The development of Basque and Spanish
in Basque immersion programmes
Idiazabal, Itziar
Almgren, Margareta
Manterola, Ibon
Euskal Herriko UnibertsitateaUniversity of the Basque Country (EHU-UPV)
Research projects: UPV/EHU (9/UPV 00033.130-13614/2001),
Eusko Jaurlaritza-Basque Government (IT-262-07),
Spanish Ministery of Education (BFF2003-05196; HUM2006 - 11862; FFI 2009
– 13956).
Introduction
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Multilingualism is seen as a priority in education, in particular in Europe,
where educational programmes such as CLIL are considered effective
models to produce multilingual students (Council of Europe, 2001; Coste et
al., 2006; Berthoud & Gajo, 2008)
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Multilingualism contributes to cognitive, linguistic and social benefits (Baker,
2001; Cenoz et al. 2001; Kecskes, 2008;)
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Research questions in the Basque context:
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Does education in Basque L2 contribute to linguistic competence in both
Spanish L1 and Basque L2?
Does education in Basque L2 bring about attrition of Spanish L1?
In the case of immigrant children, do they attain linguistic competence in
Basque L2?
Does age of first contact with L2 matter?
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Our research project
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Our research project aims at studying the development of Basque and
Spanish in Basque immersion programmes.
Data have been collected on the same subjects at ages 5, 8 and 11 which
gives our research a longitudinal as well as a cross-sectional perspective.
One immersion study group is constituted by children whose L1 is Spanish
from a predominantly Spanish speaking environment.
A second immersion study group consists of children with immigrant
background.
The reference group is formed by children whose L1 is Basque in an
environment where the use of Basque is very extended.
Spanish L1 and Basque L1 groups have assisted preschool and school in
Basque from age 2 or 3.
The immigrant children started school in Basque at different ages.
Our analyses contain both discourse and grammatical approaches (Almgren
et al., 2008; in press; Idiazabal & Manterola, 2009; Ezeizabarrena et al., in
press; Aeby & Almgren, in press).
The tasks carried out during data collection are related to classroom
activities, a fact which renders special relevance to our findings for further
research on didactics and teaching of languages in multilingual contexts.
What do we analyse?
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Text genre is considered a relevant research unit for
the study of language acquisition and use (Bronckart
1996/2004).
In this presentation the text genre chosen is that of oral
story-telling, a frequent activity in classroom contexts.
The stories produced in Basque and Spanish by our
subjects constitute the corpus for the study of L1 and
L2 development.
Our analysis concerns:
1. The level of narrative autonomy
2. The reproduction of the narrative structures of the stories.
3. Verb cohesion
4. Language choice and self corrections.
Subjects: Basque L2 / Spanish L1
• The same 37 children participate in this study which
refers to ages 5 (preschool) and 8 (primary school).
• These subjects were selected according to their family
language, Spanish L1.
• Their environment is almost exclusively Spanishspeaking, Basque being reduced to school context.
• The children have been educated in early and total
immersion in Basque.
• Spanish is introduced as school subject during primary
education.
• Their narrative skills are measured in Basque and
Spanish.
Subjects: Basque L2 / immigrants
• 6 children with immigrant
background and different L1
participate in this study.
• Their age of first contact with
Basque varies from 2 to 9 and
their age at the moment of
recording from 5 to 11.
• The children have been
educated in total immersion in
Basque.
• Their environment is mainly
Basque speaking.
• Only their competence
Basque is studied.
in
K
H
R
5;10 7;04 7;06
Z
8;02
A
9;09
S
11;10
L1
A
R
A
B
I
C
P
O
R
T
U
G
U
E
S
E
P
O
R
T
U
G
U
E
S
E
B
U
L
G
A
R
I
A
N
A
R
A
B
I
C
P
O
R
T
U
G
U
E
S
E
A.O.
2;02
5;00
5;11
4;06
6;01
9;06
T. E.
3;08
2;04
1;07
3;08
3;08
2;04
Reference group: Basque L1
• The same 24 children participate in this study at ages 5
(preschool) and 8 (primary school).
• The subjects were selected according to their family
language, Basque L1.
• Their environment is predominantly Basque- speaking.
• The children have been educated in their L1 Basque.
• These children constitute the reference group for
competence in Basque.
Data collection
• In groups of five these children were videotaped in a
classroom setting while listening to an adult who told the
story with the support of a wordless picture-book.
