EDUCATION
One Childhood, Multiple Languages:
The Advantages of a
Bilingual Upbringing
In the age of globalisation, where a person can log
on to a computer and communicate with someone else across the globe,
where the mass media provides material from around the world, where
migration means multicultural and multilingual societies, a variety
of world languages are present like never before.
This prompts a conundrum for parents: should you raise your child
to speak more than one language? Will this benefit them in the future?
Will it effect the development of their native language? Should a
second language be learned in the home or in a formal environment
like school? With a lot of misleading information circulating about
bilingualism in childhood, this article explores some of the current
research in this area. This is not a definitive overview of the plethora
of research; rather it explores some of the main benefits (and potential
disadvantages) of second language learning in childhood.
Advantages of bilingualism
Much research has explored the effects of exposure to more than one
language, especially for children. It was originally thought that
raising children to speak more than one language had negative effects,
impairing the ability to gain skills in any language. However, it
is now clear that exposure to more than one language provides clear
benefits to children when it comes to learning language skills:
•
Bilingual children show greater metalinguistic abilities (Diaz & Klinger,
1991: 183); that is, bilingualism appears to aid the acquisition
of knowledge of language structures and the objective nature of language
forms. Indeed, in both writing and speaking, bilingual children tend
to better understand the distinction between form and meaning (Bialystok & Herman,
1999: 42).
•
Learning more than one language assists in phonological awareness
(Kovelman, Baker, & Petitto, 2008: 215-216), the knowledge of
the different sounds of a language and a critical foundation for
reading.
Thus, it seems that exposure to more than one language can assist
in reading development. This effect is seen not only in the child’s
primary language, but also in the second one – Saunders (1988:
201) recounts the story of a seven year old schooled in English with
German speaking parents, who had equivalent reading skills in both
German and English, despite having far less exposure to German reading.
The two most common ways children acquire more than one language
are simultaneous acquisition (for example, if parents speak more
than one language in the home) and bilingual education. Both methods
of second language learning in childhood are associated with cognitive
benefits such as increased ability in concept formation, creativity,
and analogical reasoning, and advantages in verbal and non-verbal
abilities (Diaz & Klinger, 1991: 183-184). Thus the method of
second language acquisition does not appear to affect the benefits
gained.
Age of acquisition
It is clear that second language learning helps children gain language
awareness and the skills needed for reading acquisition. What then
is the best age for children to learn a second language? Here the
research becomes murky.
The term ‘early bilinguals’ is used to refer to exposure
to more than one language before adolescence, while ‘late bilinguals’ are
those who gain a second language after adolescence (Chin & Wigglesworth,
2007: 13). Some researchers in childhood bilingualism take this distinction
further, describing early bilingualism as exposure to more than one
language before the age of three (Kovelman et al., 2008).
Children who are exposed to more than one language before the age
of three tend to gain monolingual-like reading skills in both languages,
while those who learned a second language after the age of three
have a lower reading ability in their second language only (Kovelman
et al., 2008: 215). Thus we can postulate that the earlier a child
learns a second language the greater proficiency they gain in that
language. This does not mean children who learn a second language
after the age of three do not attain proficiency; rather, it may
just take longer.
Level of knowledge
Again, research conflicts on the level of exposure needed to gain
the positive effects of bilingualism. Firstly, when dealing with
children who are quite young and who have only rudimentary language
skills, ‘bilingual’ is a loose term. It is generally
considered that any young child who can communicate in more than
one language, to whatever extent, is bilingual (Lyon, 1996: 214).
In terms of cognitive benefits, it appears that a high level of proficiency
in both languages in not needed (Diaz & Klinger, 1991: 183-184).
In other words, if a child speaks one language well (for their age)
and has limited ability in another language, they still gain the
cognitive advantages.
Disadvantages of a bilingual childhood?
A common fear regarding second language learning in childhood is
interference, where one language can ‘seep into’ the
other, effecting domains such as pronunciation or spelling. The evidence
suggests that this is not the case (e.g. Kovelman et al., 2008,
Saunders, 1988).
One potential problem concerns identity (Wei, 2000: 24). If a child
lives in a German speaking country and attends a German speaking
school, but speaks French in the home, questions of identity can
emerge. Does the child consider themselves to be German or French?
Language is a powerful conduit of identity, providing a way to express
who we are. Children may reject a language: our fictitious German/French
speaking child may reject speaking French because he or she doesn’t
want to be different from friends. In some situations children may
become distressed when communicated to in the dispreferred language
(Lyon, 1996: 167). In situations like this one must take cues from
the child as to which language to use.
Related to this is cultural or social biases: bilingualism can be
adversely affected if minority languages and cultures are treated
with hostility (Saunders, 1988: 24-25). Support and a favourable
attitude to bilingualism in the home can overcome this.
So what should parents do? Well, if your native language differs
from your child’s, speak to them in it! Not only will it educate
your child about their heritage, but mere exposure to another language
can help them see that language is a symbolic way of representing
the world around them, a valuable piece of knowledge when it comes
to learning to read. Additionally, children who learn more than one
language tend to be more interested in other languages (Saunders,
1988: 222), and hence are more interested in learning about other
cultures. This, along with the cognitive benefits associated with
second language learning, makes bilingualism advantageous in childhood
and beyond.
References:
Bialystok, Ellen, & Herman, Jane. (1999) Does Bilingualism Matter
for Early Literacy? Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 2(1), 35-44.
Chin, Ng Bee, & Wigglesworth, Gillian. (2007) Bilingualism: An
Advanced Resource Book. London: Routledge.
Diaz, Rafael, M., & Klinger, Cynthia. (1991) Towards an exploratory
model of the interaction between bilingualism and cognitive development.
In E. Bialystok (Ed.), Language Processing in Bilingual Children
(pp. 167-192). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kovelman, Ioulia, Baker, Stephanie A., & Petitto, Laura-Ann.
(2008) Age of first bilingual language exposure as a new window into
bilingual reading development. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition,
11(2), 203-223.
Lyon, Jean. (1996) Becoming Bilingual: Language Acquisition in a
Bilingual Community. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Saunders, George. (1988) Bilingual Children: From Birth to Teens.
Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Wei, Li. (2000) Dimensions of Bilingualism. In L. Wei (Ed.), Bilingualism
Reader (pp. 3-25). London: Routledge.
Who wrote this:
Melanie Burns has
degrees in linguistics and psychology and now researches and teaches
linguistics at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. She is particularly
interested in the social dimension of language use and is currently
completing her PhD.
What is bilingualism?
People who only speak one
language, are monolingual, while people speaking more
than one language is bilingual.
In a broad definition,
one can be bilingual actively and passively. Actively meaning speaking
and writing a language number two, while a passively bilingual can
understand but not speak - can read but not write in language number
two.
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