Oral Language Intervention in Norwegian Schools Serving Young Language‐Minority Learners: A Randomized Trial

Abstract

In this randomized trial study, the authors examined the efficacy of a practitioner partnership language intervention addressing oral language learning (expressive and receptive) in young language-minority learners from multiple-language groups in Norway. Resource teachers in 16 elementary schools implemented the intervention in the first and second grades, delivering a total of 64 thirty-minute sessions over eight consecutive weeks. With a mean age of 6 years 3.34 months, 137 students were randomly allocated to an intervention group or a waiting-list control group, with the latter group receiving the intervention after posttest 1. Five assessments of oral language skills were conducted before the intervention, immediately following it, and four months later. The intervention group showed significant improvements in various oral language skills compared with the waiting-list control group. There were no significant differences between the groups at the four-month follow-up when the waiting-list control group received the intervention. The program was successful in enhancing oral language skills in young language-minority learners. ORAL LANGUAGE INTERVENTION In today’s multicultural society, a growing number of children entering elementary school receive instruction in their second language (L2). Some of these children have not yet developed their L2 skills to the level needed for academic learning in school. As oral language skills are a necessity for gaining knowledge, these learners are faced with the challenging task of acquiring proficiency in their L2 while simultaneously accessing the curriculum. Accordingly, instructional support for young L2 learners’ school-relevant language skills has recently become a topic of research interest (Murphy & Evangelou, 2016; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2017). Issues concerning both the curriculum and instruction for these learners have not yet been addressed to the level needed to inform educational practice (Dixon et al., 2012), which is highlighted by the limited number of interventions targeting L2 learning (for reviews, see August, McCardle, & Shanahan, 2014; Buysse, Peisner-Feinberg, Páez, Hammer, & Knowles, 2014). We designed the present study to examine the effects of instruction to support oral language learning through a practitioner partnership intervention program addressing L2 skills in the early years of elementary school. The program’s purpose was to teach school-relevant vocabulary and basic sentence production in addition to supporting extended talk, that is, talk that extends the immediate here and now. The intervention reported in this article builds on a social interactionist theoretical approach to language-based school learning and draws on three domains of prior research: research on language learning embedded in instructional contexts, efficient strategies to foster oral language learning, and the role of practitioner partnerships in constructing oral language interventions. Theoretical Framework Based on studies of L2 acquisition, Cummins (1984, 2001) suggested that language proficiency can be conceptualized as two registers: a basic interpersonal communicative skills ORAL LANGUAGE INTERVENTION register and a cognitive academic language proficiency register. The latter register may require years of exposure to language typically found in school contexts (Cummins, 2001). As pointed out by Halliday (1993), mastering the academic register supports language-mediated content learning in schools. L2 learners face the additional challenge of simultaneously acquiring the academic register of their new language and the language-mediated content taught in schools (Halliday, 2007). Cummins’ distinction between basic interpersonal communicative skills and cognitive academic language proficiency combined with Halliday’s theoretical account of learning taking place through language has previously provided a framework for understanding school-relevant language and its underlying skills (Snow & Uccelli, 2009). More recent educationally informed developments of this social interactionist theoretical position have paid attention to the skills required in the process of acquiring school-relevant language, such as skills in mastering a diverse vocabulary, comprehending complex sentences, and participating in school-based discourse, and have addressed the instruction that would support these skills (Aarts, Demir-Vegter, Kurvers, & Henrichs, 2016; Grøver, Uccelli, Rowe, & Lieven, in press; Uccelli, Phillips Galloway, Barr, Meneses, & Dobbs, 2015). Research within the domain of language acquisition has robustly documented the pivotal role of exposure to a considerable amount of talk in first-language (L1: Hoff, 2006; Rowe, 2012) and L2 learners (Bowers & Vasilyeva, 2011; Rydland, Grøver, & Lawrence, 2014), to extended talk in pragmatically supportive environments for L1 (Dickinson & Porche, 