Language is a fundamental part of our development in how we communicate with other people. It can be spoken, written or expressed by gesture and body movement. In my interaction with Carolina, my intention was for her to talk as much as possible. For her to discuss with me her experiences in school, home or with her friends. Particularly I was paying attention to which language she uses most as we strolled different parts of the institute. Since we were alone I knew that would not be a problem. Carolina is an 11-year-old bilingual who speaks both Spanish and English. Spanish is her native language due to her parents and the culture she was raised with. English is her second language because she lives in the United States where the dominant …show more content…
After conducting a multitude of cognitive test they concluded that bilinguals do not experience “mental overload” more so they are in advantage on critical thinking and creativity. Also, they are likely to have an advantage in math and reading, if both languages are equally proficient.” (Salomone, 2010, p. 184) Reading and writing Spanish are a challenge for Carolina since she barely reads or writes in her native language at home. However, her English reading and writing skills are developed well because that skill was taught to her since she was in pre-k. “In spite of the commonsense notions of parents, they do not “teach” their children to talk. Children learn to talk using the language of other family members or other sources and examples.” (Clark, Eschholz, Rosa, 1998, p. 44) For the most part, this is true for Carolina, her parents expect her to know the basics of her speech. The basics wordings as long as they understand what she was said and what it meant, her language was fine. Normally, some parents rarely sit with their children and explain the correct format of how to speak fluently their native language. However, there is also the inability to teach someone the proper way to improve their way of speaking if the proper resources or information were unavailable. Carolina told me that her parents do not go above an elementary level of education, therefore, the way they learned their native language is the same way they expect Carolina to learn hers. “As many researchers have noted since the 1960s, schools can in a couple of generations kill languages which had survived for centuries, even millennia, when their speakers were not exposed to formal education of the present-day type. Schools can today participate in committing linguistic genocide through their choice of the medium of formal education
As most people know speech and language issues would only happen with children just learning to talk and tennagers in middle school to high school. The reasoning behind this is because most people don’t correct their children’s speech when they are first learning due to the fact that the parents or grandparents think it is to cute to correct, which only hurts the children more th...
The article Mother Tongue, by Amy Tan is a personal look into how language, and the dialects of that language, can affect a person 's life. It 's a look into how the people inside the cultural circles who use dialect derivatives of a major language are treated by people who exist outside of those cultural circles. It shows us how society treats a person using a "broken" or "limited" dialect, and how society 's treatment of these people can also affect the children who grow up using these "broken" dialects. Tan wrote this article try and convey to the reader that English is a colorful, and ever-changing language that has many dialects. Tan makes the point, several times throughout the article, that society judges you based on the type of English that you use. Throughout the article, Tan uses both her mother, herself and society 's treatment of them as evidence to support her idea. The purpose of pointing this out is to show the reader that the language a person uses, whether it be taught to them in school or by a parent at home, isn 't indicative of a person 's intelligence or value, and they shouldn 't be judged as less for using it.
The essay starts off by talking about a common belief shared by many parents now about how students miss out on “a great deal by not being taught their family’s language”(Rodriguez 525). But the author states that this isn’t always true especially considering the children who are socially disadvantaged in any way, they more than likely consider their native tongue or the language used at home to be just that a private language that should only be used around or with the family, he also highlights how odd it was that his childhood classmates
Mental flexibility is superior in bilingual children since learning two language forces their minds to process two language systems at one time. Bilingualism promotes divergent (a divergent thinker is someone who thinks of many possible solutions to a problem) and creative thinking (Baker, 144-145). This increase of creative thinking gives a wider variety of associations (Baker, 145-146). Bilingualism is also associated with increased meta-cognitive flexibility and better performance on certain perpetual tasks, such as recognizing a perpetual object “embedded” in a visual background or classification tasks (Marian, et al.,1). Their divergent thinking helps relevant aspects of a problem may become more salient to bilingual children since their experiences with two language systems and cultures enable them to incorporate different perspectives to the solution (Bialystok, 2001 pg. 204). Bilingualism promotes divergent thinking that is caused by greater cognitive flexibility.
