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Bilingualism In Children

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More than half of the world‘s population is bilingual and many researchers are captivated to explore how language and thinking collaborate, that is, what cognitive abilities are affected by bilingualism and to what extent other factors like language proficiency and age of acquisition are predominant. In the early years of a child’s life the development of both speaking and reasoning occurs at an astonishing pace therefore such research has comprehensive implications on child development and education, and offers theoretical and practical benefits to human cognition. Just several decades ago it was widely considered that young chilren should not be exposed to two (or more) languages as this may lead to confusion and slower cognitive development. …show more content…

From historical point of view, one prominent study by Pearl and Lambert (1962) has started the rise of a new consideration of the young bilinguals, stating that these children actually outperformed their monolingual peers in a number of verbal and non verbal tests or in other words, bilingualism is an asset for a child. Ever since, the research in this area has broaden its focus beyond the language domain, thus is constantly flowing and becoming more complex. This evolution was summarized in a recent review by Bialystok (2015) - one of the most well-known authors, whose work devotes effort on the effect of bilingualism on children’s language and cognitive development, and has recently been expanded to adult processing analyses. After 1962, the initial focus was on the metalinguistic awareness improvement in children (phonology, syntax and morphology) and the types of tasks involved in order to observe possible bilingual advantage. This, sequentially, has lead researchers to target experimental paradigms, addressing both representation of knowledge and attentional control i.e. nonverbal cognitive …show more content…

This, in turn, brought scientists’ attention to interpretations associated with the effects of bilingualism on executive functions and other non-verbal abilities. (Barac et al., 2014). The current trends in the field include increasing involvement of neuroimaging technology and whether the effects of bilingualism (Costa, A., & Sebastián-Gallés, N., 2014) endures throughout adulthood, as well as whether it is beneficial to the cognitive reserve (used for both brain and cognitive

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The timeliness of the article is recent, it was published in 2014. The authors are reliable, both Bialystok and Craik have degrees in psychology, as well as conducted some of this research themselves. This article proves its truthfulness with citing where they received some of their information about advances of bilingualism. The purpose of this article is to educate the scientific audience that there is evidence of bilingualism being a benefit on our

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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.

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In the essay “Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” (1981), Richard Rodriguez, an experienced writer, expressed that “…it is not possible to for a child – any child – ever to use his family’s language in school” and began expressing his past experiences with bilingualism (510). Rodriguez recollects his feelings toward the accents he has listened to throughout his childhood, his “disabling confusion” from gaining fluency in English and Spanish, and the intimacy passing between sounds and words (519). By implementing his personal experiences, he entices his reader into reading actively in order to express how confusing, yet beneficial bilingualism can be. Rodriguez’s audience is focused to those who can relate when using more than one language

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As children they will always want to be part with family, and they are accepting that their parents have the right to make choices for them to achieve their gold. In a chapter from “Aria: Memoir of Bilingual childhood,” by Richard Rodriguez, who is an internationally known scholar, the author discusses his worlds that he has to face as a student who is raise up in a Mexican immigrant family and going to America school. Rodriguez explains his life experiences being education person and ones he had at home and culture. The more successful Rodriguez became as a student, the less connected he was to his cultural heritage and family. Over all, in Rodrigues life story was connected with some of my life experience, struggle with the language and adopt

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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.

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Lead-K Sets the Standard for Educational Goals Within Deaf Community As our country moves toward an all-inclusive society, where every gender, race, culture and social group is revered for its independency and uniqueness, one fraction of the nation seems to be left in the backdrop. The deaf community population makes up about 4 million of the total United States population,. The deaf community faces many challenges, but none may be greater than the access to early education and language acquisition. Many deaf children are born to hearing parents, which henceforth produce a challenge for the young child to receive the necessary skills for their success in the educational realm.

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In the essay Rodriguez challenges the idea of bilingual education, he takes us through his personal experience of a bilingual childhood where he talks about what he encountered in America as he attempts to adjust to the American culture, and how he preserved his intimacy with his family even through the language barrier. Throughout the essay, we soon see that his identity and success is tied to the place and how he was raised, his parents are a major part of his success. Richard Rodriguez was Born in a Mexican immigrant family, him and he’s family moved to California, so he had to adapt to the new and unfamiliar situation, where the culture and language is completely different, therefore making him feel like he did not belong in the American culture. There was something Richard said that was really interesting, he said “An accident of geography sent me to a school where all my classmates were white.”

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During the 1970’s, California was in an uproar of submersion of bilingual education in the public education system. This period of permissive was a landmark for bilingual education because Lau V. Nichols marked a movement that lead to assimilation to redefine unification of the Americanization in the United States during this period. First, to understand the movement, in 1906 the Nationality Act passed that implicated the first legislation that required incoming immigrants to speak English as the dominant language (Barker, 2011). I believe in order to understand what is going on in the present you have to understand the history.

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Adults who attempt to learn a new language can understand the logic of the new language but can’t fully master jargons, diction, and exceptions to grammar rules. Researchers discovered that when adults mastered two languages in childhood, both languages were located in the same areas of the brain with no influence on the cortex. Bilingual adults keep the two languages unconnected, starting one and temporarily stopping the other when speaking to an individual who only speaks one

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If students begin their bilingual education as early as kindergarten, they are more likely to successfully acquire a second language. Children are like sponges and soak up information easily. Research conducted by Dr. Patricia Kuhl at the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences at the University of Washington shows that by 8-12 months, if babies are exposed to a second language, they retain the ability to distinguish those foreign sounds. Moreover, through the age of 7 or 8, children are able to learn to speak a second language with fluent grammar and without an accent.

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The development of literacy and language is a continual progress within a person. This development is one that starts from the moment a child is born (Hurst and Joseph, 2000). This development is promoted within the home environment and is extended within the early years’ classroom domain. Literacy and language development is comprised of four strands, which are listening, speaking, reading & writing. These four factors are in constant interaction together and are constantly developing within the person (Saffran, Senghas and Trueswell, 2001).

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The questionable and ambiguous nature surrounding the notion that children play an active role in acquiring language has been debated by many theorists of different perspectives. These three perspectives include the learning view, the nativist view and the interactionist view. In this essay I will discuss each perspective with reference to psychological theories and research that relates to each view. The learning perspective of language acquisition suggests that children acquire language through imitation and reinforcement (Skinner, 1957). The ideology behind this view claims that children develop language by repeating utterances that have been praised by their parent, therefore gaining a larger vocabulary and understanding of phrases over

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Being bilingual has got many advantages. It has been debated that bilingualism has multiple advantages such as cognitive, cultural, academic benefits as well. Cognitive benefit reveals that being bilingual help to facilitate human brain. People who are bilingual have two language systems which are working simultaneously. These systems don’t create hindrance in individual’s performance and ensure brain’s functioning of both cognitive aspects (Bialystok, 1999).

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882 Words | 4 Pages

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

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The notion of bilingualism is frequently connected to the idea of code-switching since a person should have ability to speak using two or more than one variety. Researchers have made countless studies describing bilingualism as they create awareness in different ways. To begin with is Bloomfield (1933) who defined bilingualism as having the “native- like control of two languages”. However, Haugen (1953) pinpointed that bilingualism is the ability of a speaker to communicate and understand an additional variety. This is to mean that the concept of bilingualism exist only when an individual of a certain variety has the capability to communicate effectively in an additional variety.

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