Bilingualism as the Inherent Ability of an Individual - Essay Example

Learning diversity: Bilingual Learners Introduction Bilingualism relates to the inherent ability of an individual to use effectivelytwo languages. The definition is fiddly as personal variation in bilingual characteristics regroups as bilingual. Notably, acceptable definitions range from the least proficiency in both languages to a higher level of proficiency that enables the speaker to appear and function as a native like speaker of both languages. Individual description of bilingualism may be limited to communication and conversation only. Other people could be proficient in reading in more than two languages. Bilingualism can be a virtue of growing up while using and learning two languages simultaneously. Argumentatively, human beings can naturally acquire bilingualism. The acquisition of an additional language is sequential bilingualism. Therefore, interpretation of bilingualism is subjective to individual definitions. Bilingualism encompasses a significant amount of contexts and proficiency. In children, bilingualism may restrict the use of the first language for familial and domestic purposes. English language is mostly a second language with the highest preference for communication in official environments and outside home. Sequential bilingual learning is similar to learning of a first language. The newly acquired language must be appropriate and accurate. The language learning processes are similar and have differences too. For instance, bilingual learners approach learning additional language with a background linguistic system, rules and structure. Additionally, the process of learning a second language starts at different ages and not from birth. Therefore, it involves different strategies for acquisition of the same. Influence on school activities Linguistic differences and primarily low proficiency in English is a cause of low academic achievement. Argumentatively, the statement is plausible as it implicates English medium for learning by students with limited comprehension of the language. The students with poor mastery of the teaching language have problems with instructions and expression as well. Cultural difference also affects a student’s social life. In a case where the student cannot interact with colleagues, feeling of loneliness ensues. Moreover, solitude forms a fundamental foundation in acquisition of fear and low self-esteem (Meisel, 2013 p. 397). The manifestation of personal feelings is observable in withdrawal from extra-curriculum activities and poor participation in class work. For instance, bilingual students that are composed rarely do not ask questions in class nor do they engage in all-inclusive learning. Learning in one culture then transferring to the modes of a different culture cause dislocation and confusion. School structures are usually unfamiliar. At the same time, children find teacher’s expectations unpredictable and the classroom procedures seem more uncomfortable. Such students encounter different values essential for learning and become unresponsive. Bilingual students could also find their behaviours inexplicably penalised. All these contribute to low participation in school activities. Unfortunately, communication challenges add to the effect. Cultural differences presenting via variation in teaching styles limit school participation. Interestingly, acquisition of learning skills through socialization is part of roles of education (Meisel, 2013 p. 395) .Children with culture shock could find it hard to fit in and acquire the necessary skills to help survive in unfamiliar environments. Teachers that are incompetent lack bicultural education skills and will surely demean the students. Apparently, it is the role of a classroom practitioner to assist learners develops bilingual skills. Bilingual education and reflection on personal practice There exist numerous education programs for bilingual students. Such educational programs use two languages to provide instructions. The programs facilitate learning while raising eloquence in both languages. However, such programs do not foster bilingualism. Classroom practitioners can support the needs of bilingual students through different ways. Indeed, the primary mechanism of creating comfort and interest in learning is through education programs. Such programs are applicable in my personal practice in a secondary school with EAL children. Teachers can advocate immersion programs. Such programs enhance additive bilingualism particularly for majority language speakers. Immersion programs are unique and highly valued. For examples, there are French immersion programs for Canadian students who speak English. Teaching takes place in the first language but the teacher is aware of and can use both languages. Submersion programs offers opportunities for the linguistic minorities to learn through majority language with no or minimal support to facilitate the understanding of instructions. It also enhances access to the content of the curriculum. Maintenance programs provide learning in an additional language in order to conserve culture and home language. Teachers can ally such programs to transitional bilingual education adventures to allow a learner to learn gradually the majority’s language. Classroom practitioners not only facilitate learning of other disciplines but also ensure that the students are long-term users of a second language. They provide control over language use and encourage the students to use the language. The achievement of teacher’s duties involves the creation of supportive environments as well. For instance, identification of a student’s second language is primary for the description of a practitioner’s supportive roles. If a second language is English, then the persona and educational experience in school must be a reflection of the language. Teachers monitor student behaviour and response in class to notice the effects of the second language. Apart from teaching, supervisory roles are part of a teacher’s job description. A classroom practitioner continuously engages a bilingual learner and assesses the efficiency of learning and teaching as well (Korkman et al., 2012 p. 951). Most importantly, in a classroom where learning is via a first language, it is advisable to question the bilingual learner for firmness purposes. Failure to express concern can be a source of solitude