Till, Christoph; Hartmann, Erich; Winkes, Julia; Rindlisbacher, Barbara (2021). Sentence comprehension abilities of children learning (Swiss) German as a second language Quantitative and qualitative data from the TROG-project in Freiburg/SWITZERLAND. Forschung Sprache (1), pp. 36-51.

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Background: Little is known about the sentence comprehension abilities of children speaking German as a second language. This applies especially to the German speaking cantons of Switzerland, where Swiss dialects dominate everyday communication.

Aims: The aim is to examine the sentence comprehension abilities of children speaking (Swiss) German as a second language (GL2) in general compared to children speaking (Swiss) German as their first language (GL1).

Methods: In a cross-sectional study 481 children have been assessed with the TROG-D and a Swiss German adaptation. By statistical matching, we compared 48 GL2 children with 48 GL1 children. The between-group differences were tested with t-tests for dependent samples. Results: When compared with the norm sample (t(47) = 8.875, p = <.001; Cohen’s d = 1.28) and with the Swiss control group (TROG-CH: t(47) = 8.039, p = <.001; Cohen’s d = 1.16; TROG-D: t(47) = 9.32, p = <.001; Cohen’s d = 1.35) children with GL2 show significantly lower results.

Conclusion: The below average performance is a consequence of the circumstances of the second language acquisition and must not be confused with language comprehension disorders. Professionals working in (special) education need to be aware of this and act accordingly.

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