. Introduction
In this essay I going to discuss the issues concerning multilingualism, the way it is recommended in the South African constitution that schools and universities should practice it. Some of the societies believe that English should be the language taught in schools and universities to provide their children with a bright future, some believe that it is fair for English to dominate over the other languages. Before going into more details we need to first understand what Multilinguasm is.
2. What is multilingualism?
According to Webb (2002:1) “multilingualism is a knowledge of a person, knowing more than two languages, a specific attitude to public life, related to the political philosophy pluralism”. The dictionary states that multilingualism is “using or being able to speak several or many languages with some facility.”
In the Apartheid era the schools where supposed to teach their pupils in the Bantu Education Curriculum. After the Soweto uprise moments and after the Apartheid was destroyed in 1994. The ANC took over and had to change the education and the other policies that favoured the whites only. And in the education department the ANC introduced the Multilingualism policy which means; According to South Africa: language and education states that “despite the government's commitment for
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They should have a consultation with the parents and the schools community, this means every child has a right to learn and be taught in their mothers tongue. But this clashes with the parents believes because some of the parents still and will always believe that English is more needed by their children, so that they can succeed in the future. And that is the true but also this could also affect the child because they are many carers that that our children can follow and they don’t require that much of
As a baseline, teachers should be trained to acknowledge the resources and backgrounds all children so that they may be able to recognize the strengths of non-native English speakers. A wholistic evaluation of minority groups is necessary for their successful integration in to the education system, if traditional practices are to continue in society. Many children in poorer areas are forced to “code-switch” between their home dialect and the dialect spoken in school. Teaching one “correct” way to speak and write can have major implications for a young person’s confidence and
Lisa Delpit in Chapter 4 was questioning, What Should Teachers Do? Delpit was arguing as an educator that you shouldn’t force a child to speak English that’s from another country or culture. Constantly forcing the child will cause a gap in a relationship with the student; destroying confidence of learning and questioning or possibly even disrespecting. Instead of being too critical, Delpit states that you should learn the child’s culture/country to form a positive bond between the student and teacher. Some ideas that were given was creating a bilingual dictionary for both the teacher & student, having the students teacher each other language/culture, reading entertainment such as comic books, recording the students speak English to perfect
By referencing “the legal duties to educate…children,” the author establishes a sense of responsibility into the reader to help these kids, further promoting bilingual education (Carsen). This message calls out to everyone to make a difference in kids’ lives, and acting otherwise questions one’s morality. The author also includes a message of Baltazar speaking about her dream of graduating high school. This heartwarming bit of the article persuades readers to advocate for bilingual education. Further reading about other children’s struggle in academics due to language barriers underlines the need for that program.
The definition of bilingualism is fluency in or use of two languages. Martín Espada is the author of the essay “The New Bathroom Policy at English High School” which is about the act of Spanish being a forbidden language in a school full of multicultural children. In the essay, his main argument is the idea that the language of Spanish, or Bilingualism as a whole is interpreted as a burden for a young immigrant. Another author named Richard Rodriguez wrote about his struggle to juggle between his 2 languages, his public language (English) and his private
As a teacher, I am committed to give each of my students the right to receive help. Just because a student is having trouble pronouncing the English language I know that I shouldn’t talk down on them or ignore them because they are not grasping the language better than others. I am entitled to equally teach my students and find ways to help them better their learning. As a bilingual teacher, I will find programs or other activities that I know can help them, so that they can be successful.
Knowing many parents and children have limited English proficiency, they still do not have bilingual counselors and school staff to help families learn and utilize school resources. Students are not
In the essay, "Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood", Richard Rodriguez explains his opinion on bilingual education based on his own childhood experience. He provides reasons why it would be retrogressive to permit the non-English speaking children use their family language as the language in school. In defending his positions, he provides three ideas to support his position: • The use of family language impedes child’s social growth. Insistence on using Spanish language at home made Rodriguez and his older sister and brother to be socially disadvantaged at school.
Out of Breath Becoming accustomed to a new language is difficult, especially when it is not one’s primary language. Amy Tan, the author of “Mother Tongue” went through this same situation. Tan’s mother had a hard time with the way she spoke English because no one seemed to understand what she wanted to convey. Amy Tan uses her story as a way to let the audience know about how language can lead people to be prejudice, connect people, change perception and open new doors in life.
(Garcia, 2013). So I agree with this, children in order to be accepted in the culture of the country they are living they choose to speak only English, to feel part of the
I believe this was an important step to take but more could be done in this area, especially in rural areas where there are predominantly English speaking students. Many schools don 't have the proper resources to handle students who cannot speak or understand proper
There were many social and racial injustices in our history of education. These same inequalities are still around in the present day. We must break the chain and teach in all fairness for everyone to be successful. As teachers, we must teach the whole child and all children. This would be taking in consideration the variety of cultures in one class when creating lessons
I will take this area of diversity with me throughout my teaching as I feel that it is generally overlooked in schools. The language that some textbooks, exam papers and even teachers use is not suited to the students. The students are not at that level linguistically so I feel that teachers should be aware of this, and incorporate it into their teaching. This could be done by avoiding bias within chosen texts or the assessment techniques applied. The language I use in the classroom should not hinder one group of students and give advantage to
The ability to develop foreign language become reduces. Besides the age factor Experience and school environment as well as the teaching. They play an important role in the development of language skills. So the bilingual is necessary: using
More definitions were given by other researchers but still there is no an agreed definition for who a bilingual person is. Weinreich (1953) gave a definition of bilingualism where he explained bilingualism as having the ability for a speaker to use two languages alternatively. 2.1.2. Types of bilingualism: Basing on conceptual representations and cognitive organizations of linguistics in a
However, many kids learn to speak another language, beside English, at home from their parents. Sometimes, it is the primary language. The primary language could be learned before English. Foreign languages should be required at elementary schools because it helps the students become more culturally diverse, students get more opportunities and foreign language can helps students relate to other students better.