The effects of an oral narrative-based intervention on the development of the non-dominant language in bilingual Catalan-Spanish preschoolers

Abstract

Examining the narrative microstructure of non-dominant bilinguals is crucial as it can help us comprehend the processes of simultaneous language acquisition and how children develop their language skills, potentially enhancing their performance in the non-dominant language. This study aims to examine the impact of a narrative-based language intervention on the linguistic microstructure of Catalan, a non-dominant language, in preschoolers residing in the Spanish-dominant area of L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Catalonia. The intervention follows the MultiModal Narrative (MMN) training (Florit-Pons et al., 2022), targeting macrostructural elements like narrative and pragmatic skills, hand and bodily gestures, facial expressions, and prosody. Previous research suggests that macro-level interventions can influence microstructural aspects such as lexical production and diversity. The study compares two groups (n = 74): one receiving the narrative intervention (non-multimodal) and the other a control group. The Intervention involves interactive retelling activities of Catalan stories over nine sessions. Pre- and post-intervention, children retell a story, and their retellings are analyzed. Total number of words (TNW) and total number of different words (TNDW) are used as indices of lexical productivity and variety. Results show increased TNW and TNDW in the lexical microstructure of Catalan after the intervention, indicating enhanced language skills. This study contributes to the literature on narrative-based language interventions for bilingual children and offers insights for educational practice and policy in supporting language development in this population.