International Journal of Bilingual
Education and Bilingualism
Editor: Colin Baker, University of Wales, Bangor
Review Editor: Aneta Pavlenko, Temple University, Philadelpia
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Volume: 7 Number: 5 Page: 449–474
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EFL and Native Spanish in Elite Bilingual Schools in Colombia: A First Look at Bilingual Adolescent Frog Stories
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Claudia Lucía Ordóñez
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In Spanish-monolingual Colombia, social pressures push for access to early 50 = 50 % Spanish–English medium instruction from the age of five. Parents and school administrators consider this the best way to achieve bilingualism. This article takes a first general look at the effects
of this type of bilingual education on the Spanish and English oral narrative proficiency of 15-year-old adolescents. Data consist of 72 frog stories told following a picture-book (Mayer, 1969): 18 Spanish and 18 English stories from 15-year-olds with 10 years of bilingual education in a Colombian
bilingual school constitute the main sample. The other 36 stories, 18 from 15-year-olds in Colombian monolingual schools and 18 from comparable English-monolingual adolescents from a high school in the Boston area, were used to compare the bilingual stories to monolingual productions. The
range and variability of the stories in the bilingual group are discussed, as they are compared to the monolingual stories. General similarities and differences between Spanish and English monolingual and bilingual narratives are analysed. Bilingual stories in both languages show evidence
of underdevelopment in relation to monolingual stories, as they are sparse in several linguistic variables that show narrative proficiency (i.e.description of events, evaluative language, logical connections). Qualitative discourse analysis is used to describe exemplary productions.
Keywords: BILINGUALISM, ELITE BILINGUALISM, BILINGUAL ACQUISITION, BILINGUAL SCHOOLS
© 2004 Multilingual Matters
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