Bilingualism and Bilingual Education

 

Bilingualism and Bilingual Education 

By/ Brwa R. Sharif

 

 

Introduction

             In many countries, regional variation is not simply a matter of two (or more) dialects of a single language, but can involve two (or more) quite distinct and different languages. Canada, for example, is an officially bilingual country, with both French and English as official languages. Canada was essentially an English-speaking country, with a French-speaking minority group. In this form of bilingualism, a member of a minority group grows up in one linguistic community, mainly speaking one language (e.g. Welsh in Britain or Spanish in the United States), but learns another language (e.g. English) in order to take part in the larger dominant linguistic community. (Yule, 2010)

 

The definitions

—   According to Spolsky (2008) Bilingual is a person who has some functional ability in a second language.

—  The ability of an individual to speak two or more languages (Richards, Schmidt, Kindricks, & Kim, 2002).

—  In Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2012) bilingual is defined as ‘able to speak two languages equally well.’

 

There are two types of bilingualism concerning the proficiency of the languages:

          According to Spolsky (2008) the receptive skill of reading and understanding speech are often stronger in a learned language than are the productive skills of speaking and writing. And many people obtain reading knowledge of a language at school but cannot speak it.

1)    Productive: Speakers can produce and understand both languages.

2)    Receptive: Speakers can understand both languages but have more limited production abilities.

 

 

Types of bilingualism

1.     Incipient bilingualism: The early stages of bilingualism or second language acquisition where a language is not yet strongly developed.

2.     Simultaneous bilingualism: The acquisition of two languages at the same time both as first languages, for example, before a child is three years old.

3.     Successive bilingualism: The acquisition of a second language after competence in the first language has been established to some extent, e.g. by the time when a child is 3 years old.

4.     Societal bilingualism: The coexistence of two or more languages used by individuals and groups in society.  Society bilingualism does not imply that all members of society are bilingual.

 

Natural Vs Secondary Bilingual in terms of process.

              It is also possible to make distinctions between types of bilingual in terms of the process by which they have reached this status.

 

1)    A natural (Baetens-Beardsmore, 1986, p. 8) or primary (Houston, 1972) bilingual is a person whose ability in the languages is the result of a natural process of acquisition, such as upbringing in a bilingual home, or of finding herself or himself in a situation in which more than one language needs to be used, but who has not learnt either language formally as a foreign language.

 

2)    If formal instruction in a foreign language has been received, the bilingual is known as a secondary bilingual. (Malmkjær, 2006)

 

 

Compound Vs Coordinate bilingualism concerning psycholinguistics

1.     Compound bilingualism: means that the bilingual has one system of word meanings (semantic system), which is used for both the first and the second language. For example a person who knows English and Kurdish languages, s/he has one semantic system for both languages.

2.     Coordinate bilingualism: means that the bilingual has two systems of meanings (semantic systems) for words, one system is for the words the person knows in the first language and the other is for the words he or she knows in the second language.  For instance a person who knows English and Kurdish languages, s/he has two semantic systems one for English and the other for Kurdish language.

 

Bilingual Syntactic Processing

          A study of Spanish-English bilingual speakers found that a particular syntactic structure in one language could make it easier to use the same structure in the second language, supporting the “shared syntax” idea (Hartsuiker, Pickering & Vetkamp, 2004).

          Similarly, Loebell and Bock (2003) found that production of German datives primed the subsequent use of English datives, and vice versa. Similar results have been found in Dutch-English bilinguals (Salamoura & Williams, 2006).

 

Types of Bilingual Education:

—  The use of a second or foreign language in school for teaching of content subjects.

1.     Immersion programme: the use of a single school language which is not the child’s home language. For example Cypriot children go to a school where instruction is in English.

2.     Submission programme: a form of bilingual education in which the language of instruction is not the first language of some of the children, but is the first language of others. This happens in the language of the host country. For example a Kurdish family comes to Cyprus and their children go to a Cypriot school

3.     Two-way immersion education: a type of mainly use bilingual education in which students learn through two languages in programmes that aim to develop dual language proficiency along with academic achievement. Both minority and English speaking students acquire a second language. Instruction is provided both through the L1 of the minority students and through English.

4.      Maintenance bilingual education: the use of the child’s  home language when the child enters school but later a gradual change to the use of the school language for teaching some subjects and the home language for teaching others.

5.     Transitional bilingual education: the partial or total use of the child’s home language when the child enters school and a later change to the use of the school language only.

6.     Bidialectal or biliquial education: when the school language is a standard dialect and the child’s home language a different dialect. (Richards, Schmidt, Kindricks, & Kim, 2002)

 

 

Additive Vs Subtractive Bilingual Education

           Some types of bilingual education promote additive bilingualism. In additive bilingualism students come into school speaking their mother tongue and a second language is added. The result is clearly an individual who is bilingual. Other types of bilingual education, however, are involved in subtractive bilingualism. In situations of subtractive bilingualism, students are instructed in both their mother tongue and a second language. Eventually, however, instruction in the mother tongue ceases, with the second language becoming the sole medium of instruction and ultimately the only language of the student (Lambert, 1980). Educational programs that support additive bilingualism are also referred to as strong, whereas those which engage in subtractive bilingualism are referred to as weak (Baker, 1993). Often, bilingual education for the language majority promotes additive bilingualism, whereas that for the language minority develops subtractive bilingualism. Yet, as Fishman (1976) has argued, bilingual education with additive bilingualism as a goal can be beneficial for the minority, as well as the majority. (Garcia, 1998)

 

1.     Additive bilingual education: a form of bilingual education in which the language of instruction is not the mother tongue or home language of the children, and is not intended to replace it. In an additive bilingual education programme the first language is maintained and supported.

