Pearson (2008) – in her book Raising a bilingual child – suggests 12 myths and misconceptions about bilingual children. However, in the scope of disscussed problem, this essay will only address the most prominent worries of Vietnamese parents.
The first and might be the most popular myth is that exposing children to more than one language may cause delays in their speech development. In fact, from birth to approximately ten years old, every child go through ten stages described above. Even a bilingual child experience the same progress. Sometimes, he or she might mix parts of a word from one language with those from another. Although this combination conveys no meaning, it is not an evidence of abnormal or delayed development. Whether the child is simultaneous bilingual (learning
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It is a true phenomenon that children sometimes utilize both language to make a full sentence such as Quiero mas juice (I want more juice). However, as mentioned before, this could never been considered as impairing cognitive ability. Gradually, when growing up, children gain more aware of their bilingualism and correctly seperate both languages. Moreover, bilingualsm should never be the account for cognitive impair. If a child has a speech problem, it whill show up in both languages. In fact, there are a wide rage of evidence showing that bilingualism conversally forster cognitive flexibility. Hakuta (1986) agrees with this by stating that “bilingual people (including children) are better able to see things from two or more perspectives and to understand how other people think”. Also, bilinguals have better listening skills and mature earlier than monolinguals in terms of linguistic abstraction, which shown in discriminating vowel and consonant sounds and develop their ability to think and talk about language (Albert and Obler, 1978, cited in Cummins,
Richard Rodriguez uses many rhetorical strategies in his essay, “Aria: Memoirs of a Bilingual Childhood” to convey the differences between his native Spanish and the English spoken around him. Diction, pathos and anecdote elucidate the differences between native English speakers and his parents, effectively giving the reader a clear impression of how Rodriguez experiences life as a bilingual child.
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...
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.
... how to speak fluently in two languages is because they think it will confuse their child and mess them up with their first language, which is wrong. Children can benefit from being bilingual when it comes to schooling, because knowing more than one language can help that child figure things out easier and simpler than a monolingual would know how to do. Jobs also have a big effect on bilingual people, they can attract business, and many companies need people who are bilingual. Music is also factors because many people listen to it daily learn many things about themselves and who they are. People usually do not think music can be such an effect on people’s lives and their culture but it does and there is proof of it. Overall, teaching a child to be fluent in more than on language will have many positive effects on him/her and will benefit from them completely.
.... Infants also have the ability to discriminate between languages at an early age so it is clear that if part of a bilingual nursery, languages that are used are done so on a regular basis. This will prevent the infants from losing the ability to hear differences in speech, which occurs as they age. It can also be noted that from a young aged infants become sophisticated in their understanding of their native language.
In this excerpt “Portrait of the Bilingual Child, Fred Genesee,” Vivian Cook discusses some of the effects of learning a second language for young children by looking at two main questions that come up. The two questions that he discusses are: “does learning a second language damage the young child?” and “are the two languages separate or combined in the young child?” (Cook, 167-168). I have thought about similar questions in my other EDBE courses for ESL teachers, but the tone of this article was much different than I expected it to be based on my previous learning experiences.
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:
Being bilingual always made my life differ as if I lived two lives, speaking Spanish at home and English everywhere outside of home. On the daily basis at my house, my family speaks Spanish. When we communicate we speak very fast, at times we can not even understand one another. After this occurs we all burst out in laughter super loud, no boundaries are enforced in our lexicon. The enforcement changes when entering a different discourse community.
Klass, states being a true bilingual is a beautiful thing and by true he means knowing two languages with proficiency something that not everyone can speak. Kids who are raised in the United States aren’t exposed to different languages as other kids in other countries. Early exposure of a language can facilitate the children with forming the sounds in that specific language. Klass says “But parents should not assume that young children’s natural language abilities will lead to true grown-up language skills without a good deal of effort.” Pediatricians are recommending to parents to expand their vocabulary to their children even if they just speak one language.
There have been many claims, but it seems that there are six principal areas where the bilingual brain benefits. Those are learning in general, complex thinking, creativity, mental flexibility, and interpersonal communication skills. And lets not forget the effect of delaying dementia and keeping the brain functioning effectively longer. The authors note that “although it is difficult to prove the existence of a direct causal link, it is likely that multilingualism produces a special advantage in utilizing a person 's brain capacity as creatively as possible” (Academy of Finland, p.1). Thus, it might require further and more careful study to be able to directly prove or disprove the real effects on
There is a “CORELATION” between the effects of “BILINGUALISM AND THE COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN”. BILINGUALISM is actually the two languages which are spoken in single family or rather it is imposed on children to learn parent’s two different languages. BILINGUALISM has both Positive and Negative effects on the Child’s Linguistic, Cognitive and Educational Development. Before discussing the impacts of bilingualism, another concept that is the concept of SECOND LANGUAGE is necessary to be differentiated from bilingualism. ”SECOND LANGUAGE IS THE LANGUAGE WHICH IS LEARNT AFTER BEEN MASTER ALREADY IN ONE LANGUAGE”.
Rosenberg, M. (1996). Raising bilingual children. The Ambassador, The American School in Japan Alumni & Community Magazine, II(6), Retrieved August 14, 2010 from http://iteslj.org/Articles/Rosenberg-Bilingual.html
Earlier this year, Singapore’s former Prime Minister, Lee Guan Yew told the press (SinChew Daily, 2013) that he would like to urge all the parents in Singapore to let their children to receive bilingual education as soon as possible as it deliver more pros than cons for the development of the children. Traditionally, bilingual education was perceived by experts as “damaging” to children early language development as it may cause them to confuse between two languages and affect their learning (Chitester, D.J., 2007), but as more recent researchers begin to uncover the advantages of bilingual education (Cognitive Development Lab, 2013 & National Association for Bilingual Education, n.d.), people around the globe are now accepting and encouraging their children to receive bilingual education, picking up additional languages like: Spanish or Mandarin. The bilingual education indeed offers several priceless advantages to everyone like helping in the development of brain, providing wider job opportunities and making more new friend.
Being bilingual implies a process in which everything looks so difficult at the beginning, but at the same time it is easier than what it looks like.
Research also confirms that children learn best in their mother tongue as a prelude to and complement of bilingual and multilingual education. Whether children successfully retain their mother tongue while acquiring additional languages, depends on several interacting factors.