Smrekar, J. (2002). Early Childhood Bilingual Classrooms. In L. D. Soto (Ed.) (2002). Making a Difference in the Lives of Bilingual/Bi-cultural Children. New York: Peter Lang Publishers.
In her article, Smrekar (2002) pays particular attention to the issue of early childhood bilingualism in classrooms involving teachers as key players in the process. The article implies that bilingual education among young children is mainly focused on language acquisition and learning. In the development of her argument, Smrekar argues that the process of bilingual education in the case of young children should not be limited to language acquisition and learning, instead it should integrate cultural factors particularly among the key players of the learning process – the teacher and the students – who are originally from distinctively and individually variety of different cultural backgrounds. In relation to this argument, this paper takes on the position of considering the fundamental role of cultural factors in the overall learning process. The knowledge of culture and cultural orientation of both teachers and students paves way to a successful administration and transmission of learning especially on the case of language acquisition. It also links on the implementation of cognitive academic language learning approach (CALLA) considering cultural foundations on teacher-student relationships.
The position was taken because of its fundamental importance in the process of language acquisition and learning. It is pointed out that Smrekar's views in this sense combines with the honored principles of cognitive academic language learning approach (CALLA). The approach states that giving particular significance on the student's individual earlier knowledge and cultural experiences that they possess is indispensable. This foundational basis of relating this knowledge to academic learning in a new language and culture is seen to be a central feature of creating a learning-friendly setting especially on for the case of foreign language acquisition.
With the established importance of culture and cultural awareness, the need to characterize culture is elementary as to support the idea of culture itself and its role in the process of language acquisition and learning. Culture by definition is said to be similar to culture itself as it is ever dynamic and relative. It does not have established definition; however, there are universally accepted common denominators or concepts that unite various definitions to each other. The basic definition of culture in the dictionary is anything that pertains to human knowledge, belief, and behavior including shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices shared by people in particular place and time that transcend beyond generations. According to Handwerker (2002, p. 107), culture mainly consists of the knowledge on what or how people use to live their lives and the way in which they do so. Culture consists of both explicit and implicit rules through which experience is interpreted. In this case, the culture and cultural awareness of both teacher and students is related to the creation of a learning setting that is conducive for the learning of new language.
Research shows that most immigrant parents favor the use of heritage languages. While they believe that the use of second language like English is important for academic success, they fear that when they adopt the second language at home, children get fewer and fewer opportunities to listen and speak the mother tongue. Most bilingual children learn the second language as they enter a school (Grosjean, 1982). As months or years pass by, the interest of these children to the second language grows and eventually shows greater preference on the newly adopted language. In Chiang and Schmida's study of Asian Americans, some of whom self-identify as bilinguals and consider themselves more culturally and emotionally Asian than American, even though they are English dominant and might know very little of their heritage language. To quote, "It is as if by claiming the language, they claim a linguistic identity that perhaps exists in their minds, but not in their tongues" (p. 87). Chiang and Schmida articulate that the categorization of ESL, bilingual, and language minority do not adequately describe the "literacy journey of students whose lived realities often waver between cultural and linguistic borderlands" (p. 94). In here, the role of culture as a foundation for the language acquisition is predominantly affecting the entire process. According to Soto (2002, pp. 600), the issues of language and culture for children, especially younger members of the population, are intertwined and straightforwardly interrelated to the development of a healthy identity within the bounds of their families, the community where they belong, and the nation as whole. These issues reflect on how children behave in relation to the process of learning new language and using such issues from studying their own perspective is highly important.
In studies of bilingualism, children’s language mixing is referred to as mixing while on adult’s case, it is code-switching. Bilingual children combine elements of the two languages when they communicate. However, there are divergent views regarding the frequent mixing of words from both languages by these children. Researchers adhering to the unitary language system hypothesis firmly believe that such mixing is an external confusion due to the child’s internal fusion of two linguistic systems into one. On the other hand, researchers who support the differentiated language system hypothesis insist that the language mixing of these children does not reflect confusion rather it shows the child’s distinct representations of their two input languages from an early age (Pettito, 2003). The cultural foundation as reflected to the study of Chiang and Schimida is accepted as children have self-identify as bilinguals and think themselves in a significantly more culturally and emotionally degree depending on the culture they wanted to associate themselves. The importance of acknowledgement of cultural inclination of children is seen on the overall outcome of the knowledge transfer or language acquisition. To measure the individual’s degree of bilingualism, four fundamental linguistic skills are used. These are listening, speaking, reading and writing. An individual may perform better in listening and reading than in speaking or writing. Moreover, person’s degree of bilingualism is chiefly determined by whether both of the languages are acquired during childhood, in which a person is likely to become a balanced bilingual, or roughly equally efficient in their two languages (Miller, 1983). It is then supported that the importance of culture and cultural awareness of teachers as well as students helps in the effective new language acquisition and learning process.