• One child then retold the story to a second one, while the
others were taken apart. Next, the second child told the
story to a third one…until all five children had completed
the task.
• The children were told that their performance would be
videotaped and shown to smaller children who did not
know the story.
• When data were collected in Basque and Spanish, two
different stories with the same structure were used, one
for each language.
The story in Basque: Mattin Zaku
Classical structure
of children’s tale
with a happy end,
with the canonical 5
narrative phases
(Adam 1992)
Setting
Mattin Zaku and his mother were very
poor.
Onset
Mattin Zaku told her he would go to
the castle and ask the king for money.
Unfolding
He met three helpers (the fox, the wolf
and the river) and was faced with
three difficult tasks to overcome.
Resolution Having solved the problems with the
aid of the helpers he obtained the
money.
Outcome
Mattin Zaku and his mother had
money and lived happily ever after.
The story in Spanish: Centellita
Classical structure
of children’s tale
with a happy end,
with the canonical 5
narrative
phases
(Adam 1992)
Setting
Centellita and her mother, who lived in
the forest, ran out of fire and could not
cook.
Onset
Mother told her to go and find fire at
witch’s house.
Unfolding
The heroine met three helpers (the
owl, the dwarf and the fairy) and then
was faced with three difficult tasks to
overcome.
Resolutio
n
Having solved the problems with the
aid of the helpers she obtained the fire.
Outcome
Centellita and her mother could cook
and lived happily ever after.
Narrative autonomy
• Many authors consider the age of 5 the reference point for narrative
autonomy (Berman & Slobin, 1994), although not for all children
(Serra et al. 2000).
• In Spanish L1 the 78 % of our subjects can be considered
autonomous, and in Basque L1, 85 %.
• In Basque L2, the degree of autonomy is even higher: 89 %.
• At age 8, all of them are autonomous in Basque L1, and 92 % in
Spanish L1 and Basque L2.
• Among the immigrant, only the 5-year-old girl needs help in telling
the story.
• Although these degrees of autonomy are remarkable, other
discourse skills may of course not have been acquired yet (De
Weck, 2005; Hickmann, 2003).
Narrative structure
• Both stories are constructed according to 5 narrative phases.
• The reproduction of all 5 narrative phases reflects the ability of text
planning.
• Our analyses of children’s reproduction of narrative structures
(Almgren et al. 2008; in press) show that phase 3 (unfolding) is
always present although with occasional omissions of characters or
actions.
• However, the symmetry between the setting and the outcome and
the onset and the resolution often poses more problems. Children
tend to forget to mention the lack of money / fire which is the reason
why the whole story happens. Similarly, the success of the
enterprise is also omitted more than once.
• On this occasion we choose to analyse more closely the symmetries
between phases 1 and 5, where most problems seem to appear.
Phase 1 - Phase 5:
Table 1
Age 5
Spanish
L1
86 %
Age 8
Age 5
Age 8
73 %
92 %
Basque
L1
Basque
L2
Age 8
97 %
Basque
L2
Immigra
nts
Age 5
29 %
79 %
K
5;10
H
7;04
R
7;06
Z
8;02
A
9;09
S
11;10
X
√
√
X
√
√
Phase 1 - Phase 5: comments
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This table reflects certain differences between the groups in their text
planning and also the influence of age.
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In Basque L2 children perform well already at age 5 although by age 8
they have improved.
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This is also true for the same subjects in their L1 Spanish.
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The low results in Basque L1 at age 5 were unexpected. However, they
have improved considerably at age 8 although they remain below the L2
group.
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The results for immigrant children seem to approach at those obtained by
Basque L1 subjects.
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In this group, the 5-year-old child fails to reproduce the symmetry
between phases 1 and 5 and so does one of the older subjects.
Verb cohesion: tense maintenance
• Discourse analysis has revealed that each genre tends to hold to a
basic or dominant tense system.
• One of the characteristics of story-telling is the use of past tense to
mark the distance between the story and the communicative
situation, one of the means by which the narrator establishes a
narrative discourse outside the hic et nunc (Bronckart, 1996).
• In some cases young children’s stories are anchored in present
tense (Bamberg, 1987; Sebastian & Slobin, 1995).
• It follows that if unexpected tense switching occurs, this produces
problems in the cohesion of the text (Dolz 1990).
