A Comparison of Second Language Learners and Monolinguals on Divergent Thinking Tasks at the Elementary School Level

Abstract

RESEARCH STUDIES INTO the effect of introducing a foreign language into the elementary school curriculum have concurred that the addition of the second language has not impaired the general achievement or the native language progress of children. Johnson, Ellison, and Flores (1961, 1963) found no significant differences in native language skill areas between school children who had studied a second language and those that had not. In a similar study, Smith (1967) concluded that the addition of a foreign language to the fourth grade curriculum did not interfere with achievement in the basic skills tested. Potts (1967) also found no significant differences in first language reading proficiency or in general achievement. These investigations and reports of similar unpublished studies (Donoghue, 1965, 1969) indicated that the inclusion of a Foreign Language in the Elementary School (FLES) program did not produce negative interference in the learning of native language skills, nor did it reduce the extent of average gain in pupil achievement in the basic skills of the first language. Theoretical Framework The case for FLES has tended to rest upon educational efficiency (Andersson, 1969) and on the evidence that foreign language instruction was not detrimental to general achievement in the basic native language skills. However, the investigator feels that a unique contribution that FLES could make to the cognitive development of children is not being emphasized. Pilot studies by the present author (Landry, 1973a, 1973b) have hypothesized and supported the fact that experience with two languages at the elementary school level has significant effects upon creative functioning as measured by divergent thinking tasks. Other research studies support the possibility that second-language learning has a positive relationship with divergent thinking abilities. Riegel, Ramsey, and Riegel (1967) compared an American group who had learned Spanish in school to a Spanish group who went to an American school. Twenty-four American and twenty-four Spanish subjects gave restricted ssociations in English and in Spanish to 35 stimuli under seven different instructions. The