I am a bilingual student and an assistant teacher at a learning center. My students were all born in America, but I had considered them as a bilingual because they could speak and understand two languages, which were Chinese and English. The students were one years old, and the issue is how bilingualism in young children has an impact over a lifetime. The characteristics of the condition include how children at a young age understand two different languages. The condition develops when the lead teacher lets them do certain things like sit down, come over here, clean up, etc.… And most of them understand her and follow the instructions to do so. I was surprised that most of them could understand a native English speaker inform them what to do, …show more content…
According to Marian (2012), “Research has overwhelmingly shown that when a bilingual person uses one language, the other is active at the same time. When a person hears a word, he or she doesn’t hear the entire word all at once: the sounds arrive in sequential order. Long before the word is finished, the brain’s language system begins to guess what that word might be by activating lots of words that match the signal”. For instance, when I said it’s time to drink “nai nai” means to drink milk and the students would all come to me looking for the milk bottle. As times goes on, even one of the students is a native English speaker, but it seems like she also understands Chinese when I say “nai nai”. Once they hear the word “nai nai” or “mum mum” this is a level of early stages of word recognition. For bilinguals, the activation is not limited to a single language, auditory input activates the words, regardless of which language they belong to. Compared with monolingual and bilingual children shows some advantages in social cognitive development, especially in understanding the beliefs of others, select the important variables to solve the problem, and at the same time to the same stimulus to two possible …show more content…
According to blogger Kim, “over half of the world’s population is bilingual, and growing number of parents are getting their kids to learn two languages in the hopes that it will boost their academic and career prospects. Bilingualism, while a challenge early on in life, entails lifelong cognitive benefits that far outweigh the costs of teaching children a second language”. I know there were many parents that want their child to learn more than one language or to improve their second language. To do that, they would send them to school in after-school program or tutoring program to learn the language or to improve the language. It’s a great resource that we provide and teach the students with two languages every day. When the native English speaker teacher says something in English, the bilingual teacher would repeat it but is in Chinese. Therefore, in this way, the children could have an idea of what are the teacher asking to do or what to
It is important to maintain children’s home language as it may help them learn and understand a second language. Barratt-Pugh (2000) discusses the benefits of bilingualism and maintaining it through early childhood settings, also mentions the concerns families have for their children maintaining two languages through schooling. Research within the article states that children who speak more than one language will have a higher level of understanding literacy content, form, genre, as well as understand the differences and translating within both languages. This demonstrates a contrast of strengths and experiences with literacy (linguist...
The technique relies on a holistic approach that adopts instructions that allow students to actively participate in the learning process. This is easier for children that feel that the society appreciates their diversity through bilingualism and biliteracy. The society and parents need to encourage children to take up bilingual classes because they offer a lot of benefit to the society through favoring critical thinking, rationality, and sensitivity to other cultures, empathy, and detached or balanced awareness. However, Sonia Nieto mirrors a society that is made to fake being American and become ashamed of their family. It helps appreciate that it is not by choice that anyone speaks any other language as the first language and that the society and community influence the language of choice. Therefore, bilingualism cannot be detached from any community that freely promotes and accommodate the language spoken by the other community. Children and community members learn each other’s language without disregarding each other favoring effective learning that influences bilingualism and biliteracy in the long
The debate now is whether there is sufficient studies proving the effectiveness of Bilingual education and the need to continue it in many states. In 1998 Los Angeles County passed Proposition 227 to create bilingual education programs. (LA Times October 23.1998) Because of the passing of this bill many students were left in limbo waiting for teaching plans to be made. As well as the budget to be reformed to accommodate the extra expenses of a bilingual education programs, books, and to hire the proper teachers and aids to assists in the new bilingual classes. Often there are only a few children in a classroom being taught in their native language whil...
Naturally, bilingualism needs to be taught from birth to be most effective, yet schools ignore this (Meisel).Moving right along, our current teaching methods take some amount of inspiration from ancient romans teaching greek in schools, ways that are extremely outdated (Porter). Much research is focused primarily on bilingual learners who have grown up bilingual, and exclude children who had only begun learning their second language in school (Meisel). Usually, the fears of the people directly involved in bilingual education are ignored by researchers of the subject (Meisel). In Byers-Heinlein’s article they state “A one-person-one-language approach is neither necessary nor sufficient for successful bilingual acquisition,” but later proclaims “In situations where each parent spends equal time with a child, one-parent-one-language can be a great way to ensure equal exposure” (Byers-Heinlein). Generally, the teachers who disagree with the current method of bilingual education are often afraid to speak out because they will be labeled racists, haters of foreign languages, and critics of immigrants (Porter). Moreover, despite the various differing opinions present in the communities of bilingual educators, debates on whether to keep it are not tolerated (Porter). Although, the difficulty with which current bilingual education would be changed would provide one of the few legitimate incentives for teachers to advocate their system; they don’t want to put in the effort to do so (Porter). As a matter of fact, ethnic education politics are one of the only reasons that the current methods are not already abandoned (Porter). Finally, “The case for the effectiveness of Transitional Bilingual Education is so weak that
When visiting just about any school across America, students who attend come from all over the globe. This raises the question across America about bilingual education. This can create many challenges in and out of the classroom. The classroom should be a safe place for all students regardless of what native language they speak. In the essay Lost in translation written by Eva Hoffman, describes a foreign student who tries hard to fit in. Instead, Eva begins to feel angry, hurt and confused because people laugh at her. In Guiding Principles for Dual Language Education by Elizabeth R. Howard, Julie Sugarman, Donna Christian Center for Applied Linguistics Kathryn J. Lindholm-Leary San José State University David Rogers Dual Language Education of New Mexico. Guiding principles gives great ideas to educators to stop kids from making other students feel the way that Eva felt. After reading several articles about bilingual education, it is evident that all children in school should learn English but never lose their native language. When all the students speak one language, students will be less likely to make fun of each other. A good educator should learn enough foreign languages to aid them in effective communication in their classroom although; if an educator does not speak a foreign language, they should recruit within the classroom students to be peer mentors. However, a teacher should be willing to listen and encourage the students. Above all a good educator should be a good role model to their students by respecting their heritage and their language.
