The aggressive support for English-Only laws in the United States, is largely based on encouraging assimilation, economically, politically, and ultimately - morally. It stands diametrically opposed to bilingualism, threatening that very way of life, and is often viewed in the Latina/o community as xenophobic and nativist. Federal Law in the United States actually stands in opposition to the notion of English-Only laws, refusing to codify English as the official national language, however that does not curb state level social movements advocating in opposition to the marginalized group. Exploring these ideas, it is important to dissect the specific examples of English-Only advocation, as well as the institutional resources that Latina/os use…
Rodriguez grew up in a Spanish speaking family thriving and eager to expand his education and vocabulary in the “loud, booming with confidence” English language. According to Rodriguez, bilingual educationists have strong disbelief in the idea that schools should be assimilated with bilingual education because the students lack “a degree of ‘individuality’” This sense of individuality is absent in public society because often your heritage sets you apart from most others around you.…
Much research showed the benefits of bilingualism in many aspects. The most important benefit is bilingual children can use languages for traveling, learning the other culture, making new friends, and working. Bilinguals have better social understanding than monolinguals. Also, bilinguals show cognitive advantages. Research showed bilinguals have a little better performance than monolinguals on tasks that involve switching between activities and inhibiting previous learned responses (Bialystok, Craik, & Luk, 2012).…
A lot of people do not understand that not everyone speaks English. Bilingualism means being able to communicate effortlessly in two languages. However, not only speaking, but reading and writing fluently as well. I am grateful to have been taught how to read and write in Spanish while attending church. I am also appreciative to have learned English at a very young age, because little did I know that it would become a big role in my life.…
1. The one parent-one language principle also known as ‘OPOL’ is a well-known approach, used by parents to raise bilingual children. This method is attempted by one parent speaking exclusively in one language to the child and the other parent speaking in another language. When I would advise parents to use this approach if they want to raise children bilingually is before the age of three years because this is when the two languages are simultaneously acquired by the child, after acquisition is sequential. In addition, the strategy I would advise later (around the ages of five or six years of age) is the mixed language approach where “The parents speak both languages to the child”…
As we discussed phonological acquisition in bilingual children by reading Tessier chapter 5, and Vihman 2016, I became more curious about bilingual children’s phonological acquisition and its acquisition process. As the discussion of whether the bilingual children have two separate phonological system at the begging or not has been a big question in the study, I wanted to have further reading on that topic. This paper, “Phonological Acquisition in in Bilingual Spanish-English speaking children” by Leah Fabiano-Smith and Brian A. Goldstein assumes that those bilingual children do have two phonological system at least at age of 3 or 4 and determines whether the bilingual children demonstrate the evidence of interaction between two languages,…
A three year old immigrant has to learn two languages, their native language and the official language for their new country. For an adult this is a hard task, however, for a three year old child this task is easy and before they know two different languages are being used in a conversation. However, why is this? Why are infants and kids in early childhood able to learn a new language with much ease? These questions have yet to completely be answered by scientists.…
Moving to the subject of the lowest requirement throughout all fifty states, foreign language. The language barrier is one of the biggest perpetuators of modern racism. It is known that lack of understanding breeds hate, so the inability to communicate directly and immediately creates an air of suspicion and fear of the unknown. The majority of American schools do not require a language class, and those that do are almost always offered at a high school level (ECU High School Requirements). It’s proven that children learn languages much faster at younger ages (O’grady, How Children Learn Language).…
Bilingual Education Is Detrimental to American Society. As America rises to be an extremely multicultural nation, it is inferred that as a nation, educating immigrants in the english language is beneficial, however accustoming to various languages is destructive to the standard tongue used. Bilingual education has been a major aspect in the history of the American education system. However, bilingual education has become a less used term due to the disloyalty it brought over the course of history and is now referred to as structured english immersion programs (SEI).…
Jeffrey Nelson, an author and someone who is bilingual, has defened bilingual education because of their benefits. Mr.Nelson learned how to speak spanish because his girlfriend at the time, now wife, was about to have a child and struggled about how to raise his child bilingually so he wrote a blog for other parents struggling with the same problem. On his blog he has written,” Someone who is bilingual has an easier time learning a third, and subsequent, languages. It promotes brain growth in the area responsible for spatial navigation and learning new material,” (Nelson). The brain is a complicated organ and can easily be manipulated, by being bilingual the brain can function better than monolingual brains because of the strength the brain has.…
Although it is true that there are downsides to being a bilingual child, the effect can in fact be made less severe. Bilingual children are more likely to develop a stutter, but a study conducted by Howell, Davis, and Williams suggests that “if a child uses a language other than English in the home, deferring the time when they learn English reduces the chance of starting to stutter and aids the chances of recovery later in childhood.” They added that “school performance was not affected with respect to whether the child stuttered or not” (Howell, Davis, and Williams 45). With this strategy, instead of choosing to restrict their children from learning another language, parents would be able to let them embrace bilingualism. This further supports…
The United States is a country made up of many different racial groups, with White Americans being the largest and Hispanic and Latino Americans being the second largest. Due to the increasing amount of Hispanics and Latinos immigrating to the U.S., I feel as though the U.S. needs to enforce the Spanish language into education, along with the English language. Allowing students to learn Spanish at a younger age will allow them to become proficient in both English and Spanish. In order to enforce bilingual education programs, certain reforms will have to take place.…
Language plays an important role in a child’s intellectual, emotional and social development. Language can be both seen and heard. Language is a guide to social reality (Sapir, 1949). For example, body language, sign language and the social convention about how to combine words, express and connect ideas to interact with other people. All language including written, visual and spoken developed from cultural and social contexts and understood in people's social and cultural background (Green, 2006, p.2).…
In chapter 8 it discussed a reason why we have to teach a balanced bilingual curriculum in the classroom. The textbook “Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism” by Colin Baker expressed the cognitive theories of bilingualism and the curriculum. There are three theories that make up the cognitive theories for bilingualism; The Balance Theory, The Iceberg Analogy, and The Thresholds Theory. Within the Iceberg Analogy it broke town the 6 parts of the Common Underlying Proficiency. Also within the chapter the book did a great job of discussing the distinctions between basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS) and cognitive/academic language proficiency (CALP).…
Experts agree that mixing is temporary. Eventually, it goes away as a child's vocabulary develops in both languages and he has more exposure to each one (Soto, (n.d)). Advantages of Being Bilingual Being bilingual comes with a lot of advantages. Some of the main ones are as below: Bilingual children are better able to focus their attention on relevant information and ignore distractions.…