Seventh International Conference on Immersion and Dual Language Education

Strand I: Pedagogy & Assessment

Spanish

General reports of the second language proficiency of one-way immersion students reveal that proficiency levels plateau in the late elementary years (e.g., Fortune & Tedick, 2015), and teachers have reported student difficulty in engaging with more abstract, complex content in the second language due to insufficient second language competence (e.g., Fortune, Tedick & Walker, 2008; Hoare & Kong, 2008). This study expands on previous reports of immersion language development, which have focused on linguistic accuracy, to explore syntactic complexity and its development during the middle school years. A cross-sectional sample of Grades 5-8 students from five immersion programs completed the same written performance assessments, tied to their content area studies. Measures of phrasal, clausal, and syntactic complexity were employed to explore how immersion students’ academic language changes across grades. Implications for classroom practice and program design will be discussed.