Understanding the Microstructure and Macrostructure Narrative Skills of Bilingual Adolescents in Relation to Their Language Experience.

Purpose: Narratives have been a useful tool for evaluating language skills in young bilingual children. This study extends that work to bilingual adolescents by (a) describing their narrative skills and (b) evaluating the role of current language experience on measures of narrative micro- and macrostructure across Spanish and English.
Method: Sixty-five Spanish-English bilingual adolescents, ages 10-15 years, were administered the Test of Narrative Language (TNL) in English and Spanish. Language samples were transcribed and coded for elements of narrative microstructure. Parents provided information about participants' current language experience.
Results: Means and standard deviations were reported for microstructure composites, TNL comprehension subtests, and TNL production subtests in Spanish and English. Findings showed differential effects of current English experience on narrative performance across Spanish and English, such that experience significantly explained 12%, 10%, and 20% of the variance in participants' microstructure scores, narrative comprehension, and narrative production in Spanish, respectively. Language experience was unrelated to performance across all English narrative measures.
Conclusions: Findings suggest that continued use of Spanish may be important for bilinguals' maintenance of the home language during adolescence, particularly on narrative tasks that require bilinguals to produce Spanish. However, experience is insufficient to explain the variability in bilinguals' narrative skills across Spanish and English.