Bilingualism

Bilingualism is commonly defined as the use of at least two languages by an individual

(ASHA, 2004). It is a fluctuating system in children and adults whereby use of and
proficiency in two languages may change depending on the opportunities to use the
languages and exposure to other users of the languages. It is a dynamic and fluid process
across a number of domains, including experience, tasks, topics, and time.

Simultaneous bilingualism occurs when a young child

has had significant and meaningful exposure to two
languages from birth. Ideally, the child will have equal,
quality experiences with both languages.

Sequential bilingualism occurs when an individual has

had significant and meaningful exposure to a second
language, usually after the age of 3 and after the first
language is well established. These second language
learners are referred to as "English language learners" in
U.S. schools.

The "bilingual" experience is unique to every individual. There is variability in the amount
and quality of exposure to the languages the individual learns, as well as the experiences he
or she has using the languages when interacting with others.

Why Bilinguals Are Smarter

Harriet Russell

By YUDHIJIT BHATTACHARJEE
Published: March 17, 2012

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SPEAKING two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an
increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show
that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to
converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you
smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not
related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.
This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of
bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy
makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively
speaking, that hindered a childs academic and intellectual development.
They were not wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence that in a
bilinguals brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one
language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this
interference, researchers are finding out, isnt so much a handicap as a blessing in
disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout
that strengthens its cognitive muscles.
Bilinguals, for instance, seem to be more adept than monolinguals at solving certain
kinds of mental puzzles. In a 2004 study by the psychologists Ellen Bialystok and
Michelle Martin-Rhee, bilingual and monolingual preschoolers were asked to sort
blue circles and red squares presented on a computer screen into two digital bins
one marked with a blue square and the other marked with a red circle.
In the first task, the children had to sort the shapes by color, placing blue circles in
the bin marked with the blue square and red squares in the bin marked with the red

circle. Both groups did this with comparable ease. Next, the children were asked to
sort by shape, which was more challenging because it required placing the images
in a bin marked with a conflicting color. The bilinguals were quicker at performing
this task.
The collective evidence from a number of such studies suggests that the bilingual
experience improves the brains so-called executive function a command system
that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and
performing various other mentally demanding tasks. These processes include
ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching attention willfully from one thing to
another and holding information in mind like remembering a sequence of
directions while driving.
Why does the tussle between two simultaneously active language systems improve
these aspects of cognition? Until recently, researchers thought the bilingual
advantage stemmed primarily from an ability forinhibition that was honed by the
exercise of suppressing one language system: this suppression, it was thought,
would help train the bilingual mind to ignore distractions in other contexts. But
that explanation increasingly appears to be inadequate, since studies have shown
that bilinguals perform better than monolinguals even at tasks that do not require
inhibition, like threading a line through an ascending series of numbers scattered
randomly on a page.
The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: a
heightened ability to monitor the environment. Bilinguals have to switch
languages quite often you may talk to your father in one language and to your
mother in another language, says Albert Costa, a researcher at the University of
Pompeu Fabra in Spain. It requires keeping track of changes around you in the
same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving. In a study comparing
German-Italian bilinguals with Italian monolinguals on monitoring tasks, Mr.
Costa and his colleagues found that the bilingual subjects not only performed
better, but they also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in
monitoring, indicating that they were more efficient at it.
The bilingual experience appears to influence the brain from infancy to old age (and
there is reason to believe that it may also apply to those who learn a second
language later in life).
In a 2009 study led by Agnes Kovacs of the International School for Advanced
Studies in Trieste, Italy, 7-month-old babies exposed to two languages from birth
were compared with peers raised with one language. In an initial set of trials, the

infants were presented with an audio cue and then shown a puppet on one side of a
screen. Both infant groups learned to look at that side of the screen in anticipation
of the puppet. But in a later set of trials, when the puppet began appearing on the
opposite side of the screen, the babies exposed to a bilingual environment quickly
learned to switch their anticipatory gaze in the new direction while the other babies
did not.
Bilingualisms effects also extend into the twilight years. In a recent study of 44
elderly Spanish-English bilinguals, scientists led by the neuropsychologist Tamar
Gollan of the University of California, San Diego, found that individuals with a
higher degree of bilingualism measured through a comparative evaluation of
proficiency in each language were more resistant than others to the onset of
dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimers disease: the higher the degree of
bilingualism, the later the age of onset.
Nobody ever doubted the power of language. But who would have imagined that the
words we hear and the sentences we speak might be leaving such a deep imprint?
Yudhijit Bhattacharjee is a staff writer at Science.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: March 25, 2012
The Gray Matter column on bilingualism last Sunday misspelled the name of a
university in Spain. It is Pompeu Fabra, not Pompea Fabra.

Les papillons bleus enculent toute la matine

Les papillons bleus enculent toute la soire
Les papillons bleus enculent tous les jours
Les papillons bleus enculent toutes les nuits
Et toi ? Quattends-toi ? Va te faire enculer toi aussi.

Bilingual education
Bilingual education involves teaching academic content in two languages, in a native and
secondary language with varying amounts of each language used in accordance with the
program model.

Bilingual education program models[edit]

The following are several different types of bilingual education program models:

Transitional Bilingual Education. This involves education in a child's native

language, typically for no more than three years, to ensure that students do not fall
behind in content areas like mathematics, science, and social studies while they are
learning English. Research has shown that many of the skills learned in the native
language can be transferred easily to the second language later. The goal is to help
students transition to mainstream, English-only classrooms as quickly as possible, and
the linguistic goal of such programs is English acquisition only. In a transitional bilingual
program, the student's primary language is used as a vehicle to develop literacy skills
and acquire academic knowledge. It is used to develop literacy and academic skills in
the primary language

Two-Way or Dual Language Immersion Bilingual Education. These programs are

designed to help native and non-native English speakers become bilingual and
biliterate. The two-way bilingual immersion program has 90% of the instructions in
grade K-1 in minority language which is less supported by the broader society and 10%
in the majority language . This proportion gradually changes in the majority language
until the curriculum is equally divided in both the language by 5th grade. The two-way
bilingual immersion program is based on the principle of clear curriculum separation of
the two languages of instruction. Teachers do not repeat or translate the subject matter
in second language but strengthen concepts taught in one language across the two
languages in a spiral curriculum in order to provide cognitive challenge (Thomas &
Collier. 1997). The languages of instructions are alternated by theme or content area.
This type of immersion is required to develop the dual language proficiency, as social
language can be mastered in couple of years, but a higher level of competency is
required to read social studies texts or solve mathematics word problems, roughly
around 5 to 7 years (Collier, 1987).

Dual Immersion classrooms encourage students' native language development, making an

important contribution to heritage language maintenance and allows language minority
students to remain in classrooms with their native English-speaking peers, resulting in
linguistic and sociocultural advantages (Christian, 1996b). As of May 2005, there were 317
dual immersion programs operating in elementary schools in the United States in 10
different languages(Center for Applied Linguistics, 2005).
Dual Language programs are less common in US schools, although research indicates
they are extremely effective in helping students learn English well and aiding the long-term
performance of English learners in school. Native English speakers benefit by learning a
second language. English language learners (ELLs) are not segregated from their peers. [1]

Another form of Bilingual Education is a type of Dual Language program that has
students study in two different ways: 1) A variety of academic subjects are taught in the
students' second language, with specially trained bilingual teachers who can
understand students when they ask questions in their native language, but always
answer in the second language; and 2) Native language literacy classes improve
students' writing and higher-order language skills in their first language. Research has
shown that many of the skills learned in the native language can be transferred easily
to the second language later. In this type of program, the native language classes do
not teach academic subjects. The second-language classes are content-based, rather
than grammar-based, so students learn all of their academic subjects in the second
language.[citation needed]

Late-Exit or Developmental Bilingual Education. Education is in the child's native

language for an extended duration, accompanied by education in English. The goal is
to develop literacy in the child's native language first, and transfer these skills to the
second language.

By country or region[edit]

Argentina[edit]
There are many English-Spanish schools in Argentina. Several of them are in the provinces
where the Irish who were part of the local Elite used to live. [citation needed]

Australia[edit]
In Australia, some schools teach bilingual programs which cater to children speaking
languages other than English. Baldauf[2] explains that these programs are now beginning to
benefit from more government support. Bilingual education for Indigenous students,
however, has only received intermittent official backing. In the Northern Territory, for
example, bilingual programs for Indigenous students begun with Federal Government
support in the early 1970s, but by December 1998 the Northern Territory Government had
announced its decision to shift $3 million away from the 29 bilingual programs to a Territorywide program teaching English as a second language. Within 12 months though the
government had softened its position. Most bilingual programs were allowed to continue
under the guise of two-way education. Then on 24 August 2005, the Minister for
Employment, Education and Training announced that the government would be "revitalizing
bi-lingual education" at 15 Community Education
Centres: Alekerange, Angurugu, Borroloola, Gapuwiyak, Gunbalanya,Kalkaringi, Lajamanu,
Maningrida, Milingimbi, Ramingining, Ngkurr, Shepherdson
College, Numbulwar, Yirrkala andYuendumu. This revitalisation is conceived as part of an
effort aimed at "providing effective education from pre-school through to senior secondary
at each of the Territory's 15 Community Education Centres". As Harris & Devlin (1986)
observe, "Aboriginal bilingual education in Australia represents much more than a range of
education programs. It has been a measure of non-Aboriginal commitment to either
assimilation or cultural pluralism". In 2008 it again shifted with the government attempting
to force the nine remaining bilingual schools to teach the first four hours of classes in
English.

Canada[edit]
Main article: Official bilingualism in Canada
English and French[edit]
In Canada, education is under provincial jurisdiction. However, the federal government has
been a strong supporter of establishing Canada as a bilingual country and has helped
pioneer the French immersion programs in the public education systems throughout
Canada. In French-immersion, students with no previous French language training, usually
beginning in Kindergarten or grade 1, do all of their school work in French. Depending on
provincial jurisdiction, some provinces also offer an extended French program that begins
in grade 5 which offers relatively more courses in French. In this case the student takes
French immersion until grade nine but may continue throughout their high school
education. Similar English-immersion programmes also exist for Francophone children.
Education is generally monolingual in either English or French according to the majority
population within which a school is located.[citation needed] The second official language is
introduced with allocated time provided each week for instruction in the language as a
subject.
Quebec[edit]
Quebec is Canada's only legally monolingual French-speaking province. Based on section
59 of Canada's Constitution Act of 1982, provides that not all of the language rights listed
under Canada's official bilingualism policy in previous section 23 will apply in Quebec.
Specifically:
(1) In Quebec, a child may be educated in English only if at least one parent or a sibling
was educated in Canada in English.

(2)In New Brunswick, Canada's only officially bilingual province, students have the right to
education in the official language which they understand; students able to understand both
languages have the right to education in either system.
(3) In the rest of Canada, a child may be educated in French if at least one parent or a
sibling was educated in Canada in French, or if at least one parent has French as his or her
mother tongue (defined in section 23 as "first language learned and still understood").
One practical consequence of this asymmetry is that all migrants who arrive in Quebec
from foreign countries are required to place their children in French-language schools. This
includes immigrants whose mother tongue is English and immigrants who received their
schooling in English.
On the other hand, Section 23 provides a nearly universal right to English-language
schooling for the children of Canadian-born anglophones living in Quebec. Section 23 also
provides, in theory, a nearly universal right to French-language schooling for the children of
all francophones living outside Quebec, including immigrants from French-speaking
countries who settle outside Quebec, and who are Canadian citizens.
Another element of asymmetry between Quebec and most anglophone provinces is that
while Quebec provides public English-language primary and secondary education
throughout the province, most other provinces provide French-language education only
"where numbers warrant."
First Nations reserves and Inuit settlements[edit]
Canada also has bilingual programmes for First Nations' languages on numerous Canadian
aboriginal reserves in combination with either English, French, or both. Some programmes
are gradually being established, whilst others are already long established. Most notable
bilingual programmes that exist
include Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun, Cree, Blackfoot,Ojibwe, Mohawk, Mi'kmaq, and Pacific
Coast Salish languages.
Many of these programmes were set up in the late 1980s and early 1990s by
academic linguists wishing to preserve the languages, respectively - especially in areas
where there either is a healthy speaking base, or an endangerment of as low as two
remaining speakers of a language. Prior to this, as late as the 1970s and early 1980s, First
Nations and Inuit in Canada, as Native Americans in the United States, were forced
into residential schools imposed on them by the Canadian government to integrate
indigenous cultures into European-Canadian society. This came with the dramatic loss of
the languages, religious beliefs, and cultures themselves due to widespread use of corporal
punishment and mental abuse. As of 2010, new programmes are mushrooming across
Canada to try to save what is left, but are often met with mixed success and funding
challenges at federal, provincial, and reserve levels.
Other minority languages[edit]
In the province of British Columbia, the city of Vancouver since 2002 has established a new
bilingual Mandarin Chinese-English immersion programme at the elementary school level
in order accommodate Vancouver's both historic and present strong ties to the Chinesespeaking world, already in itself having a very sizeable Chinese population local to the city.
Six Vancouver schools have thus far adopted the programme, and a secondary school
track to continue thereupon is being designed. Other suburbs within what is referred to as
the Greater Vancouver Regional District are also considering adopting the programme into
a small number of schools. Similar programmes are being developed for
both Hindi and Punjabi to serve in representing the large South Asian cultural community
and its interests in the City of Surrey. By default, most schools in British Columbia teach
through English, with French immersion options available. In both English and Frenchmedium schools, one can study and take government exams
in Japanese, Punjabi, Mandarin Chinese, French, Spanish, and German at the secondary
level.

In Manitoba, Ukrainian communities have played an extensive role in the development and
history of the province. Bilingual Ukrainian-English education programmes have therefore
long been established, alongside smaller programmes introducing and
implementing French, Icelandic in the town of Gimli, and First Nations' languages.
Private Islamic and Jewish schools across Canada also have bilingual and trilingual
programmes that include Arabic orHebrew, respectively.
In Cape Breton and other parts of Nova Scotia, a number of secondary schools now offer
the option of taking introductory courses in Scottish Gaelic, as reflecting upon the
province's both intimate and dark history with the Gaelic language and Highland Scottish
diaspora.

