills of teenagers in Montreal found that the performance in French of English-French bilinguals was similar to that of near-monolingual francophones. Bilinguals were defined as teens raised in anglophone or bilingual (English-French) households and who had had significant exposure to French through attending French-language school. Further, the English writing skills of the bilingual participants were found to be on par with their French writing skills.

“While we were expecting to observe differences in the writing of bilingual adolescents compared to monolinguals, based on previous studies with bilingual children, both groups performed similarly. This may be because English-French bilinguals in Montreal live in a context where both languages are well supported,” explained Eve Julie Rioux, a PhD student at the McGill School of Communication Sciences and Disorders and first author of the study.

Similar performances across groups and languages

The study, admittedly based on a small sample, assessed the writing skills of 38 participants: 12 near-monolingual francophones and 26 English-French bilingual teenagers who had been exposed to French in a significant way since starting school or daycare.

The participants were asked to write a text inspired by an evocative image provided by the research team, with a different image used for each language. The researchers then analyzed the texts, looking at the use of complex syntax, the number and types of errors and the overall text quality.

Complex syntax involves the use of longer, more complex sentences and varied syntactic structures, and is associated with advanced linguistic competence, according to the researchers.

“We found that bilingual and monolingual adolescents performed similarly in their use of complex syntax in writing. They produced sentences comparable in length, complexity and syntactic diversity,” said Professor Elin Thordardottir, co-author of the study. However, the researchers noted that the bilinguals did tend to make more errors in French than did the monolingual francophones.

According to the research team, the results suggest that anglophone parents living in the greater Montreal area who want their children to acquire strong skills in both English and French can confidently enroll them in French-language schools, given the strong presence of English in the region and globally.

“However, this outcome may not apply to other types of bilinguals in different contexts. For instance, when a minority language is spoken at home and French is learned in school, the level of support for each language may differ, potentially leading to uneven language competencies across languages,” explained Rioux, whose thesis focuses on this topic.

Concerns over poor writing skills

The researchers were concerned by the teenagers’ mastery of writing, however.

They noted that both bilinguals and near-monolingual francophones made a significant number of errors and produced many texts of low quality.

“While some grammatical errors are expected at this age, the magnitude of these errors was surprising,” said Thordardottir.

Time spent reading in French and overall exposure to French were important predictors of text quality in that language for both bilinguals and monolinguals.

“Educators and parents should question the level of writing proficiency adolescents are acquiring both within and outside the school. Actions should be taken to strengthen writing instruction, increase opportunities for practice, and encourage the reading of complex texts both in school and at home, in order to foster stronger writing competency and overall literacy skills,” added Rioux.

About the study

“Biliterate Adolescents' Writing Skills in a Two-Majority Language Context” by Eve Julie Rioux and Elin Thordardottir is published in Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools.

This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).