Homework answers / question archive / SLHS 514 | Final Project Guidelines Spring 2021 | San Diego State University Introduction Throughout this course, you have gained knowledge about speech and language disorders as well as bilingual language development

SLHS 514 | Final Project Guidelines Spring 2021 | San Diego State University Introduction Throughout this course, you have gained knowledge about speech and language disorders as well as bilingual language development

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SLHS 514 | Final Project Guidelines Spring 2021 | San Diego State University Introduction Throughout this course, you have gained knowledge about speech and language disorders as well as bilingual language development. Importantly, this course has also focused on centering cultural and linguistical diversity as a lens with which we must look at speech and language disorders. This is incredibly valuable, as myths and misunderstandings about speech and language development and disorders in CLD populations frequently pop up in everyday life. In this project, students will have the opportunity to provide evidence-based clarifications regarding speech and language development and disorders in children from CLD backgrounds, thereby demonstrating their understanding of course content. Prompt (1) Select one of the case studies outlined below. Based on the case information provided describe a myth or misunderstanding that someone unfamiliar with the population/disorder/ or development of speech and language related to the case study may have. Describe why someone unfamiliar with the speech and/or language development, disorder, or this population might have this incorrect understanding. (2) Using information that you have learned in this course: (a.) provide evidence that counters this myth and dispels misinformation and (b.) describe how you might ‘get to the bottom’ of your case study’s speech and/or language difficulties. Refer to at least two pieces of scientific evidence (see citations requirements below). (3) Imagine a friend or loved one is the concerned parent or teacher and potentially believes this myth or holds this misunderstanding about the population/disorder/ or development of speech and language related to the case study. Provide a brief script of what you might say to them. Note that the way we talk to our friends and family should not sound like a piece of academic writing or a formal presentation—but the content should nevertheless be evidence-based. This project should demonstrate your mastery of the course material. As such, it is important to use your own words (i.e., directly quoting from sources is discouraged) Case Study Options (1) DeShawn, a 4-year, 9-month-old African American male, who lives with his parents in a rural Midwestern town and attends Head Start preschool has been referred for a speech screening. His teacher reports having great difficulty understanding him. Although he’s outgoing and has well-developed social skills, he is beginning to get frustrated when other kids and his teachers don’t understand what he’s saying. His mother is only slightly concerned about his speech because some extended family members have difficulty understanding him, but she and his siblings understand him “most of the time.” DeShawn's birth, medical, and developmental history are unremarkable with the exception of his speech. His parents both have high school diploma’s and work full-time so when DeShawn is not at school, he is cared for by his grandmother who lives with them. SLHS 514 | Final Project Guidelines Spring 2021 | San Diego State University (2) Flavia, an 8-year, 7-month-old Latino female, just moved to the United States from Mexico and has been enrolled in 3rdgrade at her new school for three months and was just referred for special education evaluation. Her teacher is concerned because, although Flavia is attentive and compliant in the classroom, she rarely speaks at school. She is getting support from the ELL program at her school. Flavia lives with her mother and father and three sisters, all of whom are learning English although they primarily speak Spanish at home. Her father has a college degree and her mother is a high school graduate. Through an interpreter, her mother explains that Flavia has always done well in school and that Flavia met all developmental milestones (including language) as expected. She reports that although the move has been difficult, Flavia still speaks positively about school and has friends she seems to enjoy playing with. (3) Ben, a 22-month-old Caucasian male, with a 4-year-old sister, Maggie, was just referred by the pediatrician for an early intervention evaluation based on parent concern. Ben’s parents are concerned because when older sister, Maggie, was 22 months old, she was speaking in two or more word sentences and Ben is mostly using one word at a time and occasional gestures to communicate. Both parents have a college degree, but his mother is a stay-at-home mother while his father works full-time. Parents report that Ben achieved most developmental milestones “on time” and his speech and language development are reported as the following: cooing at 4 months, babbling by 12 months, his first true word “dada” at 18 months, and currently has an expressive vocabulary of 11 words (e.g., mama, baba/bottle, uh-oh, no, wawa/water, hi) and frequently “jabbers” in a conversational manner but without true words. Parents report Ben understands “everything” and points to items and family members when named as well as to indicate he wants something. Mom also reports he becomes frustrated sometimes when she can’t figure out what he wants but Maggie usually “interprets” for him. Format and Requirements Students will have the option to present their response in a variety of creative formats. The table here provides options for various formats and includes guidelines relevant to that format. Creative, alternate formats are encouraged (as long as they can be used to address the prompt)! Students may propose a different format to the instructor via email; these requests must be placed one week prior to the deadline. Format Guidelines Written Essay Slide Deck Presentation Two pages, 1-inch margins, Times new Roman, 12-point font 10-15 slides (not including title, section subtitle, or references slide), minimum 24-point font for text and 40-point font for Titles with visually engaging (not distracting) images when relevant. 5-6 minutes in length with engaging visuals and embedded text information. Reach out to the instructor at least 1 week in advance for approval and establishing guidelines Video Recording Student’s choice SLHS 514 | Final Project Guidelines Spring 2021 | San Diego State University Additional requirements: • All submissions must include the students name and student ID number in a prominent location (e.g., header of written papers; on front slide of PowerPoint presentations; in title page of video). • In addition, all references must be cited appropriately, following the same guidelines as your Discussion Boards. When drawing information from a specific source, an in-text citation must be provided in written works, with reasonable adaptations for other formats (e.g., on the same PowerPoint slide; as a text box in a video). In addition, full citations in APA format are required at the end of your submission (e.g., last page of Word doc/PDF; last slide in PowerPoint presentation; last frame of video, etc.). • Use each format to the best of its ability! (Examples: for an essay, writing mechanics must be strong; a PowerPoint or video should have engaging visuals, etc.) The work should suit the format that was chosen. Grading & Submission The project is worth 100 points. Attached is a sample rubric for written projects; adapted rubrics featuring the same criteria areas and proficiency categories will be used for slide decks, videos, and alternate submissions. Deadline: • The final project is due Wednesday, May 12th at 11:59pm. • Late assignments may be accepted but a penalty of 10% deduction of points will be applied for each day past the deadline with the final acceptance date of Thursday, May 20th at 11:59pm. (e.g., if the project is submitted at any time on Sunday, May 16th the maximum potential total score that can be earned on the final project is 60/100 points; 4 days late = 40%-point penalty) Submission instructions: • All final projects will be submitted on Canvas through the Assignment tab. • Accepted submissions are based on the chosen format: o Written essay must be submitted as Word doc or Google doc o Slide deck must be submitted as PowerPoint, Google Slide, Prezi, Canva, etc. o Video presentation must be submitted as an Mp4 or WAV file or a link to the YouTube video, Zoom video, or Canvas Studio video must be provided. Other notes: • Writing is a process—but so are all creative projects! Seek out feedback from multiple sources, including classmates, friends and family. • Outside research is not required to complete this project—material covered in lecture and the required reading is sufficient. SLHS 514 | Final Project Guidelines Spring 2021 | San Diego State University Example rubric: Written submission Criteria Content Depth of Reflection Writing mechanics, organization, style, & grammar Adherence to Format Guidelines Not Acceptable 0 points Submission does not address the prompt. Novice 10 points Addresses the prompt incompletely, with minimal to no support/example. 