The Relationship between Bilingual Proficiency and Age in Metalinguistic Attainment

The current quantitative study examined whether the degree of proficiency among bilingual children is related with the attainment of metalinguistic components over age. This study attempted to overcome the drawbacks of previous studies by defining the metalinguistic framework. The study was conducted on SES equivalent children who attend International Schools in Korea. Their proficiency and metalinguistic ability measured by grammaticality judgement test were statistically analyzed. The results of this study indicated that teaching in a secondary language was advantageous in gaining the analysis skill in the target language. On the other hand, cognitive control takes place only for the students whose secondary language is sufficient enough to catch up with the instruction. Furthermore, younger children whose proficiency is limited for the instructional language failed to gain the cognitive control component. This study suggests reconsideration regarding bilingual development among children. The findings of this study indicated that the cognitive advantages as consequences of bilingualism can be limited without full development of the target language. The current study calls for further investigation on the bast timing for introducing English as a medium of instruction. It is necessary to develop cognitively effective bilingual learning programs that fit into the Korean setting.