The change of paradigm from a traditional second language acquisition (henceforth SLA) perspective to multilingualism has contributed enormously to developing the field of multilingual research. However, findings derived from research on third language acquisition (henceforth TLA) and multilingual education has not been applied in the classroom setting. However, teacher training programmes devoted to deal with the multilingual factor in current language pedagogies have been absent in Europe (De Angelis, 2011) and have been dominated by the English-only policy (Otwinoswka, 2017). For this reason, teachers may have preconceived ideas about various issues in third language (henceforth L3) learning and teaching, especially in multilingual contexts. …show more content…
As far as we know, no previous research has explored pre-service infant and primary education teachers’ beliefs about multilingual education. It seems relevant to see whether their beliefs are in line with existing literature or they are totally misinformed. Additionally, our study tries not only to explore prospective teachers’ beliefs about multilingualism and multilingual pedagogy but also to ascertain the impact of instruction on issues such as the linguistic and cognitive benefits of multilingualism and the earlier the better …show more content…
Multilingualism is the norm in almost every single place of the world and current governments are challenged to implement multilingual policies in educational contexts. In Europe, transnational agencies, such as The European Commission, encourage all their citizens the learning of their mother tongue and two other languages. As a result, multilingual education programmes have been on the rise in the last two decades. As proposed by Cenoz and Gorter (2015, p. 2), multilingual education could be defined as “the use of two or more languages in education, provided that schools aim at multilingualism and multiliteracy”. In the case of Spain where several languages coexist in the bilingual regions of Spain, multilingual programmes combine the use of the national state language (i.e. Spanish), the regional language (e.g. Catalan in the Valencian Community) and the international language of communication (i.e.
Language forms a part of culture and identity. Bilingualism is the right to speak multiple languages. Part of bilingualism is keeping and developing a passion for language. In the essay “The New Bathroom Policy at English High School,” Martín Espada suggests the definition of bilingualism and the importance of keeping it. Espada understands the difficulty of continuing to speak Spanish.
Being bilingual can be both useful or irritating, having the ability to communicate and understand several languages or being raised to be an interpreter for your parents. As you become more exposed to a variety of languages you can often observe how society treats certain languages. Martin Espada is a lawyer and poet who defends Spanish speakers in America, makes it clear about the role of language in his essay, “The New Bathroom Policy at English High School.” He asserts that the importance of language is created from cultural identity. When Espada shared what he learned about maintaining and defending Spanish he proceeded to say, “Defending the right of all Latinos to use the tongue of their history and identity creates in me passion for Spanish itself.”
Bilingual education is an education system where students learn simultaneously in two languages and also between two different cultures. The bilingual education helps students to learn a language while they are learning basic subjects, such as math and sciences. Many people agree that this system is really helpful for students, especially students that belong to minorities like the Latino community. The state of Texas is one of the states of the country that have a big Hispanic community, bringing as a consequence the implementation of this system. Due to the amount of Spanish speaking students, the state is in the need of bilingual teachers.
Because all students should have the right to an equal education, ELL’s should have equal access to the same resources that other students have. The whole school should be on board with welcoming, supporting, and making the ELL student’s transition easier (Rance-Roney, 34). Teachers can also make a global community classroom, by doing so, it will create a culture rich environment inviting ELL’s and educating their peers on other cultures. Teachers can also adopt a dual curriculum for the ELL students that support their second language development but also teaches them the required standards (Rance-Roney,
After I watched the episode of “Think Tank” that discussed the aftermath of Proposition 227 in California, I realized how contentious the debate about bilingual education has been in the past and how it still continues to be today. The video hosted Dr. Krashen, an advocate of second-language acquisition and bilingual education, and Mr. Unz, an advocate of English-Only Education, in a debate about the effectiveness of bilingual education and Proposition 227. On one side of the debate is Mr. Unz, the author of Proposition 227. He claims that the English-Only method is more effective than the Bilingual Education approach for teaching Limited English Proficient (LEP) students.