0 points Demonstrates no understanding of the subject matter. This reflection needs revision. 10 points Demonstrates a limited understanding of the subject matter. This reflection needs revision. 0 points Paper is difficult to read due to numerous spelling or grammatical errors. 10 points Writing demonstrates notable weaknesses in more than one component of mechanics. 0 points Submission does not adhere to any of the outlined guidelines (e.g., length and/or formatting) or submission instructions. Fair 20 points Addresses the prompt with adequate support/examples and/or minimal components of the response are missing. 20 points Demonstrates an adequate understanding of the subject matter. 20 points Writing demonstrates minimal weaknesses in all aspects of mechanics OR significant weaknesses in one component. 5 points Only one format guideline is followed (e.g., length) or all guidelines followed but submission instructions not followed. Proficient 30 points Fully addresses the prompt, with strong support/examples. 30 points Demonstrates a conscious and thorough understanding of the subject matter, including terminology. This can be used as an example for other students. 30 points Writing is well organized and concise, with little to no grammatical errors. 10 points All format guidelines and submission instructions followed. Introduction 5 learners of English as a second language. The primary goal of Paradis’s research with sec­ ond language learners who are typically developing and those with language impairment has been to develop methods for differentiating between them effectively in an assess­ ment context. Paradis has conducted numerous seminars and workshops on child bilin­ gualism, learning of a second language by children, and considerations for language assessment to local and national groups of speech-language pathologists and educators in the United States and Canada. Fred Genesee’s educational background is in psychology. He has conducted extensive research on the effectiveness of immersion and bilingual forms of education for language majority and language minority students. His research has also focused on the language development of children acquiring two languages simultaneously during the preschool years. He is interested in identifying typical patterns of language development in simulta­ neous bilingual children with a view to discovering the capacity of the brain for language learning. Most recently, his research has focused on the early language development of internationally adopted children and on reading development and reading impairment in children learning a second language. He has authored and edited a number of professional books for educators working with bilingual and second language learners. Martha B. Crago worked for a number of years as a speech-language pathologist and was responsible for clinical training in speech-language pathology at McGill University before obtaining her doctorate in communication sciences and disorders at McGill Uni­ versity. Her research interests have focused on language development and cultural iden­ tity, as well as on the cross-linguistic nature of acquisition by children with typical language development and those with language impairment. She has worked with chil­ dren from mainstream Canadian populations in the South, as well as with children from the indigenous Inuit community in the North. WHO ARE DUAL LANGUAGE CHILDREN? We use the terms dual language children and dual language learners generically throughout this book to refer to a diverse group of language learners. Before proceeding, we describe who these learners are and why they need to be considered as distinct groups at times. For our purposes in this book, dual language children can differ from one another in two important respects: 1) whether they are members of a majority ethnolinguistic commu­ nity or a minority ethnolinguistic community and 2) whether they have learned two lan­ guages simultaneously from infancy or have learned a second language after their first language was established. There are differences among children within each of the four broad categories created by these intersecting characteristics, but these are the main cate­ gories that we refer to throughout the book. A majority ethnolinguistic community is a community of individuals who speak the language spoken by most of the members of the larger community and/or are members of the ethnic or cultural group to which most members of the community belong. The community may be as large as a country, or it may be a state or province within a country or some smaller unit. The majority language and culture usually have special recognition as the official language and culture of the community. In other cases, the language and culture are regarded unofficially as the high-status language and culture in the community.The majority language is the language used by most newspapers and 6 l VUIlddt?OnS other medu. in the courts, and by political bodies in the community. Examples are AngloAmericans m the United States, English Canadians in Canada, and native German speak­ ers in Germany. We also use the term majority group synonymously. A minority ethnolinguistic community is a community made up of individuals who speak a minority language and who belong to a minority culture within the larger community. The language and culture may be in the demographic minority; may have relatively low social, economic, and political power; or both. Examples are Spanish speakers or individ­ uals of Hispanic background in the United States, speakers of Inuktitut or Cantonese in Canada, speakers of Navajo in the United States, and Turkish speakers in The Netherlands and Germany. We also use the term minority group synonymously. The majority-minority distinction is not binary but reflects end points along a con­ tinuum. For instance, some minority linguistic communities are more of a minority than others. The Spanish-speaking minority community in California is closer to the middle of the continuum than the Korean-speaking community there, because the sheer number of Spanish speakers in California confers on them a certain status and power that Koreans, who are much fewer in number, lack. The status of a language can differ according to the region in which speakers of the language live; for example, in Canada as a whole, French speakers are a minority ethnolinguistic community, but in the province of Quebec, French speakers are the majority community. Because French is an official language of the country, even in the regions of the country where speakers of French are clearly a minority numerically, they enjoy a higher status than other minority ethnolinguistic communities, due to access to French-language schooling and government services (by law), French language media, and government-funded cultural centers and events. Simi­ larly, the status of Spanish speakers varies considerably in the United States, from southern Florida and Texas (where it is relatively high) to the Midwest or Northwest (where it is relatively low). However, Spanish is not an official language of the United States and is frequently associated with newcomer communities and thus does not have the status of French in Canada, regardless of the number of speakers in a region. The majority-minority group distinction could be important in predicting children s language outcomes. For example, the size and status of the speech community can deter­ mine a child’s opportunities for frequent, varied, and rich input in a particular language. It could also differentially affect motivation to maintain that language and attitudes toward the ethnolinguistic community or communities of origin. Effectively, the more in the minority a language and culture, the more vulnerable they can be to erosion and loss as children grow older.This is discussed in more detail in Chapters 4 and 6. When we refer to simultaneous bilingual children, we mean children who are exposed to, and given opportunities to learn, two languages from birth or shortly after. Ideally, simultaneous bilingual children are exposed to both languages fairly regularly from the outset, but this seldom means they are exposed to each language equally, and we discuss the implications of unequal exposure in Chapters 4 and 5 in particular. When we refer to second language learners, wc mean children who have already made signifi­ cant progress toward acquisition of one language when they begin the acquisition of a second language. These children are also often referred to as sequential or successive bilinguals. There is no definitive point in development that demarcates bilingual from second language acquisition. Many researchers have accepted the cutoff to be 3 years of age. I here are two reasons for this. First, a first language can be well established in terms of Introduction 7 vocabulary and grammar at that point, and thus effects of already knowing and speaking one language and being neurocognitively more mature can be visible in