• However, some changes between past and present tense may not
be considered unexpected tense switching but can be seen as a
resource for narrative dynamism.
Past tense maintenance
Table 2
Age 5
Spanish
L1
78 %
Age 8
Age 5
Age 8
89 %
94 %
Basque
L1
Basque
L2
Age 8
89 %
Basque
L2
Immigra
nts
Age 5
79 %
67 %
K
5;10
H
7;04
R
7;06
Z
8;02
A
9;09
S
11;10
X
√
X
√
√
√
Examples
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The Basque L2 / Spanish L1 subjects are quite systematic in both
languages, a little less so at age 5. Sometimes unexplainable
tense switching occurs as in the following examples:
esan zuen otsoa / nora zoaz Ma-kin Zaku? / erregearen gaztelura / esan-ten
zu-en Makin Zaku / eta esaten du otsoa / nik e nik oi- e: zalditegia ikusi nahi
dut / the wolf said/where are you going, MZ?/ to the king’s castle/ said MZ/
and the wolf says /I e I want to see the stable.
le dijo la madre / vete... / y va caminando.. / y le dice... / y le dijo...
The mother said to him /go / and he walks on / and he says to him / and he
said to him
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Most immigrant children maintain the story in past tense. Two of
them produce unexpected tense switching as above:
ta gero esan do / ibaia! / sartu zakoan! // ta gero / Ma- / Ma- / Matin Zaku esan
/ esan esan zon / erregea! dirua nahi dut!
and then he says / river! / get into the bag! // and then / Ma- / Ma- / Matin Zaku
sa- / sa- said / king! I want money! /
Comments
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Sometimes, however, this tense switching expands over longer segments
than single sentences and this rather seems to be a resource used on
purpose.
da ezin tzun pasa / da da ibaya boltsan sartu zun (4") iristea gaztelura atea jotzen du
tan tan / ta eztote irekitzen / berriro jotzeu / tan tan / da ireki iteyote / da erreana jutea
/ (...) ta sateyo zalditegira eramateko / ateatzeu otsua / ta zaldi danak akatzeitu (5") ta
san tzun / oin / plaza erdiyan jarriko diogu / sutan / da atea zun ibaya ta su dana
itxaldu zun /
and he couldn’t pass / and and he put the river into his bag (4’’) he arrives at the
castle and knocks on the door / and nobody opens / he knocks again / and they open
the door / and he goes to the king (...) and he tells him to take him to the stable / he
brings out the wolf / and it kills all the horses (5’’) and he said / now / we will put him
in the middle of the square / we will burn him / and he took out the river and it put out
the fire.
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The lower percentage for Basque L1 at age 8 (as reflected in table 2) can
be explained by these alternations, rather than unexpected changes. These
kinds of alternation do not happen so often in Basque L2,
Ellipsis of the auxiliary as a verb cohesion
resource in Basque
• In Basque the auxiliary verb containing tense, case and person
marks can be omitted in certain contexts.
• In narrative contexts this is a frequently used resource which brings
about swiftness or quickens the story-telling.
• At age 5 only a few such examples can be found in Basque L1.
ta / en / zakua hartu –tu –tu (Ø) (4´´) ta jun tzen ya basotikan
and / m / pick (Ø) up the bag (4’’) and he walked through the forest
• The ellipsis of the auxiliary verb increases at age 8, with similar
percentages in both L1 (in 37,5 % of the stories), and L2 (32,4 %).
• In the immigrant corpus we only found one example:
ibaia zakun sartu (Ø) eta gaztelura jun zan
put (Ø) the river into the bag and he went to the castle
• This example appears in the story of S, age 11, whose first contact
with Basque was at age 9;06.
Metalinguistic awareness
• We assume a wide definition of metalinguistic
awareness that includes both the knowledge about
structural components of language and the knowledge
about discourse features and language use (Hammers &
Blanc, 2000; Schneuwly & Erard, 2005).
• We also refer to the fact that the acquisition of an L2 may
bring about an increased conscience of the linguistic
forms and functions in the L1 (Vygotski, 1934/ 1997).
• The following examples refer to features such as self
corrections or finding the correct word form or tense and
also to language choice within the classroom activity.
