Learning the Language of a New Country: A Ten-year Study of English Acquisition by Southeast Asian Refugees in Canada
by Feng Hou and Morton Beiser
University of Toronto and Business and Labour Market Analysis
Division
International Migration. 44 (1): 135–165.
Context
Immigration creates challenges for new settlers and receiving societies alike. Language is one of the most potent of these challenges. Lack of language compromises economic opportunity, access to social resources, and the opportunity to participate in the power structure of resettlement countries. From a receiving society's point of view, lack of language erodes immigrant human capital and increases the cost of providing services. Understanding the factors that contribute to language acquisition, which contributes in turn, to successful integration, is particularly important for Canada. With an annual immigration rate of 225,000 to 250,000, Canada is, on a per capita basis, one of the world's leading resettlement destinations. Understanding the factors that contribute to immigrant acquisition of host languages is very important for Canada as about half of all family class immigrants and refugees who came to Canada over the 1980s and 1990s spoke neither English nor French upon arrival.
Because refugees are admitted on humanitarian grounds rather than on the basis of selection, as many as half speak neither English nor French. Little research to date has focused on the ways in which new settlers go about the difficult task of mastering new languages.
Objective(s)
The current study is a longitudinal investigation of the process and determinants of language acquisition.
Findings
Two years after arrival, 17 per cent spoke English well, 67 per cent had moderate command of the language, and 16 per cent spoke no English. Ten years later, 32 per cent had good language skills, 60 per cent moderate skills, and 8 per cent still spoke no English. The most rapid improvement occurred during the early years of resettlement. Although demographic characteristics and pre-immigration achievement were the major factors determining English-language proficiency during the early years of resettlement, post-migration opportunities and incentives became increasingly important over time.
Data source(s)
The current study draws its data from the University of Toronto Department of Psychiatry Refugee Resettlement Project (RRP), a study of the resettlement of South-East Asian refugees in western Canada. It focuses on the refugees' first ten years in Canada.
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