In my second component, I would like to write about bilingualism, bilingual language development and learning in children and show my own bilingual profile.
Firstly, bilingualism is commonly defined as the use of two languages by an individual. It is a kind of system in children and adults who have a proficiency in two languages and it may change depending on the opportunities to use the languages and exposure to other users of the languages (ASHA, 2004).
Many researches show that there are so many people who are bilingual. For example, In Canada, 11.9 % of the population speaks a language other than English or French at home (Statistics Canada, 2007). In Toronto, 31% of the population speaks a language other than English or French at home. Or as another example, In the United States, 21% of school-age children (between ages 5-17) speak a language other than English at home (U.S. Department of Education). This number is projected to increase in the coming years (American Speech Language Hearing Association). Worldwide, it is estimated that there are more second language speakers of English than native
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Children learning two languages simultaneously go through the same developmental stages as children learning one language. While bilingual children may start talking slightly later than monolingual children, they still begin talking within the normal range (Meisel,2004). From the very beginning of language learning, simultaneous bilinguals seem to acquire two separate languages (Paradis, Genesee & Crago, 2011). Early on, they are able to differentiate their two languages and have been shown to switch languages according to their conversation partner (e.g. speak French to a French-speaking parent, then switch to English with an English-speaking parent) (Genesee & Nicoladis,