Family Language Learning: Learn Another Language, Raise Bilingual Children (Parents' and Teachers' Guides, 19, Band 19) - Softcover

Jernigan, Christine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1783092793 ISBN 13: 9781783092796

Verlag: Multilingual Matters, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

Family Language Learning is a practical guide designed to support, advise and encourage any parents who are hoping to raise their children bilingually. It is unique in that it focuses on parents who are not native speakers of a foreign language. It gives parents the tools they need to cultivate and nurture their own language skills while giving their children an opportunity to learn another language. The book combines cutting-edge research on language exposure with honest and often humorous stories from personal interviews with families speaking a foreign language at home. By dispelling long-held myths about how language is learned, it provides hope to parents who want to give their children bilingual childhoods, but feel they don’t know where to start with learning a foreign language.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Christine Jernigan instructs foreign language teachers at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC and is a language coach for parents who want to raise bilingual children. She holds a PhD in foreign language education, and her main research interests include motivation, expectation and authenticity in the language classroom. She has contributed to the book Raising Children Bilingually in the US and to The Bilingual Family Newsletter. Her own children speak English and Portuguese. Visit her YouTube channel for videos on several of the chapter topics: www.youtube.com/user/getbilingual..

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Family Language Learning

Learn Another Language, Raise Bilingual Children

By Christine Jernigan

Multilingual Matters

Copyright © 2015 Christine Jernigan
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-78309-279-6

Contents

Acknowledgements, 
Preface, 
Introduction, 
How to Use This Book, 
1 There is a Free Lunch! Bilingual Benefits the Easy Way, 
2 Forget the Unicorn: Why 'Non-Native' is Just Fine, 
3 Start Small, Start Now: Choosing a Language and Moving Forward, 
4 Be Your Favorite Teacher: Learn What You Want, When You Want It, 
5 Many Methods: Flexible Approaches to Fit Your Lifestyle, 
6 Marketing Strategies: Finding New Ways to Increase Motivation, 
7 Talk Talk Talk: Strategies for When to Talk and What to Talk About, 
8 The Play's the Thing: Fun and Simple Resources, 
9 Right to Read: Growing Kids' Independence Through Books, 
10 Delight to Write: Sharing Ways to Create and Tell, 
11 Take Off! Finding Ways to Actually Go There, 
12 Meeting Challenges: Skillfully Riding the Ups and Downs, 
Parting Words, 
References, 
About the Author, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

There is a Free Lunch! Bilingual Benefits the Easy Way

To have another language is to possess a second soul.

Charlemagne (quoted in Kaplan, 2010)

You probably already know some of the benefits of bilingualism. In your enthusiasm, you might even be tempted to skip ahead to Chapter 2. This chapter, though, describes research that might surprise you. And it'll keep you motivated.

What Are You Doing?

I'm going to take a guess and say you probably have very good reasons for your choices in life. But when it comes to raising children, it can be difficult to describe those reasons, especially when your mother-in-law asks for details. So we'll list the top five reasons why language exposure is good for children and adults. This will help you explain your language plan to curious strangers, friends and extended family.

Free Lunch

Steven Pinker, cognitive psychologist and author of The Language Instinct, says of bilingualism, 'One free lunch in the world is to learn another language in early childhood' (Pinker, 1995: 22). We'll use this idea of a 'free lunch' as an acronym for the benefits of a second language:

L Language advantages. Even in the first language!

U Understanding others. Others who speak the L2, and others who are different in other ways.

N New ways of thinking. A variety of ways to solve problems.

C Connections, codes and character. Higher self-esteem through stronger family connections.

H Healthy brains. Handles multitasking, stays more focused and makes better decisions.

Language advantages

Children exposed to a second language have an edge when it comes to language, even their first language. And that's not just for full fluency. Even a little foreign language helps. Developmental pediatrician Dr Naomi Steiner writes,

One study found that children who knew just a little Italian in addition to their native English had a greater understanding of words and more enhanced reading skills than their peers who spoke only in English. ... Children gain cognitive and academic benefits even from just a little exposure to a second language. (Steiner, 2008: 19)

Enhanced first language vocabulary

Some parents worry their kids will be confused by having vocabulary in more than one language. Colin Baker, in A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism (2007), found that bilinguals were actually better at using new vocabulary, even in their first language. He found that by knowing there were two words for everything, children paid more attention to word meanings and tended to use even their first language words more accurately.

Essentially, an L2 gives children a built-in point of comparison. Li Wei of the International Journal of Bilingualism says that these comparisons help children understand the universals of language. They see how pliable language can be. This helps them pick up on meanings that a monolingual child would miss (Li Wei in Lauchlan et al., 2013). Carey Myles writes,

Bilingual children often demonstrate a greater sensitivity to subtle differences in meaning than monolingual children of the same age, perhaps as a result of their more sophisticated ability to analyze the nuances of word choice and grammar. They are more skilled at interpreting and manipulating grammar to communicate clearly. (Myles, 2003: 62)

Language awareness

Part of the sophistication gained when a child experiences other languages involves an early awareness of language itself. Researchers in second language acquisition call it 'metalinguistic awareness'. It is basically what makes you laugh when you hear the pun: 'Two cannibals were eating a clown. One says to the other: "Does this taste funny to you?"' (Upegui, 2008).

Barbara Zurer Pearson, professor of linguistics and communication disorders, says bilinguals' heightened awareness comes from having to choose between languages many times a day. 'They develop a greater awareness of the language and are better at establishing this abstract connection between letters and sounds' (Pearson, 2008: 16).

This more mature connection between letters and sounds means bilinguals understand that words are collections of symbols – representations of things, but not the things themselves. Baker puts it this way:

A bilingual child is ... more aware of the arbitrary nature of language. [This] free[s] the child from constraints of a single language, enabling the child to see that ideas, concepts, meanings and thoughts are separate from language itself. (Baker, 2000: 67)

This awareness gives them an edge when manipulating these symbols to express ideas. They end up with more diverse vocabulary and tend to be superior writers. A study in Science Daily (2012) found 'a marked difference in the level of detail and richness in description from the bilingual pupils'.

Fascinating research with bilinguals has also shown that since they don't get caught up in the literal meaning of words, they can think 'outside the box'. For example, in one battery of tests given to monolinguals and bilinguals, researchers presented a water bottle and asked about different ways it could be used. 'Instead of stopping at "put water in it", bilingual children had more creative answers like, "filling it with sand and making a paperweight"' (King & Mackey, 2007: 4).

Stronger readers

A wealth of research indicates that bilinguals' heightened awareness of language as symbols makes reading easier and increases the speed of reading. (See p. 125, 'Bilinguals have an advantage'.) Ellen Bialystok (2002), a Canadian psychologist specializing in literacy and bilingualism, found that on reading tests, bilingual children learned twice as quickly to recognize words without the help of pictures. She says they learn more quickly that the written letters on the page carry meaning. From there, bilinguals score higher on word recognition and general reading tests.

More languages

Children who are exposed to one foreign language tend to do well in other foreign languages. Since they are accustomed to hearing unfamiliar sounds, they try harder than monolingual children to decipher languages they hear....

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Multilingual Matters
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1783092793
• ISBN 13: 9781783092796
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 216
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar