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Jessie Mason

Stephen Plaskon

A Survey of Language Learning

April 23, 2012

Bilingualism in Children: Learning a Second Language in the Home vs. Acquiring a Second

Language in an Educational Setting

1. Bilingualism: History and Experience

Language is an essential trait in any society. Without language and or capability of

communication, the growth and development of society members would stagnate, and this lack

of communication would most likely cause the society itself to fail. In short, without language, a

coherent society cannot exist.

Through the development of different cultures and civilizations through time, different

languages also developed. As a result, in order for a member of one language community to

communicate with a member of a different community, one of two things need to happen: a new

language has to be created, or a new language has to be learned. The first case would result in the

development of, first, pidgin and, later, creole languages. Pidgin languages are created when

members of two distinct language groups form a simplistic common language that shares aspects

of both of the original languages. They typically have “a small vocabulary, simple grammatical

structure, and a narrower range of functions than the language[s] from which the pidgin was

developed” (Otto 59). A pidgin language turns into a creole language when the original speakers

of the language pass it down to the following generations. It undergoes expansion of key

linguistic features to make it more of an actual language instead of a combination of two

different languages. The second case results in what is traditionally considered bilingualism, or if

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more than two languages are learned, multilingualism.

My experience with bilingualism started in fourth grade, when my mother signed me up

for an introductory French class that met once a week before school. I remember being

surprisingly adept at picking up the language and the accent, although my age probably

accounted for most of that. After fourth grade, I was pretty much English-only for the next five

years until I took Spanish 1 during my freshman year of high school. I continued through

Spanish 2 and 3 during my sophomore and junior years, and ended up skipping Spanish 4 to take

AP Spanish Language, receiving a 5 on the exam. Now, at the end of my first year at UVa, I am

almost halfway done with my Spanish major and it seems safe to say that I have reached a point

where I can call myself bilingual. I’m able to communicate through written and spoken word

confidently and fluidly in both Spanish and English. Personally, I’ve found bilingualism to be

one of the most useful skills I possess when it comes to navigating the academic and social

realms of my life.

My second language acquisition has been relatively smooth, (compared to my peers,

some of whom genuinely struggle when it comes to learning a new language) and so I have

become increasingly interested in the different ways second languages are acquired, and if

learning a language in the home versus in an educational setting makes a difference in the

language learner’s control of each language.

2. Definitions

Discussing bilingualism requires an understanding of different terms related to the

acquisition of two (or more) languages. The critical period is the time during which language

acquisition is supposed to be the easiest; usually defined as the time from birth until puberty.

Simultaneous bilingualism occurs when a child acquires two languages prior to age 3, as

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opposed to successive bilingualism, which refers to children acquiring their second language

after age 3 (Otto 71). Children who know two or more language sometimes confuse knowledge

of their first and second languages when speaking, “For example, a child might use the

vocabulary or syntactic structure of one language when attempting to communicate in the other

language” (Otto 72). This is known as language interfernce. Learning a second language without

continuing to develop the first can result in a phenomenon termed subtractive bilingualism,

where a second language is learned at the price of losing the ability to speak the first language.

Additive bilingualism also exists; programs that cause additive bilingualism place emphasis on

the acquisition of a second (target) language while, at the same time, development of the first

(home) language is continued (Otto 73).

With regard to the issue of subtractive bilingualism, Conger claims that “bilingual

education either interferes with English-language acquisition or has no effect” (1119). However,

a study conducted by Dixon found that “…bilingualism does not necessitate the improvement of

one language at the expense of the other. Although dominance in one language or the other was

common (slightly over 50%), nearly one-quarter of the children [in the study] showed high

proficiency in both languages, indicating strong dual language proficiency is possible” (31).

In this paper, I will use the term “home bilingual” to refer to children who learn both

languages in the home and “schooled bilingual” to refer to children who learn their first language

in the home and acquire their second language in school, whether in an ESL, bilingual education,

or immersion program.

3. Second Language Acquisition

The acquisition of a second language is not exactly the same as the acquisition of a first

language, although the two processes do share some similar qualities. Towell and Harkins list

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five observable phenomena of second language acquisition: transfer of properties of the L1 (first

language) grammar into the L2 (second language) grammar, staged development in second

language acquisition, systematicity in the growth of L2 across learners, variability in learners’

intuitions about, and production of, aspects of the L2 at certain stages of development, and

second language learners stop short of native-like success in a number of areas of the L2

grammar (7-14).

Transfer of properties of the L1 grammar into the L2 grammar is most noticeable if the

first and second languages differ in a specific construct, “because this leads to patterns in the

speech of the non-native speaker not found in the speech of the native speaker” (Towell and

Harkins 7). This property would not be as visible in a home bilingual, since he or she learns both

of his or her languages as native languages, instead of acquiring them as second languages.

