A key to independent learning
in early years
Theoretical Framework
When we talk about bilingualism, it is necessary to differentiate two types of getting to be a bilingual. There is the case of some persons that are bilinguals and they are competent in the two languages and it is because probably they acquired the two languages at the same time and effortlessly since birth. This kind of bilingualism is known as simultaneous bilingualism. The other type of bilingualism is called sequential bilingualism and it is the case of a child acquiring first a native language and then going to nursery or elementary school to learn the target language. (Baker, 2001, p. 94)
But Bilingualism is surrounded by many myths, and one of them claims that a simultaneous bilingualism would only cause conflict and confusion into the infant´s brain. There are many studies that state the contrary and affirm that a baby’s brain, for example, is physiologically ready to start acquiring two or more languages since birth and around their first birthday they could start recognizing and saying words in the two languages and at the same time gaining a consciousness about this. (De Houwear, 2009a; Genesee, 2003; Meisel, 2004, as cited by Baker, 2011 p. 95)
So language awareness in bilinguals starts as early as when they begin recognizing the use of two different languages as they observe that one object has two different “names” and each with a particular phonological pattern as well, as Baker stated:
Infants show discrimination between the two languages very early. Memory for language sounds even operates in the fetal stage... ...There is also immediate sound recognition: the beginning of breaking the code´. There appear to be an immediate receptive language differentiation in the newborn particularly in intonation (De Houwer, 2009a). This can be extended from monoligualism to bilingualism as Mehler et al (1988) found that the newborns can distinguish their parents´ native language sounds from unfamiliar foreign language sounds (Baker, 2001, p. 95)
As kids grow in a bilingual setting: the native languages from their parents and the target language outside home and then in school, they started observing many other differences in the use of the two languages and the effect of all these. But if the target language is not so “well acquired” at home, due to the fact that the exposition to the target language has been placed to the minimum, then the kid is not going to be exposed to the target language until he or she gets to nursery or elementary school. Then many linguistic, grammatical, phonetic and even metalinguistic issues and patterns that were acquired by bilingual students along with their native language are kind of different from the target language and obviously they are not present in it. This could represent a problem if bilingual teachers are not conscious of this situation. Instruction for any variety of students must be meaningful, but in Bilingual Students instruction lacks of meaning and coherence due to the fact that information is presented in a language that it is not their native language. But also because some information may not be clear for them because of cultural differences and ways of seeing reality, which is different, from Culture to Culture. So Bilingual teachers must cope with Language Awareness, for example in phonemics, focusing in the phonemes that are more or less similar in the native and target languages, and from there, teach Bilingual students how to pronounce phonemes that are not present in their native languages but that appear in the target language.
Once teachers have managed to make this clear to pupils, he or she would move ahead and start teaching how to read and pronounce words as well as teaching new vocabulary. From this point, the next step is to read and write these new vocabularies in sentences within contexts that students could identify as familiar to them, and from that point on establishing target contexts that represent social situations that involve the target culture. Games, songs, poems, tongue twisters, word games, etc. with their rhyme, metric, sound and word repetition are good ways of delivering fun, but meaningful activities. And it is scientifically proved that getting the student’s attention by means of fun activities are ways of making students learn comprehensively. As Beth Antunez states:
Scientifically-based research suggests that ELLs (English Language Learners) respond well to meaningful activities such as language games and word walls, especially when the activities are consistent and focus on particular sounds and letters. Songs and poems, with their rhythm and repetition, are easily memorized and can be used to teach phonemic awareness (Beth Antunez, 2002)
Consequently, Bilingual Education must take into account the bilingual kid´s language awareness and from this spot on, start building the bridge between praising the bilingual kid´s own language and culture and learning the target language and culture while learning at the same time subject contents in both languages.
If you wish to learn more about the concept of Language Awareness and Bilingual Education you can access the following links:
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English Language Learners and the Five Essential Components of Reading Instruction By: Beth Antunez http://www.readingrockets.org/article/english-language-learners-and-five-essential-components-reading-instruction )
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What's in a Test? ESL and English Placement Tests in California's Community Colleges and Implications for US-Educated Language Minority Students.