the learning of the second language (see Chapter 6).This effect is less obvious if an additional language is introduced to a child’s environment at the age of, for example, 14 months. Second, broadly speaking, all children who begin to learn two languages early in life are expected to be fluent speakers of both languages later in life. However, there is some emerging evi­ dence that subtle differences in outcomes arise in a language when learning does not begin at birth, or before 3 or 4 years of age (see Chapters 6 and 7). Whether children are simultaneous bilinguals or second language learners could be important when assessing how much progress children have made in their languages. By definition, in a group of dual language learners the same age, the simultaneous bilinguals would have had more experience with both their languages than the second language learners would have had with their second language. Children could be expected to be more advanced in a language when they have had more experience learning it. In addition, simultaneous bilinguals are exposed to both languages very early in life, and as mentioned previously, the age at which children are first exposed to a language might have long-term consequences. Finally, the distinction between simultaneous bilinguals and second language learners could signal differences in the contexts where each language is used. Most com­ monly, simultaneous bilinguals acquire two languages in the home, and second language learners often have a separate home and school and community language. Using the majority-minority group, and bilingual-second language learner distinc­ tions, we can consider dual language children to comprise four broad subgroups: 1. Children from a majority ethnolinguistic group who have learned or are learning two majority languages simultaneously from birth or at least before 3 years of age. 2. Children from a majority ethnolinguistic group who have learned or are learning a second language after their first language was established.The second language could be a minority or majority language of the community. 3. Children from a minority ethnolinguistic group who have learned or are learning two languages simultaneously from birth, or at least before 3 years of age. One lan­ guage could be a majority language. 4. Children from a minority ethnolinguistic group who have learned or are learning a second language after their first language was established.The second language is typ­ ically the majority language and the language of schooling. In order to put personal faces on these types of dual language children, we provide more details in the next section about each group by reference to individual fictional children who have the primary characteristics of their subgroup and who differ from each other in ways that could be important to educators and clinicians. We refer to these children throughout the book to illustrate the characteristics and concepts we discuss in each chapter. The subgroups of dual language learners and the children who exemplify them are presented in Figure 1.1. Note that we have placed a dotted line between the cat­ egories to illustrate that there are no definitive boundaries between them. In Chapter 7 of this book, we also discuss the language development of internationally adopted (IA) children. These are children who have been adopted by families that speak a language that differs from the one experienced by the children prior to adoption; for example, children Foundations 8 Majority group Simultaneous bilinguals Second language leamers/sequential bilinguals Minority group - Both languages widely spoken/ high status • One or both languages not widely spoken/not high status James Bistra Gabriela First language is widely spoken/ high status First language is not widely spoken/not high status Education through the second language/may be majority or minority language of the community Samantha Trevor Education through the second language/majority language of the community or wider region : • Luis Bonnie Faisal Pauloosie Figure 1.1. Types of dual language learners. who were born and raised in China for 1 year but are adopted by English-speaking fami­ lies in Canada or the United States.The fictional case we include in the next section isa girl who was adopted from Russia and was thus exposed to Russian before beginning to learn English as her “second first language.” These children are unique dual language learners because they discontinue learning their first, or birth, language once they are adopted and are exposed to the language of their adoptive families. They are of particular interest in this book because they are often thought to be at risk for delays or disorders in their language development. There are a number of reasons for this: 1) they often experience social and physical deprivation preadoption; 2) termination of acquisition of the birth language could undermine the neurocognitive foundations for learning the new language, according to some theories of language acquisition; and 3) their exposure to the new language is delayed, albeit well within the classic critical period for second language learning. All of these issues are discussed further in Chapter 7. IA children are difficult to classify using conventional terminology or our own scheme, described earlier and illustrated in Figure 1.1. They differ from simultaneous bilinguals, because—although many learn the adopted language within the first year or two of life—they discontinue acquiring the birth language and are delayed in starting to learn the new language. They differ from typical second language learners who continue to acquire and use their first language. Research on IA children is not sufficient at this time to determine with certainty whether their language acquisition resembles that of children who learn an additional language from birth, such as simultaneous bilinguals, or that of second language learners. Thus, they are a unique type of dual language learner. In any case, and as in the case of other dual language learners discussed in this book, it is important to have a solid scientific understanding of IA children’s language development in order to establish appropriate expectations of what is typical for such learners, to iden­ tify whether individual children are making appropriate progress, and to ascertain whether individual children need additional support and what kind of support they need. In short, understanding the language development of IA children and the factors that ’—> Introduction 9 influence it are critical for providing them with learning environments and supports that foster their language competence as much as possible. PROFILES OF SIMULTANEOUS BILINGUAL CHILDREN James James lives in Montreal, the largest city in the French-speaking province of Quebec in Canada. His mother is French Canadian and although she speaks English and French fluendy, she uses only (or primarily) French with James and has done so since he was born 5 years ago. James’s father is English Canadian and is functionally bilingual in English and French, but he uses only (or primarily) English with James. James’s parents decided to speak their respective native languages to him so that he will grow up bilingual. In effect, James has two first languages—he is a simultaneous bilingual child. James hears and uses both French and English on a daily basis at home. He also uses both languages outside the home with schoolmates and friends of his family, some who speak only English or only French and some who speak both. His French is a little stronger than his English, because his family fives in a neighborhood of Montreal that is predominantly French-speaking and because he speaks French in kindergarten, but James is functionally proficient in both languages. James is a majority group simultaneous bilingual child because he is growing up in a family that is part of Quebec’s two dominant cultural groups—English and French. This means not only that there is strong support for both his languages in the family, but also that both have widespread utility in the community at large—in stores, with friends, at the movies, and eventually in the job market. James’s parents have the choice to send him to an English medium school or a French medium school, or even to a French immersion program designed for English-speaking children to learn through the medium of French. They have chosen a French medium school but intend to enroll him in English-language summer day camps. A number of children around the world resemble James; they are children of parents from the majority group who learn two first languages. In James’s case, he is learning his two languages from his parents. In other cases, the sources of language input might be different— from grandparents or child care workers. Box 1.1 shows an excerpt from the New York Times (2002) about English-speaking parents who are choosing to employ Spanish-speaking au pairs (nannies) who take care of the children while the parents are at work; by entrusting the care of their children to Spanish-speaking child care providers, these parents are seeking to give their children the opportunity to learn Spanish along with English. Psycholinguisti­ cally