Transfer of properties that two languages share, like definite and indefinite articles, can also help

the schooled bilingual in acquiring his or her second language more quickly (Towell and Harkins

9).

Although the stages of first and second language acquisition differ, first and second

language learners go through specific stages in their acquisition of the target language (Towell

and Harkins 10). The example given by the aforementioned authors is schooled bilinguals

learning the word order patters in German, and the gradual transition from ungrammatical

structures to grammatical ones that they go through. In addition, most second language learners

start off from an different level of grammar relative to one another, and these starting grammars

may provide certain advantages or disadvantages to learners.

Systematicity in the growth of L2 knowledge across learners is visible in the stages that

second language learners go through in learning a language. These stages are independent of

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their home languages. Specifically, “learners from different L1 backgrounds develop L2

linguistic knowledge in a way that is not directly attributable either to their L1, or to the L2

input” (Towell and Harkins 11). These stages also appear to be independent of how the second

language is learned, whether in a natural or classroom environment.

Variability in learners’ intuition about and production of a second language allows for

different constructions of an idea to be produced by the learner. These variable structures can

occur without pattern until the speaker learns which variant is correct, or continue to vary

randomly if the learner never learns the rule governing the variation (Towell and Harkins 12).

This seems a little bit similar to the concept of distribution in linguistics, in which two or more

forms of a word or phrase can appear in different situations depending on context and speaker.

The final phenomenon listed, that second language learners stop short of native-like

success in L2 grammar, seems debatable. I would argue that schooled bilinguals usually have a

better grasp on the concepts behind and situations in which to use complicated grammatical

structures in the L2 than do native speakers. However, that may just be my personal experience

with high-achieving, high-effort individuals and may not reflect the general pattern.

4. Second Language Acquisition in the Home

Raising bilingual children has been a goal of mine for years. I have seen the benefits that

stem from knowing more than one language, both professionally and socially. I’m able to

comfortable converse and communicate with a much broader scope of people than I would be

able to if I only spoke English, and I would love to afford the same opportunity to my children,

and begin fostering it at a young age.

In Carlson’s article on his experiences with bilingual homeschooling, he praises both the

bilingual approach to imparting language to his daughter and going about bilingual education in

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the home. He and his wife decided to pull his daughter out of traditional schooling, opting

instead to homeschool in a dual-language manner. He claims, “through bilingual homeschooling

she was able to grow and learn using both of her first languages in various contexts every day so

that now, as an adult, she has a balanced native-speaker command of two languages —

something that never would have happened had she continued to attend school” (12). It’s not

clear whether it was the focus that the homeschooling provided or the bilingual aspect of it, but it

seems that in this instance, learning a second language in the home provided a much better

environment to actually acquire and be able to utilize a second language.

A child’s parents are his or her first language teachers. If the parents of a bilingual child

are not particularly strong in one or another language themselves, then the child’s level of

knowledge in that language will obviously be lacking. This may be discouraging to either the

child or the teacher (in the educational setting), however, “teachers must… keep their

expectations high for all of their bilingual students: regardless of their SES [socioeconomic

status] or home language, students of all backgrounds are capable of reaching high proficiency in

two languages” (Dixon 33).

In researching children who learn two or more languages at home, I began to wonder

whether teaching an entire family two languages at once would be feasible, and if it would help

parents and/or children develop and maintain a firm grasp on the target language and its

structures. This would be a combination of learning a language in an educational setting and

learning a language at home, since everyone would technically be receiving their education from

a strictly classroom setting, but the parents and children would be living in the same linguistic

environment and be able to help each other learn the target language. Children who learn a

second language in school, specifically one that their parents don’t speak, face certain challenges

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in acquiring one language and maintaining another. As Wang puts it,

For those children whose home language is different from that of their school (or mainstream) language, the home language literacy development path is often different. Although their emergent heritage language literacy skills developed at home in early childhood will no doubt benefit their school literacy development, their emergent literacy skills will not automatically become conventional home language literacy skills unless special efforts are made.

As these children become more involved in mainstream school learning as well as extracurricular activities, they have less time for home language literacy activities. Without extra effort, it is unlikely that these children’s home language literacy will develop any further and may even terminate (89-90).

I have no real idea as to how a widespread parent-child bilingual education system could be put

in place, and more research needs to be done, but I believe that putting second language learning

into a home where a parent and child both don’t know the target language could be an effective

method of teaching a second language and encourage them to work together in their acquisition

of said language.

