Writing strategies of children in a Macedonian-English bilingual program in Victoria

Research holds that, for bilingual children, a strong establishment in one language not only develops skills in that language, but also facilitates the development of a second language. The participants for this research were six nine-year-old children who were being educated in their first language, Macedonian, and also in English. This research investigated the strategies that these Macedonian-English bilingual children use for writing in Macedonian script and whether these strategies have a positive or negative transfer to English literacy. Think-aloud protocols were used to look into the writing process and to categorise the types of writing strategies that the children used in Macedonian and English. The official results from the literacy assessment conducted at the school were also examined. Results of the study indicated that there is an interdependent ability between the first language and the second language in writing and that there is a positive transfer of skills, strategies and knowledge from Macedonian to English. Therefore the conclusion is that, for this study at least, literacy development of the stronger language (Macedonian) facilitates literacy development in the second language (English) and that access to two languages from an early age and the possibility of learning those languages can facilitate literacy development.