Bilingual and Multilingual Education is an Educational Program - Essay Example

Bilingual and multilingual Education Bilingual and multilingual education is said to be an educational program in which both a native language and a second language or third language are taught as subject matter and it is also used for academic subject as a media of instruction. The tradition of public bilingual education began in the United State during the 1840s, which is as a result of nativism of World War 1 and as a reaction to the large number non English speaking immigrant from different countries entering the country in the late 19th and 20th centuries (e.g. serving as a response to the problem of addressing those children who speaks German, Dutch, French, Spanish, Swedish, and other languages). This education al practice brought to halt the restrictive laws prohibiting instruction in languages other than English. In a diversified and a multilingual environment, many young children find themselves in a society where more than one language is used. These have influence the interaction of people toward their children and their perspective toward other people’s children and teachers, doctors and other professional advise parent of children growing up bilingually. But the ideas of some people about children growing up in a bilingual environment (i.e growing up with the second or the third language) is discouraging and have not in any way benefit these children and may have adverse effect on them. Therefore, when a parent change his or her job and it involve moving to a different part of the world, they feel overwhelmed over the issue of linguistic demand on them and their children. (1) In the western world there medical doctor and speech therapist that advise some parent to stop the young children growing up with more than one language and concentrate on one language acceptable in the environment. For example in the United State speech therapist often suggest that parent should stop using Spanish at home in favor of English and in Finland they may advise parent to stop using English in favor of Dutch. The main reason for this advice is basically two, firstly they clam that bilingual or multilingual education can easily confuse the children and lead to a great problem in acquiring language and secondly they claim that the mother language will stand a better chance over other language. (1) Mean while, there is no scientific prove that bilingual education lead to any problem or disorder in language acquisition. (2) Many children grow up learning two or more language and these children did not show any visible proof that that there is any relationship between a bilingual environment and the problem of learning language. And language been a very strong linkage between emotion, affection and identity can lead to a great emotional and psychological difficulties in child’s parent relationship when home language is stop in favor of the environmental language. Ability to learn the second language declining with age is controversial, although there is notion that children learn the second language easily, while the older rarely achieve fluency this idea is stem from ‘critical period’ whose interest now surround age effect on second language acquisition. Children are considered to have a neurological advantage in learning languages. It is asserted that language acquisition occurs primarily and puberty is the turning point of the ability. Penfield and Roberts (1959) (3) claim that early exposure of children to different language education and there ability to cope is base of the reflex in the brain, which permit them to interact in both languages without confusion or translating into first language. Robert also takes into consideration the lenneberg’s theory that claims that from infant to about 10 years of age their motor and linguistic skill is developed simultaneously, but as their age increase the cerebral hemisphere function separately, which make language acquisition more difficult to learn. But Piaget (1926), see brain as a homogenious computational system, with lingustic acquisition being one part of general learning. He claim that there is no specific language acquisition module in the brain, instead he believe that external effect and social interation trigger language acquisition. He said congnitive development and language acquisition are life process constantly update and re-organize schemata. Piaget, also believe that children develop their first language as they build a sense of identity in reference to the environment and general cognitive development, while the processes and patterns they are use to change systematically with age. He see conginitve development as the basis for an optimal period for language acquisition in children. (6), (7) When children use two languages in one sentence it should not be term as confusion because the use of two languages in one sentence by mature bilinguals shows a great deal of linguistic skill (romaine, 1995). (1) Actually they usually do this when talking to people that are close to them and can understand them, therefore the extent of use more than one language in a sentence is determined by the social group in which they find themselves. Language development depend solemnly on vocabulary knowledge, which can be acquired by reading books and the more words children know the better they learn to speak and the better there chance of doing well in school. (4) In other to effectively develop the literacy of a child’s bilingual activities is highly necessary that we provide them with some material such as book on history on their tradition, tales, stories etc that will enrich the middle school social studies classes. Other anthology of materials are also developed to support other instruction, all those activities help to promote widespread understanding of difference in the communities or societies way of knowing which teachers report best impact the entering knowledge and skills when framing lesson and has help assess the student capability. For example familiarity with a tribe’s mythology can bring about story telling or other project associating with concept of developing vocabulary such as encouraging parents reading to their children at home and by helping them with the homework at home. Providing bilingual teacher that are knowledgeable and very skillful to be superior teachers provides Spanish-speaking student with a Reading Recovery Programs. Just like there English counterpart focused closely on students’ reading behavior, which accurately describe of students’ strength and productive instruction on everyday reading strategies (i.e. self tutorials). All these development is to provide leading teachers with thorough grounding of factors that influence reading in Spanish and to apply sound skilled principle to their instructions. Research findings, shows that bilingual children learn to read more rapidly, which is a distinct advantage over their monolingual peer. There are large advantages for children whose two-language share writing system that will only require their ability to decode and grasp the concept of letters that make sounds. They easily realized that both language apply the same concept and then develop a transferable set of strategies and expertise the enhance quick understand. Although it is found that difficulties are experience by those children in acquiring literacy in both alphabet and character based