In order to create and maintain bilingualism in a home environment, Piper recommends

using each of the two languages for distinct and separate tasks, saying “[children] seem to have

little trouble learning the separate languages of their two parents, or the language of their parents

and the language of their peers or other caretaker” (139). She also firmly asserts that acquiring a

second language does not put children at risk for falling behind in their linguistic capabilities nor

in their education, and that “bilingualism is clearly an advantage” for school-aged children (139).

Piper details case studies on specific children as they progress through their bilingualism.

One child, Quy, moved to the United States with his mother from a refugee camp in Malaysia.

His mother spoke little English, and taught him what she knew while mainly using Vietnamese

in everyday life. His experiences in English-only daycare and preschool helped to kick-start his

English language learning. For a while he refused to speak Vietnamese to his mother, but once

he realized that he could separate his Vietnamese use from his English, but retain the ability to

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use them whenever he wanted, his language development rapidly increased. He was able to help

other Vietnamese-speaking students in his class, and by kindergarten, he was on the same

linguistic level as his native English-speaking peers (166-174).

A second child observed by Piper, Miguel, came from a Spanish-speaking family native

to Monterrey, Mexico. In order to prepare him for English school, Miguel’s mother taught him

the English she knew, and made sure that every day he did three things: watch Sesame Street,

learn five new words (nouns or verbs), and go to a playground where he could intermingle with

English-speaking children. This base in English provided him a solid jumping-off point once he

got to traditional school, but he ran into a few issues with the way his teacher thought he should

be educated. Fortunately, his mother and the principal worked with his teacher and modified his

education plan to fully take advantage of his English and Spanish language background (182-

187).

Essentially, learning two languages in the home is a useful, if potentially difficult,

method to foster bilingualism in children. Going to a school that only teaches in one language

can hinder the growth of the other language, but in case studies where the parent maintained the

use of one language in the home and the child was exposed to a second language in school, there

was no issue in growth and maintenance of bilingualism.

5. Second Language Acquisition in an Educational Setting

Most information found on second language acquisition in an educational setting focused

on one of two topics: children from non-English-speaking homes learning English out of

necessity, or native English-speaking adults trying to learn a second language for work or

personal reasons. I will only be discussing the first case, as there was more literature readily

available and it contrasts more specifically with the situation of children learning both a first and

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second language in the home.

I have noticed that there are many people who speak against bilingualism, saying that it

interferes with competency in a person’s first language. However, none of the authors that were

specifically against bilingualism as a concept mentioned whether or not they were competent in

two or more languages. As someone who is bilingual, I believe that bilingualism is not a

hindrance, and rather a useful aid in navigating daily life. In fact, as Dixon puts it, “the fact that a

child is bilingual—or will become bilingual through an early childhood education program—

should not be considered a risk factor for low proficiency in both languages; rather,

socioeconomic status or double home language exposure may put children at risk for low

vocabulary in both languages” (32). That is to say, low vocabulary in one or both languages is

not caused by bilingualism, and there are other factors in play in situations where a bilingual

child suffers from vocabulary deficit.

The “low vocabulary” mentioned is a trait that I have noticed in myself and other

schooled bilinguals; but this quality makes complete sense. Home bilinguals have the advantage

of learning basic vocabulary words from birth, in addition to using these words and seeing these

objects or actions in their natural setting. Schooled bilinguals have the disadvantage of not

growing up hearing and using the language in a practical sense, and have to go through rote

memorization of chapter after chapter of vocabulary, instead of acquiring basic semantic

concepts through actual interaction with words and constructs. However, in my personal

experience, there are many ways to get around this vocabulary deficit as long as the person

attempting to learn the language is willing to go outside of the classroom setting to expand upon

the existing vocabulary base. It takes work, but it’s possible.

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Home language and home situation in general can also have an effect on bilingual

development among children. Dixon found “Four major factors that may contribute to the

development of… different [linguistic] profiles among bilingual children includ[ing]: the status

of the languages involved, the socioeconomic status (SES) of the child’s family, the amount of

language input in each language, and the language(s) the mother or caretaker uses with the child”

(26). This assertion nicely sums up all of the other research I found, and divides the influences

on bilingualism up in an effective manner. It makes sense that the language, economic situation,

amount of language exposure, and home environment all contribute in different ways and in

differing amounts to the development of bilingualism and linguistic skills in children.

The attitudes of teachers of second languages can have a resounding effect on students’

acquisition of a foreign language. I’ve found that it’s easy to tell when a native speaker or

teacher is “dumbing-down” a foreign language. Piper details the practice in the following

passage:

Studies on language input focus on describing foreigner talk, or the modifications native speakers make when talking with someone they perceive to have less than native proficiency in their language. Several common modifications have been identified. For example, native speakers typically choose topics concerned with the present, they chock more often to see whether they are being understood, they repeat or paraphrase both their own utterance and the other speaker’s, and they give shorter responses (154).