speaking, simultaneous bilingual children such as James are robust language learners who are likely to acquire full proficiency in both languages, because the environment in which they live supports the learning of additional languages with no cost to either language. Bistra Bistra is 4 years old and lives in Iowa. Her parents are both graduate students completing their doctoral degrees in the same Slavic Studies department, which is where they met. Bistras father, an American, is a native speaker of English and a proficient second language speaker of Russian, and knows some Bulgarian. Bistra’s mother is a Bulgarian who immigrated to Part 1 Multilingual Development Module 2 • Week 3 Spring 2021 Crystle Alonzo, PhD, CCC-SLP SLHS 514 Differences & Disorders in Children San Diego State University Introduction to Bilingualism Learning Objectives • Identify and discuss challenges in defining bilingualism • Is it a binary or categorical label? • Explain the concept of language dominance • how language dominance can change over time and factors that can influence this change. • Describe and identify examples of internal and external factors impacting bilingual language development. Challenges in defining bilingualism Bilingualism “rather than being an absolute condition is a relative one. Bilingual individuals can be both slightly bilingual or very bilingual.” (Valdes, 1988) Challenges in defining bilingualism Bilinguals “use two or more languages in everyday activities” • Is this person bilingual? Someone who: • speaks one language at home and one language at school? • reports speaking two languages fluently but hasn’t had the opportunity to use one of their languages for several years? • is a student that studied abroad for one summer in a language immersion program? • speaks, reads and writes fluently in their L2, but only speaks their L1? • is acquiring their L2 late in life and feels like they can only translate through their L1 to speak their L2? • is an internationally adopted child who now only uses/needs English for personal & academic life? Terms for bilingualism • Simultaneous vs. sequential • Early vs. late (vs. adult learning of an L2) • Language acquisition vs. language learning • Balanced vs. dominant/nondominant (vs. passive) • Compound vs. coordinate (vs. subordinate) • But the usefulness of some of these terms has been challenged (e.g., Grosjean, 1989; 1992; 1994) Language Dominance • Can be evaluated with parent/teacher report and direct assessments • Advantage of determining dominant language: • Ensure that children are not assessed solely in their non-dominant language • Caveats: • bilingual children need to be assessed in both languages, not just dominant • language “dominance” fluctuates based on context, task demands, and time • It is a relative measure Factors relevant to bilingual language development External Factors Internal/Individual Factors • Context for each language • Age of acquisition • Sequential/simultaneous • Method of acquisition • Personal attitude towards L1/L2 • # of interlocutors • Language used in school system • Social attitudes/policies • Family use Summary: Defining Bilingualism • Pinning down an exact criterion for bilingualism is difficult • Bilinguals use different languages for different purposes across different life domains, and as a result, they have different levels of proficiency within their languages across those domains • Note: perfect mastery of each language is not required • Bilinguals are an extremely heterogeneous group • Even people with similar histories may emerge with different profiles Introduction 9 influence it are critical for providing them with learning environments and supports that foster their language competence as much as possible. PROFILES OF SIMULTANEOUS BILINGUAL CHILDREN James James lives in Montreal, the largest city in the French-speaking province of Quebec in Canada. His mother is French Canadian and although she speaks English and French flu­ ently, she uses only (or primarily) French with James and has done so since he was born 5 years ago. James’s father is English Canadian and is functionally bilingual in English and French, but he uses only (or primarily) English with James. James’s parents decided to speak their respective native languages to him so that he will grow up bilingual. In effect, James has two first languages—he is a simultaneous bilingual child. James hears and uses both French and English on a daily basis at home. He also uses both languages outside the home with schoolmates and friends of his family, some who speak only English or only French and some who speak both. His French is a little stronger than his English, because his family lives in a neighborhood of Montreal that is predominantly French-speaking and because he speaks French in kindergarten, but James is functionally proficient in both languages. James is a majority group simultaneous bilingual child because he is growing up in a family that is part of Quebec’s two dominant cultural groups—English and French. This means not only that there is strong support for both his languages in the family, but also that both have widespread utility in the community at large—in stores, with friends, at the movies, and eventually in the job market. James’s parents have the choice to send him to an English medium school or a French medium school, or even to a French immersion program designed for English-speaking children to learn through the medium of French. They have chosen a French medium school but intend to enroll him in English-language summer day camps. A number of children around the world resemble Janies; they are children of parents from the majority group who learn two first languages. In James’s case, he is learning his two languages from his parents. In other cases, the sources of language input might be different— from grandparents or child care workers. Box 1.1 shows an excerpt from the New York Times (2002) about English-speaking parents who are choosing to employ Spanish-speaking au pairs (nannies) who take care of the children while the parents are at work; by entrusting the care of their children to Spanish-speaking child care providers, these parents are seeking to give their children the opportunity to learn Spanish along with English. Psycholinguisti­ cally speaking, simultaneous bilingual children such as James are robust language learners who are likely to acquire full proficiency in both languages, because the environment in which they live supports the learning of additional languages with no cost to either language. Bistra Bistra is 4 years old and lives in Iowa. Her parents are both graduate students completing their doctoral degrees in the same Slavic Studies department, which is where they met. Bistra ’s father, an American, is a native speaker of English and a proficient second language speaker of Russian, and knows some Bulgarian. Bistras mother is a Bulgarian who immigrated to Foundations 10 BOX 1.1 The New York Times September 19, 2002 "Hello Mommy, Hola Nanny: Immigrant Baby Sitters Double as Language Teachers" —by Mireya Navarro When Daniel Etkin first spoke, he said words like "mommy" and "vacuum," perhaps not what his daddy most wanted to hear but a reflection of his fascination with the vacuum cleaner. But Daniel's first words also included "agua" (water) and "bonito" (pretty), taught to him by the Salvadoran nanny who has been at his side since he was a week old. The nanny, Morena Lopez, does not speak English and his parents are not fluent in Spanish, so at the tender age of 2, Daniel is the only person in the household with the facility to communicate between them. And as with many other children in New York City and other areas with large immigrant populations, the nanny in Daniel's case not only feeds him and watches after him but has become his language instructor. The rising demand for nanny services by working parents over the last decades and the niche that new immigrants have found in such work have combined to make nannies de facto language teachers to children of English-speaking parents. That trend, along with many children whose immigrant parents speak other lan­ guages, has given higher visibility to a cultural phenomenon in many playgrounds: the bilingual toddler, (p. B1) From The New York Times, © September 19, 2002 The New York Times All rights reserved. Used by per­ mission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of the Material without express written permission is prohibited. the United States. She is a fluent second language speaker of both English and Russian as well as a native speaker of Bulgarian. Bistra’s mother has spoken to her exclusively in Bul­ garian from birth, and her father uses exclusively English with her. The parents speak to each other in English or sometimes in Russian. Bistra attends a child care center where only English is spoken. Like James, Bistra is a simultaneous bilingual child, because she has been exposed to two languages consistently since birth. But, unlike James, one of her two lan­ guages is not widely spoken outside her home, so she could be considered a member of a minority ethnolinguistic community ofBulgarian speakers in the United States. Bistra’s mother considers it a high priority