In Week 11, I recall a discussion our class had surrounding bilingual children and how their social environments affected their language acquisition. Some of the questions posed were 'How do they not mix up the two languages?', 'How do their social environments influence their language development?', 'Do they know which language is appropriate to be used at different situations?'. As a child, I myself grew up in a trilingual environment. My grandparents spoke in chinese, my family and friends spoke in English and school lessons were taught in my home country's native language, Malay. Reflecting on this, it still intrigues me that young children can pick up so many languages at the same time.
Many of our readings have indicated that children learn language from the language they hear around them (Bardige & Bardige 2008; Baleghizadeh & Dargahi 2010). This proves that the social environments play a big role in the child's language development. With time, children are able to recognise the environments that use specific language and hence will be able to determine which language is appropriate to use. For example, a child may speak his native language when he is around family or people in his community (say the child grew up in an area with a particular demographic), and switch the language when the child is around peers that may appear to be 'different' from the usual community. To expand the vocabulary of each different language, the child must be often spoken to and exposed to a wide range of different vocabularies at a young age.
In line with social relationships, the time a child is exposed to a particular language social environment will also influence the more 'dominant' language. A research shown by Paola Uccelli (Fusaro 2010) showed that bilingual children who were placed in monolingual classes, excelled more in the classroom language. This may be because in schools, children interact with their peers and teachers using that 'dominant language' more than they communicate with the older members of their families who may not make as much conversation as peers. The more the child practices a certain language via communicating with friends or family, the sharper the child will be at that language. A child who consistently converses with a friend in one particular language will be able to pick up the right intonations, pronunciations, and slangs which will differ from the other language that the child uses to formally communicate with the child's family. If families want their native language to be the more dominant language, this can be done through story telling, passing down family traditions that involve that language, often engaging in conversations using the native language, and also helping the child to form connections between the native language and the other languages a child acquires.
Ultimately, to me, while language can be developed through activities like reading and writing exercises, social relationships definitely do play the most important role in language development for a child. It is through social relationships that the child learns to express themselves through different languages and learns to effectively communicate what they really need. As educators, we also need to remember that the way we communicate and the relationships we form with children can determine how well the children learns and how confident and safe the child will be in our classroom environments.
References
Baleghizadeh, S., & Dargahi, Z. (2010). The effect of nursery rhymes on EFL children's reading ability. New England Reading Association Journal, 46(1), 71-75,109. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/755497915?accountid=1091Bardige, B. & Bardige, M. (2008). Talk to me, baby! Supporting language development in the first 3 years. Zero to Three, September, 4-10
Fusaro, M. (2010). Mapping the Literacy Development of Bilingual Children. Usable Knowledge. Harvard Graduate School of Education, 1st June. Retrieved from <http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news-impact/2010/01/mapping-the-literacy-development-of-bilingual-children/>
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