In the beginning stages of acquiring a second language, I think this is a relatively helpful

practice. It makes the process of language learning a little easier, a little simpler to understand.

However, I believe that once a certain threshold is reached, it is necessary for teachers of second

languages to speak the language to the learner as if they were speaking to a native speaker,

treating the learner as either a beginning native speaker or an experienced one (depending on the

existing skill level). If someone is consistently speaking to a learner on a linguistic level below

his or her actual level, it’s impossible to make progress. The learner’s linguistic and

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conversational skills aren’t being challenged, so there is no way to improve.

With regard to the reading skills of bilingual children, “Research suggests that the age of

first multilingual language exposure affects reading development in children learning to read in

their multi-languages. There is definitely a reading advantage for children who are educated in

multilingual schools” (Wang 30). The existence of two separate grammars, once for each

language, might be a factor that strengthens the reading skills of bilingual children. However,

children with strong reading skills may be more predisposed to learning a second language. I

learned to read (in English) at around 2 or 3 years of age, much sooner than my peers in daycare,

and my reading skills had far surpassed that of my peers by the time I reached kindergarten. I

attribute this to my home environment; I grew up in a household where books were regarded as

important as food. In a home such as this, reading was a valuable skill and one of many activities

that my parents and I shared as leisure activities. A love of reading and communicating, fostered

at a young age, may have contributed to my ease when I began to learn a second language.

It may be that strong reading skills lead to bilingualism, and this manifests in bilingual

children as higher reading ability in both languages. However, Wang details the reading

advantages afforded to bilingual children, citing

a study [that] compared bilingual Spanish-English children with English-speaking children in monolingual English schools. Early first bilingual language exposure had a positive effect on reading, phonological awareness and language competence in both languages: early bilinguals (age of first exposure 0-3 years) outperformed other bilingual groups (age of first exposure 3-6 years). Remarkably, schooling in two languages afforded children from monolingual English homes an advantage in phonemic awareness skills. Early bilingual exposure is best for dual language reading development, and it may have such a powerful positive impact on reading and language development that it counteracts the negative effect of low socioeconomic situation on literacy (30).

This research points out an obvious correlation between bilingualism and both reading

development (in home bilinguals) and phonemic awareness (in schooled bilinguals). This

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information directly contradicts the ideas of those who argue that bilingualism adversely affects

the linguistic development of children, and asserts that bilingualism in fact aids immensely in

that development.

Piper details two more case studies, this time on children whose first English exposures

occurred in a school setting. The first, Lucy, came from a Portuguese family living in

Vancouver, British Columbia (where she was born). The community in which she lived had no

reason to use English in daily life since everyone spoke Portuguese, so she had little to no

English exposure before she went to kindergarten. Five weeks between the first and second

observations of Lucy during her first year of school in an English-only kindergarten, her English

skills improved from the level of a 2 year old monolingual to that of a three and a half year old.

(174-177). The constant exposure to native English speakers in an English-only setting,

combined with her prior knowledge of Portuguese and status as an emerging reader in her native

language probably contributed to Lucy’s rapid growth in her English skills.

The second child, Jani, lived in a Labrador community and attends a school where she

was taught by two co-teachers; one spent half the day teaching the class in English, and the other

taught the other half of the day in Inuktitut. Jani had the distinct benefit of attending a school that

valued both her home language and the common language of the area as equally useful, and so

she had the opportunity to develop her skills in both languages at the same pace without having

to work particularly hard at one language or the other to maintain her linguistic capabilities (180-

182).

Children who learn a second language in school may flourish or stagnate linguistically,

depending on the individual personalities and motivations of the children in question and their

home language situations. I see no reason why a child still in the critical period shouldn’t be able

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to acquire a second language and communicate with it at a native-like proficiency, as long as

proper instruction and support is provided in both the home and school environment.

6. Methods of Teaching a Second Language in the Classroom

There are many types of programs utilized in the classroom setting for second language

learners. Otto separates these programs into five categories: English as a second language,

bilingual education, immersion programs, the submersion approach, and foreign languages in the

elementary school programs.

ESL or ESOL (English as a second language or English for speakers of other languages)

programs focus only on teaching English, with no emphasis put on the speakers’ home languages

(Otto 81). Students in these classes come from diverse language backgrounds, and it seems that

an ESL setting could be very chaotic for both teacher and students since everyone is coming

from a different language, and skill level within that language. However, since everyone is trying

to learn the same language regardless of their home language, it might be easier than trying to

integrate the home languages of each individual into the process of learning English.

