The Morphosyntactic Abilities of Bilingual Malay Preschool Children Based on the Malay and English Sentence Repetition Tasks

Sentence repetition task has been proven to be a tool that can detect language difficulties and is indicative of abnormal language. In Malaysia, studies on the abilities bilingual children in sentence (SR) tasks are sparse. Therefore, this study aimed at examining morphosyntactic 60 Malay aged 4;0 6;11 based SR (L1) English (L2). task, participants were asked listen carefully sentences being read out then repeat verbatim heard. Their responses scored accuracy, syntax, grammar, word categories. The findings demonstrated significant difference between two languages terms accuracy [df= 118, t=1.990, p= .049]; had statistically higher scores compared scores. There was also performance age factor, [Malay (df5,54=3.561, .007); (df5,54=2.894, .022)]. results revealed omission both content function words more prominent other error types. A triangulation quantitative qualitative data done. highlighted patterns produced.