In relation to the CALLA, the culture and cultural awareness on the part of both teacher and students enhances transfer of learning. According to Seong-Shin (2007), CALLA to second language instruction makes use of students’ cognitive language learning and comprehension strategies. Thus, when the teacher possesses cultural information, there is greater and better opportunity in coming up with practically useful strategies and materials that will enhance easier language acquisition. At present, Cummins (2005, pp. 587) observes that instruction of bilingual students achieves considerably less than it could because monolingual instructional strategies are used rather than bilingual strategies that teach explicitly for transfer across languages. For example, most after-school or tutoring programs just assume that English should be the language of instruction and interaction. Similarly, in regular English-medium classrooms, little consideration is typically given to how students’ first language (L1) might be used as a resource for learning. Even in dual language and other bilingual for foreign language programs, current conventional wisdom dictates that the two languages of instruction are kept rigidly separate, resulting in cross-language transfer that is haphazard and inefficient. So in having knowledge on culture and cultural orientation of children in early childhood bilingual education, teachers are greatly served with advantageous position and the certainty of language acquisition is ensured.
On the contrary, the criticism on Smrekar’s article and could be considered as the opposite position on this discussion is the fact that she does not provide a great deal of recommendation or advice for teachers in terms of constructing hands-on approaches that possibly be effective in the everyday dealings and learning experiences that occurred within the given bounds of the classroom. This is particularly imperative in contrast to CALLA as a cognitive strategy that is directly related to grammar learning (Gimeno, 2004, p. 27). In providing early childhood literacy, accuracy and speed are seen to be of the fundamental nature. The early stages of such literacy learning and teaching are seen as similarly straightforward and self-evident, as a single right path that all children should follow, a sequence of orderly steps (perhaps mapped out by psychologists) that will lead children from ignorance (or innocence) to knowledge (Dombey et al., 2006, pp. 29). Thus, the need to provide instructional guideline to teachers in association to the knowledge of culture and cultural conventions of students is recommended, which Smrekar more likely overlooked.
According to Stuart and Volk (2002), collaboration is important in a culturally diverse learning environment. The need for further suggestion is associated on the implication of teacher education that emphasizes on the need for explicitly including collaboration as an important element of literacy pedagogy for teachers of linguistically and culturally diverse children. For instance on cases of tutoring programs, it is categorically designed for one-on-one interaction but the consideration of the collaboration process, many opportunities are working towards the success of the learning process. Many studies have conducted and documented bilingualism and biculturalism among children as well as adults. Particularly, the speedy loss of heritage language fluency in the early years of schooling when these languages are not reinforced within the school context, such as through bilingual or dual language programs (Cummins, 1991; Tse, 2001; Wong Fillmore, 1991). This reflects the need for cultural awareness as argued by the article. Even in the early times of the preschool level, young children quickly are aware of the status differential between their home languages and English. When the interactions they experience with teachers reinforce these status differentials, students disengage their identities from their home languages and the process of language loss is accelerated (Olsen et al., 2001). In this process, cultural considerations are deemed to be influential factors. Among the vast majority of researchers, both in the United States and internationally, there is consensus, based on massive amounts of research evidence, that bilingual education, although not by itself a panacea for underachievement, is a legitimate and useful instructional approach for developing bilingual and biliterate proficiency among both linguistic majority and minority students (Baker & Prys Jones, 1998; Cummins, 2005). Thus, when Smrekar did not look on further construction of useful suggestion for teachers, it is considered as major lapse in the totality of the article especially the arguments raised.
Lastly, addressing the entirety of the article, it could be said that Smrekar comprehensively supported the underlying philosophies in early childhood bilingual education. The role of culture for language teachers and learners is highly regarded as foundational basis for effective language acquisition especially in creating teaching methodologies and strategies in collaboration to CALLA. However, the same criticism in her inability to provide useful recommendations for teachers in terms of creating effective hands-on techniques for daily undertakings in the classroom is a major setback. The need to provide helpful findings is highly important yet further importance is given on the development of practical suggestions that will contribute to the enhancement of early childhood bilingual education in classroom.
References
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