In the reading “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan she noticed that there was a significant difference in how she communicates in English whether at home or with whom she is speaking to and or with. While talking amongst intellectuals and in professional settings like her speech seminar, she spoke in Standard English using what she learned and adapted from what was taught in school. She realized there was a slight difference in the way she communicated with people she is close to, a pattern in the way she speaks around them. For example her mother and her husband can’t tell the difference whether she is speaking “broken, fractured or limited” English. Even though her mom can’t speak “perfect” Standard English, don’t misjudge because she can actually understand a lot. She reads and comprehends a lot from
My mother went to adult school to learn English, but she did not finish all the levels. Just like Tan’s mother, my mother knows the basics of English such as she, he, sad and happy. My mother can’t use nor can she understand sophisticated words. Tan’s mother also doesn’t understand the English Tan uses when giving a speech or writing a story. Tan explains to us that she cannot use the English she learned in school with her mother because her mother does not understand the concept. As with my mother, she cannot really compose a well-structured sentence. Tan states “some of my friends tell me they understand fifty percent of what my mother says.” (Tan 623) My parents do not speak English due to their lack of pronunciation and the lack of knowing what words mean. They usually do not use it because they have me talk for them. They only speak it if it is necessary, like at their jobs or at the store where there is no one that speaks Spanish and I am not
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.
As a parent I understand that children are like sponges they are taking everything from family, from school and from the street. "I think my mother 's English almost had an effect on limiting my possibilities in life as well. Sociologists and linguists probably will tell you that a person 's developing language skills are more influenced by peers" (Tan, 361). The authors ' word looks like my thoughts because I am always afraid to direct my children in wrong way to learn English. I try to teach them, and besides they teach me a lot with it. They are always telling me the right way to say something, how to explain some situation, how to write right some words and finally how to pronounced more words. When I first time read the Tans ' story, "...she used to have me call people on the phone to pretend I was she" (Tan,360), I could remember how my son talked form me on the phone and how funny it was that I am a lady and my son would talk for me. But I am thankful for my son because at that time he was a big
Language is like a blooming flower in adversity – they are the most rare and beautiful of them all as it struggles to express itself. It blooms and flourishes in strength, awe, and passion as the riches of thought is imbibed from the seed and into a finished beauty. For others, a non-native person speaking in a language that they are not familiar with sprouts out like a weed – the way its thorns can puncture sympathy and comprehensibility. Amy Tan, however, addresses the nature of talk as being unique under its own conditions. In Tan's “Mother Tongue”, she discusses how her mother's incoherent language is “broken” and “limited” as compared to other native English speakers. When focusing on Amy Tan, she grows noticeably embarrassed with her mother's lack of acuteness in the language, which then influences Tan to “prove her mastery over the English language.” However, she soon learns from herself and -- most importantly -- her mother that a language's purpose is to capture a person's “intent, passion, imagery, and rhythm of speech and nature of thought.” With such an enticing elegance...
...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.
BILINGUALISM have both Positive and Negative effects on the Child’s linguistic, Cognitive and Educational Development.
First benefit is a better achievement in school and academically. Studies show that bilingual children have better reading and writing skills, also easily can learn third language. Carey Myles says: "Bilingualism has been linked to a variety of positive cognitive benefits, including early reading, improved problem-solving skills, and higher scores on the SATs, including the math section." Myles also claims that bilingual children have been shown to demonstrate "better listening perception" and that they "recognize that language is symbolic and are more skilled in communication” (2003). Also,research found that bilingual kids are able to better concentrate, stay focused on a subject in a classroom. Because this is an important factor, these children have a greater readiness and success in school. (Lust, B., 2006).
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...
“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
In 2009, teachers of a New Jersey school banned foreign languages and stated, “any language other than English will not be tolerated" (Debaron 1). This situation was soon no longer allowed. While over ten percent of the total adolescent education systems contain emergent bilinguals, a whopping sixty percent of those students are educated in only English (Bale). Maria Estela Brisk, a Boston College Education professor, believes, “schools has wasted much energy in the search for a "perfect" model and the best way to learn English” when they could just focus on proving “quality education” to every student in the system (1). Teacher’s main priority should consist of effectively teaching their students to prepare them for the future, but currently there are a lack of certified bilingual education teachers. When students are taught more in different ways, they can educationally benefit their cognitive abilities, involving the brain with “mathematics, problem solving, logic and memory”, can be improved to create an overall better student. Even by learning another language at a earlier age can contribute to __________. Learning another language will be