China[edit]
In the Autonomous regions of China many children of the country's major ethnic minorities
attend public schools where the medium of instructions is the local language, such as
e.g. Uyghur or Tibetan. Traditionally, the textbooks there were little different from merely a
translated version of the books used in the Chinese schools throughout the country;
however, as of 2001, a move was on foot to create more teaching materials with locally
based content.[3]
Classes of Mandarin as second language are also offered in these minority schools, and
the central government makes increasing efforts to make them more effective. A law
passed in February 2001 provided for the Mandarin-as-second-language classes in the
ethnic-minority schools to start in the early years of elementary school whenever local
conditions permit, rather than in the senior years of elementary school, as it was practiced
before.[4]
On the other hand, it has been reported that Chinese has been used as the medium of
instructions in some autonomous counties even though less than 50% of the population
"spoke and understood some Chinese"; this mismatch was thought to have contributed to
the low grades earned by the students on the math and Chinese exams. [5]

Hong Kong[edit]
In Hong Kong where both English and Cantonese are official, both languages are taught in
school and are mandatory subjects. Either English or Cantonese is used as the medium of
instruction for other subjects. Increasingly, there are a large number of Mandarin Chinesespeaking schools in operation throughout Hong Kong as well since 1996. Study of
Mandarin is mandatory in junior years (from Grade 1 to Grade 9).

European Union[edit]
Near most of the various European Union institution sites, European Schools have been
created to allow staff to have their children receive their education in their mother tongue,
and at the same time to foster European spirit by (among other things) teaching at least two
other European languages.
Basic instruction is given in the eleven official languages of the European Union: Danish,
Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and
Swedish. In the expansion of the Union with 10 countries in 2004 and two more in 2007,
the new official languages of the EU are added. The pupil's mother tongue (L I) therefore
remains his/her first language throughout the School.
Consequently, each school comprises several language sections. The curricula and
syllabuses (except in the case of mother tongue) are the same in all sections.
In the Schools where the creation of a separate language section cannot be justified based
on the number of students, teaching of the mother tongue and possibly mathematics is
provided.

To foster the unity of the School and encourage genuine multicultural education, there is a
strong emphasis on the learning, understanding and use of foreign languages. This is
developed in a variety of ways:
The study of a first foreign language (English, French, or German, known as L II) is
compulsory throughout the school, from first year primary up to the Baccalaureate. In
secondary school, some classes will be taught in L II.
All pupils must study a second foreign language (L III), starting in the second year of
secondary school. Any language available in the School may be chosen.
Pupils may choose to study a third foreign language (L IV) from the fourth year of
secondary school.
Language classes are composed of mixed nationalities and taught by a native speaker.
A weekly "European Hour" in the primary school brings together children from all sections
for cultural and artistic activities and games.
In the secondary school, classes in art, music and sport are always composed of mixed
nationalities.
From the third year of secondary school, history and geography are studied in the pupil's
first foreign language, also called the "working language" (English, French, or German).
Economics, which may be taken as an option from the fourth year of the secondary school,
is also studied in a working language. From the third year, therefore, all social science
subjects are taught to groups of mixed nationalities.[6]
Belgium[edit]
Belgium has three official languages: Dutch, French and German. The constitution
guarantees free education, so private schools can use any language, but state(recognised) schools teach in the language of the language area where it is located.
For Brussels, which is an officially bilingual French-Dutch area, schools use either Dutch or
French as medium.
Even though Belgium has two major languages (Dutch in Flanders, and French in
Wallonia), bilingual instruction does not occur since Belgian law only permits education in
one official language. In Flanders, bilingual instruction is only allowed as a short-term
project.[7]
France[edit]
See also: Language policy in France
France has one sole official language, French. However, regional provincial languages
such as Corsican, Provenal,Alsacien, Occitan, and Breton do have charter protection, and
respectively there are bilingual education programmes and regional language course
electives established. However, due to the strict French-language policy imposed by
national government, there is no centrally allocated funding towards any of these
programmes. All funding is done at the municipal level, with more often than not regional
languages themselves facing extreme endangerment.
Republic of Ireland[edit]
The Republic of Ireland has two official languages, Irish and English. With the Irish
language facing endangerment, as well as the presence of regions where Irish is still
spoken as native (referred to as the Gaeltacht), the Irish constitution protects and reserves
the right for education to be established through the medium of either official language, and
it thus is.
An Irish-medium school is referred to as Gaelscoil (plural, Gaelscoileanna) This movement
has been met with some success in that 10% of the schooling in Ireland is conducted in
Irish. The movement has also been successful in setting up schools in both urban and rural
areas, ranging from Dublin and Cork, to the traditional Gaeltacht regions.

Netherlands[edit]
In the Netherlands, there are around 100 bilingual schools. In these schools, the first
language (L1) is Dutch, whereas the second language (L2) is usually English and
occasionally German. In the province of Friesland, which has its own official language
(West Frisian language), some trilingual primary schools exist. In those schools, the
children are taught in Dutch, Frisian, and English. Most bilingual secondary schools are
TVWO (Tweetalig Voorbereidend Wetenschappelijk Onderwijs or Bilingual Preparatory
Scientific Education), but there is THAVO (Tweetalig Hoger Algemeen Voorbereidend
Onderwijs or Bilingual Higher General Secondary Education), too. The following subjects
are taught in English: arts, chemistry, physics, biology, geography, economics, physical
education, drama, English, mathematics, history, music, social sciences and religious
studies, but some variation may exist among schools.
Spain[edit]
Andalusia[edit]
In Andalusia (Spain's southernmost region), things have changed drastically concerning
bilingual education since the introduction of the Plurilingualism Promotion Plan by the
autonomous government. The plan was born as the realization for the Andalusian territory
of the European language policies regarding the teaching and learning of languages. With
special strength in the past ten years bilingual education has worked at most elementary
schools.
In addition to this new European scene, the Scheme for the Promotion of Plurilingualism
has learned a lot from the first experimental bilingual sections set up in some schools by
the Andalusian government in 1998. Following the content-based approach, French and
German were used to partly teach other subjects. This successful experience, as show the
international tests that the students have been given, is the starting point for a more
ambitious scene, where 400 schools will be involved in the next four years, more
languages, especially English, will take part, and a lot of investigation and implementation
of the Integrated Curriculum of languages must be carried out.
Being aware of the necessity of the Andalusian people to adapt to the new scenario, a
major government plan, called "strategies for the second modernization of Andalusia", was
designed in 2003. The document also underlined language diversity as a source of
richness and a valuable heritage of humankind which needs to be looked after.
It was then clear that a scheme was needed to carry out this new language policy in the
territory, especially affecting education, with clear goals, timing and funding.
The scheme is to be developed through five major programmes and also an organization
and assessment plan.
The programmes are:

Bilingual schools

Official Schools of Languages

Plurilingualism and teachers

Plurilingualism and society

Organization and assessment plan.

The full version of the Plurilingualism Promotion Plan is available in English

at: [1] PDF (497 KB)
Basque Country, Navarre, Galicia, Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands [edit]

In addition to Castilian Spanish being the primary official language of Spain, the kingdom
also has several co-official regional languages which enjoy equal and unbiased
constitutional protection and promotion: Catalan/Valencian (inCatalonia, Valencia and
the Balearic Islands), Galician (in Galicia), Basque (in the Basque Country and the northern
zone ofNavarre) and Aranese (in Val d'Aran, Catalonia).
Many schools are bilingual in the regional language as well as Castilian at both the
elementary and secondary levels. Regional universities also often provide programmes
through the regional medium. Education in all co-official languages uses to receive both
national and regional funding.
Unlike France in which regional languages face incredible endangerment and possible
extinction, Spain's long-established approach to making regional bilingual education
mandatory has served often as a model for both the survival and thriving state of the
languages indigenous to the country.
United Kingdom and dependencies[edit]
The British Isles have several indigenous languages apart from English. These
include Welsh (official in Wales), Irish, Manx Gaelic, Cornish, Scottish Gaelic, and the Scots
language (which is sometimes considered as a dialect of English).
Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, and the Isle of Man have each established
bilingual programmes which provide education through the medium of their indigenous
language. Most often, except for the cases of Manx and Cornish, these programmes exist
where the language is spoken communally as a first language.
Wales[edit]
Roughly a quarter of schoolchildren in Wales now receive their education through the
medium of Welsh, and children wishing to join a Welsh medium school (Welsh: ysgol
Gymraeg) do not have to speak Welsh to go to one if they are young enough to learn the
language quickly. Welsh medium education has met with great success across Wales since
the first such schools opened in the 1940s. There are current plans to extend further
provision in urban centres such as Cardiff,Newport, Swansea and Llanelli to cater for
growing demand; this has caused controversy in some areas.
Welsh-speaking areas use Welsh-medium education almost exclusively. Parents have a
legal right for their children to receive education in Welsh, and each local authority caters
for this. In the Western flank of
Wales, Carmarthenshire,Ceredigion, Gwynedd and Anglesey, most primary and secondary
schools are Welsh medium or have bilingual streams. Some 75-80% of all pupils in
Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion receive their education through the medium of Welsh,
with this figure increasing in Gwynedd to around 90%.
In English-medium schools, the study of Welsh is compulsory and must be taught from age
5 to age 16 in all state-funded schools.
Northern Ireland[edit]
Irish Gaelic received official recognition in Northern Ireland for the first time in 1998 under
the Good Friday Agreement. A cross-border body known as Foras na Gaeilge was
established to promote the language in both Northern Ireland and the Republic. The British
government in 2001 ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Irish
Gaelic (in respect only of Northern Ireland) was specified under Part III of the Charter, thus
giving it a degree of protection and status somewhat comparable to the Welsh language in
Wales and Scottish Gaelic in Scotland. This included a range of specific undertakings in
relation to education, translation of statutes, interaction with public authorities, the use of
placenames, media access, support for cultural activities and other matters (whilst the
Ulster variant of Scots, known as (Ulster Scots, was specified under Part II of the Charter.)
The Education (Northern Ireland) Order 1998 states: "It shall be the duty of the Department
(of Education) to encourage and facilitate the development of Irish-medium education.

There are no Ulster Scots-medium schools, even at primary level.

India[edit]
The official languages of the Union of India are Hindi and English, with 21 other regional
languages holding co-official status,
including: Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili,
Malayalam, Manipuri,Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telug
u and Urdu.
Education in India follows the Three-language formula, where children are to be taught
Hindi, English and the regional language, with schools having the freedom to decide the
sequence in which these languages are taught, as well as the medium of teaching. An
exception is Tamil Nadu where only Tamil and English are taught.[8][9][10]
English-medium schools often find favour with parents, especially in urban areas, due to
English's international prestige, India's Colonial heritage, its usage in Indian business and it
being the medium of instruction in most Indian universities.

Japan[edit]
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this
article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged
and removed. (March 2007)
In Japan, the need for bilingualism (mostly Japanese and English) has been pointed out,
and there are some scholars who advocate teaching children subjects such as
mathematics using English rather than Japanese.[citation needed] As part of this proposal, subjects
such as history, however, would be taught solely in Japanese.
On the island of Hokkaido, the indigenous and endangered Ainu language is receiving
newfound interest with establishment of a small number of bilingual Ainu-Japanese
elementary schools.

Mongolia[edit]
There has been long standing encouragement to teach at least one other language other
than Mongolian. TraditionallyRussian language was taught during middle school and high
school. After the 1990 transition to democracy, English language has been gaining more
ground in Mongolian schools. Today many public schools at all levels teach one other
language that are usually English, Russian, Korean, Japanese or Chinese. Although the
core curriculum is in Mongolian, it is generally encouraged by the government and the
public that the students should have some command of a secondary language when they
graduate from high school. Also there are other private schools that teach their curricula in
English.

Middle East[edit]
The Arab World[edit]
Schools in the Middle East follow dual or triple language programmes. The triple language
programme is most commonly found in Lebanon, Syria, and often implemented as well
in Egypt. History, grammar, literature and the Arabic language are taught in the native
language (Arabic), whereas Mathematics and sciences are generally taught in English
and/or French. In Lebanon, however, science and mathematics are taught in either French
or English, depending on the school's administration or the grade level. It is not uncommon
to find French- or English- only schools, though usually these institutions are primarily
international establishments.
In most Gulf countries as well as Jordan, English is introduced as a second language early
on alongside the primary medium of instruction, Arabic. In Iraq however, triple language
programmes are, like in Lebanon and Syria, normal, except rather than using
French, Kurdish is taught alongside Arabic and English due to Iraq's considerably sized
Kurdish minority in the north, and bilingual official language policy regarding Kurdish.

In Morocco, Berber can be used as a regional medium of elementary education, with

widespread use of French and Arabic come later grades. Due to Morroco's long history with
French colonialism, alongside neighbouring countries includingAlgeria and Tunisia, sole
French-medium education is very widespread, with Arabic being introduced and taught as a
second language, as well as the study of a third language later on, usually
either English, Spanish, or Italian (in Libya).
Israel[edit]
Normally, Israelis are taught in either Hebrew or Arabic depending on religion and ethnicity.
Within the standard education system, thorough study of English is compulsory, and
depending on the primary medium of education, Arabic or Hebrew are introduced as third
languages with significantly lesser emphasis placed on achieving solid proficiency. Within
Hebrew-medium programmes, other foreign languages such as French, German, Russian,
or Yiddish can often be studied as well.
Israel is also home to several international schools whereby the sole medium of education
is either English or French. In general, as English is taught early on across all Israeli
schools, most Israelis become comfortably bilingual, much like what one would see in The
Netherlands or Scandinavian countries. This in combination with a large proportion of
English-language programming on television that is merely subtitled and seldom dubbed.
Recent peace initiatives have also lead to a small number of bilingual and multi-religious
schools in which both Hebrew and Arabic are used in equal emphasis. The Hand in Hand:
Center for Jewish Arab Education in Israel runs four bilingual schools, and the Neve
Shalom peace village also hosts a local school.

Philippines[edit]
In July 2009 Department of Education moved towards mother-tongue based
learning initially by issuing an order which allowed two alternative three-year bridging plans.
Depending on the bridging plan adopted, the Filipino and English languages are to be
phased in as the language of instruction beginning in the third and fourth grades.
[11]
Other Philippine regional languages are taught in schools, colleges and universities
located in their respective provinces.
In 2007, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed a directive in Spain that would
reintroduce teaching and learning the Spanish language in the Philippine school system
starting in 2008.[12] Thee order, Memorandum Order No. 276, s. 2007, issued on November
29, 2007, ordered the Department of Education to encourage the teaching and learning of
the Spanish language throughout the country.[13]

Southeast Asia (Thailand, Malaysia)[edit]

Since the mid-1990s bilingual approaches to schooling and higher education have become
popular in parts of South-east Asia, especially in Thailand and Malaysia where different
models have been applied, from L2 immersion (content taught in a non-native language) to
parallel immersion, where core subjects are taught in both the mother-tongue and a second
language (usually English). The Malaysian government reversed its decision to have Maths
and Science taught in English, but is implementing different programmes designed to
improve English language teaching within schools. Wichai Wittaya Bilingual School in
Chaing Mai (1995),[14] Siriwat Wittaya Bilingual School in Bangkok(2004) ,[15] Chindemanee
School English Program (2005),[16] The Sarasas model, pioneered by the Sarasas schools
affiliation in Thailand,are exemplars of parallel immersion.[citation needed] The English for
Integrated Studies project model at Sunthonphu Pittaya Secondary School(SPSS),
Rayong, Thailand, is an exemplar of the use of English for integrated studies in Math,
Science and IT, taught by non-native English speaking Thai teachers.[17] This project is
under the auspices of the International Study Program of Burapha University.[citation
needed]
Panyaden School is an example of a private bilingual school in North Thailand that
provides its students with a Thai-English education (each class has a Thai teacher and
native-English speaking teacher).

