The Importance Of Learning More Than Language

The United States is becoming more and more bilingual every day. It is important for students of the United States of America to keep up with the advancing world. The easiest way to learn a second language is when a person is young. This is why it would be beneficial for schools to start teaching a foreign language in kindergarten and continuing it through twelfth grade. Students are more likely to learn and remember a foreign language if they are introduced to it at a young age. A majority of other countries teach foreign languages to their students throughout their school lives. Most students coming out of high school in other countries are totally

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

By expanding ourselves past the comfort of the native tongue, we are able to create connections with other people. When learning another language, we may start to understand not only the language itself, but also comprehend new cultures, ways of thinking, and other people. From the very beginning of deciding to become a teacher, I knew I wanted to expand my ways of thinking so I positively benefit students of all cultures and language. I believe language learning allows people to view the world in different ways by becoming positively influenced by other cultures, people, and different ways of thinking. However, after deciding to become an ESL teacher, I truly believe that bilingual education is needed to help students develop and maintain high levels of proficiency and literacy in both their L1 and L2, while learning in the content areas. This is why I personally believe it is better for children to be raised bilingual instead of learning a second language later in life. One reason for this is that even though I was born in America, my parents wanted me to learn their language, which was Polish. Now, I am fully appreciative of the fact that my parents taught me Polish and placed me in a Saturday school where I was being taught both English and Polish. If I was taught Polish later in life, I think I would not use it to this day because I would not have made personal connections with the languages, as I was able to by being raised bilingual. There are many benefits of being raised bilingual instead of learning a second language later in life. It is important to understand that it takes on average 4-7 years to become academically fluent in a language; by raising a child bilingually, the children are able to use both languages more efficiently earlier than those students who learn a second language later in life. Since the child has been bilingual for a longer time, there are educational benefits commonly found. Bilingual children tend to have a higher concentration and are better at working through distractions while doing their schoolwork. Bilingual children also perform higher on average on tests that involve multi-tasking, creative thinking, or problem solving (Marian & Shook, 2012).

With successive bilingualism a child has the advantage of their first language as a base. They use this to both analyze and develop the second.  For example, the child knows that language is organized in a particular order.  The more mature a child is they also have a better vocabulary base, acoustic perception, and comprehension. Therefore they would make fewer errors in a second language.

In my opinion bilingualism plays a major role in the educational development of children. This is because research has shown that children who are fluent in their home language are more successful in learning a second language. Furthermore, being bilingual offers greater sensitivity to language, more flexibility in thinking and better ear for listening. It also improves a child’s understanding for the native language. Moreover, knowledge of other languages increases a career of opportunities offering several job options.

After watching this, I now feel that it would be very beneficial for a child to learn a second language because like the video says, it opens up more future opportunities for the child. In the article, “Chinese, English, Spanish” by Tom McArthur, it talks about how English is one of the most popular languages today, and how variations of English can be heard or read almost everywhere. Although English is a very popular language, it is always an advantage to know other languages. In the video, it states that knowing just English is actually a limitation in life because so many jobs want bilingual

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.

Language is an important part of our lives. I remember when I arrived to USA I could speak a little English. I went to school to improve my language, reading and writing skills; even now I am learning my second language, without English I cannot survive in this new environment. Now I am raising my own kids and I want them to have this important skill, this privilege of knowing a second language, language of their parents and grandparents. By looking at studies of bilingual children, research shows how important it is for a child to learn a second language. Raising a bilingual child is a benefit because it improves social skills, academic proficiency, introduces child to a different culture, and prepares for the future.

There is always a debate surrounding the question of whether kids should be taught Spanish as a second language or not. There is the need to fully qualify our child for the world and yet, we hesitate in helping children reach their full potential. Studies have proven time and time again that the part of the brain responsible for learning language is most responsive at the age of 3-6. If we teach children to be bilingual we give the child a greater opportunity to expand his or her potential. Our country is a nation of immigrants and Spanish is a language spoken by a large sector of the population.

Bilingualism and multilingualism are well practiced through the World. Despite it being well accepted on other parts of the globe, many areas in the United States tends to turn a cold shoulder to it.. Most education policies concerning bilingual or not based on scientific evidence and research (which has discovered the advantages and disadvantages of bilingualism) but rather pre conceived notions and stigmas when it comes to the practice. After some brief research, I believe we should embrace the "new wave" practices and policies, which are more well informed rather than the past. Researches also need to explore new ways in which the brain retains, recognizes and organizes language learning. Now is the tome to put evidence based practices and

Once you learn a second language well enough, it is said that learning a third or fourth is easier (2). Two languages are better than one. Also, luckily for second language learners, two significant by-products of bilingualism are better cognitive skills and longer attention spans (4). Having those two elements would greatly help with testing, especially standardized exams. Knowing more than one language also increases your job opportunities. Employers are constantly showing interest in bilingual workers. Its beneficial because not everyone who lives in the United States speaks English. It appeals to employers because it makes you seem smarter. Also, as stated above many high schoolers don’t retain the language. Since the 1960s, studies have shown that the best time to begin the study of a foreign language is in elementary school (3). Because children at this age show a better mental flexibility, more creativity, divergent thinking skills, and improved listening and memory skills, kids are able to process language early

To begin, I am going to summarize the video of “Does learning languages make kids smarter?” of the program “Your voice” which you can find it in the following page multilingualliving.com.

“Research is increasingly showing that the brains of people who are bilingual are different than those who are not, and those differences are for all the better.”(time) Researchers are saying that it's so much more beneficial to learn two languages rather than one. “Multilingual people, studies show, are better at grasping and reconciling conflicting ideas.”(time) They are known to work faster and use less energy in the process. In doing so they retain their senses longer are studies show that it can delay or give you more time to get dementia or Alzheimer's than the average person. With all of the positive outcomes of learning in a bilingual school, schools make it very hard and competitive to make it into the

It has been shown that learning a second language from primary school has cognitive and academic benefits. When a child becomes bilingual it helps to develop stronger communication skills in their native language and learn additional new languages at a faster rate. Majority language students who learn score significantly higher on the IOWA, SAT and ACT tests than minority language students. Being a bilingual child enhance ability to adapt to changing situations and engage in high level cognitive thinking. When bilingual child grow they are more employable and they get more carrier opportunities than monolingual person. So there is reason enough to learn second language and to keep learning them as we are able. The bilingualism advantages may not appear in the child’s primary age. But bilingualism’s real benefits could be far more important. A good bilingual primary program is a great way to support the development of children in their native language and also a good start to them toward a future of fully bilingual professional

* In the educational field, the teaching learning cycle is a model used in contemporary teaching in both school and adult educational settings. Rothery (1996 in Derewianka & Jones 2012, pg 43) who originally developed the model used this to aim at disadvantaged children for teaching literacy and writing in the KLA (Key learning areas) who were from socially disadvantaged areas. Over time the model has been phased across other areas of the English language such as listening, speaking, reading as well as writing. The key involvement of the teacher also known as ‘expert other’ in the teaching learning cycle is guiding the learner to understand key concepts in academic literacy through use of scaffolding strategies to transform students