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The Advantages and Disadvantages of Being Bilingual
Benefits of bilingualism essay
Benefits of bilingualism essay
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"One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way." This quote by psycholinguist Frank Smith metaphorically portrays the added benefits of being bilingual, causing an enhancement of knowledge aiding in taking steps forward in education especially in our American school systems. Recent studies have given crucial information regarding the advantages of learning two languages. Learners of a dual language are known to be more academically well rounded than their monolingual peers, leading bilingual learners to a path of success giving an edge over the people around them. Along with the added benefits in the classroom, dual language has known to give students tools that can be used in the real world such as using bilingual language as a tool for …show more content…
The advantages of a bilingual education are so strong that it must be a priority in the American school systems upon arrival, by demoting it as an after thought in high school curriculums as students are being irreparably cheated.
Dual-Language education is continuing to increase throughout the United States giving students at a young age an advantage over their monolingual peers. Research resulted in success by proving that "bilingual children outperform monolingual in a wide array of cognitive and language-based tasks" (Baron). These cognitive tasks include using the reasoning process, often used unknowingly, by making observations that lead to facts and theories which we often use in the classroom. Bilingual children have also excelled in organizing the meaning of words by the basis of semantics. With these tools, bilingual children have noticeably developed strong verbal and social skills. Such skills are not only crucial in the classroom, but crucial in everyday life and as we move into the real world. In the classroom, these tools help
Opinion Editorial By Hassan Abdi In the article written by Richard Rodriguez, Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood, he conveys an opinion that Bilingual education doesn’t work. He conveys it through his personal experience. Published by the Phi Beta Kappa to the American Society in 1981, the audience and his message are a broad and important now as it was thirty five years ago. As the amount of children that don’t speak English as their first language continue to rise, bilingual education has become a polarizing topic like most things, and for me, I am neutral on the topic. A form of bilingual education has failed me, but, for most students it benefits in the long term, and it 's not right to dispel one side of the topic to push your own
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...
The legal and historical rationale of Bilingual Education has been around for quite some time and appears to a continuous issue with educators and political figures. Numerous articles have been written in favor and against Bilingual Education. The articles I read and summarized relate to some of the issues that have evolved from various proponents and opponents of how education should be presented to ELs in the United States. Summaries and a brief timeline of legislation up to the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) follow.
Dual language programs not only create bi-literacy and bilingualism for the students in the classrooms but it helps create an improved academic achievement overall for the students. Dual language is a type of bilingual education where students are taught different subjects like math, science, language arts, ...
When I immigrated to the United States I couldn’t speak any English, so the Department of Education staff sent me to a school which only for the immigrant student and taught student with bilingual education. I only needed to stay in this school for one year because they only introducing student the fundamental English skill and the American culture. After one year, I would transfer to the local high school to continue my high school education but there was no more bilingual education. I believe that bilingual education school is good way for the immigrants to break the language barriers. I still remember that the first school day in the United States I was very afraid and nervous because I didn’t know any English and the American culture. However, when I arrived to the school I found out that there were a lot of student who came from the same country as I was, and some of the instructors could speak Chinese too. I started to not afraid of school and feel excited about my new school life. After I studied in this school for one year, I transfer to a local high school which didn’t have bilingual education, but I didn’t afraid my new school life because I already know how to communicate with other students. A program of bilingual education is a very good program that help immigrants student break the language barriers. As Richard wrote “A major study analyzed more than three decades of research, combining 17 different studies, and found that bilingual education programs produce higher levels of student achievement in reading” (Schaefer, 2015, p.96). However, “Attacks on bilingualism in voting and education have taken several forms and have even broadened to question the appropriateness of U.S. residents using any language other than English” (Schaefer, 2015, p.96). There are a lot of people come to the United States from many countries, and a
American Bilingual Learning American children are competing with a lot of different countries in academics and according to quartz “might help employers choose easier because they look for language and speech”. This can also help with learning other languages because of similar sounds and mouth shapes. America these days has failed to keep their bilingualism like the rest of the world in fact, there is only about 260 bilingual schools in the country! America needs to reclaim their use for bilingualism Helping Graduates With Getting Jobs Being bilingual helps increase your chances of being hired, as Transparent Language states that there is not many open slots for jobs out there. With that being said “employers are looking for additional
Bilingual education in public schools has been the topic of much discussion over the last several years. This discussion has been prompted due to the ever increasing numbers of Spanish-speaking persons emigrating to the United States, especially in those states that border Mexico--California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. What the debate seems always to overlook is our country’s other non-English speaking members. This country is now and has always been the “Melting Pot” for the world with persons emigrating to this country from most every country in the world; however, we commonly gear the focus of bilingual education toward our Spanish-speaking citizens.
In today’s society, especially in the United States, most people are monolingual English speakers. As a result, these monolingual speakers are at a significant disadvantage compared to those who speak more than one language fluently. This disadvantage is crucial to realize since it is important to learn how individuals and the nation can be enhanced. Multilingual speakers have an advantage in global affairs that involve countries that speak different languages. Speaking multiple languages makes it easier to communicate with people when involved in foreign affairs. Those who speak multiple languages are also more aware of other cultures in society. Monolingual speakers are not as exposed to other cultures and have difficulty understanding or even recognizing them. Furthermore, being multilingual increases your
When visiting just about any school across America, students who attend come from all over the globe. This raises the question across America about bilingual education. This can create many challenges in and out of the classroom. The classroom should be a safe place for all students regardless of what native language they speak. In the essay Lost in translation written by Eva Hoffman, describes a foreign student who tries hard to fit in. Instead, Eva begins to feel angry, hurt and confused because people laugh at her. In Guiding Principles for Dual Language Education by Elizabeth R. Howard, Julie Sugarman, Donna Christian Center for Applied Linguistics Kathryn J. Lindholm-Leary San José State University David Rogers Dual Language Education of New Mexico. Guiding principles gives great ideas to educators to stop kids from making other students feel the way that Eva felt. After reading several articles about bilingual education, it is evident that all children in school should learn English but never lose their native language. When all the students speak one language, students will be less likely to make fun of each other. A good educator should learn enough foreign languages to aid them in effective communication in their classroom although; if an educator does not speak a foreign language, they should recruit within the classroom students to be peer mentors. However, a teacher should be willing to listen and encourage the students. Above all a good educator should be a good role model to their students by respecting their heritage and their language.
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.
...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.
“BILIGUALISM positive impacts are much less than that of negative but the most important advantage is that child become active and their intellectual become more and more sharper as he seek more of dual languages”
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...
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
As time goes by and as the global community develops, the world grows more and more international, making second or third language acquisition become necessary to the majority. With the growing importance of multiple language ability, more and more parents think of bilingual or multilingual education, which means acquisitions of two or more languages, for their kids. In fact, we do have many reasons showing why multilingual education is important and beneficial, such as aspects of interpersonal relationship, employment, brain health, and so on.