The difficulties and disputes characteristic of the US experience have not been replicated in
these Asian countries, though they are not without controversy. Generally, it can be said
that there is widespread acknowledgment of the need to improve English competence in
the population, and bilingual approaches, where language is taught through subject
content, are seen to be the most effective means of attaining this. The most significant
limiting factors are the shortage of teachers linguistically competent to teach in a second
language and the costs involved in use of expatriate native speakers for this purpose.

Singapore[edit]
In Singapore, education is bilingual. The medium of instruction is in English and the
learning of the mother tongue is compulsory. The mother tongue subject is
usually Mandarin, Malay or Tamil, the other official languages of Singapore. They are
taught till pre-university level but a student can choose to learn a third language (German,
French, Japanese, etc.) in later school years.[citation needed]

United States[edit]

SER-Nios Charter School, a bilingual state charter school in theGulfton area of Houston, Texas

Bilingual education in the U.S. focuses on English Language Learners (ELL). According to
the U.S. Department of Education website, a bilingual education program is "an educational
program for limited English proficient students". (The Office of English Language
Acquisition, 2009).[citation needed] The term "limited English proficiency" remains in use by the
federal government, but has fallen out of favor elsewhere. According to Bankstreet's
Literacy Guide this shift is due to the fact that the term ELL represents a more accurate
reflection of language acquisition. The term "English language learner" is now preferred in
schools and educational research to refer to a student whose first language is not English
and who needs language support services in order to succeed in school.
In the fifty states of the United States, proponents of the practice argue that it will not only
help to keep non-English-speaking children from falling behind their peers in math, science,
and social studies while they master English, but such programs teach English better than
English-only programs. For many students, the process of learning literacy and a new
language simultaneously is simply an overwhelming task, so bilingual programs began as a
way to help such students develop native language literacy first - research by Cummins, [18] a
central researcher in the field, shows that skills such as literacy developed in a first
language will transfer to English. Opponents of bilingual education argue that it delays
students' mastery of English, thereby retarding the learning of other subjects as well.
In California, where at least one-third of students are enrolled in bilingual classes, [19]there
has been considerable politicking for and against bilingual education.
The very first instance of bilingual education in the United States occurred with Polish
immigrants in the first permanent English settlement of Virginia in what is now the United
States. The Poles provided the community with manufactured pitch necessary to prevent
the sinking of ships, and glass works among other industries. When the House of
Burgesses met in 1619, the rights extended only to Englishmen. The Poles, in turn,
launched the first recorded strike in the New World.[20] In dire need of their skills and
industries, the Poles received the "rights of Englishmen," and established the first bilingual
schools with subjects taught in English and Polish. [20] From this first documented historic

beginning, bilingual education existed in some form or another in the United States. During
the 18th century, Franciscan missionaries from California to Texas used indigenous
languages for translating and teaching the Catholic catechism to Native Americans. By the
mid-19th century, private and public bilingual schools had include such native languages as
Czech, Dutch, French, German, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish.[21] Ohio became the first
state in 1839, to adopt a bilingual education law, authorizing German-English instruction at
parents' request. Louisiana enacted an identical provision for French and English in 1847,
and the New Mexico Territory did so for Spanish and English in 1850.[22] By the end of the
19th century, about a dozen states had passed similar laws. Elsewhere, many localities
provided bilingual instruction without state sanction, in languages as diverse as Norwegian,
Italian, Polish, Czech, and Cherokee.[22] Beginning in 1959, public schools in Miami
introduced bilingual programs. In 1968 the U.S., with Title VII of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act, or, informally, theBilingual Education Act, Congress first
mandated bilingual education in order to give immigrants access to education in their "first"
language. The Act was amended in 1988.[22] Federal spending on bilingual education
jumped from $7.5 million in 1968 to $150 million by 1979. [19]
A 1974 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Lau v. Nichols, gave further momentum to bilingual
education.[19] Here, the Court held that San Francisco schools violated minority language
students' rights when they educated students in the same classes as other
students[19] without special provisions.[23]
Taken together, the Bilingual Education Act and the Lau v. Nichols ruling mandated that
schools needed to at least provide some type of services to support English language
learners, though neither specified what type of educational program needed to be provided.
As such, both bilingual and English-only programs flourished after the law's passage and
the court ruling.[19]
The Bilingual Education Act was terminated in 2001 by new federal education policy, with
the passage of No Child Left Behind by the U.S. Congress. This law offers no support for
native language learning, but rather emphasized accountability in English only, and
mandates that all students, including ELLs, are tested yearly in English.
The majority of U.S. high school students in the United States are required to take at least
one to two years of a second language. The vast majority of these classes are either
French or Spanish. In a large number of schools this is taught in a manner known as FLES,
in which students learn about the second language in a manner similar to other subjects
such as mathematics or science. Some schools use an additional method known
as FLEX in which the "nature of the language" and culture are also taught. High school
education almost never uses "immersion" techniques.
Controversy in the United States[edit]
In recent times there has been a lot of discussion about bilingual education. In the 2009
U.S. Supreme Court decision,Horne v. Flores, the majority opinion stated, "Research on
ELL instruction indicates there is documented, academic support for the view that SEI
(Structured English Immersion) is significantly more effective than bilingual education." [24]
Proponents of bilingual education claim that it is not only easier for students to learn
English if they are literate in their first language, but that such students will learn English
better and become bilingual and biliterate.[25] Proponents further claim that effective bilingual
programs strive to achieve proficiency in both English and the students' home language.
Dual language or Two-Way bilingual programs are one such approach, whereby half of the
students speak English and half are considered English language learners (ELLs). The
teacher instructs in English and in the ELLs' home language. The dual purpose of this type
of classroom is to teach the children a new language and culture, and language diversity in
such classrooms is seen as a resource. Programs in English only eradicate the native
languages immigrants bring to this country, while dual language bilingual programs serve to
maintain such languages in an "additive" context, where a new language is added without
the first being lost. One paper states that two-way developmental bilingual education
programs in elementary school have the most success in language minority students' long

term academic achievement. These students will maintain their gains in academic
performance in secondary level academic classes.[26] Another study shows the positive
results of a two-way bilingual education program.[27] Some people make the mistake that
once a student can converse in English (Basic interpersonal communication skills - BICS),
they will naturally perform well academically (cognitive academic language proficiency CALP) in English. It has been postulated that BICS and CALP are two different sets of
skills.[28]
Opponents of bilingual education claim that students with other primary languages besides
Spanish are placed in Spanish classes rather than taught in their native languages [19] and
that many bilingual education programs fail to teach students English.[19] Critics of bilingual
education have claimed that studies supporting bilingual education tend to have poor
methodologies and that there is little empirical support in favor of it.
The controversy over bilingual education is often enmeshed in a larger political and cultural
context. Opponents of bilingual education are sometimes accused
of racism and xenophobia. This is especially so in the case of such groups as English First,
which is a conservative organization that promotes the stance that English should be the
official language of the United States. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin and other cities, Minister of
education of the Young Lords, Tony Baez and others held marches and other activities to
promote bilingual education. Proponents of bilingual education are frequently accused of
practicing identity politics, to the detriment of children and of immigrants.
"To aid and monitor the education of English language learners (ELL)through
mother-tongue and English education, the federal government enacted the Bilingual
Education Act (Title V11) of the elementary and secondary Education Act in 1968.
As an offshoot of president Lyndon B. Johnson's war on poverty, the act strove to
help disenfranchised language-miniority students, especially Hispanics.
Unfortunately, the acts aims were somewhat ambiguous. As Crawford (2000a)
writes 'enacted at the apex of the Great Society, bilingual education act of 1968
passed congress without a single dissent. Americans have spent the past 30 years
debating what it was meant to accomplish'." (p. 107).[29]
California[edit]
California is the state with the highest number of English Learners (ELs) in the United
States. One out of three students in California is an EL.[19] In June 1998, Proposition
227 was passed by 61% of the California electorate. This proposition mandates that
ELs be placed in structured English immersion for a period "not normally to exceed one
year," then be transferred to mainstream classrooms taught "overwhelmingly in
English."[30] This proposition also gave parents the possibility to request alternative
programs for their children, however, the availability of waivers and information to
parents have been a challenge in the implementation of this proposition. [31]
In 2000, the California Department of Education contracted with the American Institutes
for Research (AIR) and WestEd to conduct a five-year evaluation of the effects of
Proposition 227.[32] The study methodology focused on "A combination of student
achievement analysis, phone interviews, case study site visits, and written surveys was
used to examine such questions as how the proposition was implemented, which EL
services are most and least effective, and what unintended consequences resulted
from Proposition 227's implementation."
The authors caution about the limitations in the statewide data. California does not
have the capacity to link student academic progress over time across years; however,
using student-level linked data over time from the Los Angeles Unified School District,
and complementing that analysis with surveys, site visits and interviews, the study
found "no conclusive evidence favoring one instructional program over another."
Students who remained in bilingual education have similar academic growth
trajectories when compared with students who switched to English Immersion. [33]

California, among other states, also has many public schools which have Immersion
programs, most commonly Spanish/English Immersion but also including other
languages. Immersion programs include native speakers of both languages and
include instruction in both languages, with primary (grade) schools typically having 90%
instruction in the minority language in the early grade, transitioning to 50% instruction
in each of the minority language and English in the upper grades.
Arizona[edit]
California was followed by Arizona in the passage of similar legislation, Arizona
Proposition 203, which ended several programs previously available to ESL students.
Arizona was the first state to provide bilingual education in the 1960s. [19]
Georgia[edit]
During the 1990s the state of Georgia increased its foreign born population by 233%.
That was the second largest increase in the country, and Georgia is the sixth fastest
growing state in the United States. Georgia has the seventh largest illegal immigrant
population in the country; in the 2000 census 228,000 illegal immigrants lived in the
state. During the 1980s and 1990s a labor shortage in the carpet industry contributed
to an increase in the Hispanic population of Whitfield County, Georgia. Today almost
half of the students in the Dalton (the hub of Whitfield County) public schools are
Hispanic.[34]
Erwin Mitchell, a local Dalton lawyer, founded the Georgia Project in 1996 to help teach
the influx of Hispanic students who have moved into the Dalton public schools. The
Georgia Project partners with the University of Monterrey in Monterrey,Mexico to bring
teachers from Mexico to Georgia Schools. Sixty teachers from the University of
Monterrey have taught in Georgia since 1997, and they typically teach for two to three
years on H-1B visas. The Georgia Project also has a Summer Institute that trains
American teachers to speak Spanish and learn about Mexican culture. The Georgia
Project is a bilingual/bicultural program that is primarily funded from federal education
appropriations.[35]
Massachusetts[edit]
In 2002, more than two-thirds of Massachusetts' voters supported an initiative replacing
bilingual education programs with "one-year" English Immersion instruction. [36] The
initiative was supported by the ProEnglish campaign and the RepublicanMitt Romney,
who at the time was campaigning to become Governor of Massachusetts. The close to
30,000 bilingual education students within Massachusetts were forced to enter
classrooms where they would be instructed specifically and intensively in English. [37]
Native American Reservations[edit]
Following similar First Nations' models to Canada, academic linguists throughout
the United States are working closely withNative American reservations communities to
establish immersion and second-language programs for a number of respective tribal
languages including Navajo, Hopi, Cherokee, Ojibwe, Lakhota, and Sioux, among
others. Due to the combination of often a violent and isolative relationship between
European settlers and Native Americans, their languages and communities have
suffered dramatically in terms of facing extreme endangerment or extinction. The
success of these programmes is mixed, depending largely on how healthy the status of
the language in question is.
However, English-medium education still remains most widely used. Native programs
often suffer a lack of state support in terms of funding or encouragement due in large
part to the strong preference towards a melting-pot society. Native American boarding
schools, which enforced white American values and the English language were
extensively used as late as the 1990s, and were notorious for implementing corporal
punishment if a Native child was caught speaking his or her language or freely
practicing their tribal faith.

Intercultural bilingual education

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Intercultural bilingual education (IBE)[1] or bilingual intercultural education (BIE)[2] is

an intercultural and bilingualmodel of education designed for contexts with two (or
more) cultures and languages in contact, in the typical case a dominant and an
underprivileged culture. The IBE could be applied in almost any country in the world,
however, it is discussed and also applied above all in Latin America, where it has been
offered to indigenous people as an alternative to monolingual Hispanic education due to the
efforts of indigenous movements. In recent years, it has become an important, more or less
successful instrument of governmental language planning in several Latin American
countries, as has been described for the case of Quechua in Peru.[2]
Contents
[hide]

1 Types of education in bilingual and bicultural contexts

2 History in Latin America

3 Bibliography

4 References

5 External links

Types of education in bilingual and bicultural contexts [edit]

Colin Baker distinguishes four models of education for bilingual or multilingual contexts.
The first two of them are models ofassimilation of the minority to the dominant culture and
language, while the two others have the aim of multilingualism andmulticulturalism.[3]

Type of
education

Learners'
mother
tongue

Language of
instruction

Social and
educational goals

Linguistic goals

Submersion

Minority
language

Majority language

Transition

Minority
language

Transition from
minority language to Assimilation
majority language

Relative monolingualism in
dominant language
(subtractive bilingualism)

Immersion

Majority
language

Bilingual, with
initial importance of Pluralism and
L2 (minority
development
language)

Bilingualism and biliteracy

Assimilation

Monolingualism in
dominant language

Maintenance

Minority
language

Bilingual, with
Maintenance,
emphasis on L1
pluralism and
(minority language) development

Bilingualism and biliteracy

History in Latin America[edit]

