Assignment #2: Article Future of Education is Two Languages

 In the article “Future of Education is two language” by Fabrice Jaumont, the author talks about how over the last two decades, the idea of becoming bilingual is changing from students being monolingual to being bilingual. These changes are creating new programs to be adapted in education. The author explains how there are families who really like the idea of having this program in their zone schools. However, this idea is not a new one; in fact, this has been an argument for many years, since the beginning of the early 1700’s. In this article, the author refers to three different objectives that have to do with preserving their cultural heritage, a better way to communicate with people and to promote a respectful way to communicate. Perhaps being bilingual means different things for many people, but to all, the idea of becoming bilingual is becoming a growing necessity in this century. The whole idea is to implement bilingual education in the school system from preschool to college, and with the help of parents, in order to benefit our society. We need to take advantage of the benefits of dual language because that will help us as pathway to communicate with people around the world. The author in his article suggests that students will benefit more from bilingualism if they receive the education in public schools and have their parents’ support. I believe that there has to be a way to take the potential contributions of immigrants into account when we create programs in our schools. I have the opportunity to be in a bilingual classroom and it is amazing how this young generation is learning several subjects in two languages. I am aware that there are some schools that provide this type of program but I believe that we need to take it seriously to find a way to make bilingual programs work successfully in more schools, especially in New York City, where you can find as many as 800 different languages spoken ( Information retrieved from: https://www.businessinsider.com/queens-languages-map-2017-2).

Assignment #1:Text book: Imagine you are in a classroom 20 years in the future.

Imagine you are in a classroom 20 years in the future. In that futuristic classroom describe how language acquisition might take place. What kind of technology might be used? Will there be more or less emphasis on learning minority and majority languages? What motivations might the students have in the futuristic classroom? For what purposes are languages being learned? What forms of assessment are being used?

When imagining a futuristic classroom, I found it very challenging and hard to predict because I started college 20 years ago and I see how technology is growing in education. I remember at that time classrooms were set up different. There were classic blackboards, professors, notebooks with pens, pencils and erasers. Nowadays, we have online classes, computerized devices like tablets and even smartphones, and colleges are less crowded. I have seen how the use of technology is increasing and taking our jobs. I am concerned because I feel that eventually, what we see in technology as a great tool, maybe 20 years from now it will not be as great a tool for our new generations. I think that in 20 years it might be more convenient doing it online as a learning tool because people will have the chance to communicate around the world with people on line to learn and practice a different language. You will also have more choices at your fingertips; not many schools teach Russian or Japanese, but you can easily find a website that teaches you basic vocabulary in five minutes. Where I work, teachers have been implementing a program that will help students to increase their reading comprehension skills. Students get feedback right away. The only problem that I see is students’ attention span deficiency while they are doing a topic on the computer. Maybe in the next 20 years, computers will be more advanced and people will be able to adapt the computer to fit a student’s specific needs for learning. Right now I see students getting easily distracted and sometimes they just want to finish fast and do not take it seriously, causing error in their evaluation. Hopefully in 20 years, a program might exist that will easily help students to increase their attention span and do better while they learn a new language. At that time, I think that people might be more motivated to learn a minority language because society has been changing and people around the world are looking for a place where they can find opportunities. Someday, those minority languages might become majority languages. I recently saw on the news how people from Guatemala are walking their way through to the United States. I think that students in 20 years might be motivated in spreading their culture and their knowledge in different countries. I think students might have the same motivation for learning but hopefully technology will not affect the support of a teacher to guide them in their classroom. I believe that a combination of technology and educators is necessary to help students learn skills to become better professionals. I believe that the purpose of language is to communicate. It allows us to make friends, to express our feeling, believes and desires. Sometimes we take it for granted that people just know what we are saying, and instead of modifying the way we communicate, we just do not realize that communication is a two-way street. We end up using language as a weapon creating enemies.

Week 6

Chapter 5: The Early/Late Development of Bilingualism

This chapter explains the different ways that a person becomes bilingual at the very early stages of development. Depending on how many languages are spoken at home, children are capable of learning and differentiating between different languages from their formation in the womb. From the time they are born, bilingual children are able to differentiate between their mother and father language. Baker and Wright discuss the different routes that exist during the process of becoming bilingual. They suggest that in order to “acquire successfully two languages from birth, babies need to be able to differentiate between the two languages”(pg.88). During this process of learning a second language, it was found that infants are able to differentiate between the two languages as early as four to five months. The simultaneous acquisition of bilingualism and multilingualism is determined by the way the child develops a different language. Some parents choose to teach their child one language at home and then, when they go to school, learn the primary language used in the school community. There are many factors that address the way a child is learning a second or more languages simultaneously. It can be cultural, language competency, peer interaction, personality development and educational circumstances.

Baker and Wright also mention the phenomenon of trilingualism /multilingualism. They found out that there are countries, such as Sweden, where people are fluent in Swedish, English and German. Also, trilingual education is common in South Asia. It was found that in these countries where people speak three languages, it is common to see that they speak two different languages at home and one different educational language in school. There are findings that show that bilinguals have advantages from learning a third language. According to Baker and Wright, “The cognitive advantages of bilingualism such as a wider linguistic repertoire, enhanced learning strategies, cognitive flexibility and metalinguistic awareness”(pg.97). All these finding show that being bilingual gives you the advantage of learning a third language more easily. Having a third language makes multilinguals be more confident, and also makes them be more aware of different cultures and countries to expand their knowledge in globalization.

Baker and Wright define Codeswitching and Codemixing depending on where the switches of the language occur. According to Baker and Wright, codeswitching refers to any switches between languages that occur within or across sentences during the same conversation. Codeswitching and translanguaging are used frequently in a Bilingual classroom. Baker and Wright suggest that “codeswitching and translanguaging are not two discrete terms and have overlaps”(pg.99). During my observation in a Bilingual Social Studies class, I could observe how the bilingual teacher was conducting classes in both English and Mandarin Chinese using codeswitching and translanguaging simultaneously. As soon as the teacher changed languages, the students paid more attention and were more responsive, but gradually, their attention waned, so the teacher would change languages again. At the end of class, we talked about it and she told me that it is something she is doing especially whenever she sees students facing elsewhere; she realized that most of the time students have difficulty understanding. She said using this technique is a way of getting their attention, reinforcing the subject, clarifying material, explaining particular points and easing tension. All these techniques help students feel more comfortable and learn in a language of their preference. I believe that the use of bilingualism is essential in school because there are many students whose first language is not English but they have the capability to learn in both languages, especially in multicultural New York.

Baker, C. and Wright, W.E.(2017). Foundation of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. Pennsylvania,PA: Multilingual Matter

Research Presentation