Challenging Common Myths About Young English Language Learners Written By Linda Espinosa Essay

In a globalized world, English is and has been universal language for communications around the world. For that reason, U.S. has never had an urgency to learn and appreciate foreign languages. Most of school systems treat language classes not important as the core curriculum. According to the current positions on bilingual education, schools in the United States teach languages at exactly the wrong time and exclude children from all the benefits that extend beyond pure communication. It’s extremely important to be bilingually educated to adapt into increasingly globalized world. Moreover, even necessary, for those who should reach out and speak at least one other language. Being bilingual comes with various advantages and immeasurable benefits.

Speaking two or more languages is like a country having an atomic bomb during a war. The first situation is advantageous to a person and the second situation is advantageous to a country. “Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” is a memoir of Richard Rodriguez’s bilingual childhood and it was originally published in Hunger of Memory in 1981. In Rodriguez’s memoir, he discusses why he disagrees with bilingual education. His audience is bilingual or anyone that has an opinion towards bilingual education. The purpose in Rodriguez’s memoir is to inform people of the effects of bilingual education and persuade bilingual educators why bilingual education shouldn’t exist.

Many parents believe that it is better not to speak English. When this happens the students will not receive the practice that they really need. The student must know their parents’ language it is imperative to the student’s cultural identity and has to maintain a healthy relationship with their family. Parents’ have concerns about using their native language with their children include: learning another language is too difficult it will delay their language development; the child will not be able to master either language; they will not be as proficient as the students who know one language; confusing the two languages will happen; and they will communicate in English with an accent. The school should address these concerns before the school year begins.

When examining the District handbook, it is clear that West Chicago highly values student achievement and seeks to create lifelong learners. The handbook is reviewed every year and the district values and asks for the input of students and parents in order to increase investment. Throughout its history “Providing a foundation for excellence in learning” has been the district’s vision. This, coupled with its mission statement: “To impart the knowledge and skills that will empower all students to pursue their maximum potential to confidently contribute to and benefit from our society locally and globally,” inform their policies and attitude towards all students, especially English Language Learners. In a Frequently Asked Questions portion, the District answers the question of whether students will fall behind due to learning an extra language by explaining that dual language is a form of enriched education and that learning two languages has many cognitive benefits as evidenced by research that has shown how students who participate in Dual Language programs outperform their peers on standardized tests.

Major Myth #3: Your Child Will Be Delayed In Their Speech Development If They Are Raised With Two Languages

To learn a second languages is very important because people have better opportunities in life. For children from ages five and under it is the best time to learn as many languages. Angele Sancho Passe, the author of “Dual-Language Learners (Birth to Grade 3)”, talks about techniques for teaching English in a multilingual classroom and how reading in english to dual-language learners helps teach them oral language skills. Patton O. Tabors, the author of “One Child, Two Languages”, talks about writing case studies of children displaying different second language abilities. In the article, “Ways to Introduce Your Kids to Foreign Languages” by Grace Hwang Lynch, believes two-way bilingual immersion is a helpful way to introduce foreign languages

This article is about the different Dual Language programs available and their effectiveness. It analyzes different researches and literature available on this topic and it evaluates its efficacy and results after implementation. The article begins by explaining the 90:10 and 50:50 Dual Language model and its successful outcomes. It explains that students in the Dual Language programs become proficient in two languages and by the time the reach fifth grade they are performing at or above their monolingual peers. It also states the challenges these programs face, including instruction, assessments, materials and curriculum. It also provides ideas that can help the program work effectively.

Two models of dual language that take a front and center in Bilingual education is subtractive and additive. Subtractive is strips the student of cultural capital which could benefit the student in their educational achievement. As opposed to the additive model in the dual language program which seeks to add English to the students already possessed language and maintaining their first language. This method has been known for having a faster academic achieving and cultural awareness. (Ray, 2009)

The continued growth of speakers of languages other than English is reflected in the rapidly increasing students in U.S. schools for whom English is a second language. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics (2005) show that the number of school-age children who spoke a language other than English reached almost 10 million in 2004. Such a dramatic increase continually challenges educators to provide effective language programs with quality instruction for students who are culturally and linguistically diverse. Some educators choose to view these challenges as opportunities by offering a dual bilingual program as an educational option for meeting the needs of monolingual speakers.

