Comparison of the children’ s written samples in Macedonian and English
Angela’ s Macedonian sample had a title and contained more detail and more complicated sentence structures than her English sample. She was confident in both languages, but more confident in Macedonian. She used past tense correctly in both samples. Errors were avoided in the English sample by omitting ideas or using two simple sentences rather than one complex one.
Maria wrote both her samples confidently and quickly. Like Angela, she is dominant in Macedonian. Spelling is mostly correct, but there are some examples of phonetic spelling in English( Macedonien, claping). She asked for some help with vocabulary while writing.
Ivana was very reluctant at the beginning. She used rehearsing and revision in both languages, and spoke to the teacher in Macedonian and in English. She made errors in both languages – gender in Macedonian, prepositions in English. Ivana used phonetic spelling in English- examples were Wensday, diffrent, claping, torn( for‘ turn’).
Simon produced more sentences in the Macedonian sample than in the English sample, but both recounts are very similar. Simon used phonetic spelling in English – Wendsday, hade( for‘ had a’), there( for‘ their’), whers( for‘ wears’). He was confident and enthusiastic writing both texts.
Damian did not use paragraphs; confusion in sentence structure in both languages was seen. He used shorter sentences in English than in Macedonian.
FINDINGS: WRITING SAMPLES
Although the samples of all six children vary in the writing levels it was interesting to find out that they displayed equivalent bilingualism by utilising various types of strategies in both languages. It can be interpreted that although not all of the students had a very good command of both Macedonian and English they still possessed the advantage of using strategies that made the process of writing easier, and these strategies were being transferred from one language to the other.
Although their competences in literacy vary, the children demonstrated similarly developed Macedonian and English literacy levels. Though the dominance in literacy in the case of Angela and Maria was a little bit different( Macedonian language is more dominant), it can still be said that they had similar levels of language ability according to the evidence presented.
Macedonian is a language with regular sound-symbol correspondence, and all six children used phonetic spelling in their Macedonian samples. However, five of the children transferred the phonetic spelling strategy to their English samples as well.
Only Petar did not use the phonetic spelling strategy in his English sample. Nevertheless it is important to point out that Petar was avoiding using more challenging vocabulary and tried to stay in his‘ safe area’. On the other hand, Angela, Maria and Damian were focused on the content of the story and were persistent in using challenging vocabulary to enrich the content of their recounts.
All six children showed an understanding of the different writing systems and were familiar with the symbols used in the written language; there was no mixing of English / Macedonian letters in their samples. They recognised that letters refer to sounds, words are for decoding the meanings, and that they have to move from left to right when writing( Baker, 1996).
After viewing the texts the impression was that the children used appropriate terms and vocabulary for describing the event and expressing their views in both Macedonian and English texts. In the case of Angela and Maria it can be said that they described the events and expressed their views using more interesting vocabulary than the other four children. Although they both knew appropriate words they attempted to use‘ better’ words to improve the level of their texts. They re-read their sentences and questioned the researcher about improving their writing. Angela and Maria, as proficient bilingual children, tried to compose a well-planned story to communicate with potential audiences. This suggests that they have a good understanding about how and why written language is used.
The rules for punctuation marks in the Macedonian language are similar to English( Swan & Smith, 2001), and most of the children used punctuation correctly. In the case of Damian he used full stops correctly in a few places but showed confusion when trying to use compound sentences in both samples, Macedonian and English.
All six children used capital letters at the beginnings of their sentences but Damian showed confusion in writing days of the week and applied the rule from the Macedonian language( days of the week are written with lower case). This can be seen as an example of negative transfer.
All students used simple past tense correctly in both languages. However, in the case of Damian there is evidence that he attempted using complex tenses but showed confusion.
The construction of the sentences and the word order is mostly correct in all texts. Each sample demonstrates evidence of use of simple sentences and some compound sentences. The children used basic conjunctions such as‘ but’,‘ then’,‘ and’ to link some ideas, e. g.‘ It was plenty of fun but a bit embarrassing in my costume.’( Maria)
The children used nouns and adjectives in the Macedonian and English samples to write descriptive sentences, e. g.‘ Macedonian costume’,‘ Makedonska igraorna nosia’( Macedonian dancing costume). However, adjectives, although not used much, are used more in the Macedonian samples. In the case of Ivana there is some confusion in the use of prepositions e. g.‘ In Wensday we had a parade’, which is a literal translation from the Macedonian language,‘ Vo sredata nie imavme parada’. Also in the case of Maria and Damian there is confusion with the beginning of the sentence. In their English samples they started a couple of sentences with And’ which is acceptable in the Macedonian language, but not in English. All six children used a variety of sentence beginnings in both samples e. g.‘ On Wednesday’,‘ Everyone was’,‘ It was’,‘ We had’,‘ She showed’,‘ I think’,‘ After’,‘ When kids’; V era nie, Vo sredata, Sekoe oddelenie, Decata odea, Nie zboruvavme, I nekoj, Jas si pominav;( Yesterday we, On Wednesday, Every grade, The children were walking, We were talking, And some, I had).
Although the definite article in the Macedonian language is‘ attached’ to the end of the nouns and differs according to the gender and number, the children used them correctly in English in a number of examples:‘ we had a parade’,‘ the kids’,‘ the parade’. Only in the case of Damian was there confusion with the use of articles e. g.‘ an number’.
FINDINGS: ATTITUDES TO THEIR TWO LANGUAGES
During the interviews with the children, they all remarked that when composing in English, they sometimes think in their first language in order to compose better stories. It is inferred that all the children still regard their first language as a great resource for meaning construction. In fact, during the writing session, the children were all composing sentences and discussing the events mostly in Macedonian, even after writing in English. The use of language structures was alike in all of the children’ s written samples in both languages.
The children also expressed their belief that learning Macedonian and English literacy is equally important to them and that they feel it helps them when writing in English and vice versa. They believe that maintaining and developing their first language is very important and rather helpful for successful English literacy competency. They also believe that knowing Macedonian and English does not confuse them when writing. However five children stated that it is easier for them to write in Macedonian. Only Petar stated that for him it was equally easy to write in English and Macedonian. Such positive attitudes seemed to facilitate use of the strategy and their interdependent transfer.
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