and the student fails to concentrate in class. Classroom practitioners also involve guardians and parents in the student are learning. Social growth and school achievement improve with parental participation. Such parents equally encourage the child to master a foreign language and to interact with others. Encouraged learning takes place through motivation. Seemingly, motivation ranges from compliments to gifts when a student uses a second language properly. Therefore, a parent that is conversant with a second language plays a vital role in assisted learning of concepts in the language. The classroom must be conducive to enhance learning and appreciation of a second language. Such a classroom clustered and focused on creating potential for spontaneity (Lv, 2014 p. 1439). The classroom experience should balance between interaction and instruction, promote peer teaching, and offer chances for students to engage in administrative tasks. Such tasks include lunch count, attendance and errands. The classroom resources should be diverse and include encyclopaedias, dictionaries, schedules and books. The aforementioned resources will be very vital if versions in different languages are available. Teachers in the context of their linguistic, educational backgrounds and their socio cultural status should view and assess the child’s language level and progress. The background information will assist in identifying the child’s level of development and progress. Teaching staff would have potential to plan carefully the inputs and activities to include in their lessons. This helps in adding value to learner’s cultural, ethnicity and linguistic backgrounds in the classroom. Other information that would be effective in supporting these children includes family background, the ethnicity languages used, and country of origin and residence in other countries. Moreover, additional languages spoken at home and in the community of origin, family’s opinion of child’s language development in relation to native languages, English or other second language, and family opinion on the overall development from birth to date also remains as effective source of information for supporting such children. Teachers are direct participants in the use of Bilingual Teaching Assistants (BTAs). BTAs play a crucial role in the school system through knowledge development and drawing on cultural background to activate prior knowledge in any previously taught subject (Agirdag, 2014 p. 458). Teachers brief the students about intentions and teaching plans and outline the expectations such as student participation. Specialist EAL class practitioners support inclusion through facilitation of learning response. Such responses arise from diverse learning needs. BTAs and teachers prioritize the setting of appropriate learning challenges and assess the ability of pupil’s to overcome learning barriers (Korkman et al., 2012 p. 950). BTAs know pupil’s contributions regarding the first language towards academic success. BTAs professionally explore concepts in the first language and build the learner’s self-esteem. Moreover, they establish independence and confidence as well. In summary, teachers and BTAs roles in classroom include effectively supporting bilingual pupils, creating awareness of the needs of the pupils, appropriate application of student’s bilingual skills and enhancement of supportive connection with the parents (Lucero, 2014 p. 534). In addition, they keep informative and relevant records and contribute proposals to the planning of teaching and evaluation of learning for pupils with bilingual skills. Language development of bilingual learners The acquisition of a second language is continuous, rule –governed, interactive with cognition and developmental. A student acquires a second language through the interaction with the environment. The effective variables are attitude, environment, socio-economic status and motivation. Indeed, the second language acquisition could parallel the first language. However, a learner of a second language is not a primary target of the language’s group. Differences between the learner and the group members confer significant disadvantages towards the acquisition of second language. Notably, the second language inclination and ability to interact with the target group is important for learning the language. Language development in bilingual learners entails active participation in the acquisition of any language. Languages are never taught or meekly acquired (Agirdag, 2014 p. 453). Despite the level of a practitioner’s input, the learner is the determinant of language gain. A person/ learner that show unrelenting struggle to know a particular language has in-built motivation to pursue their objective (Lucero, 2014 p. 534). In addition, the learner is responsible for engaging the language group members or attempting at pronunciation and word use. Bilingual learning is dependent on a student’s construction of personal rules in language acquisition. As stated, self-driven learners master foreign languages very fast. Seemingly, self-drive is a product of definition of individual rules that govern learning (Meisel, 2013 p. 396). Responsibility and discipline are part of such rules. For instance, a learner may decide never to converse with a second language member in his/her first language although that person is conversant with first language. Such rules provide adequate opportunity to practice the foreign dialect. Language development involves specifications from the general features of a language. For bilingual language development, learning begins with comprehension of the similarities between the first and second language .For instance, the learner tries to relate common elements of the two languages to enhance acquisition of a second language. Such similarities could be in form of names, instructions, greetings or compliments. The next step involves narrowing into specific descriptions and word pattern that is essential in proper sentence construction. Intuitively, personal variability exists and influences the rate of second language development in bilingual learners. However, the language acquisition process is similar for everyone. At the same time, the environment should be non-noxious to stimulate learning (Korkman et al., 2012 p. 949). The intuitive knowledge of any language is present in any student. Language use comes before the ability to verbalize