François Grosjean has an upcoming book called Bilingual: Life and Reality (Harvard Press). While I haven’t yet read it, I am looking forward to doing so. It’s written for the public, but I can also see using this book for an undergraduate course in bilingualism. The focus is on what’s true and what are myths about bilingualism. And it brings together educational, political, and practical issues around bilingualism. It’s based in theory and provides real-life examples. It sounds like it will be a wonderful book.
There are so many issues around bilingualism and what it is and isn’t. Even though about half of the world is bilingual there are many misconceptions about what it is and what it means to be bilingual. In the U.S. there are persistent myths about whether children will be confused by bilingualism or whether children can become delayed. There are also numerous stereotypes that play into people’s fears about speaking languages other than English. I often joke that in the U.S. school system we first eradicate children’s home languages and then in High School we expect kids to learn a second language in 5 hours a week or less. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Grosjean has also written an article addressed to parents about bilingualism. It’s available here in English and here in French.
I’m doing a webinar. What’s that you ask? Well, I’m not totally sure, but I’m doing one anyway. In theory though, you view PowerPoint on your computer and get on the telephone to listen to the talk. It’s done in real-time and I think you can ask questions.
Anyway, the webinar is sponsored by Second Language & Literacy Connection. My webinar will be on Feb 23rd focusing on dynamic assessment of narratives. Here’s the link if you’re interested: Dynamic Assessment Webinar.
This article caught my eye today. It’s published in Psych Science and looks at the effects of L2 on L1. Often, studies of sequential bilinguals look at the effects of L1 on L2, but here the investigators examined reading effects of L2 on L1. Specifically, participants were young adults (college students) who were native speakers of Dutch. They spoke (and read) English as a second language. They were asked to read passages in Dutch while investigators tracked their eye movements. What’s really cool about eye-tracking studies is that they offer a “window” into how a person is processing information. If they allocate a lot of attention to something it might be because they need extra time to decode or process. If they spend less time on something it’s likely because they were able to assimilate that information quickly. read more…
We have a fairly new article accepted for publication in the International Journal of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education. Even though it’s not yet published it’s available through the Journal’s forthcoming articles list.
As part of an NIH funded project, we screened about 750 children (actually we now have screened 1200 kiddos, but when we wrote the article were still in the process of screening so the analysis is based on the numbers to that point–still it’s a lot of kids). We developed a screener based on the Bilingual English Spanish Assessment that we’d previously worked on. The screener is called the Bilingual English Spanish Oral Screening (get it? get it??). It takes about 15-20 minutes to give in both languages (compared to the full version of the test this is about 1/4 of the time). The BESOS includes morphosyntax and semantics sections. If you want to know more about the development of the BESA (from which the BESOS is derived see here and here for morphosyntax; and here for semantics. (And yes, the BESA (but not the screener) includes phonology and pragmatics).
Anyway, in this study we gave the screener to all the kids regardless of whether they thought they didn’t know English or Spanish. Children were preschool and kindergarten age (between 4;6 and 5;6). We did stop testing a subsection if they gave us no response to 5 items in a row (we’re not totally cruel, it’s just that sometimes kids know more than they think– more than their parents and teachers think too!). We were interested in seeing what factors were associated with knowing something, anything in a language. We also wanted to know what factors were associated with higher scores. read more…
Haiti is on everyone’s mind in the last few days due to the devastating earthquake. As you know there are relief efforts on-going. The immediate need is in medical personnel, food, medical supplies, and shelter. Long term they will need to rebuild infrastructure in the country. If you have not already done so please consider donating to the relief. CNN has a listing of highly rated charities here.
What you may not know is that Haiti is officially bilingual. The two official languages are French and Creole. Here is some information about the languages of Haiti:
A story yesterday in the Valley News reported on a debate between Riverside County board of supervisors and a local resident about use of federal stimulus funds to provide Spanish language literacy classes to Spanish speakers. Besides the assumption made by this person–that the people taking these classes were illegal immigrants– (yeah, like they have time to take night classes), he questioned the focus on Spanish-language literacy as a bridge to English literacy. This is a valid question, but the answers should come from data not from feelings or assumptions. What are the facts? read more…
I read a very interesting article today in the NY Times. To me this work emphasizes how and what is communicated in different languages. It’s not just about knowing the words to say in another language (although that’s critical too). It’s about the experiences that makes us who we are as individuals and as part of a community.
The language we use reflects our knowledge about how to say things. It involves the semantics, grammar, and pragmatics of the language we learned. And while we often focus on differences in words and grammar across two languages I think that often that cross-linguistic pragmatics is overlooked in that context. That’s not to say that it’s not thought about– it is. But, it’s usually thought about separately from words and grammar. In fact there is a rich literature (probably in some cases more well-established literature) on cross-cultural differences. Check out West-Ed’s publications for some very practical applications. So, how does it all come together?
The Guilford Press is releasing a new book edited by Marilyn Shatz and Louise C. Wilkinson called: The Education of English Language Learners: Research to Practice. Lisa Bedore, Karin Boerger, and I have a chapter in it focusing on semantic development in bilinguals. Here’s a list of the chapter titles and authors (we think we’re in good company and we’re looking forward to seeing the book in print): read more…
In Austin, the school district is looking to start a dual-language program. If you read the comments in reaction to this you see a lot of mixed reactions. It seems that many people don’t (or don’t want to) understand the purpose of dual-language education. Or is it that they’re afraid of people who speak other languages?
What I find so surprising is that people would be threatened by the idea of using state and federal money to educate children in two languages (English and another language). The negative comments seem to indicate that some people believe that teaching in two languages will cause children to not learn English. But, that is simply not true. People all over the world speak two languages. English is a very common language all over the world. I don’t think there is any way that the language is threatened.
Dual-language programs do work. Children can and will become bilingual given input and opportunity to use the two languages. Knowing two languages can be a benefit educationally. Culturally, knowing more than one language can help you connect with people from other backgrounds and cultures. I think that knowing two languages can help children understand that there can be other ways of constructing words and sentences. Even one’s vocabulary can be enhanced by learning vocabulary in another language and translating to your own.
I started this blog a year ago on Christmas. We were in Wisconsin and everyone was sick. This year no one is sick and the one family accident we had turned out okay (though it could have been tragic– a helmet saved a life and we’re thankful for that, so wear those helmets!).
My dad died 3 years ago– I miss him. I’ve read that in Mexican tradition the third and final death is when you are no longer remembered. But, how can I forget? My parents are part of who I am– they are a part of me. My dad had qualities that I wish I had. I hope that some part rubbed off on me, but there we are different too. He was outgoing. He could strike up a conversation with anyone. I’m terrible at that, I’m most comfortable with people I know and have a terrible time talking to people I don’t know. But, I do manage to get through lectures and through talks at conferences. read more…
