Communication Skills of Bilingual Children

GENESEE, F.; TUCKER, G. R.; and LAMBERT, W. E. Communication Skills of Bilingual Chidren. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1975, 46, 1010-1014. In order to test whether schooling in a second language affected social skills, 3 groups of schoolchildren from kindergarten, grade 1, and grade 2 were tested in an interpersonal verbal communication task. All children were native English speakers and were tested in English. 1 group attended English schools with Englishspeaking teachers (Control); 1 attended English schools with French-speaking teachers (Partial Immersion); and 1 group attended French schools with French-speaking teachers (Total Immersion). The groups were comparable in terms of age, socioeconomic level, and verbal and nonverbal IQ. In the task, the children were asked to explain how to play a game to 2 different listeners-1 blindfolded and 1 not blindfolded. There was no significant difference among the groups in terms of how many rules they mentioned to each listener. On the other hand, the 2 immersion groups mentioned more about the materials of the game to the blindfolded than to the sighted listener than did the control group. The results were discussed in terms of differential sensitivity in interpersonal communication, and a possible explanation for differences in the development of such sensitivity was offered.