system, but these children are not at any disadvantage. Parent should not hesitate to share their native tongue with their children; in fear that there child’s ability to learn how to read is in conflict with other languages. A research conducted by co-author York University researchers on four groups of students whereby three were fluent in English and the other one comprises of other language (Spanish, Hebrew and Chinese) and one monolingual English speaker. The result shows that all the bilingual children using both languages everyday to learn reading show significant improvement in their capacity for non-word decoding and their ability to apply the techniques of reading to a new set of materials. The only disadvantage examine is that they start with a smaller vocabulary in each language. English language learner can be facilitating in many ways, since language and literacy skill are learn through social interactive settings, which allow children to play with language in different manner. Even when comprehension and meaning are focused, teaching of phonic and decoding strategies are also of high importance to student in decoding word that are already known or teaching them the word as they learn how to pronounce them out. Researcher has recommend teachers to show their student how to transfer reading to knowledge and also from home language to English. For example, students should be aware that they could transfer concepts about print, phonological and comprehension strategies (such as making inferences, or asking questions as they read) from one language to the other. Students also need to know that they can use comprehension repair strategies from one language such as reading, reading ahead, or using context to resolve a comprehension problem in the other. Their schoolteachers should have effective knowledge about culture and family life of their students and should also possess his ability to transform that knowledge into meaningful lesson. This can be done by choosing the families of a few students and ask for their cooperation in the process of the interview, using methodology and construct s of ethnography. They should be able to combine their strategy with their honored status as a qualify teacher to generate information sharing that bring about both the family and parent more aware of the family’s resources. Therefore the parents also should be able to respond well to open question about their family’s structure and foundation of lessons, application of academic skills and collaboration with parents in new activities that will be of benefit to the student are established by the provided information’s. In addition, the teachers uses science and social studies activities as the root for developing knowledge in content and language, by engaging students in generating hypotheses by observing demonstration, with this they can easily conduct experiment, discuss findings and write reports on the findings. The teachers should also develop multidimensional presentations and experience using videotapes, computers and other material that will necessarily support language aides and peer tutoring to ensure student understanding of the lesson content. When bilingual children and multilingual children continue to develop their ability in understanding two or more languages throughout their primary school years, they tend to gain perfection in those languages and on to use them effectively. When literacy in both languages is well developed, they will be able to compare and contrast the ways in which the two languages organize reality. The level of mother tongue development in children strongly predict their understand of the second language development, because children’s that have strong foundation their mothers tongue develop a better literacy understanding in there second language.If parents and other people around them are able to spend great time with their children telling stories or discussing with them in a way that develop their mothers tongue concept, they come to school well prepared to learn the school language with great understanding and succeed educationally. Goethe, a German philosopher once said that “a person who speaks only one language dose not truly know the language” which is be support by many research conducted on it and research findings suggest that bilingual children’s develop more flexibility in there thinking as result of process information acquired through two languages. While in contrast, when children are encouraged to stop speaking with their mothers tongue, eventually their personal and conceptual foundation for learning is undermined. Conclusively the foundation of the future learning is base on the children’s cultural and linguistic experience they gain at home and we must build on that foundation rather than undermine it, we should open our to the linguistic, cultural and intellectual resources all the diverse children in the societies bring from there homes to our school and the societies. Bibliography 1. Romaine, S., (1995). Bilingualism (2nd ed). London: Blackwell. 2. De Houwer, A. (Ed.). (1998). Bilingual acquisition [special issue]. International Journal of Bilingualism, 2(3). 3. Penfield, W. and L. Roberts. (1959). Speech and Brain Mechanisms. Princeton 4. Arnberg, L. (1987). Raising children bilingually: The pre-school years. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 5. August Diane and Kenji Hakuta. 1998. Education of Language-minority Children. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 6. Piaget, J. (1928). The Childs Conception of the World. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 7. Bongaerts, T., B. Planken and E. Schils (1995). Can late learners attain a native accent in a foreign language? A test of the Critical Period Hypothesis. In D. Singleton and Z. Lengyel (eds) The Age Factor in Second Language Acquisition. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. pp.30-50 8. Baker, Colin. 1995. A Parents and Teachers Guide to Bilingualism. Clevedon, Eng.: Multilingual Matters. 9. Baker, Colin. 1996. Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 2nd edition. Clevedon, Eng.: Multilingual Matters. 10. Baker, Colin, and Hornberger, Nancy H., eds. 2001. An Introductory Reader to the Writings of Jim Cummins. Clevedon, Eng.: Multilingual Matters. 11. Crawford, James. 1991. Bilingual Education: History, Politics, Theory and Practice, 2nd edition. Los Angeles: Bilingual Educational Services. 12. Cummins, James. 1979. "Linguistic Interdependence and the Educational Development of Bilingual Children. “Review of Educational Research” 49:222 - 251. 13. Kjolseth, Rolf. 1983. "Cultural Politics of Bilingualism." Society 20 (May/June):40 - 48. 14. Harding, E., & Reilly, P. (1987). The bilingual family. Handbook for parents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 15. Saunders, G. (1982). Bilingual children: Guidance for the family. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 16. Crystal, D. (l986). Child language, learning and linguistics. London: Edward Arnold. 17. Cummins, J. (1991). Interdependence of first and second language proficiency in bilingual children. In E. Bialystok (Ed.), Language Processing in Bilingual Children (pp.70-89). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 18. Chud, Gyda and Fahlman, Ruth (1985) Early Childhood Education for a Multilingual Society: A Handbook for Educators. WEDGE, The University of British Columbia. Read More