Narrative Skills in Mandarin- English Dual Language Immersion Learners

In recent years, more and more American school-aged children have started learning Mandarin though content-based programs. Such programs, known as dual language immersion (DLI) in the American context, are qualitatively different from other types of programs for Chinese language acquisition in a nonnative environment. Many educationally and developmentally important questions related to bilingual development in this context remain to be answered.

This talk will present findings from a recent project which investigated the development of narrative skills among Mandarin-English dual language immersion learners. Through elicited narratives in both Mandarin and English, we examined the macrostructure (global story organization) and microstructure elements (linguistic features of production at the utterance level) in the two languages. Variability in children’s macrostructure and microstructure production, their within- and cross-language relationships were examined. Results were discussed from the perspectives of how language-specific features, transfer facilitation, and learning contexts contribute to bilingual children’s narrative skill development.

Chan Lü received her Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University and is Associate Professor in the Department of Asian Languages and Literature, University of Washington. She directs the Bilingualism and Biliteracy Research Lab and the UW Chinese Flagship Program. Her research focuses on bilingual and biliteracy acquisition in English and Chinese through home and schools; her projects have been funded by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (2012 Research Priorities Initiative), the Chiang Ching-kuo International Foundation for Scholarly Exchange, the China-U.S. Scholars Program, and The Harmonious Bilingualism Network. She has published widely in peer-reviewed journals in English and in Chinese. Her research monograph Chinese Literacy Learning in an Immersion Program, was published in 2019.