for her daughter to speak and eventually read and write Bulgarian fluently; however, achieving this goal will be a challenge. There is no Bulgarian-speaking community in Bistra’s city, so aside from her family and a few of her parents’ friends, Bistra has no exposure to Bulgarian, and in particular, she has no opportunity on a day-to-day basis to use Bulgarian with peers. In addition, Bistra’s child care center uses English, and her schooling will be in English. Even at 4 years of age, she speaks English more proficiently than she speaks Bulgarian, and sometimes she switches to English when speaking with her mother. Maintaining the heritage language, or the language of the country of origin, is often a struggle for many immigrant and refugee families. Children such as Bistra may go through a stage in which they refuse to speak the minority language and insist on using Introduction li only English, even with people with whom they have used their heritage language most of the time. Some children will lose most or all of their fluency in their heritage language once they attend school. Sometimes it is impossible for parents to find resources such as cultural events or books and videos or DVDs in the heritage language in order to give their children a broad and rich range of experience with the language. But the more par­ ents persist in speaking the heritage language, and the more contexts they expose their children to in which that language is used, including traveling back to the country of ori­ gin. the more likely it is that their children will retain an ability to speak that language after school entry. It is especially important to give minority language children opportu­ nities to interact with other children the same age in the heritage language to promote full, native-like fluency in it. Bistra is a simultaneous bilingual child at age 4, but whether she will become a fully proficient bilingual adult is not entirely certain. We discuss the issue of loss of the heritage language in Chapters 4 and 6. Gabriela Gabriela is 6 years old, and, like Bistra and James, she is a simultaneous bilingual child, because she has been exposed to both Spanish and English from birth. Gabriela was born in the New York City area, as were both of her parents, and her family still lives near New York City. Her mother is a nurse, and her father works for an insurance company. Gabriela’s grandparents on both her mother’s and her father’s sides moved to New York from Puerto Rico when they were young adults. Gabriela’s parents and grandparents all speak both Spanish and English in. the home and in the community, although they try to speak more Spanish than English in the home. Gabriela lives in a neighborhood where there are many tanlilies of Puerto Rican heritage, so she is exposed to Spanish not just in the context of her family but also at local businesses, in church, and with other children on the playgrounds and at school. She attended an English child care facility before kindergarten, but is now in first grade at a Spanish—English bilingual school where Span­ ish is taught until third grade. More details about language and academic development in bilingual programs are given in Chapter 8. Gabriela is unusual among bilingual children in that she is a third-generation immi­ grant, yet she still speaks the heritage language. Many second-generation immigrants lose their heritage language. Gabriela’s family has managed to maintain Spanish because of their pride in their heritage and their belief in the importance of passing on that her­ itage. In addition. Puerto Ricans in New York City can easily travel back and forth between Puerto Rico and the United States. As a result, Spanish is a prevalent minority language in New York City, and Gabriela’s family lives in an entire community in which Spanish is used every day. She has already traveled to Puerto Rico twice for extended holidays. Unlike James and Bistra, Gabriela is exposed to English and Spanish from both her parents, so neither parent is associated with only one language and both parents speak Spanish and English fluently. For some families raising simultaneous bilingual children, it is difficult to maintain the child’s bilingualism if one parent is monolingual. For example, Bistra’s father speaks some Bulgarian, but not well enough to have an extensive conversa­ tion with his daughter. In contrast, Gabriela can speak either English or Spanish freely with both parents. Because Gabriela’s parents speak both English and Spanish, they some­ times mix words from the two languages together in one conversation, even within one 12 Foundations sentence.This phenomenon, called code-mixing, is common in bilingual communities across the globe. Details about how code-mixing works and how bilingual children code-mix are in Chapter 5. It might seem that Gabriela is growing up in a similar environment to that of James; however, in Figure 1.1 we considered her a minority simultaneous bilingual child such as bistra. This is because even though Spanish is widely spoken in New York and in many regions of the United States, it does not have the same high status that French does in Canada. However, even though Gabriela is a minority bilingual child, because Spanish is widely spoken in her community and she will grow up with many opportunities to use Spanish, she has a good chance of maintaining her bilingualism throughout her life. Con­ trasting Bistra’s and Gabriela's situations exemplifies another point made previously: that the concept ot minority language is on a continuum. Some languages are much more in the minority than others, and this can affect children’s exposure to and attitudes toward those languages, and can in turn affect their chances of becoming bilingual adults. The language development of simultaneous bilingual children such as James, Bistra, and Gabriela in the preschool and early school-age years is examined in detail in Chapter 4. PROFILES OF SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNERS Samantha Samantha is 7 years old and lives in Tucson, Arizona. Samantha’s parents are both mono­ lingual English speakers; consequently, Samantha learned and used English in the home during her preschool years. Samantha's parents, however, decided to send her to a Spanish­ speaking child care center when she was 3 years old and then to a Spanish immersion pro­ gram when she turned 5 so that she could become bilingual. They felt that it would be good for her to be bilingual in Spanish and English, because there is a large Hispanic com­ munity in the southwestern United States as well as in other regions of the country, and because Spanish is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. Knowing Span­ ish would afford Samantha opportunities for travel and professional work on a global scale. Like James, Samantha is also considered a majority group dual language learner, because her family and the community in which they live are members of the majority ethnolinguistic group. As a result, Samantha also has all of the linguistic and cultural advantages of being part of a high-status ethnolinguistic group. There is no question of her losing her English, even if she has extensive exposure to Spanish in preschool and later in elementary school. She has intensive exposure to English and mainstream Ameri­ can culture at home and in the community, and she will undoubtedly learn the values and orientations of that group at the same time as she learns Spanish and some of the cultural ways and values of Spanish-speaking cultural groups in her community. As discussed in Chapter 8, immersion programs in a second language typically offer language arts instruc­ tion and even some context classes in English; exact proportions of English versus second language instruction vary with different programs. Therefore, Samantha will receive aca­ demic instruction in English at school, alongside Spanish. In contrast to James, Samantha is a second language learner, for the obvious reason that she began acquiring her second language after her first language had been established. Samantha is a fortunate second language learner, because with a little bit of effort on her Introduction 13 parents’ part, she has access to many native Spanish speakers, including adults and children, and this will greatly enhance her probabilities of acquiring full functional proficiency in Spanish. Other second language learners are not so fortunate, because there are few or no native speakers of the second language in the community. For example, some children in the state of Oregon begin to learn Japanese at 5 years of age, when they start their primary schooling in one of the Japanese immersion programs in that state. Because all of the other children in the Japanese immersion program are native English speakers and there is no siz­ able Japanese-speaking population in Oregon, the Japanese immersion students have rela­ tively little access to native speaker models; thus, they have a much greater challenge in acquiring full proficiency in Japanese. In response to this challenge, the Japanese immersion schools have arranged for exchange visits with schools in Japan so that the immersion chil­ dren can spend part of their summer vacation