Discussion Paper Series - CDP 30/21 - Socioemotional Skills and Refugees’ Language Acquisition

Exposure refers to the appropriate learning environment with the two dimensions of time units of exposure to the language and exposure’s intensity per unit of time (Chiswick and Miller 2001). [...] 3.1 LINKING SOCIOEMOTIONAL SKILLS WITH DESTINATION-LANGUAGE ACQUISITION We assume that socioemotional skills affect second language acquisition through the mechanisms of exposure, efficiency and incentives and ultimately help to explain the speed and quality of an immigrant’s language acquisition. [...] We additionally control for the respondent’s gender, whether children under the age of 16 live in the household, the country of origin and the sample to which the respondent belongs. [...] Overall, we conclude that socioemotional skills multiply the effects of exposure, efficiency and incentives – again highlighting the relevance of socioemotional skills in the language acquisition process. [...] The analyses of the three components of language proficiency – speaking, reading, and writing – showed that certain skills are better suited for the acquisition of specific language components; for example, extroversion and speaking proficiency.