After the independence of the nation states in Latin America at the beginning of the 19th
century the elites imposed a model of unification based on the Criollo culture
and Spanish or Portuguese language respectively. This system reached only the privileged
classes to at most the Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking mestizo population.
Only in the 20th century there were increasing attempts to offer school education to the
whole population with the explicit goal of hispanization (castellanizacin) of the indigenous
population. The exclusive use of Spanish as language of instruction for learner groups
without anybody understanding it resulted in bad learning success and high repetition and
dropout rates. The speakers of indigenous languages left school as analphabets,
stigmatized as uneducated indios. The use or even knowledge of an indigenous language
became a social disadvantage, so that the mother tongue was no longer used and instead
of it a deficient Spanish. These people became uprooted, belonging neither to the
indigenous nor to the dominant culture.[4]
The evangelical Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) with seat in Dallas (USA) was the first
institution to introduce bilingual education for indigenous people with the goal
of evangelization. The first bilingual education programs of SIL started
inMexico and Guatemala in the 1930s, in Ecuador and Peru in the 1940s and in Bolivia in
1955.[4]
A goal of the National Revolution in Bolivia in 1952 was to end discrimination of the
indigenous people by integrating them into the majority society. This was to achieved by an
adequate school education, adapted to the linguistic situation. The government of Vctor
Paz Estenssoro assigned education and hispanization in the eastern lowlands to the SIL,
granting the at the same time the right to evangelize. Instruction in the first two grades of
primary school took place in the indigenous languages to facilitate acquisition of Spanish.
By the beginning of secondary school, the only language of instruction became Spanish. [4]
The first education programs without the explicit goal of hispanisation were developed in
the 1960s, among them a pilot program of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San
Marcos in a Quechua-speaking area in the Quinua District (Ayacucho Region, Peru). Due
to the efforts of this university, the government of general Juan Velasco Alvarado included
bilingual education into its educational reform in 1972. Peru under general Velasco was the
first country of the Americas to declare an indigenous language, Quechua, an official
language in 1975. However, this proved to be a symbolic act: The introduction of Quechua
as foreign of second language in Lima failed due to racist prejudices, and even for the
Quechua and Aymara speakers in the Andes nothing changed, as the Velasco government
was overthrown in 1975.[5][6]
The General Directorate for Education of the Indigenous (DGEI) in Mexico was created in
1973, scheduling the use of 56 officially recognized indigenous languages. The Federal
Education Law of 1973 ascertained that instruction in Spanish must not take place at the
cost of cultural and linguistic identity of Spanish learners.[4]
Despite contrary declarations all these bilingual programs were in fact transitional, i.e. to
prepare pupils for monolingual secondary and higher education. They contributed to a more
effective distribution of Spanish as common language.[2]However, these were experimental
projects of limited extension and duration, enabled by international aid, e.g. by theDeutsche
Gesellschaft fr Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), which supported a bilingual project
with Spanish and Quechua or Aymara,[7] or the United States Agency for International
Development (US-AID).[4]

With the rise of indigenous movements in the 1970s and reflexion about multilingualism
and previous bilingual education projects, a new education model of language maintenance
and development emerged, which included cultural aspects which were not exclusively
linguistic, e.g. aspects of everyday life culture, traditions and world concepts. Therefore,
from the beginning of the 1980s people began speaking of Bilingual intercultural education
in Latin America.[4]
Since then, many countries have invented laws recognizing linguistic and cultural rights. In
some countries as Argentina,Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico, constitutional
reforms were realized.[4] All countries of the Andes have recognized the importance of
intercultural bilingual education.[2]
Currently, in most countries IBE does not reach the majority of the indigenous population
and is applied only in primary education. According to the laws of some countries such as
Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico, IBE should reach the whole population speaking
an indigenous language, in Paraguay the whole population.[4]
In recent years, in some countries, above all in Bolivia, a two-way IBE for the whole
population is discussed, which means all Spanish-speaking pupils and students should
learn at least one indigenous language.[8]
On the other hand, the Peruvian indigenous teachers association Asociacin Nacional de
Maestros de Educacin Bilinge Intercultural (es) criticizes the implementation of IBE in
Peru as a bridge to castellanization and monoculturalization and that the education of
indigenous people should be in the hands of the indigenous peoples and communities
themselves.[9][10]
In most Latin American countries, IBE is under control of the Ministry of Education. By
contrary, IBE in Ecuador was administered by the indigenous organizations, which were
members of ECUARUNARI and CONAIE, since an agreement of the government and the
indigenous movement and the creation of the national IBE directorate DINEIB (Direccin
Nacional de Educacion Intercultural Bilingue) in 1988. Indigenous representatives
appointed teachers and school directors, designed curricula and wrote text books.
However, according to investigations in 2008 a fundamental change in the decline of
indigenous languages including Kichwa and Shuar has not been achieved. Even
in Otavalo and Cotacachi, where there are a Kichwa middle class and indigenous mayors,
many young people speak no more Kichwa, and even parents organized in the indigenous
movement send their children to Spanish-only schools, as these are much better equipped
than their IBE counterparts. In February 2009, president Rafael Correa decided to put IBE
under control of the government, restricting indigenous autonomy in educational affairs. [11]

Cognitive advantages of bilingualism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Being bilingual has been linked to a number of cognitive benefits. Research has studied
how a bilingual individual's L1 first language (L1) and second language (L2) interact, and
has shown that both languages have an influence on the function of one another, and also
on cognitive function outside of language. Research on the cognitive advantages to
linguistic development, perception, and attentional and inhibitory control has shown that
bilinguals can benefit from significant cognitive advantages over monolingual peers in
various settings.
During history of research into the cognitive advantages of bilingualism, the view has
shifted from a subtractive to an additive perspective; [1] that is from believing that being
bilingual detracts from one's abilities to believing that being bilingual adds to an individual's
abilities.
A bilingual can be defined as an individual that is exposed to two languages simultaneously
from a young age (under 4), although the definition may vary slightly depending on the
studies being presented and their sample selection processes. Several definitions have
been given in the literature for bilingualism, for example, either individuals that are learners

of another language irrespective of proficiency, or individuals that are equally proficient in

both languages.
Contents
[hide]

1 History

2 Language

3 Executive functions

4 Perception

5 See also

6 References

History[edit]
Before the 1960s research on bilingual individuals was varied but with a specific pattern of
conclusions, namely that being bilingual was detrimental to a child's linguistic and cognitive
development, and put the individual at a disadvantage compared to monolingual peers. The
general opinion was that bilinguals would have smaller vocabularies, stunted general
cognitive abilities and that children learning two languages from a young age would be
spending too much of their energy differentiating and building the two languages to become
competent in either one.[2][3] Studies referred to the problem of bilingualism the
handicapping influence of bilingualism [4] and reported that bilinguals performed worse in
IQ tests, had smaller vocabularies, and suffered in most aspects of language development,
as revealed mostly through verbal IQ tests.[3][5]
However, these studies suffered from several methodological problems that undermined
the soundness of their conclusions: These studies employed unstandardized and
subjective definitions of bilingualism and of a bilingual individual (e.g., labeling a person as
bilingual or monolingual through assumptions based on the national origin of that person's
parents or even based on that person's family name), raising the concern that there is no
way of determining whether their samples were truly representative of a bilingual
population; they did not control for socioeconomic status (SES); and many of them
administered verbal-intelligence tests to non-proficient speakers of a second language in
that second language.[5]
In 1962, Peal and Lambert published a study which brought to light the importance of
controlling for such factors as age, sex, and SES, as well as of having a standardised
measure for bilingualism, when selecting a sample of bilinguals to be studied. In their study
where they carefully matched their bilingual to their monolingual participants, they found
that the bilinguals showed significant advantages over the monolinguals in both verbal and
non-verbal tests, especially in non-verbal tests that required more mental flexibility.[6]
Since then, the literature has consistently found advantages of bilinguals over matched
monolingual peers in several aspects of language development and ability, as well as in
more general areas of aptitude such as perception andexecutive functioning.

Language[edit]
Leopold, in his record of his daughter's bilingual development of language [7] observed that
she had loose connections between the (phonetic) structure of words and
their semantics (meaning), demonstrated by her frequent substitution of English words with

German and vice versa, in every day speech and even well rehearsed songs and rhymes.
He notes that this gave her a greater flexibility in the use, and a way of use of language,
that was unobserved in monolingual children of her age, and that perhaps this loose
connection between the meaning and form of a word could result in more abstract thinking
or greater mental flexibility.
In 1972, Worrall [8] designed a study to test Leopold's [7] observations and was able to
replicate them. She tested two groups of monolingual and bilingual children at ages 46
and 6-9, and presented them with tests to assess whether they showed a semantic or
phonetic preference when categorising words. An example of one task given in the paper
was to decide which of the two words can and hat were more similar to the word cap. The
semantic choice would be hat, versus the phonetic which would be can. Other tests were
designed to provide a choice between semantic and phonetic interpretation of objects (e.g.
in a hypothetical situation could you call a cow a dog and if you did would this dog bark?).
She found that, although both monolingual and bilingual children showed no differences in
the way they understood the words used, 54% of the younger bilingual children consistently
showed a semantic preference in contrast to their monolingual peers. In monolingual
children, semantic preference increased with age, suggesting that bilingual children reach a
stage of semantic development 23 years earlier than their monolingual peers. This finding
is in stark contrast to the early research and claims about bilingualism which warned that
bilingualism stunts children's linguistic development.
In their book In Other Words,[9] Ellen Bialystok and Kenji Hakuta examine the idea that "the
knowledge of two languages is greater than the sum of its parts." They argue that the
linguistic benefits of being bilingual are more than simply being able to speak two
languages. If a child is learning two languages whose structures and rules are significantly
different from each other, this would require the child to think in more complicated ways. An
example of this is the understanding of the arbitrariness of labels for objects discussed in
the above paragraph, but also being able to distinguish between and use two different
grammatical or syntactical structures. This enables the child to increase their understanding
of the structure of language and gain a greater awareness of meaning; an increase
of metalinguistic awareness.[1][10][11]
Bialystok argues that metalinguistic awareness also increases bilinguals' control of
linguistic processes, such as having a greater ability to detect grammatical or syntactical
errors, and recognize words in continuous speech. [12] Bilinguals have also been found to
outperform monolinguals in reading ability (an effect modulated by the relationship of the
two languages),[13] and better reading skills in L1 were demonstrated with as little as an hour
a week of L2 learning,[14]suggesting that being bilingual is also advantageous in the
development of reading as well as spoken language.
Metalinguistic awareness has therefore been shown to benefit the individual in the
acquisition and use of language, giving bilingual individuals (who acquire metalinguistic
awareness earlier in life than their monolingual peers) a firm advantage. However, it has
also been proposed that metalinguistic awareness could result in advantages in other
cognitive abilities besides language, giving individuals a generalised cognitive advantage
over monolinguals (see below).[2][3][9]
Finally, studies have shown that regardless of the language in use at a present time, both
languages are constantly active both phonologically and semantically in bilingual
individuals, as indicated by electrophysiological measures of performance, even though
behavioural measures such as reaction times often do not indicate such an interference. [15]
[16][17][18]

In 2011, Wu and Thierry [16] conducted a study where bilinguals were shown picture pairs
and asked to judge whether the word pairs corresponding to the pictured objects rhymed or
not. Word pairs were designed so that they either rhymed in both L1 and L2 or only in one
of the two languages. Electrophysiological measures (see Event-related potential) of the
effect (priming) of the sound repetition induced by the rhyming of the word pairs, showed

that even though the participants were performing the task in L2, they showed a priming
effect (albeit delayed) when those L2 words rhymed in L1.
In 2012, Hoshino and Thierry [15] conducted a study where participants were shown word
pairs in L2 that sometimes contained words that were cognates to L1 words. Participants
judged whether the words in the pairs were related, and electrophysiological results
revealed that semantic priming (facilitation of processing of the words) occurred when the
words in the pairs were related to each other whether or not the meaning was interpreted in
L1 or L2.
Both these studies conclude that both languages of an individual are constantly
unconsciously active and interfering with one another with facilitatory results regarding the
processing of words, explaining bilinguals' advantages over their monolingual peers when it
comes to linguistic processing.

Executive functions[edit]
Executive functions are those cognitive processes such as problem solving, mental
flexibility, attentional control, inhibitory control, and task switching. Bilingual individuals have
been shown over a number of different tasks and situations to be better at such processes;
suggesting an interaction between being bilingual and executive functions. [11]
Hakuta and Diaz,[3] addressed the chicken and egg question concerning bilinguals and their
enhanced cognitive abilities; do children with greater cognitive abilities tend to learn more
than one language, or is it knowing more than one language that enhances cognitive
ability? They administered a set of non-verbal tests that are designed to measure cognitive
ability (Raven's Progressive Matrices) to a bilingual sample of children. They found a high
correlation with the degree of bilingualism (how proficient the individuals were in each of
their languages) of their sample and scores on the test, as well as bilingualism did in fact
predict performance (and therefore cognitive ability).
Bialystok makes a distinction between two types of processing that aid children in language
development; analysis, which involves the ability to represent and understand abstract
information, and control, which involves the ability to selectively attend to specific aspects
of structures whilst ignoring irrelevant information. [19] The literature concludes that it is in the
aspect of control that bilinguals have been found to have an advantage over their
monolingual peers when it comes to cognitive abilities.
In one study,[20] Bialystok administered a non-linguistic card-sorting task to her participants
that required flexibility in problem solving, inhibiting irrelevant information, as well as
recognizing the constancy of certain variables in the face of changes in the rules. She
found that bilingual children significantly outperformed their monolingual peers in this task,
suggesting early development of inhibitory function that aids solving problems that require
the ability to selectively focus attention.
In a following study, Bialystok and Martin [21] aimed to determine what gave bilinguals an
advantage in solving the card-sorting task (and generally an advantage in problem solving
situations). Though the groups were equivalent in their ability to represent the stimuli
(reflecting back to Worrall's findings [8]), and both were equally able to inhibit learned motor
responses, bilinguals showed a firm advantage in the task requiring conceptual inhibition;
the ability to inhibit previous associations and create new mental representations of the
stimulus according to task changes.
An explanation offered by Bialystok [21] and others[22] for this greater ability of bilinguals to
selectively attend to important conceptual attributes of a stimulus, is that it may stem from
the bilinguals' constant need to inhibit competing labels in their two languages for one
object according to the currently relevant language. Bilinguals have different
representations in each language for similar concepts and therefore need to constantly be
aware of which language they are using and which the appropriate word is to be used in
that context. This culminates in an advantage of cognitive control, since the ability to switch
between languages and select the appropriate word for use is directly linked to the ability to

better attend to relevant, or inhibit irrelevant, information. [23] A further explanation refers to
bilinguals' unique experience with using two languages in the same modality (spoken),
differentiating them from monolingual peers, and requiring them to make the decision about
how best to respond to a situation, as well as have better control over what they select. [24]
Ellen Bialystok has done extensive research [13][20][21] into the cognitive advantages of
bilingualism. In several studies she has shown that bilinguals outperformed their peers in
tasks measuring executive function, suggesting that being bilingual gives the individual an
advantage of better control of attention and therefore facilitates processing and functioning
in several cognitive tasks. Moreover, the ability to better attend to or inhibit irrelevant
information has been found to persist into adulthood with bilingual adults (that have been
bilingual since childhood) who show better controlled processing than monolingual peers,
[25]
and has even been linked to slowing age-related cognitive decline. [26] Studies have
correlated bilingualism with the delayed onset of dementia in Alzheimer's disease (AD) for
as long as 5 years [26][27] and a recent study[27] provided neurological support for these
findings by analyzing CT scans of patients diagnosed with possible AD. Certain functional
abilities, that correlate with environmental factors remain in individuals with AD, enabling
them to function somewhat normally even in advanced stages of the disease process;
these have been termed Cognitive Reserves. This study hypothesized that bilingualism
may be a contributing factor to cognitive reserves in AD, measurable by the amount of ADrelated atrophy in the brain of bilingual individuals with the disease, matched to
monolinguals. As predicted, bilinguals showed a higher level of atrophy than the
monolinguals even though their cognitive functioning remained similar, suggesting strongly
that bilingualism could be a cognitive reserve that delays the onset of signs of dementia in
AD.

