Understanding the Microstructure and Macrostructure Narrative Skills of Bilingual Adolescents in Relation to Their Language Experience.

Purpose: Narratives have been a useful tool for evaluating language skills in young bilingual children. This study extends that work to bilingual adolescents by (a) describing their narrative skills and (b) evaluating the role of current language experience on measures of narrative micro- and macrostructure across Spanish and English.

Method: Sixty-five Spanish-English bilingual adolescents, ages 10-15 years, were administered the Test of Narrative Language (TNL) in English and Spanish.