Part 1: Introduction, first and second language acquisition ...

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Transcríbhinn: Podchraoladh – Sealbhú teanga So yes – there appears to be a cut off point in children’s natural ability to acquire language, and yes, early language learning appears to be good. Although, as I said, the jury is out on if there is a cut-off-point at twelve, thirteen, fourteen. 9:54 That’s very interesting Muiris. Young children acquiring language Marie naturally – it automatically brings to mind questions about bilingualism. Is there anything you’d be able to tell us about that? 10:03 Well, first of all, bilingualism is the most natural thing in the world. People Muiris used to have this fear of bilingualism in the past, in other words if I learn a second language will it interfere with my first language? But when you look at the world and its demography 37 , we remember that if you speak one language – if you are a monolingual – you are actually in a minority. Research estimates that 60% plus of the world’s population is actually bilingual or multilingual. And I refer to research done by David Graddol (1997) back at the end of the nineties on English, and he said that about 375 million people speak English as a first language, but that another billion use it as an L2. So that shows clearly that most people are multilingual or bilingual. Now there are different types of bilingualism, Marie, and it might be useful just to talk about them. There is of course simultaneous or balanced bilingualism 38 : that’s when you are bilingual from birth, and both languages develop simultaneously and it’s quite balanced. Now a lot of the bilingualism we are dealing with as teachers is what’s called additive bilingualism 39 : we’re adding the second language to the first language, we’re learning a language in school. And then we must be aware as well of subtractive bilingualism 40 : and that means that people can actually loose their first language when they learn their second language – in the context of immigration 41 . So were I, for example, Spanish and I come to live in England, and over the years I may loose, or use my Spanish less and less, so it becomes subtractive. 11:32 That’s a very interesting point when you think about all the children that Marie are learning English as an additional language but already have other first languages. 11:39 Absolutely, and maybe we should think of that a little bit more: that they Muiris are actually bilinguals and in fact additive bilingualism is occurring with English but subtractive bilingualism could be occurring with their first language. 11:51 And would you say that there are any advantages to being bilingual? Marie 11:55 Oh, there are indeed. There’s very important research has been Muiris conducted to show the advantages to being bilingual. There’s research by Ellen Bialystok carried out in Canada, and she’s been working on this for a long time. She’s been asking Are bilinguals better learners? Her work has compared cognitive development 42 – particularly in younger children in the four to eight year age group – and she has compared bilingual children to their monolingual 43 counterparts. And she has shown consistently and clearly that, for example in areas like problemsolving that includes a little bit of misleading information, bilingual children perform significantly better. 37 déimeagrafaíocht 38 an dátheangachas comhuaineach nó cothrom 39 an dátheangachas suimitheach/ breiseánach 40 dátheangachas dealaitheach/ aghdaithe 41 inimirce 42 forbairt chognaíoch 43 aonteangach
Transcríbhinn: Podchraoladh – Sealbhú teanga They are better able to make the distinction between a symbol [the word] and the thing to which it refers [the picture], to understand that words are only referents 44 . And they can block out any misleading information. And that holds true for bilingual children not only in pre-reading skills, but also in tests to do with mathematical concepts, shapes, and sizes etc. 12:57 And is that also true for children who are additive bilinguals, children who Marie have actually learned their second language, maybe at school, as well as people who’ve been … bilingual from a very early age? 13:08 Yes, that’s a good point. Jim Cummins said that there’s a certain Muiris threshold 45 … there’s a threshold hypothesis that once you’re an additive bilingual at a certain capacity – so it won’t happen immediately – some of these advantages to being bilingual accrue as well, in terms of cognitive development. 13:24 And are there any other advantages as well as the cognitive ones? Marie 13:28 The cognitive ones … yes, there are indeed, there are the advantages of Muiris maybe being more imaginative, of seeing the world—as somebody said—in two different ways, in problem solving, in creativity. But the strongest evidence that Ellen Bialystock has produced is definitely in cognitive development. And all the other areas that I just mentioned: imagination, openness, seeing the world in a dual way, are all being investigated. 44 tagráin (tagrán) 45 tairseach
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Part 1: Introduction, first and second language acquisition ...

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