Comments on: Bilingual children in preschool

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 10 Mar 2022 01:51:55 +0000

What an insightful article! I was raised in a bilingual household where English and Filipino are spoken. I usually talk to the people around me in Filipino while I always watch television in English. I think this had brought advantages when I started schooling since the medium of instruction is in English. Though my mother tongue is Filipino, I still have difficulties writing using the language. By the time I reached college, I had learned more about Mother-Tongue Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE). This learning mode should be immediately implemented since it is essential that children also focus on their mother tongue. If MTB-MLE had been implemented before, I might have been more proficient in both languages compared to now.

By: Nazzia

Nazzia — Fri, 15 Nov 2019 11:53:55 +0000

I grew up speaking three languages by the time I was 5 years old. Later it did help solidify my fluency in these languages when i also had to study those as part of my school work. I attribute the ease i experienced while learning these languages formally to the fact that I was able to speak and understand this from my personal experiences. Even though I did not go to a childcare center, I did spend quite some time with neighbors who spoke these other languages, and that increased my fluency.

By: Sasha Sunshine

Sasha Sunshine — Tue, 12 Nov 2019 13:39:23 +0000

In this day and age the more languages you know the better it is. I wish I was raised in a bilingual home where I learnt more than English. However, the case where languages seem to be fighting each other does not seem rational. Both can exist and be respected. However, it can be observed in many cases that children are more fluent in English than their mother tongue as the spend most of their time in school where English is the medium of instruction.

By: AK

AK — Sat, 09 Nov 2019 06:20:10 +0000

It is better for children to be bilingual, but that should not affect their mother tongue. In my opinion, I think that children in preschool have to focus on their first language because it is important for them even if they are not live their country. And after the school they can be bilingual; because they have managed their mother tongue first.

By: Chun

Chun — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 10:54:09 +0000

Hi, Ingrid. Thank you for sharing the article. Bilingual education is widely appreciated by household in my home country. Young children have a better ability to learn a new language than adults. Many parents let their children learn the second language from the preschool. I have the experience to be a teaching assistant in the English class in preschool in my country. In my experience, children learn and practice English in the school, but they seldom use it in the home with their family. As a result, some children cannot speak the mother tongue or the second language fluently. Bilingual education is beneficial to young children but the education system and family education may improve the weakness of bilingual education.

By: Irene Nguyen

Irene Nguyen — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 10:17:04 +0000

Thank you for this interesting post which has been one of the most concerning topics within the realm of linguistic. To me, it’s kind of a paradox for those children who were born to be bilingual since they have to acquire their second language to fulfill their development in the foreign living environment and are, at the same time, asked to keep their traditional mother-tongue. Therefore, it will be a huge responsibility for childhood workers to help these children to overcome their language challenges through a dedicated learning curriculum with positive communication approaches and appropriate learning activities.

By: Teufeld

Teufeld — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 09:54:54 +0000

In reply to Richardlanguage. It is a popular trend that children learn in bilingual languages. It can help students to think in different language ways and learn more culture. In addition, for example, a Chinese child who is born and growing up in an English-speaking country, learning Chinese can help that child to improve the sense of belonging (China), and learning English can help to live in that country.

By: Rajendra Prasad Kandel

Rajendra Prasad Kandel — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 09:42:44 +0000

Last week I had met my friend’s family including his five years old son who is regularly attending Australian preschool classes in Sydney since his age of three. The family wants him to speak Nepali so that he can continuously be connected with Nepali culture, Nepali language, and heritage. They have restricted to speak English at home but still, this child prefers and feels comfortable to speak English. Interestingly, whenever I asked a question about his school experience in English, he corrected my question and answer the question in Nepali. His Nepali was also perfect. Then I asked him “Why did you answer my question in Nepali?’ He answered me ‘…my mother doesn’t understand English and she may feel bored if we talk in English.” Oh!!! fantastic… I spent almost two decades to learn English still I feel that I have to do more for perfection in English speaking but this five-years child’s English speaking was not only fluent but also syntactically correct. Then I realized that the bilingual childcare environment is the boon for learning languages; a child can easily learn the family language as well the language that is used outside the home especially school.

By: Teufeld

Teufeld — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 09:31:34 +0000

It is a popular trend that children learn in bilingual languages. It can help students to think in different language ways and learn more culture. In addition, for example, a Chinese child who is born and growing up in an English-speaking country, learning Chinese can help that child to improve the sense of belonging (China), and learning English can help to live in that country.

By: Saichon

Saichon — Fri, 01 Nov 2019 11:55:57 +0000

For my personal experience, it is true that children, at one point, will focus on the dominant language and abandon another language. I found that this study of bilingual in child development is a good start point. Even though the research is still on process of improving, considering about how can we develop the curriculum and teaching design can be one interesting point. As I have friends who are Chinese-American, most of them are fluent in both Chinese and English. They admitted that being fluent in both language helps them to build their career path. If that is the case, by studying this project allows us to learn more and improve the teaching-learning program for children.