Perception[edit]
A review of the literature suggests that bilingualism has an additive effect on an individual's
creativity, by enhancing their mental flexibility, their ability to solve problems, and to
perceive situations in different ways and the ability to maintain or manipulate these
perceptions to suit the task at hand, all in ways that matched monolingual peers do not
exhibit.[8][9][11]
One study addressed a less explored field of cognitive advantages bilingual children may
exhibit, in the use of creativity to solve of mathematical problems. [28] Participants were
presented with problems that were either mathematical in nature (arranging two sets of
bottle caps to be equal according to instruction) or non-mathematical (a common
household problem represented in pictures) and were asked to provide solutions, while
being rated on scales of creativity, flexibility and originality. The results of the study
confirmed that the bilingual children were more creative in their problem solving than their
monolingual peers. One attribution for this trait could be bilinguals' increased metalinguistic
awareness, which creates a form of thinking that is more open and objective, resulting in
increased awareness and flexibility.
This enhanced mental flexibility that develops in bilinguals influences more than their
problem solving or linguistic skills. Language appears to change the way the world is
perceived between individuals that speak different languages, and it has been shown to
influence the perception of color [29] as well as the categorisation of objects.[30]
Thierry et al.[29] studied how having different words for different colors in one language might
affect the perception of that color as compared to a language that does not discriminate
between those colors. In Greek, "light blue" is distinguished from "blue", not simply as a
different shade but as a whole different category of color. In this study, bilingual and
monolingual Greek/English participants were shown different shades of blue and light blue
as well as green and light green (for which a distinction is not made in Greek) and ERPs
were recorded. Electrophysiological measures showed a distinct pattern for the bilinguals
indicating that they were perceiving the two colors as completely separate.

Cook et al. explored the fact that Japanese speakers are likelier than English ones to
categorise objects according to their material as opposed to their shape. In their
study [30] they found that the preferences of Japanese monolinguals learning English
changed; the more proficient they became in English, the more their object categorization
results matched those of English monolinguals.
Simultaneous bilingualism is a form of bilingualism that takes place when a child
becomes bilingual by learning two languages from birth. According to Annick De Houwer, in
an article in The Handbook of Child Language, simultaneous bilingualism takes place in
children who are regularly addressed in two spoken languages from before the age of two
and who continue to be regularly addressed in those languages up until the final stages
of language development.[1] Both languages are acquired as first languages. This is in
contrast to sequential bilingualism, in which the second language is learned not as a native
language but a foreign language.

A bilingual sign in a Quebec supermarket

Contents
[hide]

1 Prevalence

2 Beliefs about simultaneous bilingualism

3 Bilingual acquisition
3.1 Language input in bilingual acquisition

3.1.1 Amount of language input

3.1.2 Separation of language input

3.1.3 Input stability

3.1.4 Attitudes
4 Theories of simultaneous bilingual acquisition

4.1 Unitary Language System Hypothesis

4.2 Dual Language System Hypothesis

5 Bilingual Acquisition versus Monolingual Acquisition

5.1 Difficulties

5.2 Findings

6 Dominance

7 Code-switching
o

7.1 Equivalency Problems

7.2 Social Norms

7.3 Parental Interaction

8 Further Research

9 See also

10 References
o

10.1 Notes

10.2 Bibliography

Prevalence[edit]
It is estimated that half of the world is functionally bilingual, and the majority of those
bilinguals are 'native speakers' of their two languages.[2] Wlck has pointed out that there
are many "native bilingual communities", typically in South America,Africa, and Asia, where
"monolingual norms may be unavailable or nonexistent".[3]

Beliefs about simultaneous bilingualism[edit]

Some popular misconceptions about bilingualism include the ideas that bilingual children
will not reach proficiency in either language and that they will be cognitively disadvantaged
by their bilingualism.[4] Many studies in the early 20th century found evidence of a language
handicap in simultaneously bilingual children, linking bilingualism with a lower intelligence.
[5]

However, many of these studies had serious methodological flaws.[6] For example, several

studies relating bilingualism and intelligence did not account for socioeconomic differences
among well-educated, upper class monolingual children and less-educated
(often immigrant) bilingual children.[7]
Some recent research on simultaneous bilinguals has actually found some evidence that
they have a cognitive advantage over their monolingual counterparts, particularly in the
areas of cognitive flexibility,[8] analytical skill,[9] and metalinguistic awareness.[10] However,
most studies agree that simultaneous bilinguals do not have any definitive cognitive edge
over monolinguals.[11]

Despite these findings, many therapists and other professionals are at odds with still
believing that simultaneous bilingualism can be harmful for a childs cognitive development.
One side argues that only one language should be spoken until fluently spoken and then
incorporate the second language. The other side argues that the child, whether
simultaneously bilingual or not, would still have speech issues. Some bilingual families
have chosen to stop speaking a language after hearing about the supposed negative
developmental effects of child bilingualism from people in authority.[12]

Bilingual acquisition[edit]
According to De Houwer, there is no established normal development pattern for
simultaneous bilinguals.[13] However, similar language development patterns have been
seen in bilingual and monolingual children.[14] Language acquisition in simultaneous
bilinguals generally take two common forms of exposure to a second language: [15]
A one-personone-language pattern, where each parent communicate in only one of the
two languages to the child or
both parents speak both languages to the child.

Language input in bilingual acquisition [edit]

The most influential factor in bilingual language acquisition is the languages spoken by
parents to their children, and the languages spoken by others with whom the child comes
into contact.[16] This language exposure is called comprehensible input. In a 1984 edition
of Bilingual Education Paper Series, Carolyn Kessler claimed that children develop faster
in the language which is used most in their environment,[17] which may or may not reflect
the language of the surrounding community. However, bilingual acquisition can also be
affected by the amount of input, the separation of input, and the stability of input, as well as
attitudes about bilingualism.
Amount of language input[edit]
It is important to consider amount of input, because not only do the languages of each
person affect on bilingualism; the amount of time each main input carrier spends with the
child also has an effect.[18]
Separation of language input[edit]
There is a spectrum ranging from zero to total separation of language by person. Usually, a
simultaneous bilingual child's situation is somewhere in the middle.
[19]

Some linguistic experts, dating from the early 20th century, have maintained that the best

way to facilitate bilingual acquisition is to have each main input carrier (usually parents) use
one and only one language with the child. By having each parent speak one of the two
languages, this method (known as the one person, one language approach) attempts to
prevent the child from confusing the two languages.

However, the lack of language separation by person does not necessarily lead to failure to
communicate effectively in two languages.[20] Further studies have shown that a one
person, one language approach may not be necessary for the early separation of
language systems to occur.[21] Children appear to be able to disentangle the two languages
themselves.
There has been little research done on other methods of language separation. De Houwer
points out that input may be separated by situation: for example, "Finnish spoken by all
family members inside the home but Swedish once they are outside."[22]
Input stability[edit]
A change in a childs linguistic environment can trigger language attrition.[23] Sometimes,
when input for one language is lost before the final stage of development, children may
lose their ability to speak the lost language. This leaves them able to speak only the other
language, yet fully capable of understanding both.
Attitudes[edit]
The parents expectations and knowledge about language development can be
instrumental in raising simultaneously bilingual children. Parental attitudes toward their
roles and linguistic choices also play a part in the childs linguistic development. [24] The
attitudes of the childs extended family and friends have been shown to affect successful
bilingualism.[25]

Theories of simultaneous bilingual acquisition[edit]

Unitary Language System Hypothesis[edit]
Virginia Volterra and Traute Taeschner put forth an influential [citation needed] study in 1978, positing
that bilingual children move from a stage where the two languages are lexically mixed into
eventual structural differentiation between the languages.[26] They theorized that until age
two, a child does not differentiate between languages. [27] There are 3 main stages identified
by this hypothesis:[28]
Stage One - L1 and L2 comprise one language system until approximately 3 years of age.
Stage Two - L1 vocabulary separates from L2 but the grammar remains as one language
Stage Three - The language systems become differentiated. The child is fully bilingual
This Unitary language system hypothesis, has been the subject of much debate in the
linguistic world.[29] Since its publication, this system has been discredited, and current
linguistic evidence now points to two separate language systems. [30]

Dual Language System Hypothesis[edit]

In contrast, the Dual language system hypothesis states that bilinguals have a separate
system for the L1 and L2 which they learn right from the start, so both languages can be
acquired simultaneously.[31] Research on vocabulary development have generally provided

strong support for this theory.[32][33][34] Monolingual children in early language development
learn one term for each concept, so does a bilingual child, just that the bilingual child does
so for both L1 and L2, and hence they know two language terms of the same concept that
has similar meaning, which is also known as translational equivalents. The awareness of
synonyms do not appear till a much later age. For example, they know that both 'two' in
English and 'dos' in Spanish refer to the numerical number '2'.

Bilingual Acquisition versus Monolingual

Acquisition[edit]
The study of simultaneous bilingualism supplements general (monolingual) theories of child
language acquisition. It particularly illuminates the critical role of the nature of language
input in language development. This indicates that the form of language input must be
similarly influential in monolinguals.[35]

Difficulties[edit]
However, it has proven difficult to compare monolingual and bilingual development, for a
number of reasons:

Many languages dont have much data

The data that there is may not represent the normal population of children

There are contradictions in the literature concerning normal monolingual

development

There are a large number of variables between bilingual and monolingual children
besides the number of languages they speak[36]

It can be difficult to differentiate between universal developmental processes and

cases of language transfer[37]

Findings[edit]
Meisel claims there is no reason to believe that the underlying principles and mechanisms
of language development [in bilinguals] are qualitatively different from those used by
monolinguals."[38] Dpke has hypothesized that communication styles that facilitate
monolingual development are a major variable in successful bilingual development.
[39]

Meisel proposed in a 1990 article that bilinguals tend to focus more on formal aspects of

language and are therefore able to acquire certain grammatical constructions faster than
many or most monolinguals."[40]

Dominance[edit]

Though the simultaneous bilingual child learns two languages at once, this does not mean
that he or she speaks them with identical competence. It is common for young
simultaneous bilinguals to be more proficient in one language than the other,[41] and this is
probably related to each childs relative exposure to each language; for example, many
bilingual children are more proficient in the mothers than the fathers language, arguably
because their mothers assume most of the childcare responsibilities and/or simply spend
more time with their children. The dominant language is almost always the language
spoken by the greatest number of the people the child interacts with (generally the
language the child is educated in). The child sees this language as most effective and
begins to favor it.[42] However, their dominant language need not be their L1. In addition, it is
possible to show language dominance in one language for one domain and dominance in
the other language for another domain. For example, a child may be dominant in his or her
L1 at home, but in the school context, his or her L2 becomes the dominant language being
used.[43]

Code-switching[edit]
Main article: Code-switching
Code-switching occurs when a child combines more than one language in a single
utterance. This phenomenon is also seen in bilingual adults. Bilingual children most often
engage in intrasentential code-switching, switching languages in the middle of a sentence.
[44]

Bilingual children code-switch for several reasons, including the following:

Equivalency Problems[edit]
Bilingual children often interject words from the other language when they do not know or
cannot remember the equivalent, and when one language has no suitable equivalent in the
other.[45] Taeschner found that bilingual children prefer to insert elements of the other
language rather than use simplified forms.[46]

Social Norms[edit]
Code-switching has also been tied to the bilingual childs socialization process. [47] According
to Poplack, a bilingual child code-switches based on the perceived linguistic norms of the
situation and the perceived bilingual ability of the hearer.[48]

Parental Interaction[edit]
Children will mirror their parents in this aspect of speech. If a childs parents engage in
code-switching in their own speech, this will affect the childs perception of the
appropriateness of mixing languages.[49]

Further Research[edit]
There is currently no differentiation of normal and deviant bilingual development. [50]

Further study into the effects of changing a childs linguistic environment could uncover the
minimal language input required to maintain "active use potential" in a particular language.
[51]

Simultaneous trilingualism is also possible. There is significantly less research in this area
than in simultaneous bilingualism. However, trilingual language acquisition in young
children has been shown to generally mirror bilingual acquisition
Sequential bilingualism occurs when a person becomes bilingual by first learning
one language and then another. The process is contrasted with simultaneous bilingualism,
in which both languages are learned at the same time.
There is variation in the period in which learning must take place for bilingualism to be
considered simultaneous. Generally, the term sequential bilingualism applies only if the
child is approximately three years old before being introduced to thesecond language (L2).
Contents
[hide]

1 Linguistic Competence
o

1.1 Achieving the Competence of a Native Speaker

1.2 Dominant versus Balanced Bilinguals

1.3 Grammatical versus Communicative Competence

2 Majority vs Minority Language

o

2.1 First Language as a Majority Language

2.2 First Language as a Minority Language

2.2.1 Age of introduction of L2

2.2.2 Value and Importance of Minority Language in Society

2.2.3 Consequences of First Language Attrition (FLA)

3 Modes to acquire L2

3.1 Circumstantial Bilingualism vs Elective Bilingualism

3.2 Formal vs Informal Learning

4 Success factors contributing to acquisition of L2

o

4.1 Individual learner differences

4.2 Availability of Opportunities

4.3 Motive

5 Obstacles faced when acquiring second language

o

5.1 Familial and Cultural factors

5.2 Individual Factors

5.2.1 Affective factors and Age

5.2.2 Self-belief and Motivation (Low intrinsic and extrinsic motivation)

5.2.3 L1 Interference
5.3 Pedagogical Factors

6 Code-switching

7 Emotional Intensity of Languages in Bilinguals

8 References

9 See also

Linguistic Competence[edit]
Achieving the Competence of a Native Speaker [edit]
Achieving the linguistic competence comparable to a native speaker can be achieved when
the second language is learned before the critical period of acquiring a language ends. It is
more difficult to achieve a native-like competence when the language is learned at a later
time in life.[1]

Dominant versus Balanced Bilinguals[edit]

There are two types of bilinguals: the dominant and balanced bilinguals. Dominant
bilinguals are bilinguals who are more proficient in one language as compared to the other
language.[2]
Balanced bilinguals are people who have equal proficiency in both their first language (L1)
and L2. However, balanced bilinguals are not common as people rarely use two languages
in the same situation.[2]

Grammatical versus Communicative Competence[edit]

Grammatical competence refers to knowing how to use the language correctly by forming
well-formed utterances.[2]
Communicative competence refers to knowing when saying something is appropriate or not
in a culture. It also emphasizes on knowing how to interpret an intended message in an
utterance when there is a meanings difference.[2] For example, knowing that when you are

asked Can you open the door? means that someone is requesting you to open the door
and not whether you have the ability to open the door.
When the second language is taught formally, the focus is always concentrated on gaining
grammatical competence that is comparable to the native speakers.[2]

Majority vs Minority Language[edit]

First Language as a Majority Language[edit]
The acquisition of a foreign language that is not commonly spoken in the community is
dependent on one's motivation and determination (provided that he/she is able to attain the
means and opportunity of the acquisition), since it is not a useful medium of communication
in his/her society. There would also not be any major consequences as he or she will still
have many opportunities to communicate with L1 still.

