Dr Małgorzata Rocławska-Daniluk
University of Gdańsk
Poland
Bilingualism at
the early stages of education in
Good bilingual competence is the aim of many
educational systems in
Taking a closer look at the foreign language teaching
one can distinguish three main aspects of bilingual education at schools.
Firstly: teaching English at schools and kindergartens in a traditional way, means
additional hours of English with a teacher. A kind of routine in
Accordingly, there are three models of bilingual
education connected with the indicated aspects of bilingual education at
schools[1].
First model is called ‘enrichment bilingual education’ which is offered to the
children whose mother language is the language of majority of society they
live. Second model is called ‘transitional/compensatory education’ and helps
the minorities go through the assimilation processes in the society they live.
Third model is called ’maintenance bilingual education’ and has been offered
for either minorities or majorities in order to stimulate interest for
different cultures and languages.[2]
All
these aspects and models of bilingualism exist within the specific educational
system in particular countries. To get the quick view of the Polish system it’s
good to look at the following specification:
|
3-6-year-olds |
kindergarten |
|
6-year-olds |
‘0’
class (at kindergarten or school) |
|
7-12- year-olds |
primary
school |
|
13-15- year-olds |
gymnasium |
|
16-18- year-olds |
secondary
school or technical school |
|
Over
18- year-olds |
university,
higher school, polytechnic. |
Nowadays in
In the scientific literature
one can come across good illustration of bilingualism, showing what is the idea
of multi-linguistic competence. The author J. Cummins called it ‘Dual Iceberg’[3]
Common Underlying Proficiency
‘Dual iceberg’ is the metaphor
showing us the relation between L1 and L2 being connected with the ‘common
underlying proficiency’. This relation is particularly important in the
situation of emigration, when the native language can easily be dominated by
the foreign language and the culture. This illustration put the stress on the
importance of preserving ones native language and culture, because all our
linguistic experiences are of great importance in the final linguistic
proficiency. It is undoubtedly significant in the face of uniting
Due to some scientific
researches bilingualism leads to good intellectual and academic achievements[4].
Attitudes towards bilingualism has been vividly described by English-German
speaker in one of the published inquiry: “Bilingualism breeds biculturalism,
and biculturalism breeds open-mindedness toward other languages and cultures.
It helps to eliminate cultural ignorance. Being bilingual is a
horizon-broadening experience.”[5]
As we wanted to show there are
many aspects of bilingualism. In our preliminary pilot studies (Studies A) we have
concentrated on the preschool age (3-6-year-olds). At kindergartens we have
been observing the system of bilingual education which is called ‘partial
immersion’ (50% Polish : 50% English in use), whilst the children’s mother
language is the language of majority of the society they live. Therefore the
model of bilingual education is named ‘enrichment education’.
The purpose of the research of
6-year-olds carried out in two
·
to determine children’s language skills in both languages;
·
to identify children with speech impairments and to
determine their competence in both languages;
·
to specify children’s attitude towards both languages.
To resolve these issues
children were assessed on measures of reaction to semantic mistakes, guessing
the riddles, listening and answering the questions, tendency to imitate given
syntactic structure, communicative competence, phoneme blending and some
psycholinguistic aspects. All these attainments has concerned Polish language. The
results on English language we have received from children’s English teacher,
who has been carefully collecting data concerning each child in a group.
One session in kindergarten lasted
about 30 minutes, and each child get the small badge at the end of the
research. Children were eager to take part in the research, because they were
curious and were good motivated by the foretold reward.
The results of the research
indicated that 25% of the experimental group required logopedical intervention.
In this group there were children with sigmatismus interdentalis and rhotacismus.
Especially sigmatismus interdentalis from the phonetical point of view could be
a contraindication for English lessons at kindergartens. In Polish language
interdental realization is always incorrect, while in English the position of
tongue between teeth is a normal pronunciation of /th/ sound. During our
studies we put this speech difficulty under question and decided to carefully
observe the child, his motivation and linguistic competence in both languages.
Our analysis of the whole
group of children with speech impairments (n=6) indicated that reaction to
semantic mistakes were generally very good (90% of correctness) and in one
kindergarten these children get even better results in comparison to children
without speech impairments.
Comparatively good results
were achieved on guessing the riddles (90% of correctness). Answers to the
questions after listening activity were generally short (consisting of one or
two words) and of simple syntactic structure.
Tendency to imitate given
syntactic structure was vague (50% children’s responses). Similar results were
assessed on communicative competence (50% of correct responses). Phoneme
blending was correct in 50% .
Psycholinguistic aspects were
the separate interesting aim of the study. To get the idea of children’s
attitude towards English language we constructed a list of questions and some
exercises. Children were questioned what language they preferred at
kindergarten. Half of the group preferred Polish and the other half English. The
majority of the group of children preferred speaking Polish at home, although
generally they like speaking English very much. Only one child out of six would
like to live in a country, where everybody speaks English.
At the end of the research we
introduced a small toy: teddy bear. We asked children if they would like to
speak with our teddy bear. When they answered yes, we tell them, that this is
an English speaking teddy bear and he doesn’t know Polish. At the beginning all
the children wanted to speak with teddy bear. Getting the information that this
is an English speaking teddy bear only one child refused to continue.
Interestingly, in the
situation of free choice of the language all the children wanted to speak
Polish with a toy, and half of the group wanted to teach this toy both
languages: English and Polish.
