An Error Analysis of the Spoken English of Mexican‐american Pupils in a Bilingual School and a Monolingual School1

Speech samples were obtained from Mexican‐American children who attended a monolingual school (N = 67) and Mexican‐American children who attended a bilingual school (N = 59) in the same school district. The children were asked to tell the story of a silent movie they had watched immediately before being interviewed. Their answers were recorded on tape and transcribed. Deviations from standard English were counted and categorized. The main findings of the study were (a) that the causes of deviations from standard English appeared to include the expected interference of Spanish as well as the improper application of standard English rules and the influence of nonstandard English dialects, and (b) that children in the bilingual school did not differ significantly from those in the monolingual school with respect to frequency of deviations from standard English.