Metalinguistic awareness
• Examples of self corrections as the following show that children are
aware of verb cohesion features such as tense and mood
correctness:
eta esan zion Matxin Zaku e ea nahi baduz- nahi z-nahi ba-zu:
duzu / nahi bazuen etorri / eta esan zion baietz (Basque L2, age
5).
and MZ said to him e if you wa- if he wa- want /if he wanted to
come and he answered him yes
que si quería ayuda que le llamaba- que le llamara a ella
(Spanish L1, age 5)
that if (she) wanted help she called- she should call her
Metalinguistic awareness
• The following example illustrates both searching for the correct verb
form and vocabulary correspondence in Basque:
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Haurra: dirua nahi dut! dirua nahi dut! / esan zuen / ireki zi- zuen atea eta: // nola esaten da
esposa?
Heldua: e? /
Haurra: esposa /
Heldua: lotuta / esan lotuta /
Haurra: eta eskuak lotuta jarri zitzaio- / zi:- / zituzten // erregearengana eraman zuten
(Basque L2, age 8)
Child: I want money! / I want money! / he said / (he) op- opened the door and/ // how do you
say handcuffs?
Adult: eh?
Child: handcuff
Adult: tied / say tied /
Child: and with the hands tied (he) put hi- / flexional morpheme / they put them / (they) took
him to the king
It seems that the child is more eager to find the correct word in Basque than
the adult who does not give a translation equivalent.
Metalinguistic awareness
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It is remarkable that the Basque L2 children always stick to Basque when
asking about vocabulary they don’t know in Basque. They never slip into
Spanish L1 seeming to be aware of which is the language to be used in the
classroom.
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Haurra 1: gero / abiatzen zeudenean / e / zorro- / nola da? / lobo bat nola esaten da? /
Haurra 2: otso bat /
Haurra 1: otso bat ikusi zuten (Basque L2, age 8)
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Child 1: then / when they were on their way / eh / fox in Spanish / how do you say it? / how
do you say a wolf?
(‘a’ in Basque, ‘wolf’ in Spanish)
Child 2: a wolf /
Child 1: (they) saw a wolf /
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On the other hand, now and then these children integrate Spanish words into
Basque discourse, since they are aware that the audience understands both
languages.
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Haurra: Eta joan zen eta kaminotik, mm, azeri bat enkontratu zuen
Child: And he walked along the(in Basque) road (Spanish) um, he met (Spanish lexical
verb with Basque aspect marking) a fox.
Metalinguistic awareness
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The next example from the Basque L2 immigrant corpus shows in the first
place an example of self correction concerning verb form
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Haurra: erregea-ren-gana ta esan zuten / esan zun e / oi / esan zon // e- erraman (=eraman)
(helduari begira, laguntza eske)
Heldua: oilategira!
Haurra: oila-tegira!
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Child: to the king and (they) said / (he) said eh / uups / (he) said (in local dialect) // ta- take
(looking at the adult for help)
Adult: to the hen coop!
Child: to the hen co-op!
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However, the immigrant children rarely ask “how do you say... ?“ in Basque.
Neither do they use their L1. Evidently they know that the adult cannot help
them there.
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Finally, they never integrate words from their L1 into their stories in Basque,
which also shows that they are aware of their own linguistic situation.
Conclusions (1)
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Returning to our initial questions
Does education in Basque L2 contribute to linguistic competence in both Spanish L1 and
Basque L2?
As our data show, already at the age of 5 the Basque L2 group have acquired a narrative
competence which is comparable to that of the Basque L1 subjects.
They also show a parallel development at age 8.
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Does education in Basque L2 bring about attrition of Spanish L1?
As to their competence in Spanish L1, no signs of attrition can be appreciated.
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In the case of immigrant children, do they attain linguistic competence in Basque L2?
As far as our data show these children do not differ substantially from the Spanish L1
group
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Does age of first contact with L2 matter?
The early contact with Basque among the Spanish L1 children leads to a high competence
in Basque L2, which was not unexpected. But the immigrant children, with varying ages of
first contact with Basque also acquire linguistic skills which are comparable to the Spanish
L1 group. No doubt, not only age, but also the sociolinguistic environment has been
relevant for the results in the immigrant group.
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Conclusions (2)
• As a whole, as far as narrative skills are concerned, our
research shows:
• Immersion in Basque contributes to a satisfactory development
of both Basque L2 and Spanish L1
• Immersion in Basque contributes to a satisfactory development
of Basque L2 in the case of immigrant children.
• Bilingual children not only develop their two languages
satisfactorily but also gain conscience on formal and functional
linguistic aspects.