Which Factors are Significant for Bilingual Students to Improve in Written Production?

Bilingualism often affects early-age students in written production as their mother tongue interferes. The purpose of this research is to identify the variables that may influence the readability grade of texts produced by a Greek origin bilingual student through tests from the 2nd- 5th grade of German elementary school. For this reason, 39 out of 150 samples were collected, digitized through Word software and analyzed with the readability formulas Flesch-Kincaid and Gunning Fog. The results of this analysis were then transferred to an Excel spreadsheet. The data were statistically analyzed using Tableau. The results of the study showed that at these ages, bilingual students seem to have some difficulties to develop vocabulary related to the disciplines of Geography, Biology or/and History. Unusual words that are not included in the everyday vocabulary of a primary school student also seem to present e.g. spelling errors or confusion of concepts. The same phenomenon is observed in multi-syllabic words or in words that are difficult to pronounce or memorize in the German language regarding a bilingual student. In conclusion, the degree of difficulty and the final grade of a test depends quite a lot on the above elements. Their frequent and correct use would perhaps increase the readability grade. These variables should be taken into account by every teacher, while the construction of digital readability measurement tools is recommended for a more reliable assessment towards bilingual students. Finally, the creation of more specialized educational materials would likely contribute to the performance of bilingual students regarding written production.