2011; Rowe, 2012; Snow, Porche, Tabors, & Harris, 2007) and L2 learners (Rydland et al., 2014; Snow, 2014), and to the role of repeated exposure to words in meaningful settings crucial for developing conceptual knowledge (Nagy & Scott, 2000; Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986; Stahl & Nagy, 2006). Furthermore, learning these skills is key for literacy and academic achievement (August, Carlo, Dressler, & Snow, 2005; August & Shanahan, 2006; Lesaux, 2012; Uccelli & Páez, 2007). ORAL LANGUAGE INTERVENTION Building on this framework in the present study, we examined the effects of an L2 intervention program offering multiple opportunities for language exposure and use embedded in interactions with peers and teachers. Language Learning Embedded in Instructional Contexts When young language-minority students enter school, the rapid learning of the basic content words (i.e., everyday nouns, verbs, and adjectives that provide meaning in a sentence) that are already acquired by their monolingual classroom peers before school entry is important. Content words are crucial in developing a knowledge-based foundation to access oral and written language in school. Thus, teaching words that underlie the curriculum within and across school subjects becomes highly relevant in the initial phases of L2 instruction and in developing reading skills. In recent years, curricular approaches have become an important part of language interventions, from prekindergarten to elementary school (August, Artzi, & Barr, 2016; August, Artzi, Barr, & Francis, 2018; Fantuzzo, Gadsen, & McDermott, 2011; Weiland & Yoshikawa, 2013; Wilson, Dickinson, & Rowe, 2013). These curriculum-aligned approaches are usually characterized by language-learning strategies combined with school-relevant topics and instruction, which are adaptable to students’ needs. An intervention program targeting instruction in curriculum-related topics and offering developmentally appropriate support enhanced children’s basic prekindergarten skills in language, literacy, and mathematics (Weiland & Yoshikawa, 2013). Moreover, the use of educative curricular materials in prekindergarten has been found to support both the quality of teacher talk and children’s vocabulary skills (Neuman, Pinkham, & Kaefer, 2015), and an integrated curriculum for prekindergarten and elementary classrooms improved students’ mathematic, language, and literacy skills (Fantuzzo et al., 2011). Furthermore, studies of the effects of ORAL LANGUAGE INTERVENTION instruction on academic vocabulary in curricular contexts reported that both extended (explicit, rich, and depth descriptions) and embedded instruction (incorporated descriptions of words after being presented in textbooks) were beneficial for language-minority learners, with the former being the most efficient (August et al., 2016; August et al., 2018). Moreover, teaching words that frequently appeared across subject areas to students in grades 6-8 enhanced their language growth immediately following the intervention (Snow, Lawrence, & White, 2009), a result that was maintained in two follow-up assessments (Lawrence, Capotosto, BranumMartin, White, & Snow, 2012). Given these outcomes, effective language instruction that embeds words crucial to understanding textbooks and classroom talk may provide opportunities to gain knowledge and increase young language-minority learners’ language proficiency. Efficient Strategies to Foster Oral Language Learning Studies of the efficacy of language interventions provide important knowledge regarding how to promote oral language learning in childhood education. We briefly review approaches to word selection and oral language learning before turning to specific strategies viewed as important for L2 learning. Which words to choose and how to teach them have been a topic of concern. On the one hand, Biemiller (2005) emphasized teaching words that children are likely to encounter in their daily environments but of which they have only partial knowledge. These are words that 30-70% of their peers will know the meaning of (i.e., solution for first graders and appetite for second graders; Biemiller, 2005). Beck and McKeown (2007), on the other hand, focused on abstract words that children typically do not learn unless they are being read to, also known as tier 2 words. According to this approach, a tier 2 word is related to an everyday concept that the student already knows but represents a more advanced term. The word confer is an ORAL LANGUAGE INTERVENTION example of a more abstract word based on the concept of talk in kindergarten and first grade. Both approaches to word selection and word instruction have resulted in improvements in students’ word knowledge (Beck & McKeown, 2007; Biemiller, 2005; Biemiller & Boote, 2006). Furthermore, word selection should be based on frequency, familiarity, and meaningful use related to the text or curriculum (Nagy & Hiebert, 2011). Taken together, these aspects provide systematic insights into word selection. Explicit instruction in v