Bilingualism and Cognition

Based on the reading, intelligence is either an innate or acquired ability that an individual needs in order to accomplish something desired that influences their ability to learn, reason and understand. There are many factors that influence the intelligence of individuals that make it inaccurate to find one specific way of measurement. Baker and Wright mention how “the construct of intelligence and the use of intelligence test are controversial” (pg.134).  “A challenge to the construct of a single intelligence quotient is H. Gardner’s multiple intelligence theory, which includes eight different types of intelligence”(pg.134). Baker and Wright (2011) state that the IQ test correlates to middle class, white, Western views of intelligence and is culturally limited. I believe that there are many others researchers who demonstrate that measuring intelligence involves numerous factors that might affect an individual IQ test. It is, therefore, questionable to measure intelligence with a simple test.   I found two sample questions at http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-iq-questions.html  where I see how difficult this type of test can be for a person who speaks a different language. These are the following samples:

Sample 1- Find two words, one from each group, that are the closest in meaning:

Group A

talkative, job, ecstatic

Group B

angry, wind, loquacious

a. talkative and wind

b. job and angry

c. talkative and loquacious

d. ecstatic and angry

Answer: c. Talkative and Loquacious

Sample 2- Which of the following can be arranged into a 5-letter English word?

a. H R G S T

b. R I L S A 

c. T O O M T

d. W Q R G S

Answer: b. rails and c. motto

These kinds of questions are not accurate to use as a form of measurement among bilingual individuals because they use words that are not commonly used. For example, “loquacious” is not a commonly used word, but “talkative” or “chatty” are. As a bilingual, if I encounter a word I don’t know I would look for the root of the word to find its meaning, but this word is a word that implies research of the meaning. In the second sample, the same confusion arises just by looking at the amount of letters. It didn’t occur to me until much later that answers A and D could never be rearranged to spell a word in English because there are no vowels, and you need vowels and consonants together to create English words. I might come up with good answers, but we have to take into consideration the way other bilinguals perceive these types of questions.  To calculate the Intellectual Quotient in a bilingual person, I would be sensitive and consider many factors such as the level of bilingualism and the cognitive functioning as suggested in this chapter.

Chronology of Events, Court Decisions, and Legislation Affecting Language Minority Children in American Public Education. pg 87-"Tong Tied"

Text: "Tongue Tied"

Chronology of Events, Court Decisions, and Legislation Affecting Language Minority Children in American Public Education. pg 87-"Tong Tied"

I have been working in the school system and I always have heard that education assessment is not very fair for minority students. Most of the time, teachers see students who speak a different language as a problem because the students’ lack of understanding causes a teacher to do a poor evaluation, and sometimes that evaluation does not reflect the students’ abilities and capabilities to learn.. After reading “Tongue Tied” by Otto Santa Ana (2004), I realized that this problem is not a new one- it has existed for many years. Using the American system as an example, Santa Anna mentioned three major ethnic groups who suffered an unfair education for so many years. One of them is Native Americans, who started to see changes in the 1930’s. The second group who also faced many obstacles is African-Americans. Before the Civil War, for instance, it was illegal in the South to teach slaves how to read. In the mid-20th century, desegregation became a hotly debated issue. The last group that also faced obstacles in education is Latinos (Puerto Rico and Chicanos).

Critical Response 

Read and review three major groups of language minority students who continue to be negatively affected by U.S. public school policy. 

African American

Reflect and summaries on key years where growth was starting to take place. 

In the book “Tied Tongue”, Santa Ana mentioned three major groups of minority students who continue to be negatively affected by U.S. public school policy. He mentioned American Indians, African-Americans and Latinos. According to Santa Ana, American Indians, from the very beginning of America's schools, were forced to learn only English in school so that they would adopt the Anglo-American way and customs. Back then they thought the “savage” American Indians could be “civilized”; they had no culture of their own, according to the European and American settlers. For 250 years, Native Americans endured English-only teaching in American schools. African-Americans had a more difficult time because they were slaves, and at that time slaves could not be educated in many states. Even after the Civil War, when the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution was passed in 1868, many states had Jim Crow laws that denied African-Americans their rights to many things, including a fair education. Latinos also faced many obstacles; for instance, they could never become a teacher because of their Spanish accent. Even though many years have passed and many things have improved, the fight for a better education continues to be a problem; however, there are noticeable improvements. Santa Ana mentions how the “No Child Left Behind" Act of 2002 created legislation that, for the first time, gave priority to the brief teaching of English instead of long-term English instruction. I see it as the creation of a new class for students, who do not enjoy the extra school work.