Multilingual education for young children

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From the course by National Research University Higher School of Economics

Introduction to Multilingual and Multicultural Education

9 ratings

National Research University Higher School of Economics

Introduction to Multilingual and Multicultural Education

9 ratings

The processes of globalization are highly complex and influence the multi-layered structures of societies: economic, socio-cultural, political, linguistic and education aspects among others. A remarkable increase in global migration flows, especially over the last decade, required from the host countries to pay particular attention to the provision of equal education opportunities. Children of migrants, frequently not being (fluent) speakers of the official/national language(s) of the host country, need, and above all, have the right, to get access to good quality education. In addition, in today’s highly competitive labour-market, learning global/international languages (e.g. English) is seen as a necessity. How and at what age should children start learning an additional language (or languages)? Do bilingual/multilingual children perform better at school than their monolingual peers? Which language/education policies are successful and which are not? What challenges students and teachers face in a multilingual/multicultural classroom? What measures do educators, schools, communities need to take in order to make the multilingual and multicultural learning space more effective? The course Introduction to Multilingual and Multicultural Learning makes an attempt to provide answers to these and other related questions with reference to the latest research and discussion of different case studies. By the end of this course, you will be able to: - critically evaluate various teaching practices in multilingual and multicultural settings; - critically evaluate various language policies and planning programmes implemented in multilingual education settings; - obtain valuable insights to better understand the learning needs of students in a multilingual/multicultural classroom; - apply the knowledge you will have gained in this course, in multilingual/multicultural classrooms; - obtain essential skills to deal with immigrant/minority language students.

From the lesson

Multilingual & multicultural education for young children

This module will introduce you to the basic ideas of Early and Late Second Language Learning, as well as give an insight into language immersion programmes for young children.

Multilingual education for young children5:35

Meet the Instructors

Denis Zubalov
Assistant Professor
School of Philology, HSE

Hello and welcome to the Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia.

This week, we'll be looking at the factor of

age when it comes to second language learning.

Likewise, we'll investigate what advantages there are

if any for children who speak two or more languages.

And finally, we'll investigate pedagogical practices in

primary education within the framework of multilingual and multicultural education.

In this video, I'll be talking about bilingual parents,

who bilingual parents are and what language or languages they

choose or decide to choose to address their children.

But let's take a look at the definition of the BFLA first.

Simply put is the development of children who hear two languages from birth.

And it's important to note that there is

no chronological difference between the two languages.

In her exciting book,

on BFLA Annick de Houwer mentions language A and

language Alpha instead of first language and second language.

So, BFLA children hear language A and language Alpha from birth but

this does not necessarily mean that

they will end up speaking both languages equally well.

Who are passive bilinguals?

These are the BFLA children who understand two languages but speak only one.

But let's take a closer look at the different patterns of language use in BFLA.

The first pattern is the most frequent case.

It happens when a child both understands and speaks

language A and he or she understands and speaks language Alpha.

The second case is also frequent but not as frequent as the first one.

It happens when a child understands and speaks language A,

he or she understands language Alpha but does not speak language Alpha.

And the two other cases are less frequent or infrequent I'd say.

So, it's not a secret that language assessment is very important.

So, when it comes to language skills assessment,

there is a difference between comprehension and production.

It's important to mention that there were

only a few studies that have been conducted on comprehension in BFLA.

So, let's ask a question,

is it possible that the child understands very little of

one language even though he or she has been exposed to two languages from birth?

The answer to this question you'll be able to find by the end of this presentation.

So, there is a lot of variation when it comes to

the amount of words children understand in each of their languages.

Whereas some children are equally fluent in

both language A and language Alpha at the end of the continuum,

some children speak language A but do not speak language Alpha.

And there is a general consensus in the field of BFLA that BFLA children,

who actively speak two languages do not necessarily speak them equally well.

And the question is,

what could be the possible reason for this?

In order to answer this question,

we have to look at the family units.

So, it's the family that functions as the primary unit of socialization.

And the typical BFLA situation is when

a child's parents are speakers of two different languages.

So, let's take a look at the different scenarios when it comes to bilingual parents.

Either the spouses have

different language background but speak only one language between them,

and after the birth of the baby,

one of them switches to another language.

Or parents are bilingual and speak

both languages at home and this linguistic behavior just continues.

Or bilingual parents decide to address the child just in one language.

And in this way, they block the possibility of BFLA.

And finally, monolingual families decide to

hire a nanny to look after their child who speaks another language.

In this way, child grows up in a bilingual environment.

But it should be mentioned that all of these cases are quite relative

precisely because we cannot exclude all other factors like speaking with relatives,

the influence of different mass media, et cetera.

Instead of a conclusion,

I would like to ask you a question.

So, if any of you have come in contact with bilingual or multilingual children,

would you expect them to be equally good at reading, writing, and speaking?

Write your comments, your thoughts,

I'll be happy to read that.

So, in the next video,

we will be talking about the factor of age.

Is there a particular age when it's better to start learning a second language?

Don't miss that. That's all for now.

Thanks for watching. See you later. Bye bye.

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