First Language as a Minority Language[edit]

Minority language of a region is a language spoken by the minority in a population. Such as
a Chinese, bilingual child is living in the United States with the first language being Chinese
and American English as the major, regional language.
Minority languages have a risk of being lost depending on the following factors:
Age of introduction of L2[edit]
Several studies show that immigrant children who arrive at the country early eventually
switch their primary and dominant language from L1 to L2, while children who arrive later in
childhood keep their L1 as their primary, strong and dominant language. Hence this is
evident that the loss in the minority language is dependent on the age of acquisition of the
majority language. This is because, the later the age that the child is introduced to the
latter, the more the child has exposure and knowledge of use about the former language,
and hence less tendency to lose his ability to use native languages, since the minority
language will still be their primary and dominant language of use.[3]
Value and Importance of Minority Language in Society[edit]
Especially in societies like the United States, where linguistics or ethnic diversity are not
particularly valued, language-minority children encounter powerful forces for language
shift or assimilation when they enter the majority-speaking world of the classroom in the
societys schools. Young children are extremely vulnerable to the social pressures exerted
by people in their social worlds. But the social pressure they experience are not entirely
external. Internal pressure too play a part. Once they turn on the television and they can
see that they are different in language, in appearance and in behavior and they come to
regard these differences as undesirable. At the same time, they are motivated to stop using
their L1, all too often long before they have mastered the second language, all due to the
internal and external pressures from their environment.[4]

Furthermore, the rank of the minority language in the family, language profile of the
parents, opportunity to interact with L1 peers and the importance of the language to a
person will also play a part in the whether the minority language will be lost. [5]
Consequences of First Language Attrition (FLA)[edit]
See also: Language attrition
The term 'First Language Attrition' (FLA) refers to the gradual decline in native language
proficiency among migrants. As a speaker uses their L2 frequently and becomes proficient
(or even dominant) in it, some aspects of the L1 can become subject to L2 influence or
deteriorate.
For children in language-minority communities, maintaining their ancestral language
preserves ties to their grandparents and keeps open the option of experiences that build
ethnic identification and pride, as well as cultural continuity.[6] Parents cannot easily convey
to them their values, beliefs, understandings, or wisdom, and about how to cope with their
experiences. They cannot teach their children about the meaning of work, or about
personal responsibility or what it means to be a moral or ethical person in a world with too
many choices and too few guideposts to follow. What is lost are the bits of advice parents
should be able to offer children in their everyday interactions with them. Talk is a crucial link
between parents and children. It is how parents impart their culture to their children and
enable them to become the kind of men and women they want them to be. When parents
lose their means for socializing and influencing their children, rifts develop and families lose
the intimacy that comes from shared beliefs and understandings. [7]
During language attrition, individuals will give up their cultural identity and take on the
beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of the majority culture. Individuals integrate when they
continue to hold on their cultural identity, but also become integral members of the majority
culture. When they desire to hold on to their cultural identity, there will be separation from
society; the individual will withdraw from the majority culture. [8] Languages contribute to sum
of human knowledge. Inside each language, there is a vision of the past, present and
future. When a language dies, die culture, identity and knowledge that have been
transmitted from generation to generation through that language. [9]

Modes to acquire L2[edit]

Circumstantial Bilingualism vs Elective Bilingualism[edit]
Elective bilingualism is whereby L2 is acquired through language classes, and have even
gone to live or study abroad in another country. However, the objective of an elective is not
necessarily to move to said country or fully adopt the foreign language. Most electives are
middle class: learning another language is a luxury of sorts.[citation needed]
Circumstantial bilinguals, on the other hand, are forced to relocate to a new country and
must learn the new language for survival. The child learners will enter a functional stage
of learning the language after about two years of being in a new country. This means that

they will basically be fluent and able to function in all aspects of life with needed written and
oral language skills. Interestingly, when the child has reached this stage, they will begin to
avoid using their native language. However, this native language will still be present in the
way they both speak and write. Adult learners will most likely not enter the functional stage
until they have been in the new country for 10 years. They will also remain native language
preferent.[10]

Formal vs Informal Learning[edit]

Informal L2 learning takes place in naturalistic contexts while formal L2 learning takes place
in classrooms, and L2 learning that involves a mixture of these settings and circumstances.
For example, when a Japanese child goes to United States, the child will informally learn
English through interaction and attending class with English-speaking citizens. Whereas
when a Russian student takes a course of Arabic in school, the student is undergoing
formal lessons to acquire the second language.[11]

Success factors contributing to acquisition of L2[edit]

Individual learner differences[edit]
Biological factors of an individual can affect their own L2 acquisition. Underdevelopment of
any of the biological systems, or damage or disruptions to the systems can and will impede
the acquisition process of a language, be it L1 or L2. These systems include the cognitive,
sensory, social, emotional, and neurobiological systems. These systems not only play a
critical independent role on language acquisition, they also interact with each other to
contribute to the persons ability towards language learning.[12]

Availability of Opportunities[edit]
Here, opportunities are social factors that lead to the availability of situations for the use of
the acquired L2. Increased chances to use a language greatly improve ones ability in that
language. For example, the environment must first present access to that language. Then,
there must be a need for using the language as a form of communication, which will thus
force and motivate the learner to consistently speak in that language. In addition,
opportunities for language use should come in diverse forms, like spoken or written, and in
various contexts, like in school, at home or during peer interaction, so that the child would
learn how to adapt to and apply the language appropriately in different situations, using
mediums, with different people.[13][12]
Parents are crucial here because they are essentially the key provider of a childs L2
learning opportunities. They are the ones who choose the type of L2 and enroll the child in
L2 learning classes. Additionally, when the parent takes on the active role, whereby they
actively and consciously monitor the child and encourage the child to learn the language,
and provide chances for the use and practice of the L2 in different contexts with different
people, these will generally reinforce the childs successes too.

Motive[edit]

Successful L2 acquisition is affected by ones motivation to learn and use the language too.
Motive refers to the purpose of learning and communicating in that specific language. The
motive is determined by the interaction between environmental needs and opportunities as
well as personal preferences, which is dependent on social contexts.
For learning an L2, there are two forms of motive: Integrative Motivation and Instrumental
Motivation. It is assumed that language acquisition is most successful when one learns a
language because one truly liked the language and culture and possessed a desire to
integrate into the culture in which the language is used. [14] This form of motivation is known
as integrative motivation. Developing a certain level of proficiency in the language is
becomes necessary because the community which one wants to immerse oneself into uses
the target language in its social interactions. Thus, in order to operate socially in the
community and become one of its members, one have to sufficiently proficient in that target
language.[15] In contrast, Instrumental motivation is the opposite. People who are
instrumentally motivated to learn a language acquires that language because they want to
benefit from that language, like gaining something practical or concrete. [16] There is a
practical purpose for acquiring an L2, such as meeting the requirements for school or
university graduation, applying for a job, requesting higher pay based on language ability,
or even achieving higher social status. Here, there is little or no desire for social integration
of the learner into a community.
While both integrative and instrumental motivation are essential elements of successful
language acquisition, research have determined integrative motivation as the main element
long-term success sustenance when learning a second language. [17][18][19]
For communication purposes, which language a bilingual choose to speak, motive may
interact with both the listeners identity and the environmental contextone language may
be preferred to communicate with a parent or child, another to complete a business
transaction. The social status or prestige associated with a language could also motivate
one to use that specific language. For example, United States being a political and
economic powerhouse, the motivation to learn and acquire English is huge. Young
immigrants in this country are spurred to learn English as fast as possible, mostly within a
single generation,[20] and many third-generation immigrants speak only English, with little or
no ability in the language of their grandparents.[21]

Obstacles faced when acquiring second language[edit]

Familial and Cultural factors[edit]
Parental and family support are important because they are the key providers to the childs
L2 learning and acquisition opportunities. They provide access to L2 learning and also to
the use of the language, not only because they interact with the child the most often and
therefore are the people whom the child can most often practice and use the L2 they
learned, parents can also determine who the child interacts with and thus determine their
opportunities for L2 use outside the family context.

However, as there is the risk that the child would lose competence in their native language,
which is especially so if the L2 is considered to be of a higher prestige than the native
language and is more useful and beneficial to the speaker in more contexts than the other,
parents might disapprove L2 acquisition because they see their native language as a form
of identity and their heritage and do not want their child to lose it. Furthermore, if the parent
holds negative attitudes towards the L2, they might transfer these negative attitudes to the
child, and thus reducing the child's motivation to learn the language. [22]
Also, low socioeconomic status is another obstacle because even if the family supports L2
learning, they might not have sufficient income to provide the adequate resources and help
required for learning an L2. Parents are financially incapable of enrolling their children in
language classes, neither are they able to afford textbooks, reading and practice materials
for their children to learn and practice. All these are possible factors acting as L2 acquisition
barriers.

Individual Factors[edit]
In addition to biological, psychological and physical deficits, like hearing loss, mental
retardation, motor deficits, neurological or psychiatric disorders, impairment in auditory
system, as well as inability to extract linguistic features and impairment in representational
or symbolic reasoning, there are other individual factors that could act as barriers to L2
acquisition.
Affective factors and Age[edit]
The learner's emotional state or affect can interfere with acquiring a new language because
acquiring a new language inevitably involves practicing it in public and conversing with
others. All these encompassed the possibility of making mistakes, resulting in
embarrassment, and such anxiety can block the ability to receive and process new
information.[23][24]Thus, high self-consciousness and a reluctance to reveal their weaknesses
and faults, coupled with feelings of vulnerability could greatly impede second language
learning.[25] Fear of embarrassment has been found to occur more in adults than children
because adults are more self-conscious about speaking, making errors and are more easily
demoralized by pronunciation difficulties.[26] In addition, the Critical Period Hypothesis states
that younger learners have certain advantages over older learners in language learning that
allows them to learn L2 easily and quickly in comparison to older children. When the critical
period is over, it is nearly impossible to reach native-like proficiency in ones second
language and even those who learn a language fluently are probably recognized as having
an accent. Although they can achieve expertise in a written language, they face problems in
spoken language.[27] Hence, age can also be regarded as an influential factor determining
the quality of second language learning.
Self-belief and Motivation (Low intrinsic and extrinsic motivation)[edit]
Motivation undoubtedly has a profound impact on second language learning as well. There
are two kinds of motivation, namely Integrative (intrinsic) and (instrumental) extrinsic

motivation, as have mentioned above. Intrinsically motivated students engage in the

learning process because they are truly interested and enjoy the learning process; whereas
extrinsically motivated learners learn in order to gain a reward or to avoid punishment. It
has been shown that intrinsically motivated goals are more likely to achieve long-term
success. Furthermore, self-belief has been acknowledged to be able to potentially to
influence effort and persistence invested in acquiring a desired level of second-language
competence. Self-belief comprises two components: Self-efficacy beliefs and self-concept
beliefs. The former ones own belief as to whether he or she is capable of performing a
given learning task and are consequently future-oriented; whereas the latter involves
evaluations of ones general self-worth based on past experiences.[28] It is said that low selfefficacy beliefs would pose as an obstacle in language learning because it indicates a lack
of self-confidence and thus reduces the motivation to learn.
L1 Interference[edit]
Main article: Language transfer
L1 interference in bilingual language acquisition generally refers to the influence that the
learners L1 exerts over the acquisition of an L2. [29] Habits have been formed during L1
acquisition will influence the L2 learning process, either facilitate or hinder L2 learning.
[30]

The more similar L1 is with L2, the greater ease learners have with learning the L2

structures. In contrast, areas where L1 and L2 differ, the learners face much difficulty in
learning because learners would use their L1 knowledge and experience to guide their L2
learning and responses.[31]

Pedagogical Factors[edit]
For sequential bilinguals, education usually plays a far more central role than simultaneous
bilinguals. Education help bilinguals develop higher level of language literacy and
proficiency in terms of language structure, vocabulary, syntax, phonology, morphology,
literacy and communicative purposes.[32] Some key factors critical to a good Bilingual
educationprogram includes:[33]
1. The type of bilingual education program. The type of bilingual education program should
match the proficiency and goals of the learner. For example, to foster bilingualism and biliteracy in mixed language students, two-way/ dual language programs are more effective
than immersion programs, which are catered more for students whose L1 is the major
language and trying to learn a L2 minority language.[34]
2. Duration of the program. The longer the bilingual education programs, the more
significantly effective they are because they allow for L2 learning delay that could
negatively impact the acquisition of academic language proficiency in an L2.
3. The ratio of L1 to L2 use at different stages of the program. Usually, programs start off
with maximum exposure of the curriculum in L2 while progressively increasing the
proportion of L1 used, but there are programs which do it the opposite way, and the method
used is based on the goals of the program and the learner. However, strict separation of

languages of instruction should always be maintained so that the L2 is not subsumed by

the L1.
4. Continuity of the program across levels within education systems.
5. Bridging support. This support involves materials to help overcome the initial limitations
of the students L2 proficiency and also include extra tuition or smaller remedial classes to
cater more specifically to difficulties faced by each individual.
6. Sufficient and adequate resources and educational material.
7. Availability of qualified and committed personnel. Provision of constant teacher training,
and staff-development program for teachers is crucial as teachers are the people who
interact with and impart the language skills to the students.[35]Teachers have to be
committed as language acquisition requires a huge amount of time and effort. Additionally,
it is important to ensure that teachers are familiar and proficient with the specific
educational materials developed so that these material are complementing their teachings.
8. Attitude of the educators toward the culture of the target language. Teachers can transfer
their attitudes to the students. Hence, if teachers had a negative attitude towards L2, then it
might undermine the effort and restrict the success in L2 language acquisition.

Code-switching[edit]
Main article: Code-switching
Bilinguals tend to code-switch when talking to people who understand both their first and
second language. Code-switching takes place when a bilingual uses two or more
languages in a conversation and this is a natural effect of knowing more than one
language. Codeswitching can take place due to a lack of sufficient vocabulary in one of the
languages to express an idea (not to be confused with a lack of sufficient vocabulary
knowledge from the speaker)and so the speaker expresses the idea using another
language. However, codeswitching can also be done to convey special emphasis or
establish cultural identity.