By: Yongqi

Yongqi — Mon, 28 Oct 2019 12:13:15 +0000

Thank you for sharing the article. I have noticed an interesting phenomenon for the second generation of immigrants in Australia. Most of the younger generation are using the dominant language – Australian English to communicate with their parents while most of their parents are using their own mother tongue rather than Australian English to communicate. In fact, most of immigrants were trying to educate their children bilingually (teaching them both their mother tongue and English) when their kids were young. The younger generation used to be good at two languages in their early age. However, when they started to go to primary school, they were gradually losing their mother tongue as they did not need their mother tongue to communicate as frequently as before. Eventually they became not even willing to communicate with their family in their mother tongue. In other words, although the parents are intentionally providing the environment for their children to acquire two languages, without the support from the school and society, this kind of bilingual program seems to be ineffective and superficial.

By: Xin Zhang

Xin Zhang — Mon, 28 Oct 2019 03:13:15 +0000

Thank you for sharing. Before arriving in Australia, i do not have much experience and ideas about bilingual children in preschool. I am living with my uncle’s family in Australia and my cousin, who is 5 years old and he is in preschool now. He speaks mandarin at home because we all speak mandarin and his parents are not good at English, and he speaks English at his school. In fact, according to my observation, it is more difficult for him to express meaning in Chinese. He often talks with me in both Chinese and English because sometimes he does not know how to express his feelings or describe items in Chinese. In the future, i think English may be totally replace Chinese for him. From this affair, context and environment are important for children in preschool. For my cousin, he just uses mandarin at home, but others he talks with are all speaking English. As a result, English is much easier for him to understand. But it is obviously that attitudes and guidance from parents and preschools are very crucial for bilingual children. The combination of multiple language for children is beneficial for their future development.

By: Summer Dang

Summer Dang — Thu, 24 Oct 2019 22:26:46 +0000

Thank you Ingrid for your discussion of a literacy issue that is continuously concerning bilingual families and educational policy makers in countries with high proportion of immigrants like Australia. As given an opportunity to work as a tutor and caregiver in Australian primary educational contexts, I completely understand how the tension of academic developments conflicts with the bilingual literacy aspiration of immigrant parents. Despite being provided with early linguistic support in mother tongue from parents and childcare centers and in fact, the proficient linguistic skills obtained by each child by the time of their first school year, these students struggle to continue developing their bilingual skills and gradually shift to the English competency completely. Some students are lucky if their native language is a dominant one which is used by a large community or surrounded by a large number of speakers in that language such as Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese. However, other students of minority languages like Samoan as mentioned might have more limitations in continuing their parental language literacy practices in later years. This calls out for more innovative policy in improving kids’ literacy in mother tongue to preserve these ethnic languages.

By: Thi Thanh Huyen Do

Thi Thanh Huyen Do — Thu, 24 Oct 2019 12:44:56 +0000

Thank you for your interesting article. In my opinion, all children, whether bilingual or monolingual, need a high quality, language-rich environment and opportunities to use language to communicate and connect within social situations. A child’s first language, the language of home, is vital for a child to feel connected to their family, culture, and heritage. We need to recognize bilingualism as a gift to be nurtured and understand that language development needs to be viewed holistically and across all languages. Language immersion is the quickest and easiest way for children to learn a second language. If we provide a rich language environment with quality models of vocabulary and opportunities to practice, bilingual children will develop proficiency in the language of instruction given time.

By: Pramanandra Joshi

Pramanandra Joshi — Wed, 23 Oct 2019 03:54:10 +0000

This article highlights the importance of bilingualism in childhood. In preschool age children can learn different language and this age is perfect to teach bilingualism. Nowadays there are bilingual preschools every where in the world, for example in Nepal English became compulsory subject it is because each children has to learn English in their childhood. Multilingual or bilingual education policy in Australia is very good because it makes children perfect in multi language. I also came from bilingual background, from primary level my teacher taught in multi language (English and Nepali). Hence, bilingualism is good for childhood for their better future.

By: Thanh Duong

Thanh Duong — Tue, 22 Oct 2019 03:02:00 +0000

Personally, I am deeply into the idea of providing bilingual immersion programmes to young children at pre-schools because bilingualism does benefit children a lot (according to to-date studies). To implement them efficaciously, I suppose it requires educators and educational staff much effort and time. As far as I know, in most bilingual programmes, there is always one language – either children’s mother tongue or children’s target language – dominating. For example, the majority of wealth-off families manage to send their young children to international schools where they are educated in both languages including Vietnamese and English; however, all academic subjects at school are delivered in English, resulting in the predominance of English at school. Those children familiarized with English tend to speak their mother tongue – Vietnamese more slowly compared to those enjoying monolingual education. At home, children are encouraged to watch English channels or communicate in English; thus, they gradually develop interest and comfort with English rather than Vietnamese even though they are born Vietnamese.
Hence, from my own angle, education is not only the responsibility of school but also the responsibility of families and the whole society. To make one educational program effective, all should give their hands and support each other.