Bilingualism Research Paper

The structure of bilingual education programs differs depending on the school, but generally, they are either transitional or maintenance. Maintenance programs provide instruction in both languages to preserve a heritage language by giving proficiency in both languages to the students. Transitional programs eventually transition from both languages to English-only instruction. If one were to enter an English+Spanish program, one would have classes in both English and Spanish, with roughly equal distribution of both. If it were a transition program, the proportion of English would increase until it was English only.

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

In his essay about being a bilingual student, Richard Rodriguez makes the claim that a family’s language is intimate. As an intimate language it is unfit for use in school or in public and that attempts to do so demonstrate a misunderstanding of the purposes of school and the intimacy of a family’s language. To create this argument, Rodriguez recounts numerous parts of his childhood to serve as examples to support his claim. Rodriguez uses some of his examples to state that English is a public language. In one segment of his essay, he explicitly says that English is the language of society when he says “for it is now the sound that of my society,” (Rodriguez 12) his society being Americans.

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.

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.

Multilingualism should be given official recognition. Canada has a history of background shaped by two different countries which are Britain and France. Those countries have different languages and different cultures. Therefore in Canada both influences are reflected in modern society. However, it should be noted from the experts that “in the last 10 years, the rate of bilingualism in Canada’s population decreased slightly for the first time since 1961, to 17.5 per cent in 2011.

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.

Bilingual Kids have better chances of succeeding than on language kids Learning languages is a treasure. This is a sentence that we know it holds some truth, however we can’t claim for sure that our bilingual kids are smarter than the kids who learn one language. Well, a study has shown that learning languages from a very early stage is extremely important in the brain development of the child, especially in the areas responsible for decision-making and problem-solving. Moreover, as soon as the child gets to 11 month you can start to expose him/her to another language and begin with developing his brain and encourage brain activities.

They also described the differences between one-way and two-way bilingual education; one-way education is when students who speak one language receive education in two different languages, and two-way education is when there are students who speak different languages, who learn the other language through their peers. The United States showed favorability towards two-way education. This was because they had such a diverse student population, and students showed better retention when taught this way. The piece also described the careful planning that teachers must go through in order to make sure that the students will understand concepts in both languages. In closing they describe that even the most gifted and talented native English students are challenged in immersion programs, this showing that immersion is the key to learning for all students, not just English learners (Collier & Thomas,

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

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

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).

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.

Learning a second language at a younger age is beneficial Most little kids first day of school is when they are approximately five years old, and about to enter kindergarten. Kids go to school from about age five till graduation from high school at about age eighteen. Most schools focus on the basic core subjects, such as math, reading, science and history. Until junior high or high school, foreign language is not even offered.

(Ellen Bialystok, p1). Bilingualism is experienced by any human being, no matter the age. Even “at the lowest levels of knowledge (…) exposure to fragments of other languages is unavoidable”. Pure monolingualism is hardly a reality, especially nowadays when books and movies in foreign languages are available and easy to reach by any individual. Ellen Bialystok is right about how children experience “different kinds of interactions