Early Years Bulletin
Summer 2016 vol 3 no 4
Focus on Infants & Toddlers editors: Laura Hooks & Nur Tanyel
Early Dual/Multi-Language Learners By Nur Tanyel, University of South Carolina Upstate
I
magine that you are visiting a foreign country and do not speak the language, other than saying “yes” and “no.” As you are walking from the museum back to your hotel, you realize that you made a wrong turn but cannot recall where. Hesitantly, you approach a stranger asking “English?,” but the stranger says “No.” You continue walking and ask a few more strangers, but have no luck finding someone to speak your language. You finally find someone willing to help. Feeling hopeful, you pull out a slip of paper listing the hotel address and show it to the stranger. He smiles and starts giving you directions with hand gestures. Desperately, you listen for words that sound somewhat familiar and try to make sense of what this stranger is telling you. Abruptly, he finishes and walks away. You still don’t know how to find your hotel, and you feel alone, lost, hopeless, and scared. When young children whose home language(s) is not English enter child care programs, they may experience feelings similar to a lost visitor to a foreign land. In such situations, adults rely on previous experiences and skills to
Contents
p. 5 - Children’s Books p. 8 - Activities in the Classroom p. 10 - Helping Families Become Advocates p. 13 - Meaningful Integration of Music for Learning Science
find their way, such as backtracking or using technology. However, young children have not yet have developed the skills to cope with a new environment. Child care providers and adults can do much to facilitate a smooth transition and adjustment for dual/multilanguage learners. This article will examine the language development of dual/multi-language learners, and describe how practitioners can help young children’s dual/ multi-language development in early childhood programs. Dual/Multi-Language Development in Early Years In the United States, 25% of children under the age of 5 live in a bilingual household (U.S. Census Bureau, 2006), and these numbers are projected to grow in the coming decades. In order to support language development in young children, it is necessary to understand the effects of dual/multi-language exposure on overall language development (Hirsh-Pasek & Glinkoff, 2012). Two views about bilingual development that can be found in academic and medical circles present challenges to support for dual/multi-language development. The first view claims that exposure to more than one language may confuse language experience in children at an early age, causing cognitive and language delays. This view still circulates, worrying immigrant parents who would like their children to learn both languages yet are concerned about whether they are doing the right thing by speaking the home language(s) to their children. Scientific literature dismisses this view that children are confused by dual/multi-language input. The results of these studies indicate that bilingually developing children reach milestones of language development continued on page 2