Bilingual Children’s Mother Tongue: Why it is important for education?
Jim Cummins is a professor from Toronto who works at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Cummins is one of the best authorities on bilingual education and second language acquisitions. He had invented the acronyms BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills) and CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency) used to help teachers to know what level have their students.
At the text Bilingual Children’s Mother Tongue: Why it is important for education?, Cummins explain the difficulties and problems of bilingual learning in some countries. He said as some of the more nationalist supporters defend the teaching in mother tongue because they can’t see the positive
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Here, in Spain, there is bilingualism in different autonomous communities, on account of two official languages, but in the case of the region of Valencia with the Valencian Language, we have a phenomenon called diglossia. Diglossia occurs when one of the two languages has a higher prestige or superior social privileges. It’s true that, by law, all official documents, as well as any information of interest of any public institution should appear in both languages, but in terms of the social sphere, the Valencian is in decline. According to the official data of the Concierge of Culture, Education and Science (1990) and the data provided by surveys on the use of the Valencian (1992 and 1995), the linguistic situation is dominance of Spanish in communication between groups. Data inform us also that the Valencian is especially used in the family group and with friends, against the greater use of Spanish in the workplace and other communicative situations. Briz (2001). But actually, according to Gómez Molina (1998), beliefs have changed and thus also the attitudes. Linguistic tolerance, bilingualism additive, cohabitation and coexistence of the Valencian and Spanish, rather than subtractive, is the prevailing attitude of bilingual users and monolinguals in Valencian Community. Hence the importance which suggests the author that families and areas dominated by a minority language are established strong bases that defend this type of languages that do not disappear, as well as from schools and institutions. Recovered from:
In “Teach Them Spanish Early, Too”, Carlene Carmichael argues that a second language should be offered to Americans. Carmichael seeks equality for everyone and she wants the same opportunities of also being taught a second language. Children are learning English so other children should be taught Spanish. In addition, Carlene Carmichael states that she feels sorry that many Americans that are applying to jobs are at a disadvantage because they cannot speak Spanish. I agree with some of Carlene Carmichael’s arguments, but many qualifications listed do not require Spanish, the applicants just need to have experience working.
In the online article by Max J. Castro, Ph. D, The Future of Spanish in the United States, the author effectively uses his credibility to link facts and history of other languages to Spanish along with appealing to the reader’s emotions to explain why the longevity of the Spanish language is possibly threatened in the United States. In his article, Castro refers to a plethora of statistical information about Spanish as a language in the United States, including that it is predicted to be the largest Spanish speaking country in the world by 2050. Even today Spanish is by far the second most spoken language in America, second only to English. Although the amount of Spanish speakers is increasing, Castro also mentions in his article, largely concerned,
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.
Seven years of Spanish resulted in a socially disadvantaged young child, unable to answer nuns or connect with his classmates. After his parents strengthened their English, Rodriguez lost his safe place and the necessity of communicating through Spanish. “Rare was the experience of feeling myself individualized by my family intimates” (125-127). Spanish was a part of Rodriguez for a portion of his life. Losing a part of him came with guilt, but even with that guilt, he remembers the discouragement of knowing Spanish in school and how that got him nowhere.
Simonitsch and Lambert intel that the city of San Francisco was underfunded due to the overwhelming of immigrates of LEP students and made the students submerse into the English language (2004). Ultimately, the programs in San Francisco are failing at maintenance of bilingual education to static and developmental maintenance. Barker refers that static maintenance is to target language skills by maintaining them and developmental maintenance is to reach the student’s home language into a full proficiency of full biliteracy or literacy; also, known as Enrichment Bilingual Education (2011). It is important to know that indoctrinating the children into an English language culture is effecting their developmental stages. Due to these failed practices,
Spain is a recognized sovereign state located in Europe and within the country there are many different regions and communities. The concept of Spain as one nation is therefore a problem and is something that is debated throughout the country. Although the vast majority of the population recognizes the existence of the Spanish state, what it means to be “Spanish” is very complicated. In one region in north eastern Spain called Catalonia, the people here deny the unity of Spain and accuse Castile, another region where the people do accept Spain as one nation, and so to Madrid, of social and political imperialism. Indeed, it is through this belief and many others that the Catalans base their ongoing fight for independence on to this day.
Yet, other countries do not coin “special names to refer to these local speech-ways.” Their second view regarding ‘Spanglish’ is that it is not a hybrid language because just by hearing the term it can be interpreted that it belongs to a hybrid language. The authors of this paper finds that there is no objective justification for the term and that by using this term Latinos in the US are giving people the right to discriminate against them. In the response paper that Otheguy and Stern wrote in 2013, they argued that the term Spanglish does more harm than good. Otheguy and Stern state that there are many Latinos that reject the term and that object to its perceived derogatory tone.
They view these practices as normal communication modes of bilinguals who make no attempt to separate languages according to their function and context. (p.
Sentences such as “hey, como estas, I saw you the other day” are used, and instead of saying “estacionamiento” for parking, Spanglish speakers use “parquin”. While some may see Spanglish as a threat to the Spanish and English language, others see it as the future. In the future, the culture of immigrants has to be combined with the culture of native Americans, and Spanglish is a
However, in order for one to truly understand the arguments made by the authors they must also understand the context behind these arguments; therefore, knowing how the individual authors’ definition of bilingualism lets the reader truly absorb what points they’re trying to make and why. In Espada’s essay, he defines bilingualism as a way for a person to remain in contact with their different cultural identities. There are many areas in the essay where the reader could interpret this definition from. However, the most significant piece of evidence appears at the beginning of the essay where Espada mentions his friend Jack Agueros’ analogy to describe his bilingualism “English and Spanish are like two dogs I love. English is an obedient dog.
The parent’s perspective towards bilingual education was like the student’s opinions because both individuals felt immersion classrooms benefit the students and the parents. The father of Jason was proud his son was the first in his family to read, write, and speak in English. Jason’s father knew his son would have many career opportunities by learning English at school. Learning the English academic language was not the only proud language Jason’s father encouraged for Jason to learn but also the Spanish language as well. Jason’s father only speaks Spanish so if his son was to lose his home language, a language barrier would form between father and son.
Rodriguez would speak English in school because to him it was a “public language”, while Spanish was a “private language” (72). Rodriguez
She establishes comparisons among English, Spanish and their variations and how cultural imperialism influence on people’s “preference” to speak one language rather than the other. She brings to debate important social problems such as sexism, cultural imperialism, racism, low self-esteem, reprimand, and identity construction. The author brilliantly starts the article with a metaphor in which she defines the acculturation process as something extremely violent and cruel. In addition, the article aims at showing both sides of the acculturation process: the Anglo side and the
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
CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW Introduction Definition and backgrounds of theories and concepts connected to this study are provided in this chapter. Reviews of previous studies on code-switching, bilingualism and computer mediated communication which are homogenous to this study are provided. 2.1. Bilingualism 2.1.1. Definition of bilingualism