| Volume 3 Index July 2009 |

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Title
Shirley Dita
De La Salle University, Manila, Philippine

 Author
The Metalinguistic Awareness of Filipino Bilingual
Children

Bio
Dr. Shirley Dita is an Assistant Professor at the Department of English and Applied Linguistics at De La Salle University, Manila, the Philippines. She is a graduate of PhD in Applied Linguistics, Distinction, from De La Salle University – Manila. The research interests of Dr. Shirley Dita include Austronesian linguistics, Philippine languages, World Englishes, syntax, Corpus linguistics, and discourse analysis. She has presented papers in national and international conferences here and abroad. She has also published some of her research papers. Currently, she is involved in a corpus-building project of Philippine languages.

Abstract
This paper examines how the degree of bilingualism affects
metalinguistic awareness of preschool children. It contrasts partial
and full bilinguals’ performance in three tests: language arbitrariness test, phonological awareness test, and vocabulary test. Fifty-two kindergartners aged 5;5 to 6;7 underwent two versions of the three tests: English and Filipino. In general, full bilinguals outscored the partial bilinguals in the three metalinguistic awareness tests.