living with Japanese families. Many parents around the world are choosing to send their children to second language immersion schools so that they will become functionally proficient in two languages (see Christian & Genesee, 2001, and Johnson & Swain, 1997, for case studies of such programs). Trevor Trevor is 6 years old. He was born in a small suburban community north of Chicago. Trevor’s parents are both native-born Americans who speak English.Trevor’s father works for a large pharmaceutical company that has extensive international business dealings, and he was relocated to Berlin, Germany, 2 years ago to head up the European office. Trevor had not yet started school in America when they moved. Trevor’s parents could have sent him to the American International School in Berlin, where English is used to teach other American and English-speaking children of relocated parents, but they decided to send him to a German public school so that he could learn German and socialize with other children from Germany. Trevor found the first 6 months of schooling in German difficult because of his lack of competence in German, so his parents arranged for him to have a German language tutor who helped him learn German and keep up with his school­ work. In addition.Trevor’s teachers met with his parents and developed an individualized program of instruction for him so that he had time to learn German before he was exposed to the same curriculum of studies as native German-speaking students.The tran­ sition to the all-German school—although a challenge for Trevor—went smoothly, because he had a number of advantages that helped him adapt. First, he was already well on his way to learning to read and write in English when he entered the German school, because he had advanced emergent literacy skills. This is common among children in families of professional parents who read and write frequently for work and during their leisure time. Most children who can read and write in one language make the transition to reading and writing in another language relatively easily. Above all else, Trevor was highly motivated to learn German in order to fit in and make friends with his German­ speaking classmates. Although German has become Trevor’s primary language in school and outside school when he is with his friends, English continues to be a dominant force in his life; indeed, there is no question of Trevor giving up his English as he learns German. Although Trevor is learning German as a second language in Germany and is surrounded by the German language all day—every day—he is considered to be a member of a majority ethnolinguistic 14 Foundations group because of the status of English in his family and internationally. Also,Trevor and his family belong to an expatriate community, which is distinct from an immigrant commu­ nity in that the members of the community are usually in the host country temporarily and will eventually move back to their country of origin. Trevor, in the same way as Samantha, has a lot of advantages that help him become bilingual. Children such as Trevor who are in expatriate families whose home language is a major international language such as English, are examples of additive bilingualism (see Chapter 3). Luis Luis is an example of a second language learner from a minority group. Luis is 6 years old and lives in California with his parents, both of whom speak Spanish and very little English. They are migrant workers who maintain contact with family and friends in Mexico but spend most of their time living and working in the United States. Luis was born in the United States but grew up speaking only Spanish until he started school. Luis’s first real contact with English came when he started kindergarten in a rural school in southern California. All of Luis’s teachers speak only English, and all of their instruction is in Eng­ lish. Luis is faced with a triple challenge: to learn English for purposes of schooling, to keep up with his schoolwork in English, and to begin to integrate into the larger Anglo-Amer­ ican culture. Because Luis has grown up in a Spanish-speaking, largely Mexican enclave in California, he is most comfortable and competent in cultural contexts that are Mexican in orientation. In fact, he has some difficulty knowing exactly how to behave with monolin­ gual English-speaking children, because their cultural norms for interacting with one another and with adults are different.The educational challenges faced by Luis and children like him are considerable, not simply because lais education is entirely in English, but also because his parents’ literacy skills in Spanish are not well developed, and as a result, they do not read and write well in either English or Spanish. This means that Luis has not had the benefits of family literacy, unlike many children from more socioeconomically advantaged homes, who have plenty of books at home, are read to at home, and observe their parents reading and writing for both work-related and personal reasons. Research shows that fam­ ily literacy facilitates children’s acquisition of literacy skills in school (Goldenberg, 2003). Despite his lack of full functional proficiency in Enghsh, Luis is often referred to by teachers and educational authorities as “bilingual."This is misleading, because in fact he was really monolingual in Spanish upon school entry. The situation is even more compli­ cated because in reality there is no single way to classify all Hispanic American children; the homes and communities in which they live are incredibly diverse.The same is true for children of Asian and Southeast Asian backgrounds. Of particular importance to our con­ cerns in this book is that not all children of Hispanic background necessarily speak Spanish or are bilingual, even though there is a tendency to label all such children as bilingual. Many children of Hispanic background, but not all, come to school speaking only Spanish (such as Luis); some come to school speaking only English; and some come to school speaking both (such as Gabriela).Those who speak only Spanish at school entry will learn Enghsh only once they have begun schooling. Thus, some children of Hispanic background would tall into the simultaneous bilingual learner group, whereas others would be consid­ ered second language learners. Information about the language learning background of minority children such as Luis is important for educators and other professionals to obtain 1 Introduction 15 because there are some different patterns of development and different challenges for simultaneous bilingual children versus second language learners. Because of these differ­ ences, we discuss language development in simultaneous bilinguals and second language learners in separate chapters (see Chapters 4 and 6). Bonnie Bonnie is 8 years old and was born in Taiwan. Her parents are both speakers of Mandarin (Chinese), and the family immigrated to Vancouver, Canada, when Bonnie was 4X years old. Both of her parents are professionals with well-paying jobs in the private sector, and unlike many immigrant families, they both spoke English reasonably well before arriving in Canada, although Bonnie did not. She is a second language learner like Samantha, because her first language, Mandarin, was well established before she began learning her second language. English. When Bonnie began kindergarten after having been in Canada a few months, she spoke very little English; however, she already had emergent literacy skills in Chinese, which helped her acquire comparable skills in English. Bonnie belongs to a minority ethnolinguistic community, as does Bistra, but Mandarin is much more available to her than Bulgarian is to Bistra.Vancouver is a large, cosmopolitan city on the west coast of Canada with a substantial Asian community. Bonnies parents rarely socialize with non-Chinese people, so she has a great deal of social contact with adults and other children her own age who speak the heritage language. Her parents rent videos and DVDs in Mandarin, buy Chinese newspapers, and plan to hire a Chinese-speaking private tutor to teach Bonnie piano lessons. In spite of being competent English speakers, Bonnie’s parents choose to speak Mandarin exclusively, or nearly exclusively, at home. In Vancouver, there are numerous restaurants, and even entire shopping centers, where mainly Mandarin and Cantonese are spoken and the signs are in Chinese. In addition, Bonnie attends a week­ end school so that she can develop her literacy in Chinese.Thus, even though English is the majority language, there is every reason to believe that Bonnie will grow up to be bilingual in both Mandarin and English. Bonnie is fortunate because knowing these two languages fluently will maximize her educational and professional choices. Not all minority second language learners are as fortunate as Bonnie. Many immigrant families do not have easy access to other speakers and resources in their language and do not enjoy the kind of social status that Chinese Canadians and Chinese Americans have in cities such as Vancouver and San Francisco, respectively. As mentioned previously for simul­ taneous bilingual children in a minority group (such as Bistra), without strong support outside