Myths about Bilingualism

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The variety of languages that revolves around our nation makes it a very diverse place to live in and a comforting one as well. There are hundreds of languages being spoken at this very moment and it is the sole factor that keeps a culture alive. Although many children are raised to embrace who they are and where they come from, attending school in the United States of America can contradict their pride since English is used as the dominant way of communicating. This encounter forced these children to know and fluently speak two languages: the language of their homeland and the language being spoken in school. Coming from a culture in which two languages, Chamorro and English, are spoken, many Chamorro children are forced to become bilingual. In spite of their gifted ability to speak different languages, the two languages often contradict with each other. This results in miscommunication and academic deficiencies. Nevertheless, speaking two languages fluently does not affect children’s learning capabilities within the American Education System because of the over diagnosis of learning disabilities among bilingual children and the rewarding effects of being bilingual. Merriam Webster defines bilingual as a person’s ability to speak two languages fluently whereas monolingual is the ability to only speak one. Today, the amount of bilingual children in America is at its highest. According to the Hanen Certified Speech Language Pathologist Lauren Lowry, “In the United States, 21% of school age children (between the ages of 5-17) speak a language other than English at home” and “This number is projected to increase in the coming years.” In addition, her statistics showed that “Worldwide, it is estimated that there are more second la... ... middle of paper ... ...l children and America as a nation. Works Cited E. Glyn Lewis. Bilingualism and Bilingual Education: A Comparative Study. University of New Mexico Press, 1980. Print. Guadalupe Valdes and Richard A. Figueroa. Bilingualism and Testing: A Special Case of Bias. Third Printing, 1996. Print Lauren Lowry. Bilingualism in Young Children: Separating Fact from Fiction. The Hanen Centre, 2011. Web. 10 May 2014 Daniel Olson. How Does Being Bilingual Affect Learning? National Center for Learning Disabilities, 2014. Web. 10 May 2014 Viorica Marian Ph.D and Anthony Shook. The Cognitive Effects of Being Bilingual. The Dana Foundation, 2012. Web. 10 May 2014 Alessandra Hickson. Education Nation: The real benefits of being bilingual. NBC Latino, 2012. Web. 10 May 2014 AOL Jobs Contributor. Why It Pays to be Bilingual. Aol Jobs, 2009. Web. 10 May 2014

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