Influence of the Linguistic Context on the Comprehension of Complex Sentences

This study examined English learners' comprehension of complex sentences and compared scores between a school in Boston and an American school in Bolivia. Studies have covered topics such as home language input, societal interactions, classroom influences, and language of instruction. Other research has centered on the comprehension of specific linguistic structures and the requisite skills. A considerable amount of the data is acquired from sample populations of bilingual students living in the United States, attending an English immersive school. The current study compared language comprehension scores between kindergarteners attending school in the greater Boston area in the United States and kindergarteners attending school in the greater Santa Cruz area in Bolivia. The research sought to answer the following questions: (1) Do the children struggle with certain syntactic constructions more than others? (2) Is there a difference in comprehension of sentences between English learners in the United States and English learners in Bolivia? (3) Is there an interaction between school and sentence type on students' scores? If so, which sentence type does each school struggle with most? The study began with a preliminary item analysis of the sentences to explore possible similarities among the students' performance. No pattern of specific constructs emerged. Importantly, the results of the two mixed effects models indicated that school and classroom did not account for variation in scores. Furthermore, sentence type and its interaction with school did not have an impact on student's scores. However, the results showed that scores vary between students. The importance of context on second language development and sentence structure when teaching second language learners is discussed.