the home, many minority second language children lose their ability to speak their first language. Moreover, in contrast to Bonnie’s parents, many immigrant and refugee par­ ents struggle to earn a living, work several jobs at the same time, and cope with difficult issues of integration into their new communities. These challenges all add to the complex­ ity of raising children and supporting their education. Luis’s parents, and the parents of the next profiled child, Faisal, are examples of newcomers who are facing these challenges. Faisal Faisal was born in a refugee camp near the border of Kenya and Somalia. His family fled the violence and poverty of the ongoing civil war in their home country, Somalia, and 16 Foundations lived for 2 years in the camp before coming to Edmonton, Canada, as refugees. Faisal, his parents, and his five older brothers and sisters live in a three-bedroom apartment in the northeast area of the city in a neighborhood of low socioeconomic status. After a brief period taking government-sponsored English second language courses, Faisal’s father started working as a taxi driver. When Faisal first started school, his mother began work­ ing in a chicken-processing plant. Some members of Faisal’s extended family have died as a result of the war, and the children in his family witnessed violence—sometimes fatal violence—on a regular basis in the refugee camp. Faisal’s parents have had very little schooling, and their children had even less when they arrived in Canada.The adjustments and struggles that Faisal and his family have had to make are often difficult for Canadians who are native-born and mainstream to comprehend. Everything from coping with win­ ter to food shopping in supermarkets is unfamiliar to them. The war, displacement, and migration have taken a toll on their mental health as well. Faisal is in first grade and fin­ ished 1 year of kindergarten in Canada. He is approximately 6 years old. His Canadian documents list his birthday as January 1, because his actual birth date is unknown. Faisal was very uncertain about how to behave and what to do during his first days at school because he had never seen or been in. a classroom before. Faisal is aware that none of the teachers at school look, dress, or act as Somalis do. However, three quarters of the children in his class are from newcomer families from Africa, Southeast Asia, the Indian subconti­ nent, and the Middle East. Two of his classmates are Somali. Similar to Luis, Faisal is a minority second language learner from a low socioeco­ nomic background who faces challenges in school beyond simply learning the majority language. But unlike Luis, he does not belong to a relatively large minority community, and his family suffered traumatic experiences before their migration to the host country. Faisal lives in a linguistically and culturally diverse community of mainly newcomers, with some Canadians of European origin and some aboriginal Canadians. English is the common language for all. At home. Faisal’s parents often do not have time to interact much with the children, because they work long hours in shifts. Faisal’s oldest sister, Aliyah, is often responsible for the other children, and for handling communication in English with financial, government, and educational institutions.The children in the fam­ ily now speak mostly English with each other, Because of his community and family sit­ uation, Faisal is even more at risk for losing his first language than Luis is. Also, because of the family’s past and present struggles, Faisal might be in need of extra support and under­ standing from educators and other professionals. Pauloosie Pauloosie is an 8-year-old Inuk boy who lives in a small community (populated by 500 Inuit residents and 15 non-Inuit residents) in Northern Quebec (Nunavik), Canada. He is the fourth child in a family of six children. Both of his parents and all of his siblings speak Inuktitut as their first language. Although Inuktitut is the language of his home and of the community, many people in his settlement, including Pauloosie’s parents and all of his nuclear and extended family members, speak some English. Two of his brothers have received second language schooling in French; they speak Inuktitut, French, and whatever English they have picked up from watching television and overhearing English-language interactions with people who are non-Inuit and who live in or visit the settlement. Introduction 17 Pauloosie’s community is many hundreds of miles and a prohibitively expensive airplane ride from the cities of southern Canada. He is not likely to go to a non-Inuit community unless he becomes very ill and needs medical services or until he goes to postsecondary school. There are. however, numerous television channels available that broadcast in English and French. In comparison, there is only one television channel that broadcasts in Inuktitut. Pauloosie attends a school in which he was taught in Inuktitut exclusively in kinder­ garten, first grade, and second grade. As a result, not only is he a fluent native speaker of Inuktitut, but he can also read and write it.This year, he entered third grade. His family had to decide whether he would be educated in French or in English. They chose English for Pauloosie, because they knew the third-grade English teacher and liked her teaching style. From this year until the end of secondary school, Pauloosie will have only 1 hour of instruction each day on the Inuktitut language, the Inuit culture, or the Inuit religion. Pauloosie, like many of his classmates, finds third grade an unsettling year. For the first time, he has a non-Inuit teacher. In fact, this is Pauloosie’s first sustained contact with an adult who is not an Inuk.This is also the first time that Pauloosie has had to speak English on a regular basis and for a number of hours each day. His teacher is in her second year of teaching. Her teacher education program had no courses in second language or multicul­ tural education. Pauloosie has been surprised by many things in these first weeks at school. In his previous classes, he was never asked to speak alone in front of others, to raise his hand when called on by his Inuit teachers, or to look a teacher in the eye. He and his classmates answered together as a group, shared their work, and often copied th e work of the smartest girl in class to learn from her. These ways of learning were considered appropriate by his Inuit teachers, but his third-grade teacher wants all of his work done alone. He was sur­ prised when she called what he considered to be sharing work with others cheating or copy­ ing. Pauloosie finds it uncomfortable to be called on and to have his answers to the teacher’s seemingly incessant questions evaluated. He feels ashamed, even if he knows the correct answer, and he misses the comfort of answering as one voice in a group of other children’s voices. Pauloosie, like the other children in his community, has the special chal­ lenge of encountering another culture and language for the first time in school at age 8. PROFILE OF AN INTERNATIONALLY ADOPTED CHILD Kristina Kristina is 5 years old and lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She was born in Russia, and her name at birth was Tatiana, which is now one of her middle names. Kristina is a special dual language learner; she is learning English as a second first language and has discontinued learning her birth language, Russian. Kristina’s adopted parents are both professionals—one is a lawyer and the other is a university professor—and have been mar­ ried for 15 years, but were not able to have a child of their own. It took them about 5 years from making the initial decision to adopt to bringing Kristina home with them from the orphanage in Russia. Like many IA children, Kristina’s family has a high socioeconomic status, and she benefits from a home environment in which she receives a great deal of attention and support as an only child of two highly educated parents. These benefits are important for her, because the conditions in the orphanage in which she was previously 18 Foundations raised from birth were not optimal; for example, there were few caregivers for the large number of children. Kristina entered the orphanage at about age 2 and was adopted at the age of 30 months. After she first arrived in the United States, her parents arranged for her to have a complete medical examination and a developmental assessment. Like many IA children from Eastern Europe, Kristina displayed some physical delays and medical problems. More specifically, at the time she was first examined, at almost 3 years of age, her head circum­ ference was smaller than expected for her age and her body weight and length were also less than normal for her age group. She also had some gastrointestinal problems like other IA children from orphanages with suboptimal resources. It was not clear how much Russian Kristina learned before being adopted, because the orphanage personnel were reluctant to talk about her language abilities when Kristina’s parents inquired. However, Kristina appeared to have lost any knowledge of Russian within several months of adop­ tion; Kristina’s parents had a friend who tried speaking