Bilingualism and home language can be encouraged by the educator to ensure that the student learns successfully. As an ELL student it can be a challenge to learn a new language, this is why educators should allow students to use their first language to promote a meaningful connection with the second language that is being learned. At home it is quite evident that ELL students communicate using their primary language, therefore at school it is a complete turnaround. Educators, at this point can promote literacy skills in which the native language is used, but then transferred into skills that are valuable to learn English. The home language use in effect influences English learning in maintenance of cognitive aspects in bilingualism by the ELL students (Academic Writing Tips, 2011). For example, encouraging collaboration and peer groups of students of the same academic level, but of various cultures, will promote the student to use their language sparingly, but also become familiar with the second language. ELL students have to have the confidence and courage to learn a second language and develop the literacy skills that are involved in learning, this is when parental and community resources should be available to incorporate English acquisition skills.

Bilingual education is an academic approach followed by some instructors, which is using the native language for new English learners for instructions. Within the international context, bilingual education has become a necessity due to the high number of immigration, colonialism and the great number of local languages (Yushau & Bokhari, 2005). This approach in instruction has reflected back positively or negatively in many dimensions such as social, psychological, and pedagogical. However, bilingual instruction is an effective way of teaching English as a second language, in case of well implementation it can be seen as an educational advantage. This literature covers a wide variety of opinions that revolves around a topic that researchers find it controversial, this review will highlight the major question and findings which emerge in

Bilingualism significantly reduces the barriers between people with different roots, interrupts fears and shame before confronting culturally different people. Bilingualism also opens opportunities to get to know different global issues, which is very helpful during travel or living in a place different culturally and linguistically as New York. In retrospect, despite the initial difficulties on the way to bilingualism, the participant considers that "bilingual persons have easier life" which she experienced to a large extent. Guided by this observation she made the steps so that her sons could be multilingual. Unfortunately, she only reached its goal in half. Her older son attended a Polish school learning the rules of grammar and spelling of the Polish language, therefore, he achieved fluency and the ability to write and read in Polish. The younger son found it difficult to assimilate the grammatical and phonetic rules of the Polish, which is in the head of the most arduous languages of the world. He did not want to attend additional classes, so he only gained fluency in speaking, which was the result of using only Polish at home to talk. Despite the obvious benefits of being bilingual, the participant did not want to force her son to do extra jobs, remembering her experiences along the way. Nevertheless, both boys also learn the basics of Spanish at school, which is currently the second most-used

Over the years, many schools have grown increasingly with diversity. As teachers, we must be aware of the many different students we will have in the classroom. This means that all our students will learn at different rates, take in new information differently, and overall have a different perspective on certain topics. With so much diversity in the school system, education policies for students who are English Language Learners (ELL) have greatly emerged. Many individuals move to the United States for better opportunities or to ensure their children obtain an education. With such a growing number of people entering the United States each day, emerging laws and cases must aim to support English Language Learners to ensure a fair and equal education for everyone.

We learned in our text that the development of language is a complicated process that involves phonemes, morphemes, syntactic development among several other factors (Siegler, DeLoache, Eisenberg & Saffran, 2014, p. 218). Proper and effective development of these language skills has been shown to have a critical learning period that enables successful fluency of a language; this period usually occurs between the ages of 5 and puberty (Siegler et al., 2014, p. 220). I believe that this critical period is the backbone of the argument against bilingual education. Proponents of this argument believe that the sooner a child is immersed in the new language, the better off they will be with regards to mechanics and use of that language.

Many of the diverse children that are in classrooms today speak, or are learning to speak, two languages. This can become very confusing to the child at times, and make understanding him or her challenging. However, teachers need to recognize that it is important to support the development of both of these languages, because they both make up the identity of a child. Some ways in which teachers can support duel language learning is by, encouraging children to use their home language at school, interacting with duel language learners as much as possible, creating opportunities for peers to interact with the ELL students, developing predictable routines and activities that use the English language, but do not require a response from the ELL student, and concentrating on the meaning of what an ELL child is saying and not on the grammatically correctness of