Nagy (2013) makes an attempt, through a case study and the use of previous studies, to test the theories of prominent researchers on the field such as Francois Grosjean (2011), Ellen Bilyastok (2010) and Jurgen Meisel (1994). Nagy (2013) notes in her case study that bilingual development is depending on environmental influence just as much as on the child’s individual aptitude and general intelligence. Barbara Nagy (2013) was, in her case study, focusing on eight bilingual children's (aged between 4 and 11) language development process. The main focus was on three of the most common assumptions people have on bilingualism: Bilingual children start speaking later than monolingual children Bilingual children are equally proficient in their …show more content…
Disagreeing the theory that early bilingualism caused delays in lexical development, De Houwer (1995) suggested that bi-and monolingual children's lexical abilities developed very much alike. Meisel (1993) stated that the grammatical development of bi-and monolingual children was the same. 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
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
Donegan, Craig. “Debate over bilingualism.” CQ Researcher. 19 January 1996. 6, 49-72. Web. 17 Feb. 2011.
Padilla, Amado. "Bilingual Education: Issues and Perspectives." From Community to College, New York, St. Martin's Press 1992
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.
According with Jean Piaget whose theory on child development has been a great influence in education; language development is the most important phase during the Preoperational stage of cognitive development. During this stage children develop and build up their knowledge and vocabulary by asking questions and expressing ideas through words, images and drawings. This stage is considerate to happen from two years of to seven years of age (Kendra Cherry). Language development has direct implications in the intellectual development of a child, and it is one of the main tools to develop our thinking process. We use words to store and access memories or other information. For Latinos children and especially recent arrivals whose language is Spanish entering to school where their primary language (Mother tongue) has no validation neither use may be traumatic and even hinder their future opportunities to succeed in a school system that is complete foreign in concept and in language. In order to integrate and create opportunities for the Latino students to succeed the in the educational system we must create programs that address the specific needs of the Latino community such as bilingual education where students learn to speak, read and write in their mother tongue language first.
Learning multiple languages opens doors for people not only in their local communities, but on a global scale. It has also been proven to advance cognition by improving conflict management, executive controls, and sound recognition. Students who are bilingual have two active languages in their minds and create flexible minds by constantly processing and translating in both languages. These mental activities are displayed to be beneficial through impressive academics. For these reasons, bilingual education in the United States is critical. Language is the single most important asset in human civilization. Prior to it, cave men communicated through grunts and images. Not only does language tie people together, but it also has an impact on one’s mentality and personal
...n language and the development of literacy. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 13(2), 175-186. doi: 10.1080/13670050903474085
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.
The article goes into detail about two new experiments that psychologists have performed to really get a grasp of how bilingualism affects cognitive and social skills. The first study demonstrated that multilingual children might be better at communication than children who are raised in a monolingual household. In the experiment, the children were placed in a situation in which they had to consider someone else's perspective in order to understand what was being asked of them. The researchers concluded that bilingual children performed better in this situation than monolingual children and interpreted that this is because bilingual children often have to take context into consideration in order to understand the languages that are spoken around them on a daily basis. This leads to another conclusion that researchers made about monolingual children that are exposed to another language often. Because these children have also developed their skills dealing with context, they performed similarly to the bilingual
(F) 3. Education through the use of two languages (at once) confuses children; and therefore bilingual education programs mix up children. (F) 4. Bilingual education delays students’ acquisition of an additional language. (F) 5.
The development of the brain of a bilingual individual is better than a monolingual individual. Few years ago, researchers from the University of Washington (as cited in Klass, 2011, para 4.) found that the brains of bilingual infants (from families where two languages were spoken) are able to discriminate the different of the phonetic sound of the languages they usually heard when they grew up than monolingual infants in where their brains were adapted to only identify their mother tongue only. Dr. Patricia Kuhl, one of the members of this research team thus believe that bilingual education can shape infants’ brains and keep them ready for future challenges. Concurrently, a renowned psychologist, Dr. Ellen...
The ability to speak more than one language is always seen valuable among the adults; conversely, the importance of childhood bilingualism is often overlooked. Most people only see the significance of bilingualism in adulthood, for instance, at enhancing resume for job application. The truth is, there are many perks to being a bilingual child. One of the advantages is the cognitive ability a bilingual speaker benefits from since an early age. Research has shown that children who are exposed to two languages at home have a better concentration level compared to monolingual children.
According to Hoffman (1991) until the nineteenth century it was thought that bilingualism lead to mental delay, additionally, individual bilingualism was very frequently blamed for a bilingual child 's failing intelligence tests, underachievement at school or even having a negative effect on the child’s development causing left-handedness and stuttering. This perspective continued on to the twentieth century where a completely new perspective was introduced. Obler and Albert (1978) claimed that attainment of second language can be beneficial in increasing a child’s intellectual capabilities. They identified that part of the brain that is responsible for second language acquisition remains undeveloped in a brain of monolingual children. Proponents of bilingualism have also suggested that multilingual children are more skilful in articulating and expressing their feelings and ideas verbally in comparison to children who speak one language. In addition bilinguals obtain linguistic abstraction skills earlier and have better auditory memory skills than monolinguals (Dulay 1982). Similarly, Baker (2011 p.161) states that ‘Bilinguals have advantages on certain thinking dimensions, particularly in divergent thinking, creativity, early metalinguistic awareness and communicative sensitivity ‘. In addition, ‘the bilinguals appear to have a
A little over a quarter percent of preschool-aged children came from bilingual households in the year 2008. The majority of these children were also from Spanish speaking backgrounds. Because this growth trend is expected to continue in the years to come, it is necessary to assess the language development of not only monolingual English speaking children, but Spanish speaking children as well. Another reason that this assessment is necessary is because speech language pathologists show a lack of confidence when treating bilingual children in a recent survey. Since there is a shortage of bilingual speech language pathologists, the monolingual ones need to come up with ways to beneficially serve the linguistically diverse children. For example,