Bilingualism in children born to native Spanish-speaking teachers of English as a Foreign Language. A case study in Ecuador

Abstract

There are insufficient background studies on teachers’ children's bilingual acquisition. Our objective was to find out what exposure-related factors determine bilingualism in children born to English teachers. A correlational study that used snowball sampling was conducted. It collected data from 49 teachers, who have at least one child, employing a survey designed only for our study. As a result, 70% of participants stated that all their children spoke English, while the remaining 30% claimed they did not. The McFadden R² value, which assesses the proportion of variability explained by the logistic regression model, was found to be 0.386. An approximate increase of 0.273 points in English fluency is observed for each additional year in the age of the last child. Moreover, interaction in English at home is significantly linked to approximately 2.21 times higher odds of children speaking English fluently compared to those without such interaction in English. On the other hand, acquiring English from birth is associated with approximately 1.65 times higher odds of children achieving fluency in English. These findings hold significant implications for linguistic education and underscore the importance of creating suitable environments that foster consistent exposure to English from an early age to cultivate a higher and lasting mastery of the language.