Emotional Intensity of Languages in Bilinguals[edit]

Various studies have found that for bilinguals, the emotional intensity of L1 is different from
the emotional intensity of subsequent languages learned. [36][37][38] These studies concluded
that L1 has the highest emotional impact and is the language of personal involvement while
L2 is the language that can create distance and detachment as it has lesser emotional
impact as compared to L1.
Yet, paradoxically, many late bilinguals indicate that it is harder for them to swear in their L1
as compared to their L2.[39] As such they would prefer to use their L2 to swear despite it
having lesser emotional impact on the speakers themselves. This could be due to the fact

that they are unable to feel the total strength of their spoken words when swearing in their
L2 and as such, they would swear in their L2 more easily.
Transitional bilingualism is the shift from being bilingual, knowing two
different languages, to only speaking one leading language. This usually happens over a
period of time and can be seen within a few generations. There
are families withimmigrant grandparents who speak primarily their native language and
some of the new country's language. Their childrenthen speak both languages, but the
grandchildren only speak the dominant or preferred language of the new location.
TheUnited States provides many examples of this phenomenon. For example, a woman
born and raised in Mexico moved to the United States and learned a bit of English and
spoke a great deal of Spanish as well. Her daughter, born and reared in the U.S. was
equally fluent in both Spanish and English (bilingual). The grandchild of the Mexican
immigrant, who was born and has been reared in the U.S., speaks only English. [1]
This process is due to the pressure that is put on the individuals by the society of the new
environment. They cannot survive well without the primary language spoken in their new
home and eventually, since fewer and fewer people speak the "old" native language, it is
not used as often, as it is not a necessity, and is lost.

Language production in bilinguals[edit]

Bilingualism involves the use of two languages by an individual or community.
Neuroimaging studies of bilingualism generally focus on a comparison of activated areas
when using the first language (L1) and second language (L2). Studies of language
production which employ functional neuroimaging methods, investigate the cerebral
representation of language activity in bilinguals. These methods (i.e. PET and fMRI)
separate subjects mainly on basis of age of L2 acquisition and not on proficiency level in
L2.
With the use of PET in the study of late learners, regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF)
distribution has been found to be comparable between L1 and L2. Repetition of words
engages overlapping neural structures across both languages; whereas, differences in
neural activation are only observed in the left putamen when individuals repeat words in
their second language. The putamen, therefore, plays a critical role because the articulation
process places greater demand on brain resources, when one is producing a second
language learned late in life.[5]
Word generation tasks including rhyme generation (phonological bases), synonym
generation (semantic search bases), and translation (lexical access to other language) are
used to observe lexical-semantics. Word generation has been shown to cause significant
activation in the left dorsolateral frontal cortex (Brodmann areas 9, 45, 46, 47).
Considerable overlie has been found in the frontal areas, regardless of task requirements
(rhymes or synonyms) and language used (L1 or L2). Selective activation is observed in
the left putamen when words are generated in the second language (i.e. increased rCBF in

left putamen resulting from L2-L1 subtractions). Even when the second language is
acquired later in life (up to age five), L2 production in highly proficient bilinguals reveals
activation of similar brain regions as that in L1.[5]
Word generation (phonemic verbal fluency) has also led to larger foci of brain activation for
the least fluent language(s) within multilinguals (observed using fMRI). Regardless of
language, however, activation is principally found in the left prefrontal cortex (inferior
frontal, middle frontal, and precentral gyri). Additionally, activation can be observed in
thesupplementary motor area and parietal lobe. This activation is larger for L3 than L2 and
L1, and less for L1 than for L2. Familiarity with a language reduces the brain activation
required for its use.[6]
Age of second language acquisition[edit]
Language acquisition appears to play a large role in the cortical organization involved in
second language processing. Using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI),
representations of L1 and L2 have been found in spatially isolated parts of the left inferior
frontal cortex of late learners (Broca's area). For early learners, similar parts of Broca's
area are activated for both languages whereas late learners have shown to use different
parts of Broca's area. In contrast, there is overlap in active regions of L1 and L2
within Wernicke's area, regardless of age of L2 acquisition.[7]
Effects of language proficiency on L2 cortical representation[edit]
Conversely, it has also been reported that there is at times, no difference within the
left prefrontal cortex when comparing word generation in early bilinguals and late
bilinguals [8] It has been reported that these findings may conflict with those stated above
because of different levels of proficiency in each language. That is, an individual who
resides in a bilingual society is more likely to be highly proficient in both languages, as
opposed to a bilingual individual who lives in a dominantly monolingual community. Thus,
language proficiency is another factor affecting the neuronal organization of language
processing in bilinguals.[2]
With the use of Positron Emission Tomography (PET), research has shown that brain
regions active during translation are outside classical language areas. [9] Translating from L1
to L2 and vice versa activates the anterior cingulate and bilateral subcortical structures (i.e.
putamen and head of caudate nucleus). This pattern is explained in terms of the need for
greater coordination of mental operations. More specifically, automated circuits are
favoured over cerebral pathways for naming words. Language switching is another task in
which brain activation is high in Broca's area and the supramarginal gyrus. This was
originally observed by Poetzl, (1925, 1930) and Leischner, (1943) all of whom reported
that patients with supramarginal lesions were defective in switching languages. [2]
Linguistic fluency[edit]

Most studies involving neuroimaging investigations of language production in bilinguals

employ tasks that require single word processing predominantly in the form of word
generation (fluency) tasks.[2] Fluency tasks show substantial activation of the left
dorsolateral frontal cortex.[10] Phonemic verbal fluency (initial letter fluency) activates the left
inferior frontal gyrus, and the posterior frontal operculum (Ba 44). Semantic fluency,
however, engages discrete activation of anterior frontal regions (Brodmann areas 45 and
46).[2]
Functional neuroimaging research has shown that very early bilinguals display no
difference in brain activation for L1 and L2 which is assumed to be due to high
proficiency in both languages. Additionally, in highly proficient late bilinguals, there is a
common neural network that plays an important role in language production tasks; [8]
[11]

whereas, in late bilinguals, spatially separated regions are activated in Broca's area for

L1 and L2.[7] Finally, it has been found that larger cerebral activation is measured when a
language is spoken less fluently than when languages are spoken fluently. Overall, in
bilinguals/polyglots, achieved proficiency, and possibly language exposure, are more
crucial than age of acquisition in the cerebral representation of languages. [2] However, since
age of acquisition has a strong effect on the likelihood of achieving high fluency, these
variables are strongly intertwined.

Language comprehension in bilinguals[edit]

Research generally supports the belief that language comprehension in the bilingual brain
is malleable.[12][13][14] Listening to stories in L1 and L2 results in largely dissimilar patterns of
neural activity in low proficiency bilinguals regardless of age of acquisition. Some
researchers propose that the amount to which one masters L2 is accountable for the
measured differences between groups of early and late learners.[2] Specifically, in terms of
auditory language comprehension for proficient bilinguals who have acquired L2 after ten
years of age (late learners), the activated neural areas are similar for both languages.
However, as already noted, there are fewer individuals becoming highly proficient at later
ages of acquisition.
Language comprehension research on bilinguals used fMRI techniques. Groups of two
orthographically and phonologically outlying languages (English and Mandarin) were the
basis of analysis.[15] Sentence comprehension was measured through visually presented
stimuli, showing significant activation in several key areas: the left inferior and middle
frontal gyri, the left superior and middle temporal gyri, the left temporal pole, the anterior
supplementary motor area, and bilateral representation of the superior parietal regions and
occipital regions. Also, brain activation of these two orthographically and phonologically
outlying languages showed striking overlap (i.e. the direct contrast did not indicate
significant differences). Single word comprehension using L1 generated greater activation
in the temporal pole than comprehension of words in L2. Language comprehension studies
of bilinguals using neuroimaging give more conclusive results than production studies.

General findings[edit]
Functional neuroimaging methods such as PET and fMRI are used to study the complex
neural mechanisms of the human language systems. Functional neuroimaging is used to
determine the most important principles of cerebral language organization in bilingual
persons. Based on the evidence we can conclude that the bilingual brain is not the addition
of two monolingual language systems, but operates as a complex neural network that can
differ across individuals.[2]
The bilingual language system is affected by specific factors of which proficiency appears
to be the most important. Evidence, mentioned previously, has shown that differential
cerebral activation in anterior brain structures (e.g. Ba and the basal ganglia) is related to
poor performance on word generation and production. With regards to language
comprehension, differences in levels of language proficiency engage the temporal lobes
(particularly the temporal pole). Interestingly, where in the least proficient language, more
cerebral activation is related to speech production, less activation is related to
comprehending the least proficient language.
Age of acquisition is not as important in comprehension activities as it is in production
activities.[2] However, that is not to say that age of acquisition is not a major factor in the
proficiency of L2. In fact studies have determined late learners to be less proficient in L2
than early learners.[16][17][18] Functional imaging methods have revealed that holding
proficiency constant leads to age of acquisition not having a large influence on
representation of L2 in the brain, but there are fewer individuals achieving high proficiency
at later ages of acquisition.

Structural plasticity[edit]
Second language proficiency and age at acquisition affect grey matter density in the brain.
The human ability to learn multiple languages is a skill thought to be mediated by functional
(rather than structural) plastic changes in the brain. Learning a second language is said to
increase grey matter density in the left inferior parietal cortex, and the amount of structural
reorganization in this region is modulated by the proficiency attained and the age at
acquisition. It has been suggested that this relation between grey matter density and
performance denotes a general principle of brain organization.[19]
There is an increase in grey matter density in the left inferior parietal cortex of bilinguals
compared to that in monolinguals. Interestingly, grey matter density is more prominent in
early bilinguals than it is in late bilinguals. Evidence has also shown that density in this
region increases with second language proficiency and is negatively correlated with age of
acquisition.[19]
It is debated whether the above-mentioned effects are the result of a genetic predisposition
to increased density, rather than experience-related structural reorganization. [20] A second
language is likely acquired through social experience, in early bilinguals, rather than

through genetic predisposition. Thus, the research suggests that the structure of the human
brain is reworked by the experience of acquiring a second language. [21][22]
This theory is also consistent with growing evidence that the human brain changes
structurally due to environmental demands. For instance, it has been established that
structure is altered as a consequence of learning in domains independent of language. [23][24]
As to structural plasticity induced by bilingualism, it has recently been shown that bilinguals,
as compared to monolinguals, have increased grey matter density in the anterior cingulate
cortex (ACC). The ACC is a brain structure that helps subjects to monitor their actions and
it is part of the attentional and executive control system. Bilinguals have increased grey
matter in this brain area because they continuously monitor their languages in order to
avoid unwanted language interferences from the language not in use. The continuous use
of the ACC in turn induces plastic neural effects. This may be the same reason why
bilinguals are faster than monolinguals on many attentional control tasks

[25]

Bilingual aphasia[edit]
Bilingual aphasia is a specific form of aphasia which affects one or more languages of a
bilingual (or multilingual) individual. As of 2001, 45,000 new cases of bilingual aphasia are
predicted annually in the United States.[26] The main factors influencing the outcomes of
bilingual aphasia are the number of languages spoken and the order in which they are
learned both influenced by the pattern of daily use and expertise in each language
before the onset of aphasia. The type and severity of the aphasia, as well as the patient's
levels of education and literacy also influence the functional outcomes of bilingual aphasia.
[27]

There are two proposed theoretical views generally taken to approach bilingual aphasia.
The more traditional Localizationist view, states that the loss of one language occurs
because the patient's languages are represented in different brain areas or in different
hemispheres. Thus, if one area is damaged, only the language represented there would
suffer, and the others would not.[28] The second view is the Dynamic view of selective
language recovery, which proposes that the language system of representation and control
is compromised as a result of damage.[29][30][31] This theory is supported by the functional
imaging data of normal bilinguals and holds that fluency in a language is lost because of an
increase in the activation threshold. The Dynamic view offers an explanation for selective
recovery of language and many reported recovery patterns in bilingual aphasia (See
Recovery[31]) There is much debate over which hemisphere supports the languages and
which intrahemispheric neural regions represent each language within a bilingual individual.
Most neuroimaging studies show no laterality differences between monolingual and
bilingual speakers, supporting the hypothesis that languages share some areas of the
brain, but also have some separate neural areas.[7][32][33] Right hemisphere damage has been
shown to result in the same patterns of cognitive-communication deficits in monolinguals

and bilinguals; however, bilingual speakers who have left hemisphere damage are shown
to be at risk for aphasia while monolingual individuals are not. [34]

Recovery[edit]
The concept of different recovery patterns was first noted by Albert Pitres in 1895. Since
then, seven patterns have been outlined:[31]
1. Differential recovery occurs when there is greater inhibition of one language than
of another
2. Selective recovery one language remains impaired and the other recovers; the
activation threshold for the impaired language is permanently increased
3. Parallel recovery of both languages (i.e., when both impaired languages improve to
a similar extent and concurrently;
4. Successive recovery (i.e., when complete recovery of one language precedes the
recovery of the other);
5. Alternating recovery (i.e., the language that was first recovered will be lost again
due to the recovery of the language that was not first recovered);
6. Alternating antagonistic recovery in which the language that was not used for a
time becomes the currently used language (i.e., on one day the patient is able to
speak in one language while the next day only in the other); and
7. Blended recovery Pathological mixing of two languages (i.e., the elements of the
two languages are involuntarily mixed during language production)
Research that compares the prevalence of the different recovery patterns generally shows
that the most common pattern of recovery is parallel recovery, followed by differential,
blended, selective, and successive.[26] In regards to differential recovery, better recovery of
L1 is shown to be slightly more common than better recover of L2. [35]
In 1977, it was proposed that when the effects of age, proficiency, context of acquisition,
and type of bilingualism are combined, the recovery pattern of a bilingual aphasic can be
properly predicted.[36] It has recently been reported that language status (how frequently the
language is used in comparison to other languages), lesion type or site, the context in
which the languages were used, the type of aphasia, and the manner in which the
language could not reliably predict recovery patterns.[37]

The bimodal bilingual brain[edit]

Bimodal bilinguals are individuals who are fluent in both sign language and oral language.
The effect of this language experience on the brain compared to brain regions in

monolinguals or bilinguals of oral languages has only recently become a research interest,
but is now used to provide insight on syntactic integration and language control of
bilinguals.[38]PET scans of a 37-year-old, right handed, bilingual (English and American Sign
Language) male with left frontal lobe damage revealed evidence of increased right
hemisphere activity compared to normal controls during spontaneous generation of
narrative in both English and American Sign Language (ASL).[39] Research with fMRI has
found that showing sign language to deaf and hearing signers and showing written English
to hearing non-signers activates the classical language areas of the left hemisphere in both
cases.[40] Studies in this area generally compare the behaviour or brain activity in normally
hearing monolingual speakers of an oral language, genetically deaf, native signers, and
normally hearing bimodal bilinguals. With the use of functional Near-Infrared Imaging
(fNIR), Kovelman (2009) compared the performance and brain activity of these three
groups in picture-naming tasks. These researchers found that, although performance in all
groups was similar, neuroimaging revealed that bilinguals showed greater signal intensity
within the posterior temporal regions (Wernicke's area) while using both languages in rapid
alternation than when they were only using one language. [41]

Working memory[edit]
PET studies have revealed a language modality-specific working memory neural region for
sign language (which relies on a network of bilateral temporal, bilateral parietal, and left
premotor activation), as well as a difference in activation of the right cerebellum in bimodal
bilinguals between when they are signing or speaking. Similarities of activation have been
found in Broca's area and semantic retrieval causes similar patterns of activation in the
anterior left inferior frontal lobe. The bilateral parietal activation pattern for sign language is
similar to neural activity during nonverbal visuospatial tasks. [42]

Face recognition[edit]
Sign language and oral language experience in bimodal bilinguals are shown to have
separate effects on activation patterns within the superior temporal sulcus when
recognizing facial expressions. Additionally, hearing signers (individuals who can hear and
also speak sign language) do not show the strong left-lateralizated activation for facial
expression recognition that has been found within deaf signers. This indicates that both
sign language experience and deafness can affect the neural organization for recognizing
facial expressions.

