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Article published In:
Narrative Inquiry
Vol. 29:1 (2019) ► pp.137–156

Narrative assessments with first grade Spanish-English emergent bilinguals

Spontaneous versus retell conditions

| University of Oregon
| University of California, Davis

This study used qualitative analyses to investigate similarities and differences in narrative production across two task conditions for four first grade Spanish-English emergent bilingual children. Task conditions were spontaneous story generation and retelling using the same story. Spanish stories from two children were compared on the basis of similarity in vocabulary, while English stories from two children were compared on the basis of similarity in overall discourse skills. Results show that when the total number of words used was similar across Spanish narratives, the retell included more different words and higher quality story structure than the spontaneous story. When overall discourse scores in the English examples were similar, the spontaneous story required more words than the retell, but also included more central events and greater detail. Yet, the retell included more advanced narrative components. This study contributes to our understanding of narrative skills in young Spanish-English bilinguals across task conditions.

Keywords: oral narrative assessment, first grade, qualitative analysis, Spanish-English emergent bilinguals
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Oral narrative assessment for emergent bilingual children
    • Spontaneous story generation versus retelling
  • The current study
  • Method and data sources
    • Participants
      • Comparable English macrostructure scores
      • Comparable Spanish microlevel scores
      • Assessment procedures
      • Spontaneous procedure
      • Retell procedure
    • Coding and analysis
  • Findings
    • English narratives with comparable macrostructure scores
    • Spanish narratives with comparable vocabulary scores
  • Discussion
  • References
Published online: 2 July 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.18015.luc
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