I'm new to this Google Answers thing, but when I saw your question I
thought I'd see if I could help out. I have a Ph.D. in Applied
Linguistics from USC (I studied under Dr. Stephen Krashen), was an
Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at universities in CA and
AZ, and have published articles and books related to the topic
(included Heritage Language Development, co-edited w/ Dr. Krashen).
I'll take a crack at it...perhaps you can keep your forty bucks?
First, there is no evidence that simultaneous language acquisition is
harmful for children. I don't think the "mapping" analogy is
particularly helpful here, suggesting one must establish one language
before starting on a second. The relationship between the two
languages in a bilingual speaker is still controversial, but few would
argue nowadays that one needs a certain level of proficiency before
being exposed to another language, or that it is merely a matter of
mapping on the first language. Parents and teachers sometimes feel a
child should "master" one language first, but what studies there are
of children raised in bilingual environments shows them able to adapt
fairly well, acquiring the syntax, morphology, and other aspects of
the languages without great difficulty, provided there is sufficient
exposure to both. There are several standard books on the general
topic of bilingualism. A readable one would be Kenji Hakuta's Mirror
of Language, though it is now a bit dated (late 80s). A more
technical but slightly more up-to-date resource is Susan Romaine's
Bilingualism (1995), where she addresses this issue more directly.
The questions about "immersion" vs. "submersion" is a great one, but
requires a bit more explaining. A new book by Lucy Tse, Why Don't
They Learn English? (2001) provides a clear explanation of a lot of
these issues. You may wish to take a look at it. I'll try to
summarize with a couple of scenarios:
1. Context makes a difference here, as does the educational background
of the child (i.e. what kind of language and particularly literacy
development they're getting at home). Kids who speak the majority
language of the society (say, English in the US) who have parents who
develop their first language (L1) literacy at home (read to them, for
example) can usually do quite well in being placed in a Spanish or
French classroom designed for second language students (or one which
has a mix of students but with a bilingual teacher?see below for what
I mean by ?immersion?). Done correctly, these children will acquire
the second language and literacy, while maintaining their primary
language (and literacy, typically) at home. This is the best case
scenario.
2. Children who speak a minority language (say, Spanish or Korean in
the US) who are placed in an all-English classroom often don't fare as
well, however. The main reason for this is that they often don't
receive any literacy development in their first language, as the
majority English speakers did in the first example. This is very
important, because trying to develop literacy in a second language
without first developing it in the first is slower and more difficult.
(The research and reasoning for this is explained in Tse's book.)
What's more important, these children will, because of the lower
prestige of their home/primary language, eventually shift to English
completely, and their home language will languish. So there are two
negative outcomes (you might say in educationalese): 1) they do more
poorly in school because the acquire literacy in the second language
more slowly, and 2) they will, failing any conscious encouragement and
support, often fail to develop their primary language beyond the 1st
or 2nd grade level in terms of vocabulary and literacy (if they
develop literacy at all in the home language). This "shift" to the
dominant language happens every day in US schools. Kids who enter
speaking Spanish in grade 1 can barely speak to their parents in
Spanish by the time their in high school (lots of evidence of this, by
the way?it?s amazingly common).
Your situation in an International School is somewhat unique, and less
studied by researchers, but the same principles apply: If a child
continues to develop the home language either in school (preferred
option) or at home (parents who speak and read to them, give them
access to book, etc.), they will continue to reap the rewards of
bilingualism/biliteracy (social, economic, and to an extent still
undetermined, cognitive/academic).
Now, it is not uncommon to children to "come through" this transition
or "shift" to a second language (while losing the first) without
serious academic harm, so we don't want to overstate the case. But
certainly the child looses the real benefits of being bilingual, some
of which we are only now beginning to understand fully.
Let me deal with these terms "submersion" and "immersion." Typically
we talk about "submersion" meaning that a child is placed in an "L2"
or second language classroom with no support--the teacher doesn't make
any or few accommodations for the child, and/or isn't herself
bilingual (allowing the child to respond in his/her native language
initially). This is (and always was) a bad idea, one which leads to
greater failure than success, despite media portrayals to the
contrary. Some children do "succeed" in this environment, but it is
very inefficient and risky for the child, especially one who does not
have strong literacy-related support at home in the L1. "Immersion"
in the proper sense is placing a child in a classroom where he/she is
allowed at first to respond in the L1, but is exposed primarily (but
usually NOT exclusively) to the L2. In the immersion schools in the
US, the typical model is 90/10 or 80/20 the first year--that is, the
class is conducted 90% in the L2, 10% in the L1 (this 10% usually
consists of beginning reading instruction--again, note the importance
of developing some L1 literacy first). If it is a true "dual
immersion" or "bilingual immersion" program, the goal is to get to 50%
of the day in each language.
International schools are somewhat unique in all this. If (as I'd
imagine from my limited experience) the parents are highly educated
and literate in their home language, the child will often get many
literacy experiences and experience subsequent vocabulary growth at
home in their L1. But the ideal program would still be to continue
the development of the home language at school as well--these are
sometimes called "maintenance" programs. If you are in a Francophone
country, for example it would be desirable to give children continuing
exposure to French in school. This is so that their academic French
continues to develop, so that if they were to go into an all
French-speaking school (when their reach university level, for
example) they would be able to read academic texts in French, putting
them on par with children in schools that conduct all instruction in
French. Even strong home environments that encourage large amounts of
reading won't necessarily teach children the vocabulary of biology in
French, for example.
Okay--one more thing!--the way to all this wonderful development of
bilingual/multilingual kids is not as difficult as it sounds. It
starts with a strong SCHOOL & CLASSROOM LIBRARY with lots of books
that kids might want to read in the languages (and levels) appropriate
to them. Getting kids hooked into reading is an excellent and proven
way to promote biliteracy and bilingualism--again, see Tse's excellent
book for the research and rationale for this.
Well--good luck. I hope this was useful. |
