The aim of this project is to study the linguistic competences of bilingual children when producing written texts in Spanish. The participant children attend heritage language and culture (HLC) courses. The main research question is: How do bilingual children of Spanish-speaking origin learn and conserve writing competences in Spanish in a context of formal instruction (HLC courses)?
A first goal of this project is to identify the abilities and the difficulties of bilingual children who attend at the HLC courses when they are asked to produce written texts in Spanish. In addition, the project aims at comparing the differences between contexts – the French and the German speaking part of Switzerland – and differences among school levels.
Secondly, we will focus on the development of didactic approaches and materials, in order to overcome potential problems during the learning process.