Comments on: Paying lip-service to diversity

By: Roxxan

Roxxan — Sun, 05 Nov 2017 08:51:00 +0000

Thanks for the post relates to children education. I absolutely agree the point in the article that ‘bilingual children are more likely to lose their home language at school than extend it.’ One of my Chinese friend sent her 4 years old child to a bilingual teaching school in Australia. Several months later, she found that her child often speaks two languages in one sentences. For example, her child says ‘ I yao an apple’. That ‘yao’ is Chinese means ‘want’. My friend began to be nervous that even her child understand two languages, but she could not speak with the same language in one sentence. As a consequence, she has to move back to China and settle her child to a Chinese monolingual school. As every parent wishes their child to attend a bilingual teaching, however, they may failed to realise their children’s abilities of learning.

By: Dwitiya Nugrahaeni

Dwitiya Nugrahaeni — Thu, 12 Oct 2017 11:44:00 +0000

This article reminds me of the other article in this blog about the pride of having linguistic diversity. From what I can conclude, linguistic diversity and bilingualism seem to remain slogans. Although some institutions and communities have been making efforts in preserving and maintaining students’ languages, the government need to provide real supports (more structured regulations) that go along with their claim in supporting students’ home language. Seeing that Australia is very diverse in terms of languages and cultures, I think that this can be a good first step since with clear regulations, it would open opportunities for clear evaluations, more research, and more steps that can be taken to handle the shortcomings.

By: 000

000 — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 01:27:00 +0000

As much as I agree with implementing bilingual education for students to learn their home language as well as English, I think that every student has different needs and with more than 250 languages spoken in Sydney, there is just not enough resources to do so. What about children who come from mixed ethnicities, like having bi-racial parents or parents from a mixture of backgrounds, who talk to their children in at least two languages other than English? I know of many second-generation immigrant children who may have spoken at least two languages other than English before attending primary school. If bilingual education was offered, how would they choose which language to learn? Or, would they try and learn three languages at once? I’m not sure if schools would have enough resources to do that.

By: THI THU NGAN DONG

THI THU NGAN DONG — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 09:56:00 +0000

Thank you for another insightful post regarding multilingualism in early childhood education.
I do believe that the benefits that linguistic diversity can bring to children are obvious, however, it is not always possible for early childhood institutions to develop bilingual (or multilingual) programs for their students. The lack of qualified bilingual teachers, teaching materials or financial resources can become some of the major challenges for them.

By: LAILY HARTI

LAILY HARTI — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 21:58:00 +0000

This article reminds me of a story of a colleague of mine saying that her children, when they are brought back to Indonesia, they could no longer speak Bahasa Indonesia properly. It happened only in one-year period of staying in Australia when my colleague was undertaking her PhD. Reading through the article is very thought-provoking, as Dr. Piller presents both sides of the coin of embracing multilingualism in a practically English speaking country. My thought is with the children themselves, as looking at my colleague’s case, I am very torn in two perspectives: as Indonesian, I am so much proud when my generation and the generations after are able to be the global citizen, with this I mean to be able to speak English and the like. To share further, English is seen as a prestigious language for Indonesian people. However, in a contrary position, I am terrified by the fact that Indonesian young generation, who lives in English-spoken country, will be forgetting their own home language, as is presented in the interview quoted above. In my opinion, parents and home-country association (organisation, union, and the like) should be encouraged to play role as a ‘gatekeeper’ that will make sure that the children are given enough exposure to their own home language, and culture.

By: Language on the Move 2015 | Language on the Move

Language on the Move 2015 | Language on the Move — Tue, 15 Dec 2015 08:50:27 +0000

[…] Ingrid Piller, Paying lip-service to diversity […]

By: GERMANY: EDUCATIONAL SUCCESS THROUGH BILINGUAL EDUCATION | sehablaespanolblog

Tue, 07 Jul 2015 21:05:04 +0000

[…] disadvantage of bilingual children has been documented in education systems as diverse as those of Britain, Germany, Japan and the USA. The discrepancy between the home language and the language of the […]