Multilingualism

In the interview with Hector A. Torres, Richard Rodriguez builds an interesting personality that is similar to his essays in Hunger of Memory. In the interview, it became clear that Rodriguez wanted to be known for his cultural politics. The conflicting views on bilingualism seems, in the interview, to be something that Rodriguez openly oppose as he identified Bilingual education as “ ended” and “gone” (Torres 16). Similar implications occurs in the first chapter Arya when Rodriguez shares his…

Cognitive skill is one of the great outcomes of bilingual education. When being bilingual, the brain is naturally translating everything into the languages spoken. “Researchers have shown that the bilingual brain can have better attention and task-switching capacities than the monolingual brain, thanks to its developed ability to inhibit one language while using another” (Marian and Shook, 2012). The brain is constantly alternating back and forth between languages. This also led to children…

In general, bilingual education can be a very beneficial exercise for children of young age. More specifically, understanding two or more languages can aid the cognitive ability of children to a point where the flexibility of their everyday thinking can be enhanced immensely. Also, the overall social development of children who speak multiple languages can be enhanced as well, giving them more opportunity to make new friends and speak to other bilingual or monolingual people. Obviously, the…

Contrary to the popular belief, English is not the national language of United States of America. In fact, the United States does not have an official language. English is merely the most widely-spoken language within the nation. Although much diversity exists inside the country, lack of unity in the country is apparent. Also, many immigrants faces hardship because of lack of their ability to speak fluent English. To unify the nation and to encourage immigrants to learn English for their benefit…

1 The United States Counts its population every ten years, and each census reveals that the country’s racial, and ethnic mix is changing dramatically. So, by the year 2050, the “average” person in the country will not be descended from Europeans, but the majority of them will trace their ancestry to Africa, Asia, and the Hispanic world, the Pacific Islands or the Middle East. 2 Once the United States was a microcosm of European nationalities, today it is a microcosm of the world. 3 The United…

1. This experiment compared the spatial selective attention between “neurologically normal young adults” and split-brain subjects by measuring response times when presented unilateral and bilateral visual arrays. 2. The purpose for this experiment was to gather information about spatial selective attention, and to investigate whether “an independent focus of attention is deployed by each surgically separated hemisphere in a visual search task, such that bilateral stimulus arrays can be scanned…

The Fight for Bilingual Education Students would benefit from bilingual education in public schools because it would encourage better communication skills, support other heritages, and it also opens an opportunity to gain knowledge in multiple languages. Learning bilingual language at an early age assists with functioning vocabulary and also enhancing academic achievement. In California, the chairman of the state Republican Party disapproved non-English speakers to learn English not knowing…

The research done by Brice et.al, investigated phonological developmental processes in bilingual children, and bilingual adults. There have been many studies to support the importance of language development in the area of speech perception on both monolinguals and bilinguals and their differences in development. Although studies do exist they are not adequately representative of speech perception with bilinguals. This study will aid in the understanding of how bilinguals use two languages to…

The topic I have chosen for my final paper is on bilingual infants versus their monolingual peers. I am interested in learning how language is acquired for bilingual infants and if the preconceived notion of them being placed at a disadvantage is really true. I would like to examine the different advantages and disadvantages bilingual infants face while being exposed to 2 languages at a time. I would also like to see at what rate certain milestones are hit compared to monolingual infants.…

Code-Switching In order to effectively use the home language as a tool in the classroom it is imperative to understand the different language practices. Children growing up bilingual use their linguistic resources in a variety of ways, and one of these many ways is code-switching. Code-switching is the alternate use of two languages. It can occur within the discourse, between sentences or even within sentences (Brisk & Harrington, 2007). One of the most common types of code switching is…