Measuring English and Vietnamese language input and output in an Australian preschool – A longitudinal study

Providing heritage language (HL) support to enable bilingualism from an early age, especially within the community and outside the home environment, is important. However, in Australia, there is limited support for maintaining HL in early childhood education. In this study, we measured English and Vietnamese as HL input and output in a Vietnamese language exposure program in Melbourne, Australia. We compared the duration of utterances produced in the first eight sessions of two implementations of the program. An increase in children’s total speech from the first to the second implementation indicates greater engagement and participation. The results demonstrate that English remained the dominant language in both implementations. Regarding Vietnamese, children’s output increased while the input given by the facilitator reduced. By comparing two implementations, this study offers a refined quantitative methodology for measuring language input and output in a language program designed for preschoolers. The implications of this study support the implementation of similar programs in Vietnamese and other HL in Australia and worldwide.