Children without speech
impairments (n=17) achieved different results only in limited number of
questions in comparison to the group with speech difficulties. Tendency to
imitate given syntactic structure was inexplicit, generally the vast majority
of the group doesn’t imitate given syntactic structure. Communicative
competence in 50% of the group was assessed as satisfactory. Less than 50% of
the group has achieved good score in phoneme blending tas
Psycholinguistic aspects in this group
revealed, that the most preferable language of communication at home and at
kindergarten is Polish. The majority of children described English as a ‘nice
language’ or ‘easy language’. Only one child out of seventeen would like to
live in a country, where everybody speaks English. Only three children didn’t
want to speak with teddy bear. Getting the information that this is an English
speaking teddy bear three children refused to continue. The majority of
children wanted to speak Polish with a toy, two children wanted to teach both
languages. One child wanted to teach the toy only English.
Summing up the results of the
whole group of children (n=23) in Studies A we came to the following
conclusions:
·
linguistic development in mother language is satisfactory for the 74% of
experimental group;
·
linguistic competence in English depends on the age when children
started to learn English, although ‘partial immersion’ gives satisfactory
results even with children who haven’t been learning English before the age of five;
·
phoneme blending appeared to be a difficult task for more than 50% of
experimental group - what could be the consequence of educational program with
insufficient amount of phonological awareness activities;
·
generally children wouldn’t like to live in an English speaking country,
where everybody speaks English, most probably because they are aware of their
little competence in English;
·
Polish language is the one preferred at home and at kindergarten, with
the little stress put on the communication at home;
·
most of the children (83% of the experimental group) wanted to talk with
a teddy bear, regardless of the bear’s nationality, what proves the importance
of an amusement at the preschool age of life;
·
the majority of children wanted to speak Polish with a toy,
interestingly: only small group of children wanted to teach this toy both
languages.
To resolve the issue of children’s
sensitivity to some phonetical aspects of English pronunciation we carried on Studies
B (n=16) in one of the bilingual kindergartens in
The results indicated that
3,4-year-olds exhibited good phonological skills and appeared to be able to satisfactory
distinguish phonetical correctness and incorrectness (only one child achieved
less than 50% good answers).
Interestingly two 3-year-olds
achieved good scores despite the fact, that they could only say /fis/ instead
of ‘fish’. Only one girl (4-years old) mastered 100% ability to judge the
correctness of the whole lot of words. She had been described by the teacher as
the cleverest of the whole group, with an outstanding auditory memory.
These findings proved the
importance of preschool teachers’ proficiency and children’s surprising competences.
Preliminary pilot studies in
kindergartens proved the hypothesis which we have made on the basis of
theoretical studies. Children at the preschool age in favor of bilingual
education have a chance to go beyond the boundaries which for adult learners
stay unattainable.
Children with speech
impairments at this stage of life are able to carry on learning two languages
without any special threats to their linguistic competence in mother language.
If they are eager enough to learn English they would simultaneously improve
their competences in both languages, enriching their ‘common underlying
proficiency’. Forbidding children with speech impairments in mother language to
attend English lessons would be a great misunderstanding. Individual cases of
such contraindications should be carefully investigated.
Preschool age is the best
period for prevention, therefore logopedical intervention in Polish
kindergartens is included in the schedule of normal day-to-day routine. In
individual cases additional hours of speech therapy exercises are provided, but
the result of these activities depends on the parents and in fact the whole
social background of a child.
There are many interesting
aspects of bilingual education of preschoolers. The one we have concentrated on
is acquisition of phonetical and phonological aspects of Polish and English.
Within this topic the development of the linguistic awareness growing on the
field of balanced bilingual competence will be the subject of our future
researches.
References and essential
bibliography:
CUMMINS,
J. (1984), Bilingualism and Special Education: Issues in Assessment and
Pedagogy, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd.
GROSJEAN,
F. (1982), Life with Two languages. An Introduction to Bilingualism.
ILUK, J. (2000)
Nauczanie bilingwalne. Modele, koncepcje założenia metodyczne,
Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego.
ILUK, J. (2002).
Jak uczyć małe dzieci języków obcych, Katowice: Gnome.
KAMIŃSKA, K.
(2002). Dwujęzyczność – wyzwanie współczesności, w:
Życie Szkoły 2002, nr 9.
KOMOROWSKA, H.
(2002). Metodyka nauczania języków obcych, Warszawa: Wyd. Fraszka
Edukacyjna.
KURCZ, I. (2000).
Psychologia języka i komunikacji, Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar.
LAMBERT, W.E. and
TUCKER, R.G. (1972), Bilingual Education of Children. The St. Lambert
Experiment, , Rowley, Massachusetts: Newbury House Publishers.
LASKOWSKI, M.
(2003). Rola i znaczenie kompetencji komunikacyjnej w procesie nauczania
języków obcych, w: Języki Obce w Szkole 2003 nr 2;
LIPIŃSKA, E.
(2003). Język ojczysty, język obcy, język drugi. Wstęp do
badań dwujęzyczności, Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.
MIODUNKA, W.
(1977). Język polski a współczesne metody nauczania języków
obcych (cz.I), Przegląd Polonijny 1977 z.2.
OLPIŃSKA, M.
(2004). Wychowanie dwujęzyczne, Warszawa: Katedra Języków
Specjalistycznych Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego.
PIEGZIK, W.
(2002). Nauczanie ku dwujęzyczności, w: Języki Obce w Szkole
2002 nr 6.
ROCŁAWSKI,
B. (2005). Glottodydaktyk-nauczyciel XXI wieku,
SKUTNABB-KANGAS,
T. (1981). Bilingualism or not: The Education of Minorities,