Russian to her when she was approximately 3X years old, and she did not appear to understand anything he said.This is not uncommon for IA children. Within a year or so of living in her new home, Kristina’s medical problems were resolved and her body weight and length improved considerably, although her head cir­ cumference continued to be of some concern. Kristina was slow to produce her first words in English and her vocabulary development was not as fast as her parents had expected, but her parents were happy with the progress she made at learning English over the first 2 years after adoption. At the time she started preschool, when she was 4 years old, her comprehension of English was good and her expressive language was fluent and easy to understand. After a year in the preschool program, Kristina made even more progress, possibly as a result of the additional stimulation in language she got from the other children and her preschool teachers. WHAT IS (SPECIFIC) LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENT? This book addresses dual language development in children with typical development as well as in children with language disorders. Developmental disorders are those that chil­ dren are born with, in contrast to acquired disorders that can arise from environmental factors such as accidents causing neurological trauma or disease. Broadly speaking, devel­ opmental language impairment typically consists of delay in the onset of speaking; that is, delay in achievement of milestones such as first words and sentences, followed by pro­ tracted difficulties and delays extending to the school-age years in mastering vocabulary, grammar, and cognitively integrated aspects of language use, such as narratives. There are a number of reasons why children might have difficulty learning language. Language impairment can arise as one affected area among others in neurodevelopmental syn­ dromes such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or Down syndrome. Language impair­ ment can also be exhibited by children with moderate hearing loss, because they are trying to learn oral language with insufficient auditory input. The particular developmen­ tal disorder that concerns us most in this book is specific language impairment (SLI). A variety of other terms have been used to describe SLI, including childhood aphasia, dys­ phasia, and most recently primary language impairment. What distinguishes SLI from other developmental or acquired disorders is that children’s difficulties are centered in learning Week 6 Second language in School SLHS 514 Spring 2021 Minority Language Students Luis • Southern California, Age 6 • Sequential (Spanish > English at 5yrs) • Minority L1 / Majority L2 • Both parents monolingual Spanish, some English. Not literate • Migrant worker family Minority Language Children in L2-Only Programs Immigrant and ethnic minority children are overrepresented in underachieving categories and special education programs Why? Minority Language Children in English-Only (or Majority-Only) Programs Challenges • Must acquire a second language (L2) • Must learn academic skills and knowledge in a second language (L2) • Must integrate into a new peer group of different cultural and linguistic background • Must adapt to a new or different school culture • Likely to experience a subtractive bilingual environment Social Language (in an L2) • Can be acquired in 2-3 years • You can be understood without using: • articles • prepositions • sophisticated vocabulary • pronoun reference http://www.colorincolorado.org/sites/default/files/Academic-Language-PPT. Academic Language (in an L2) • Acquired in 5-7 years (Cummins, 2000) • Requires: • Concise, densely packed information • Avoid redundancy • Nominalization • Embedded complex sentences • Impersonal authoritative voice • All purpose academic words and discipline specific terms Context -bound De-contextualiz ed Sharing new information Complex Simpl e Face-to-face communication Social Language Academic Language Developing conceptual understanding Describing abstract ideas Casual oral / text messages Everyday social interactio n Academic Language Why do educators of L2-learning students need to understand the difference between academic and social language? Academic Language Does this mean minority language students shouldn’t be taught the same academic content? Minority language children in bilingual programs • Transitional bilingual education • Most limited but most common • Initial instruction in L1 that is phased out (often by Grade 3) subtractive • Developmental bilingual education • All minority language students • L1 and L2 education • Varied ratios of L1:L2 (e.g., 90%/10% or 50%/50%) • Two-way bilingual/immersion education • Mixed minority and majority language students • L1 and L2 Education • Varied ratios of L1:L2 (e.g., 90%/10% or 50%/50%) additive For Minority Language Students... Does schooling in bilingual programs enhance or detract from students' acquisition of the majority (L2) language? Developmental/two-way bilingual programs School-aged French-English bilinguals, identified with low performance on English language measures LEP = limited English proficiency Thomas, W. P., & Collier, V. P. (2002). A national study of school effectiveness for language minority students' long-term academic achievement. L2 Exposure “time on task” argument L2 Exposure “time on task” argument Initial differences tend to vanish over time • 90/10 vs. 50/50 • L2-only vs. bilingual L2 Exposure “time on task” argument Initial differences tend to vanish over time • 90/10 vs. 50/50 • L2-only vs. bilingual Why? • Exposure to L2 in community • Transfer of L1 skills (especially in literacy) For Minority Language Students... Does Schooling in Bilingual Programs Enhance or Detract from Students' Acquisition of the Majority (L2) Language? It does not detract and can enhance For Minority Language Students... What is the Relationship Between Amount of Exposure to the Minority Language in School and Acquisition of that Language? • Minority L1 exposure is often endangered due to its status • Higher-level / academic language in L1 is not attained elsewhere • Higher L1 exposure in school = higher L1 proficiency Bonus • Higher L1 proficiency = higher bilingual proficiency • • more likely to experience cognitive and cultural benefits of bilingualism More likely for L1 skills to scaffold/support L2 skills Majority Language Students Samantha • Girl, Age 7 • Born and raised in Tucson, AZ • Sequential (English > Spanish) • Both parents monolingual English-speakers Bilingual Programs for Majority Language Students Immersion: at least 50% instruction in a minority/foreign L2 • partial vs. total • early, middle, late Goals: • native-like proficiency in L1 (English) • advanced functional proficiency in L2/foreign language • grade appropriate skills in core academic subjects • cultural appreciation Effectiveness of Immersion for Majority Language Students Oral and literacy development in L1 (English): • potential for early lags in L1 development relative to traditional L1 only programs, but ultimately, comparable • comparable across partial vs. total immersion L2/foreign language development: • functional proficiency is possible; native-like acquisition less likely • some lingering differences from native speakers: • pronouns, verb tenses, prepositions • non-idiomatic usage • L1 transfer Academic achievement: • Immersion = English-only (assuming fair testing) Why might majority language students in immersion programs typically do better than minority language students in English-only programs (when both situations consist of a mismatch between home and school languages)? Social Factors: Mismatch between Home and School Languages Immersion in the US Submersion education • Most students speak English as the L1 and learn an L2 in school • Students start with no knowledge of L2; praised for any improvements • Students speak a non-English L1 and learn English (L2) in school • Classmates speak English as the L1; Students’ lack of English proficiency is viewed as an intellectual or academic limitation Cummins, J. (1979). Linguistic Interdependence and the Educational Development of Bilingual Children. Review of Educational Research, 49, 222-251. Social Factors: Mismatch between Home and School Languages Immersion in the US Submersion education • Teacher is familiar with children’s L1 (English) and related cultural expectations • Teachers do not denigrate children’s L1 • Importance of children’s L1 is reflected in subjects added at later grades • Teachers may not know children’s L1 • Children’s L1 often viewed as an obstacle to overcome to learn English (L2) • Aspects of children’s L1 linked to identity are not reinforced Cummins, J. (1979). Linguistic Interdependence and the Educational Development of Bilingual Children. Review of Educational Research, 49, 222-251. Summary: Bilingual vs. English-Only Programs For minority language students • L2 (English) outcomes • Bilingual programs ≥ English-only programs • L1 outcomes • Bilingual programs > English-only programs For majority language students • L1 (English) outcomes • Bilingual programs = English-only programs • L2 outcomes • Bilingual programs > English-only programs