Comparison of Phonological Awareness Skills in Children in English with Diverse Native Languages

Abstract

The children in multilingual education system often learn to read a language that is
not spoken at home for many reasons. Even, the child’s L1 and L2 may be distinct in
phonological and orthographical structure. The question on relative advantage of child’s native
language on L2 phonological acquisition is unclear. The present study compared phonological
awareness skills of primary school children learning English with varied alpha syllabic native
language (L1) background. The phonological awareness skills were assessed in 20 typically
developing children each from 5 different native languages such as Kannada, Tulu, Konkani,
Telugu and Malayalam. These children are designated as English language learners, since they
were studying in primary school with English as a medium of instructions within the age range
of 8.7 – 9.6 years. Children were divided into five groups based on the native language which
was ascertained by questionnaire administered on parents. Subsequent comparison of
phonological awareness skills between all the five groups using ANOVA revealed no significant
difference in the performance between the language groups. The study concluded that,
irrespective of alphasyllabary native language spoken at home, had no relative advantage in
acquiring phonological awareness skills in English learnt as a second language in primary
school.