The Acquisition Of Two Mother Tongues Early Childhood Bilingualism

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: 2,0, RWTH Aachen University (Anglistik), language: English, abstract: The phenomenon of bilingualism is very widespread and a much discussed topic. In reading about it one finds out that there are numerous facets to be considered. While doing research work I wanted to concentrate on childhood bilingualism or “early bilingualism”. When doing so, I found out that I would have to specify my topic for the seminar paper, as even concerning only this part of bilingualism the material I found was overwhelming. My special interest then focused on the aspect of the acquisition of two mother tongues. How exactly does this acquisition take place? How does the child become bilingual? Is it really already in infancy that the child is aware of learning two separate languages or does this awareness rather develop in the process of growing up? Is there a general rule one can refer to when talking about the process of acquiring two mother tongues? These are questions I want to deal with in this paper and to which I will try to find answers. As the acquisition of two mother tongues nowadays is seen as something positive I first want to have a look at the development of this general opinion. In the next section I want to employ some case studies to show the different strategies of bilingual education and compare them to each other in order to find out if there is a favourable one. Section Four then will deal with the question whether there is only one language system or separate language systems in “early bilingualism.” Finally I want to mention some sociolinguistic aspects referring to childhood bilingualism, such as what factors determine the language choice in children or the phenomenon of interference or code-switching, to be able to draw my own conclusions in section 6.

The results of the study indicate that early bilingualism or multilingualism usually has linguistic and cognitive benefits for a young child. According to the responses to a questionnaire, obtained from parents and caregivers, children who grow up with two or more mother tongues develop as well as their monolingual peers, and sometimes even better.

Increasingly, children grow up hearing two languages from birth. This comprehensive textbook explains how children learn to understand and speak those languages. It brings together both established knowledge and the latest findings about different areas of bilingual language development. It also includes new analyses of previously published materials. The book describes how bilingually raised children learn to understand and use sounds, words and sentences in two languages. A recurrent theme is the large degree of variation between bilingual children. This variation in how children develop bilingually reflects the variation in their language learning environments. Positive attitudes from the people in bilingual children's language learning environments and their recognition that child bilingualism is not monolingualism-times-two are the main ingredients ensuring that children grow up to be happy and expert speakers of two languages.

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: 1,0, Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald (Anglistik/Amerikanistik), course: Proseminar: Contact Linguistics, language: English, abstract: There are millions of children around the world who grow up bilingually or even multilingually. They need to know many different languages to be able to communicate with their parents, their teachers, with the people they buy their groceries from, or with officials who might all speak a different language. For those children, for their parents and the society that surrounds those it is more than normal to be multilingual. Over the past decades the topic of bilingualism has become more and more important in the western part of the world too. There are many families who start teaching their children two and more languages but it is also still a subject that is highly debated between scholars from all over the world. People are afraid that teaching two languages to a child might harm his or her development. They do not want to overburden their children or cause any severe damages. Therefore many parents and caretakers still decide for one language which they will teach to their child(ren). This paper is going to analyse some aspects of the question how children become bilinguals and which difficulties might occur along the way while trying to prove that children are very well able to learn two and even more languages from birth. After starting out with a short personal introduction, the terms ‘bilingualism’, ‘early bilingualism’ and ‘late bilingualism’ are going to be defined. Afterwards types of child language acquisition are explained and two different theses on how children become bilingual are shortly looked at. It is going to be looked at some specialities in child language acquisition and different language characteristics of early bilingual speech are highlighted. In conclusion it is going to be looked at some possibilities to support children in their bilingual development.

This book contains reports of research on bilingualism in infants and children as well as perspectives from those involved in cross-linguistic research on language development, literacy development in bilingual children, and psycholinguistic research on bilingualism in adults. It offers a fresh multidisciplinary perspective and next steps for research on childhood bilingualism.

Practical, engaging guide to helping early childhood educators understand and address the needs of English language learners.

Shortlisted for the Nasen Book that supports SEN and Disability Issues Award 2008 Are children who are exposed to more than one language from birth at an advantage or a disadvantage when starting school? Supporting Multilingual Learners in the Early Years examines the theoretical, ideological and practical issues involved in the education of children speaking two or more languages coming to settings which are predominantly monolingual. The book examines current research and thinking about the advantages and disadvantages of being multilingual and tackles complex topics such as: what being multilingual implies in terms of prior learning and why this matters in education the importance of respect for diversity and encouraging children to be proud of their language and culture practical ways to help young children acquire English ways of working with parents who themselves have little or no English the differences and difficulties involved in a child learning an additional language so early on in their lives strategies for exploring the learning of multilingual learners and a review of the resources and activities that could help. Sandra Smidt views multilingualism as a cognitive advantage and shows how Early Years practitioners can use interactive styles of learning to focus on the benefit that the many cultures and languages in the classroom can bring to children’s learning and development. Written in a highly accessible tone, this book offers practitioners a mix of practical case studies and examples in which theory is embedded and its importance explained. Students of early childhood education will also appreciate the author's carefully structured approach to the topic, as she includes summary boxes, glossaries and points for reflection in each chapter.

In the first decade of life, children become bilingual in different language learning environments. Many children start learning two languages from birth (Bilingual First Language Acquisition). In early childhood hitherto monolingual children start hearing a second language through daycare or preschool (Early Second Language Acquisition). Yet other hitherto monolingual children in middle childhood may acquire a second language only after entering school (Second Language Acquisition). This Element explains how these different language learning settings dynamically affect bilingual children's language learning trajectories. All children eventually learn to speak the societal language, but they often do not learn to fluently speak their non-societal language and may even stop speaking it. Children's and families' harmonious bilingualism is threatened if bilingual children do not develop high proficiency in both languages. Educational institutions and parental conversational practices play a pivotal role in supporting harmonious bilingual development.