My personal experience being multilingual is that i am able to freely express myself in words or phrases that come natural to me. Being able to speak Vietnamese, English, and French with ease while using some commonly known phrases from the Japanese language. Martin Espada and Richard Rodriguez, two authors that speak Spanish and English have different standpoints on the subject of bilingualism. In Martin Espada’s essay “The New Bathroom Policy at English High School” explains the need to maintain cultural identity through bilingualism, while in Richard Rodriguez’s exert “Hunger of Memory” depicts the necessity of becoming bilingual to be able to function well in society. “The New Bathroom Policy at English High School” by Martin Espada explores
In their article, “Two Languages are Better than One”, Wayne P. Thomas and Virginia P. Collier contends that Bilingual education is not a failure, and plays a major effect on a student’s life. In their research, they discovered that Bilingual education expands the students’ cultural perspectives in society, linguistic diversity, communications, and valuing each other’s knowledge and life experience. The success of the programs for bilingual education for both language group come together as peer tutors bringing a bigger interaction with one another. Students who are in bilingual classes add to various courses in tackling human issues and approach issues from a cross national point of view. These advancement bilingual classes give a steady jolt
Today, bilingual education used in many countries for a variety of social and educational purposes. It is become actual problem of this century. Because, the world is changing and according to the requirements of time, the human mind adjusts to new discoveries, to new tops. Large-scale changes in all spheres of human activity: the globalization of the economy and politics, the information explosion, the rapid development of communication defined new requirements for the quality of education. First of all, a general global trend towards integration in the sphere of education determines the trend towards integration of subject knowledge.
There are many limitations and difficulties to attain accurate results on the differences of bilinguals and monolinguals, however, researchers and educators are positive about the benefits of being bilingual or multilingual. Hopefully new research and studies in the near future will be able to solve the questions and
Questions of abandoning or maintaining one’s home language affects education policy in all immigrant receiving nations. Because of the consequences of colonisation, migration, nation-formation, traditions of exogamy, and modernisation, some degree of bilingualism is typical of most people in the world.” Today the most advanced nations realise that they can no longer be ignorant of the languages and cultures of other people on this planet. This is why bilingual-multicultural education was initiated. It was believed that this approach will build closer ties between the students’ community, their language background, and the educational plan of the school.
Pedagogical Implications There were some implications identified after the implementation of this early sequential bilingual project. Here, it is portrayed how the different factors evidenced in these implications impacted the three to five-year-old English lessons. To begin with, during this implementation, the participation of the early childhood in-service teachers
Increasing development of bilingual education and the evolution of language may be due to the population size, social, political, economical and personal requirements. Numerous researches show that learning a language can improve mental agility, it can strengthen brain, develop communicative abilities of invidividuals and strengthen and improve overall humans´ abilities and skills. The concept of bilingualism should be tackled because of the various definitions that are given to this term. Those definitions seem to share one basic element, which is the use of two given languages by a given speaker. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary bilingualism is the ability to speak two languages or the frequent use (as by a community) of two languages.
A person who speaks more than one language is described as being bilingual. According to the United States Department of Education, “about 21% of school-age children speak a language other than English at home,” (Lowry, 2011). As Wayne Thomas and Virginia Collier describe in, “Two Languages are Better Than One,” children who come into school having a first language besides English, tend to struggle. Usually when a child struggles with a particular subject, they are taken out of the main classroom and brought somewhere for a remedial class. But according to Thomas and Collier, in order to help narrow the gap in comprehension, English learners and English speakers need to be kept together in order to be fully enriched in a successful learning
Bilingualism is slowly becoming a popular “trend”. Those who are able to speak a second language at an advanced level and not only, are clearly considered by the society intellectually capable of great things. As a bilingual, the individual must not only know the grammar rules or achieve a high level in communication. He also has to study the cultural background of that specific language. Knowing a second language has a major impact on one’s life.
Research Questions From the literature review, it was established that there were several factors affecting language learning and acquisition. More specifically, it was revealed that factors such as exposure at an early age, motivation, attitudes, incentives and educational system can influence language acquisition. However, most of the research were conducted in the west and were focused on students as subjects to the study and foreigners working in the country where they need to learn the language to lengthen their range of employment opportunity.