Health benefits of multilingualism and bilingualism [edit]

Researcher Ellen Bialystok examined the effect of multilingualism on Alzheimers disease
and found that it delays its onset by about 4 years. The researchers study found that those
who spoke two or more languages showed symptoms of Alzheimers disease at a later time
than speakers of a single language.[42] Interestingly, the study found that the more
languages the multilingual knows, the later the onset of Alzheimers disease.
Multilingualism aids in the building up of cognitive reserves in the brain; these cognitive

reserves force the brain to work harderthey, themselves, restructure the brain.
[44]

Multilingualism leads to greater efficiency of use in the brain, and organizes the brain to

be more efficient and conservative in using energy. More research is required to determine
whether learning another language later in life has the same protective effects;
nonetheless, it is evident from the variety of studies performed on the effects of
multilingualism and bilingualism on the brain, that learning and knowing multiple languages
sets the stage for a cognitive healthy life.

Psychology[edit]
Main article: Psychology
A study in 2012 has shown that using a foreign language reduces decision-making biases.
It was surmised that the framing effect disappeared when choices are presented in a
foreign tongue. As human reasoning is shaped by two distinct modes of thought: one that is
systematic, analytical and cognition-intensive, and another that is fast, unconscious and
emotionally charged, it was believed that a second language provides a useful cognitive
distance from automatic processes, promoting analytical thought and reducing unthinking,
emotional reaction. Therefore, those who speak two languages have better critical thinking
and decision making skills.[45]
In 2014, another study has shown that people using a foreign language are more likely to
make utilitarian decisions when faced with a moral dilemma, as in the trolley problem. The
utilitarian option was chosen more often in the fat man case when presented in a foreign
language. However, there was no difference in the switch track case. It was surmised that a
foreign language lacks the emotional impact of ones native language.

What is the best age to start a second language?

In a previous article I discussed the myth that young children are the
best second language learners. In fact, studies have shown that
adolescents and adults are in many ways better at learning a new
language than children, except in the area of pronunciation. This is
probably because they are already literate in their first language and
can use some of their knowledge about language and language
learning when learning the second language. However, this doesn't
answer the important question: What's the best age to learn a new
language? This question, like most about language learning, cannot
be answered so simply. It depends on the situation.
For example, a child who is born to an American father and German
mother living in the USA can start to learn both German and English
from the moment he is born. This is probably the most favourable
situation for anyone who wishes to speak two languages fluently as
an adult. A child of school age who emigrates to the USA has no

choice, and must start to learn the new language, English, as soon as
she arrives. Depending on the age of the child, it can take up several
years for her to reach the level of a native English speaker. It is
important in this time that she continues her first language
development. And it is equally important that she, her parents and
her teachers do not have unrealistic expectations about how easy
learning will be and how quickly it will happen.
The two situations described above contrast with situations where
there is more choice over whether and when the second language is
introduced. Either the choice is made by the education authorities in
the area where the child lives, or parents can decide on an individual
basis whether to enrol their child in a foreign language learning
program. It is this last situation that I wish to discuss a little further.
Some specialists in language acquisition claim that the sooner a child
starts to learn a second language the better. It certainly seems to
make sense that the earlier you start, the longer you will have to
learn, and the more progress you will make compared with someone
who started later. However, there is evidence that this is not the case,
particularly if the second language comes to take the place of the first
language, which has never been allowed to develop properly. One
researcher* talks of the dangers of double semi-lingualism for early
learners of a second language; i.e. the child does not develop full
proficiency in either of the two languages. And as mentioned above, it
has been found that older learners of a language are more efficient
learners, so they may need less time to reach the same level of
proficiency as younger learners. Also, of course, if more time is spent
learning a second language during the school day, then some other
subject must be cut or reduced to make way for it. This may not be
desirable.
So what is the best age for a person to start learning a foreign
language in situations where there is a choice, and where it is not
critical that a native-speaker-like pronunciation is acquired? The
answer, according to current research, is early adolescence, so about
11-13. And the more motivated the child is to learn the new
language, the more successful he will be!
References

* Scovel T, 1999 The younger the better myth and bilingual

education In: Gonzalez, R (ed.) Language Ideologies: Critical
Perspectives Urbana, IL: NCTE

What's the best age to learn a new

language?
by Molly Edmonds

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You're expecting a brand new bundle of joy, and you've got everything that a new parent needs
-- diapers, onesies, rattles and pacifiers. But what about Spanish language DVDs? Or Mandarin
vocabulary flash cards? Picture books written in French?

You may not need those DVDs, flash cards or picture books on the day that your baby is born,
but researchers say that you shouldn't wait too long before introducing a baby to foreign
languages. According to the critical period hypothesis, there's a certain window in which
second language acquisition skills are at their peak. Researchers disagree over just how long
that window is -- some say that it ends by age 6 or 7, while others say that it extends all the way
through puberty -- but after that period is over, it becomes much harder for a person to learn a
new language. It's not impossible, but children in that critical period have an almost universal
success rate at achieving near fluency and perfect accents, while adults' results are more hitand-miss.
Because children are so much more skilled at picking up a second language than adults,
immersion preschools and elementary schools are a popular choice for parents. Students at
these schools have math, story time and social studies the way other students do, but their
classes are taught in a foreign language. Not only does this give the students ample time to
practice the foreign language, but some research indicates that such a program might have
other academic benefits, such as higher math scores and sharper critical thinking skills. And
learning a second language at such a young age doesn't hinder any abilities in the child's native
language -- it seems a child's brain is wired so that all linguistic rules, be they native or foreign,
are picked up quickly.
However, just because a child becomes fluent in Italian, Russian and Portuguese doesn't mean
that he or she will be speaking those languages 50 years later. Without extended exposure to a
language, the child's abilities diminish, so it's important to provide continued opportunities to
practice these skills. And even if your parents let your critical period for language acquisition
pass by without so much as an "adios," don't fret. Even though young children may be more
naturally gifted at learning languages, adults can learn them, too -- with motivation and hard
work.
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Citation & Date
Fe

Language Learning and Age

The question of the optimal age at which to begin foreign language (FL) instruction has attracted
the attention of parents, scholars and policy makers over the years, and is directly related to
APEC's goal of learning each other's languages. Though the topic may seem new due to the
surge of media interest, brought on partly by the turn of world events and domestic concerns
about immigration-related issues in some APEC economies, research has been conducted in
this area for at least 30 years. Studies on the critical period by psychologists, linguists and
educators have turned out many interesting and relevant findings. In the United Kingdom,
the National Advisory Centre on Early Language Learning promotes starting language
education early, because of the relative ease of learning at a younger age. Francis
(2005) maintains that the knowledge of two or more languages in early childhood does not
contribute to language deficiency or deficient intellectual development. [1] At the same time,

researchers have considered possible areas of conflict that may arise when informing linguistic
foundations for the one language by exposure to another. Recent studies show that adult
learners may actually be at an advantage when studying a second language. It is clear that
different economies school systems introduce FL at different ages with varying levels of
implementation as reflected in their language standards.
Contents
[hide]

1 Trends in FL Education
1.1 Children and Language Learning

2 Successful FL Implementation in Early Language Education

3 Developing Primary Language Literacy
4 Adolescent and Adult Language Learning

4.1 Teaching Children in the Classroom vs. Teaching Adults in the Classroom

4.2 More Reading

5 References

Trends in FL Education
Economies are continuing to introduce FL at earlier and earlier grades. LeAnn Eyerman, on
faculty at Ming Chuan University in Chinese Taipei, has identified the average age for the
introduction of second language learning in the APEC region. In 2003, the average grade of
language introduction was Grade 4. In 2007, it was Grade 3, while Hong Kong China, Malaysia,
Singapore, and Thailand all begin second language instruction in Grade 1 (Survey analysis
reported in Background Research Paper, 2007). In addition, Patricia Duff in her paper, Foreign
Language Policies, Research, and Educational Possibilities presented at the 2008 APEC
Symposium on Education Reform, claims this downward push can be justified for affective and
cognitive reasons.[1] Duff states there is a critical or sensitive period for optimal language
learning, and particularly for FL pronunciation, ending around the age of puberty. Other
researchers believe younger children are more amenable to other languages and cultures.
Furthermore, they are less self-conscious about FL production than older children and
adolescents.[1][1]

Children and Language Learning

The trend towards introducing language education instruction at younger ages has made it
imperative to examine why children are perceived to be more proficient at FL acquisition. The
most significant reason why children are assumed to be more proficient at language learning is
because they are more proficient at mimicking native pronunciation. [1] Further, the amount of
vocabulary necessary for a child to be proficient in a FL is less extensive than what is necessary
for an adult to be considered competent in vocabulary.

Successful FL Implementation in Early Language Education

Research shows that the age at which FL learning commences is also dependent on the
implementation variables of (1) the intensity, duration, and quality of FL instruction, (2) the status
of the FL course itself within the school curriculum, and (3) students metalinguistic efficiency.
According to Duff (2008), each of these variables must be taken into account when changing
policies and evaluating the effectiveness of earlier FL instruction. [1] Indeed, several scholars[1]
[1]

have written about the myth of the earlier the better principle in FL learning, noting that a

shorter but more intensive FL learning experience in the later elementary years may be just as
effective if not more so than a so-called drip-feed method of instruction over many years when
children are younger, less cognitively developed, receive too little instruction to make much of a
difference, and may have teachers who themselves are not highly proficient. [1] Rosenbusch
(1995) reports that the minimum amount of time recommended for an elementary school FL
class is 75 minutes per week, with classes meeting at least every other day. [1] Others have
recommended at least 30 minutes a day, everyday, long enough for students to engage in
meaningful activities (see also the ACTFL Performance Guidelines for K12 Learners [1]).
Research synthesized by Nikolov and Djigunovic (2006) and Coppola (2005) illustrates that
starting early can allow young children to master a FL only if a well-design total immersion
program is in place for teaching them.[1][1] Even so, child language researchers have identified
family, friendship networks, popular culture and others as important influences on the
development of native and FL abilities.

Developing Primary Language Literacy

Research has shown that it is important to develop a child's first language literacy before
introducing a second language. According to Duff (2008), research shows that while the
promotion of FL education - and second languages, such as English, in immigrant-receiving,
English-dominant countries - is associated with potential gains in students cognitive,
sociocultural, and linguistic development, FL education should not be undertaken at the
expense of students indigenous/home languages and their prior literacy development in those
languages; that is, it should be an additive as opposed to subtractive learning experience for
them.[1] Goldenberg in his 2008 article, Teaching English Language Learners: What the

Research Does--and Does Not--Say, claims that teaching students to read in their first
language promotes higher levels of reading achievement in English. [1] If only a few hours per
week are feasible, studies show that it may be prudent to wait until students are a bit older and
have more linguistic foundation in their native language. By designing a curriculum that
incorporates deliberate direct instruction, these learners can also make significant progress in a
FL, a point well supported by research covered thoroughly in the book, Age in L2 Acquisition
and Teaching, edited by Abello-Contesse, et al.[1]

Adolescent and Adult Language Learning

Research shows that older children and adults who learn through ample classroom and study
time, mixing practice and communication with such direct instruction measure up almost as well
as early learners, their only disadvantage having somewhat less native-like pronunciation. [1] The
greatest challenge to older adult language learning is skepticism; both teachers and learners
alike are influenced by the idea that language learning is easier for younger children. [1] However,
as stated earlier, adults have a greater array of techniques at their disposal to augment there
language learning capabilities, and may in fact have an easier time than children learning
second languages. Especially in the areas of vocabulary and language structure, adults are
actually better language learners than children; because they are able to integrate their new
language input with their already substantial learning experience. [1] They can use memory tricks
such as mnemonic devices to sustain newly gained information. Not even achievements in
pronunciation are limited to those who learned their second language at young ages, as shown
in research by Abu-rabia and Kehat (2004).[1]

Teaching Children in the Classroom vs. Teaching Adults in the Classroom

FL approaches for teaching adults or children differ substantially. According to Weisel (1980),
exercises such as oral drills and memorization, which rely on short-term memory, discriminate
against adult learners.[1] Weisel also claims that many language programs are heavily
dependent on good auditory discrimination; this puts many older learners at a disadvantage
because auditory reception declines with age. Class activities which include large amounts of
oral repetition, and extensive pronunciation also inhibit the older learner's active participation. In
contrast, teachers should not expect all young students to acquire FL mastery more quickly than
adults. Beginning language instruction in kindergarten or first grade provides children with
greater exposure to the language than beginning in fifth or sixth grade. Nevertheless exposure
alone is not sufficient to predict success in language acquisition. As stated earlier, thirty years of
research have yet to resolve whether youthful learners acquire greater mastery than adult FL
students. According to Lenneberg (1967) children are able to acquire FL with ease as their
brains are typically more elastic than older learners. [1] Thus, they are able to acquire FL promptly
and efficiently. Against this view, Lamendella (1977) argues that Lennebergs conclusion

regarding the critical period is overstated and goes on to introduce the term sensitive period to
emphasize that language acquisition might be more efficient during early childhood but is not
impossible at later ages.[1] Earlier, experimental research conducted by Asher and Price (1967)
gives support to Lamendellas view.[1] In their 1967 study, children were evaluated against adults
to determine which group acquired a better understanding of FL. Findings consistently
demonstrate that adolescents and adults perform better than young children under controlled
conditions. Research by Stern, Burstall, and Harley finds that children who start language
instruction at age eleven perform better on FL proficiency tests than children who begin at age
eight.[1]

More Reading
The American Educational Research Association, in its regular publication of Research Points:
Information for Education Policy presented Foreign Language Instruction: implementing the
best teaching methods in Spring 2006, which provides an excellent overview of research on this
topic.