There are three types of bilingual education programs. TBE (Transitional bilingual

education) programs set the goal as the gradual transition from the student’s first language to

English. However, these programs don’t consider the first language valuable to students’ long-

term education (Otto 81). These programs are a little better than ESL programs when it comes to

understanding the linguistic backgrounds of the individual children and using their previous

language knowledge to make connections between their home and target languages.

Developmental bilingual education programs emphasize both the home and target languages

throughout students’ education (Otto 81). These programs help to create fluency in not just the

target language, but also improve skills in the home language.

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There are three types of immersion programs. Simple immersion programs group

children according to their home language; language arts classes are taught in the students’ first

language and instruction in all other subjects is in the second language (Otto 82). These

programs probably do an excellent job of bridging the vocabulary gap that many learners of

second languages experience. Two-way immersion or dual language programs are designed to

develop students’ linguistic competency in more than one language. Students in the class are

split evenly – half from homes where the home language is English, and half from homes with

another home language. Amount of instruction in each language varies depending on the specific

program (Otto 82). The mix of culture and language that the students already have when they

come into class must be useful for teaching the two different languages as well as the cultural

associations tied in to each one. Finally, second foreign language immersion programs are

designed specifically for native speakers of a single language. The target language is used to

teach 50% of the curriculum in these classrooms (Otto 82).

The so-called “submersion” approach is less of an approach and more of a back up; if a

school does not have any sort of bilingual education or ESL system in place, students who don’t

speak the common language are put into the classroom, even though they may have no

knowledge of the language being spoken. These situations don’t foster comprehensive learning,

since the linguistic levels of the teacher and students surrounding the non-native speaker are

much higher than the linguistic level of the speaker (Otto 83).

FLES (Foreign language in the elementary school) programs are designed to simply teach

a target language. They are structured a little differently than traditional high school style

language classrooms, and successful programs place more emphasis on culture and oral

communication rather than drilling and memorization (Otto 83).

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7. Final Thoughts

Before doing research on the difference between home and schooled bilingual children, I

assumed that if both languages were learned in the home, a child would have native-level grasp

and fluency in both languages, and if a second language were acquired in a school setting, a child

would be functional in that language in the same way that many adults are in their second

languages – approaching fluency, but being nowhere near the level of a native speaker.

Indeed, “it is clear that children learning two languages simultaneously acquire them by

the use of similar strategies. They are, in essence, learning two first languages, and the key to

success is in distinguishing separate contexts of the two languages” (Brown 67). As long as the

support system in both languages is solid and consistent, it seems that children can learn as many

languages as they are exposed to in their home. However, “research confirms that the linguistic

and cognitive processes of second language learning in young children are in general similar to

first language processes” (Brown 67). Children acquiring a second language in a school setting

do so in a manner similar to the way they learn their first language in the home, implying that

every child has the potential to become bilingual. As Wang puts it, “when school and home join

together and collaborate to buttress multilingual learning, children are likely to thrive and

develop” (32). This is reassuring, and makes me hopeful that one day I will be able to foster

bilingualism in children with whom I come in contact, through friends, family, or children of my

own.

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Works Cited

Brown, H. Douglas. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. 4th ed. White Plains:

Addison Wesley Longman, Inc., 2000. Print.

Carlson, David. "Homeschooling and Bilingual Education: A Well-Kept Secret." Encounter 22.4

(2009): 10-3. Web.

Conger, Dylan. "Does Bilingual Education Interfere with English-Language Acquisition?" Social

Science Quarterly (Blackwell Publishing Limited) 91.4 (2010): 1103-22. Web.

Dixon, L., Shuang Wu, and Ahlam Daraghmeh. "Profiles in Bilingualism: Factors Influencing

Kindergartners' Language Proficiency." Early Childhood Education Journal 40.1 (2012):

25-34. Web.

Otto, Beverly. Language Development in Early Childhood. 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson

Education, Inc., 2010. Print.

Peleato, Irene Verde. "Educación Bilingüe En EE.UU. Estudio De Casos De Una Escuela

Primaria. (Spanish)." Estudios Sobre Educacion.21 (2011): 139-58. Web.

Piper, Terry. Language and Learning. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc.,

2007. Print.

Towell, Richard, and Roger Hawkins. Approaches to Second Language Acquisition. Bristol:

Multilingual Matters Ltd, 1994. Print.

Wang, Xiao-lei. Learning to Read and Write in the Multilingual Family. Tonawanda:

Multilingual Matters Ltd, 2011. Print.