Since spelling has been mentioned to constitute an important part in assessing young learners’ writing, one of the many stage models for spelling development (e.g., Bear & Templeton, 1998; Gentry, 2000) is presented in the following: Peregoy & Boyle (2013: 208ff.) differentiate four developmental stages or levels, namely the prephonetic, phonetic, transitional, and conventional level. Prephonetic spelling consists of letters or letter-like forms which do not yet represent speech sounds, i.e., children do not yet understand the alphabetic principle that a letter or letter sequence represents a speech sound. Next, children move through the phonetic spelling level, which is characterized by one-to-one correspondence between sounds and letters. Transitional spellers then extend their knowledge beyond the phonetic aspects of spelling and begin to include conventional spellings that are not strictly phonetic and may be spelling 60 to 90% of words correctly in their writing. Finally, at the conventional spelling level, most words are spelled conventionally and correctly.
2.1.4 L2 writing
Similarly to L2 reading, L2 writing differs from L1 writing. Learners have been found to be less efficient and slower in L2 than L1 writing (e.g., Cook & Bassetti, 2005). The reasons for these differences are manifold, ranging from differences in the writing systems of the L1 and the L2, to comprehension and memorization problems due to insufficient L2 word decoding. L2 texts are also often shorter and include more errors than L1 texts. Many of these errors are due to L1 transfer, which may be orthographic, grammatical, lexical or discourse-related (e.g., Leki, Cumming & Silva, 2008). Among others, predictors of successful L2 writing include L2 proficiency, the type of orthographies involved and (as in L1 writing) phonological awareness, rapid naming, and verbal memory (e.g., Geva, 2006). Other, less language-related factors relate to topic familiarity and mode, i.e., the type of writing involved (e.g., Hussein & Mohammad, 2011).
Regarding the development of L2 writing, Peregoy & Boyle (2013: 210) point out that for young learners, it is very similar to L1 writing (with the prephonetic stage being skipped). In other words, children’s L2 writing also progresses from words and sentences to texts. There are, however, restrictions in children’s L2 text production due to their limited knowledge of L2 grammar, vocabulary and idiomatic expressions. Furthermore, L1 spelling strategies will transfer partially to L2 writing, relating to, for example, the capitalization of letters (Odlin, 1989, see also Steinlen & Piske, 2020). It has been emphasized by many authors that the more children read or are read to in the L2, the easier it will be for them to write (e.g., Krashen, 1982; Peregoy & Boyle, 2013).
In the past, the analysis of L2 writing has often been restricted to the analysis of accuracy, whereas nowadays evaluations of elementary schoolers’ L2 texts mainly focus on the same components as that of their L1 texts, namely spelling, punctuation, vocabulary and grammar, which constitute the main sources of transfer (e.g., Pinter, 2006). For example, young German learners of English often use German spelling for English words (e.g., *<häpi> instead of <happy> and German words and German syntax in English sentences as in *<I have im October birthday> (e.g., BIG-Studie, 2015; Burmeister, 2010; Rymarczyk, 2010, 2016). Such interferences exist particularly for writers with low levels of proficiency in the L2, who often rely heavily on their first language resources (see more on foreign language spelling in the elementary school classroom in chapter 7.7).
2.1.5 Some problems relating to phoneme-grapheme correspondences in German and English
English and German belong to the West Germanic language family and share many similarities regarding phonology, spelling, morphology, lexis, syntax and the alphabet as their writing system, and are, therefore, characterized as typologically similar languages (e.g., Genesee & Jared, 2008; Frisch, 2013). However, contrastive analyses also recognize many differences in these areas (see König & Gast, 2009 for a detailed description of these linguistic differences). The English spelling system, therefore, poses many problems for beginning learners whose L1 is German (e.g., Frisch, 2013). For example, the German writing system is rather transparent (shallow) with relatively regular phoneme-grapheme correspondences (following the Orthographic Depth Hypothesis, e.g., Frost, 2005). In German, the letter combination <sch> usually corresponds to the sound /ʃ/ (e.g., Schuh, Tisch, Asche). English, though, exhibits many irregular phoneme-grapheme correspondences and it is, therefore, considered a deep (opaque) writing system. For example, the sound /ʃ/ may be spelt <sh> (shoe), <ti> (nation), <ch> (machine), <s> (sure), <ss> (issue), <ci> (social) or <ce> (ocean), to name just a few (e.g., Eckert & Barry, 2002).
The different orthographic characteristics of German and English often lead to interlingual transfer in the spelling performance of students learning English. In particular, the deep orthography of the English language also influences the less complex German written language, and transfer effects are assumed (and found) because students apply specific spelling strategies of their L1 to the target language. Such strategies may include the phonemic route to spelling (where the L2 words are spelt like they sound, e.g. *<schur> instead of <sure>), the visual route to spelling (where the L2 words, particularly familiar and high-frequency ones, are retrieved as a whole, using visual imagery of the word, e.g. <the>) and the use of metalinguistic knowledge, which includes knowledge about the L2 and its irregularities and regularities, for example when two words share the same root but are pronounced differently (e.g., <sign> and <signal>, e.g., Frisch, 2013; James & Klein, 1994; Reichart Wallrabenstein, 2004).
In sum, this chapter provided information with respect to the development of reading and writing skills in the L1 and in the L2. The examples above also point to the complex (and also crosslinguistic) relationship between reading and writing (see e.g., Schoonen, 2019 for a review), which will certainly affect the outcomes of any (foreign) language literacy test, including the ones presented here.
2.2 Regular elementary school English programs in Germany
In the school year 2019/20, over 2.9 million students attended one of the 15,431 (private or public) elementary schools in Germany (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2020b). Since 2004 foreign language (FL) teaching has been compulsory in elementary schools in Germany; however, there are differences across the Federal States in terms of the beginning year and the number of weekly lessons in the foreign language (e.g., Fleckenstein, Möller & Baumert, 2020; Hempel, Kötter & Rymarczyk, 2018). For example, the first foreign language is introduced in Baden-Württemberg in Year 1 (until 2019) but in Berlin-Brandenburg and Schleswig-Holstein in Year 3. In most schools, the FL is taught between one and two hours a week (e.g., Börner, Böttger, Kierepka & Lohmann, 2017; Fleckenstein et al., 2020; Hempel et al., 2018). In the following, elementary schools in which a FL (such as English) is taught as a separate subject are referred to as schools with a regular / mainstream / traditional / conventional FL program.
Traditional FL teaching at school is characterized by a course-oriented approach, in which the foreign language itself is the subject of study. The primary goal of FL lessons is to master the new language as faultlessly as possible. Foreign language skills (including vocabulary and grammar) are usually taught and practiced with the help of textbooks and other materials, which present selected subject matters (Wolff, 1997). Thus, the acquisition of the FL does not happen naturally but through prefabricated and systematized foreign language input (e.g., Burmeister, 2006; Möller, Hohenstein, Fleckenstein, Köller & Baumert, 2017b).
According to Kolb (2012: 32), there are five objectives of EFL (English as a foreign language) teaching at elementary schools. These include attitudes towards language learning (to develop a “positive mind-set” (Schmid-Schönbein 2008: 37) for foreign language learning in general); intercultural learning (to promote an open and tolerant attitude towards other languages and cultures and prepare the children for intercultural encounters);