Impact of bilingual intervention on Arabic-Hebrew speaking children: investigation of the dynamics between SES and bilingualism

Vocabulary plays a crucial role in bilingual language development and education, with SES significantly influencing linguistic competencies and academic trajectories. Despite proven bilingual intervention benefits for language proficiency, the interplay between low SES and bilingualism has hardly been addressed. This study focuses on the impact of bilingual vocabulary intervention among low SES bilinguals. Forty-two fourth and fifth- grade bilingual Arabic-Hebrew students participated. Half received 12 sessions of bilingual intervention, six sessions for each language, while the others followed conventional formal vocabulary curriculum. Vocabulary gains were measured pre, during, and post-intervention. Three-way mixed ANOVA were used for vocabulary growth patterns analysis; hierarchical regression was carried out for the examination of background characteristics’ contributions. Results showed significant improvement in both languages for the intervention group compared to the control group. Despite better performance in the heritage language at baseline compared to societal language, vocabulary growth was more pronounced in the societal language. No cross-linguistic influence was observed, but higher heritage language proficiency correlated with better performance in both languages. These f indings underscore heritage language proficiency importance for bilingual children in non-heritage language environments, with implications for educational policymakers and educators.