 

2.       Subtractive bilingual education: when the language of instruction is likely to replace the children’s first language.

 

 

Old misconception about Bilingualism

—  Early research suggested that learning two languages in childhood was detrimental to a child's cognitive abilities. This was due to the idea that the two languages were learned independently and the knowledge of learning one did not transfer into the other. It was thought that as more was learned in one language, less could be learned in the other. For this reason parents and teachers tried to force children to only learn one language instead of cultivating the ability to learn both.

—  The idea that knowledge in the two languages would be kept separate instead of influencing each other is rejected. (Cognitive advantages of bilingualism, 2008)

 

The disadvantages of bilingualism

1.     Increased parental input: Raising a bilingual child can be more of an effort for their parents. You'll need to engineer a child's bilingual development thoughtfully and creatively.

2.     Cultural identity: Occasionally, children can feel confused about who they are: if they speak Welsh and English, are they Welsh, English, British, European, Anglo-Welsh? (About School, 2012)

3.     Lack of Classrooms: teaching bilingual children needs special classrooms.

4.     Unavailability of Teachers: bilingual children need special teachers (Iyer, 2012).

The advantages of bilingualism

Cognitive advantages

1.     Recent studies have shown that bilingualism improves cognitive skills and can even be a defense against dementia in old age.

2.     Yudhijit Bhattacharjee cites research that suggests that being bilingual gives a person a “heightened ability to monitor the environment”.

3.     In a study was found that the bilingual subjects not only performed better, but they also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in monitoring, indicating that they were more efficient at it. (Chew, 2012)

 

Communication advantages

1.     Communication within the family may be improved.

2.     Wider communication - international links.

3.     Biliteracy - gives knowledge of different world views and values

 

 

Cultural advantages

1)    Bilinguals have the opportunity to experience two cultures.

2)    Greater tolerance and less racism.

 

Character advantages

         Raised self esteem, in Europe and US, being bilingual is seen as a positive thing.

Curriculum advantages

1.     Increased curriculum achievement. Studies have found that bilingual children who have a fairly well developed knowledge of two languages do better at school.

2.     Bilinguals find it easier to learn a third language than monolinguals find it to learn a second language - two thirds of studies show this result, the other third could find no difference.

 

Cash advantages

      In economic and employment, studies show that bilinguals earn more on average in the US and more recently in the UK. As companies become more and more international there is a need for bilinguals in media, sales, marketing, and customer services. (Supporting families speaking languages, 2012)

Conclusion

—  The best time to learn a foreign language between birth and age 7.

—  It is remarkable that babies being raised bilingual by simply speaking to them in two languages can learn both in the time it takes most babies to learn one.

 

References

About School. (2012, April). Retrieved from BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/schoolgate/aboutschool/content/3inwelsh.shtml

Chew, K. (2012, March 26). Causes and News. Retrieved from Care2 make a difference: http://www.care2.com/causes/the-advantages-of-being-bilingual.html?page=1

Cognitive advantages of bilingualism. (2008). Retrieved from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_advantages_to_bilingualism

Garcia, O. (1998). Bilingual Education. (F. Coulmas, Ed.) The handbook of sociolinguistics, pp. 1-11. doi:10.1111/b.9780631211938.1998.00027.x

Hartsuiker, R. J., Pickering, M. J., & Veltkamp, E. (2004). Is syntax separate or shared between languages? Cross-linguistic syntactic priming in Spanish-English bilinguals. Psychological Science, 15, 409-414.

Health. (2009, July 20). Retrieved from Associated Press: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32013276/ns/health-childrens_health/t/unraveling-how-kids-become-bilingual-so-easily/

Iyer, A. (2012). article. Retrieved from Buzzle: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/disadvantages-of-bilingual-education.html

Loebell, H., & Bock, K. (2003). Structural priming across languages. Walter de Gruyter, 41(5), 791–824.

Malmkjær, K. (2006). The linguistics encyclopedia. London and New York: Routledge.

Richards, J. C., Schmidt, R., Kindricks, H., & Kim, Y. (2002). Longman dictionary of language teaching and applied linguistics (3rd ed.). Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.

Salamoura, A., & Williams, J. N. (2006). Lexical activation of cross-language syntactic priming. Cambridge Journals, 9(3), 299–307.

Spolsky, B. (2008). Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

supporting families speaking languages. (2012, December 20). Retrieved from waltham forest bilingual group: http://www.wfbilingual.org.uk/guide-for-parents/advantages-of-bilingualism.html

Wordlist. (2011). Retrieved from Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary: http://oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/dictionary/bilingual

Yule, G. (2010). The study of language. Cambridge: CPU.