Phonological Skills in English Language Learners

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the English phonological skills of English language learners (ELLs) over 5 time points. Method: Sound class accuracy, whole-word accuracy, percentage of occurrence of phonological patterns, and sociolinguistic correlational analyses were investigated in 19 ELLs ranging in age from 5; 0 (years; months) to 7; 6. Results: Accuracy across all samples was over 90% for all sound classes except fricatives and increased for all sound classes across time. Whole-word accuracy was high and increased across time. With the exception of cluster reduction, stopping, and final consonant deletion, the frequency of occurrence for phonological patterns was less than or equal to 5% at every time point. Sociolinguistic variables such as age of arrival, age of exposure, and age were significantly related to phonological skills. Conclusions: The results were consistent with the hypotheses outlined in Flege's (1995) speech learning model in that the phonological skills of ELLs increased over time and as a function of age of arrival and time. Thus, speech-language pathologists (SLPs) also should expect phonological skills in ELLs to increase over time, as is the case in monolingual children. SLPs can use the longitudinal and connected-speech results of this study to interpret their assessments of the phonological skills of ELLs.