the same (Foy & Mann, 2014 p. 723). At the same time, learners should not attempt to sequence second language learning. Learning is part of abstraction of rules from the surrounding data. Language rooting is in the learner’s cognitive growth. It occurs best under responsive environmental conditions. Environment must therefore focus on meaning and not form (Agirdag, 2014 p. 455). There should also be compatibility between the environment and the student’s mode of learning. Apparently, the occurrence of language is dependent on the availability of non-linguistic and linguistic diversity. Home cultures for bilingual learners The provision of linguistically and culturally appropriate instructions requires and explicit definition of culture. Ethnographers and anthropologists define culture with reference to beliefs, behaviour patterns and values that a particular group in society ascribes. Practitioners/ educators appreciate the reception of first instructions from close relations such as family. Argumentatively, the functions and dynamism of culture is transmissible to new members. A child interacts with cultural precepts and life experiences that shape his/her culture. With time, exposure to foreign cultures plays a vital role in individual variation. Cross-cultural interactions, acculturation, presents a new environment (Lucero, 2014 p. 534). Adaptation in the new environment involves gradual incorporation of new surrounding characteristics into the previously set behaviours. Such characteristics include new language acquisition. The early periods of acculturation have blends of new adapted traits and traditional patterns (Foy & Mann, 2014 p. 724). For example, a learner will have an appreciable mastery of word use while presenting with pronunciation difficulties in second language. Acculturate manifests in all immigrants although to varying degrees. The second language acquisition is similar to acculturation in numerous ways. First, a second language is usually difficult to comprehend (Lucero, 2014 p. 534). Interestingly, faster learning in children compared to parents is an evidence of transgenerational conflict. The second stage is the making of communicative sense. The third stage is the coherent development of literacy in second language following excellent literacy in first language. Soon, native proficiency ensues in the fourth stage. The fifth stage marks equal proficiency and dominance of second language Parental language preference plays a vital role in determining the development of a second language. For instance, if parents can speak Bangladeshi and English as well, a child is likely to learn English (Agirdag, 2014 p. 450). However, if the parents, even though, based in England are still conservative, the child will find it hard to try English speaking. In such situations, the child will take a long time speaking fluent Bangladeshi and Basic English. Interestingly, parental expectations provide fundamental motivation for bilingual learners. Most bilingual learners, as aforementioned are immigrants. Such learners not only face communication challenge but also total environment al changes from whether to cultural differences (Korkman et al., 2012 p. 947). Children could present with culture shock and become reluctant to explore the new environment. However, in case the parents are encouraging, the child finds find learning a second language challenging and interesting. The development of reading There is a lot of information on prereading skills particularly on early reading of English. However, the skills are not parallel with those that children learning English as a second language (ESL) need. Syntactic awareness, phonological processing and working memory are processes of cognition that are relevant in the development of English reading skills. Different linguistic backgrounds influence the cognitive processes. First language contributes to poor pronunciation of a second language. An examination of reading development focuses on phonological awareness. The awareness predicts the efficiency and speed of reading acquisition. Cross-language phonological transfer particularly from the native language to a second language indicates reading development. For instance, Spanish phonological awareness and Spanish word recognition are excellent indicators of English pseudo word performance and English reading by children who are Spanish native speakers. Processing of syntax is a step in reading development. The ability to process the same confers faster word learning. Regrettably, reading disability results from syntax awareness difficulties. ESL speaking is only fluent following satisfaction in syntax awareness. Other components of reading development include working memory that associates words with objects. Pronunciation is equally important for appreciable reading. Conclusion Bilingual skills are important in schools. Acquisition of a second language is fundamental to fitting in a new environment. At the same time, it confers comfort and identification with the new group. The ability of a learner to learn a second language is a measure of determination to accept change and a different culture. At the same time, bilingual skills contribute to better performance and with the teacher’s assistance, learners get to learn additional languages. Notably, parental contributions are also vital to that effect. In personal practice, for example, teaching EAL pupils in a secondary school, bilingual skills confer cultural competency. Cultural competency is all-important in service delivery in numerous sectors ranging from health care to small-scale businesses. Multilingualism is an additional advantage during job applications as well. Moreover, it increases diversity by widening one’s scope of interaction. Argumentatively, acquisition of a second language is dependent on individual drive. Bibliography Agirdag, O 2014, The long-term effects of bilingualism on children of immigration: student bilingualism and future earnings,International Journal Of Bilingual Education & Bilingualism, 17, 4, pp. 449-464, Professional Development Collection, EBSCOhost, viewed 18 January 2015. Cleave, P, Bird, E, Trudeau, N, & Sutton, A 2014, Syntactic bootstrapping in children with Down syndrome: The impact of bilingualism, Journal Of Communication Disorders, p. 42, Academic OneFile, EBSCOhost, viewed 18 January 2015. 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