Bilingual education in our schools is crucial: but still there is talk about banning the use of foreign language in the instruction of our young children. We have to work to change that kind of attitude. We have to proceed from the assumption that bilingual
The population of the United States increased with school age children speaking English as their second language. Strong community leaders and school districts are needed to ensure English language learners attend effective programs that teach them English and push them to graduate successfully (Buysse, Castro, and Peisner-Feinberg, 2010). School districts across America use their own approach to accommodate the learning of English language learners by having a single or combination of programs (Li and Edwards, 2010). Dual language programs allow children to collaborate in developmental levels such as cognitive with tasks in English and Spanish (Pascopella, 2011). English language learners and English proficient students learn from each other.
In Nagy's (2013) study all eight participants had been raised bilingually since they were born. She interviewed the subject's parents and found, according to the parents, that the subjects said their first words in both languages between the age of twelve and forty-two months. Nagy's (2013) data also showed that, compared to monolinguals and most bilinguals, only two out of the eight participants needed the average twelve months most monolinguals need to reach basic sentence level ability. Nagy’s (2013) analysis indicates that there was no severe delay in the subject's language development, but three out of eight cases started producing comprehensible words approx. the same time as the majority of monolinguals. At the same time another four subjects accomplished, no more than six months later, the same level which is still within the time frame announced by
From my experience, bilingual education was a disadvantage during my childhood. At the age of twelve, I was introduced into a bilingual classroom for the first time. The crowded classroom was a combination of seventh and eighth grade Spanish-speaking students, who ranged from the ages of twelve to fifteen. The idea of bilingual education was to help students who weren’t fluent in the English language. The main focus of bilingual education was to teach English and, at the same time, teach a very basic knowledge of the core curriculum subjects: Mathematics, Social Sciences, and Natural Sciences. Unfortunately, bilingual education had academic, psychological, and social disadvantages for me.
Being bilingual always made my life differ as if I lived two lives, speaking Spanish at home and English everywhere outside of home. On the daily basis at my house, my family speaks Spanish. When we communicate we speak very fast, at times we can not even understand one another. After this occurs we all burst out in laughter super loud, no boundaries are enforced in our lexicon. The enforcement changes when entering a different discourse community.
...thousands of years. Generally, bilingual education can mean any use of two languages in school, by teachers, students, or both – for a variety of social and pedagogical purposes. It also refers to the different approaches in the classroom that use the native languages of English language learners (ELLs) for instruction. These approaches include teaching English, fostering academic achievement, acculturating immigrants to a new society, and preserving a minority group’s linguistic and cultural heritage. Building on, rather than just discarding the students’ native-language skills, create a stronger foundation for success in English and academics. Also, if students learn languages at a younger age, it will be easier to remember and learn them, rather than if they were older. It helps to learn another language for students, and can later be useful in the future.
LANGUAGE FLUENCY is also affected for bilinguals because they became confused and double minded before choosing appropriate words for particular object in particular
Language is an important part of our lives. I remember when I arrived to USA I could speak a little English. I went to school to improve my language, reading and writing skills; even now I am learning my second language, without English I cannot survive in this new environment. Now I am raising my own kids and I want them to have this important skill, this privilege of knowing a second language, language of their parents and grandparents. By looking at studies of bilingual children, research shows how important it is for a child to learn a second language. Raising a bilingual child is a benefit because it improves social skills, academic proficiency, introduces child to a different culture, and prepares for the future.
Earlier this year, Singapore’s former Prime Minister, Lee Guan Yew told the press (SinChew Daily, 2013) that he would like to urge all the parents in Singapore to let their children to receive bilingual education as soon as possible as it deliver more pros than cons for the development of the children. Traditionally, bilingual education was perceived by experts as “damaging” to children early language development as it may cause them to confuse between two languages and affect their learning (Chitester, D.J., 2007), but as more recent researchers begin to uncover the advantages of bilingual education (Cognitive Development Lab, 2013 & National Association for Bilingual Education, n.d.), people around the globe are now accepting and encouraging their children to receive bilingual education, picking up additional languages like: Spanish or Mandarin. The bilingual education indeed offers several priceless advantages to everyone like helping in the development of brain, providing wider job opportunities and making more new friend.
“Learning a second language not only has cognitive and academic benefits, it also supports a greater sense of openness to, and appreciation for, other cultures” (Tochen, 2009). For many students in the United States, English is not the primary language spoken at home. There are several options for getting these children to reach proficiency in the English Language. However, there is only one model that preserves the child’s first language, while also gaining literacy in English. This model is Bilingual Education. Bilingual education is not new to the United States. It in fact started in 1968 under title VII. However, there is still a lot for the general public, and parents of language learners, to learn about this form of education. Bilingual