The Benefits of Bilingual Kindergarten

The benefits of bilingual kindergarten

Abstract

The purpose of this report is to make parents know more about bilingual education and then attract more students to come to study in bilingual kindergarten. The report indicates that it would be best for children to pick up a new language from an early age and also points out that bilingual education is beneficial for children’s academic performance and provide children many social advantages. Finally, three recommendations are made to help bilingual kindergarten to gain more popularity, namely, advertising, providing free classes and inviting authorities to make a speech about the benefit of bilingual kindergarten.

Introduction

The term of bilingual education means that students are taught in two languages, in a native language and a second language. In such process, children can easily master two language at the same time. However, currently bilingual education is not familiar to all parents and parents even do not know what benefits bilingual education can bring to their children. Thus, many parents still prefer to choose monolingual education for their children. Because of this, bilingual kindergarten is beginning to launch a marketing campaign to make parents know more about the advantage of bilingual education, make bilingual kindergarten as these parents’ priority and increase the enrollment rate. The goal of this report is to present the main benefits of bilingual kindergarten and make some recommendations for attracting more children.

Findings

1. The best years to study in bilingual environment[pic 1]

source by: Catherine E. 1978, ‘The Critical Period for Language Acquisition: Evidence from  Language Learning’, viewed 8 February 2015,http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/stable/1128751

It is much easier and quicker for children to reach a good command of two languages simultaneously from an early age. This is because the foundation for language is laid down during this period of young age. Julie Nora (2013) indicates that children have the natural ability to learn several languages at the same time. There is also a figure(figure 1) above showing that between 3 years to 7 years old, kids’ sentence judgement errors dropped sharply. That means their languages errors can be easily corrected. In other words, this period is the best time for people to learn languages and also the most suitable time to learn a second language. In addition, some studies have shown that children who learn a second language from an early age have more chances of picking up native-like pronunciation (Oezcan, 2004).

2. A better academic performance

Bilingual children have better academic performance than non-bilingual children. This is because dual language education can enhance their learning ability. Several studies have shown that children who are taught by two languages have superior cognitive abilities than those of monolinguals (Sheffer, 2003). Cognitive abilities are brain-based skills, including mental flexibility, problem-solving, and attention. Researchers have demonstrated that cognitive ability could help to enhance children’s mental development, sharpen their brain, and then make them intellectual(Sheffer, 2003). Therefore, this kind of skills and abilities boosted by bilingual education is helpful for learning and improve children’s learning abilities. In addition, bilingual children are more likely to do well in their future study. In most countries, schools begin to teach foreign languages when students are in middle school or even primary school  (Kiara Wallstrum, 2009).  If students are taught to learn a foreign language form an early age and master it, it would make them more concentrated on other subjects when they go to primary school or secondary school in the future without worrying about their foreign language ability. Also there is a research to show that bilingualism improves children’s linguistic ability (Steven K. Lee, 2006). Bilinguals will find it much easier and quicker to learn a third language.

3. Social benefits

Bilingual education provides an opportunity to children to experience a new language environment, which can help to expand children’s multi-cultural awareness and strengthen their understanding of the world by studying foreign cultures. Having an understanding of two cultures means that children are more likely to appreciate diversity. Genesee (2004) states that bilinguals are more relaxed and confident in a multi-cultural environment and are more tolerant and broad-mined to different people and different cultures. In this way, children will feel more free than other monolinguals to build relationships with people in multiple environments.

Conclusion

There are three major benefits of bilingual education listed. One is that bilingual education in kindergarten helps children to easily acquire two languages at the same time. Also, bilingualism betters children’s academic performance, including improving their learning ability by boost cognitive abilities, making children focus on other subjects in their future study, and strengthening their linguistic ability. Finally, bilingual education provides many social benefits to children, such as making them more open-minded and confident. Thus, it is important for parents to choose bilingual kindergarten for their children to give their children a good language environment to pick up a new language and make their children more outstanding and competitive than other monolingual peers in the future.

Recommendation

• Spend more money on advertising through TV programs or Internet to make a introduction of the benefits of bilingual education. Because advertising is the most direct way to inform people about the information about bilingual kindergarten and arouse their interest in bilingual kindergarten. In addition, building a website which have a detailed description of the bilingual kindergarten and the programs or classes the bilingual kindergarten provided can also make people know more about bilingual kindergarten.

• Provide free classes for children to experience the way of bilingual education that is different from traditional education. In this way, more children will be willing to join in this free class. At the same time, bilingual kindergarten teachers could provide some interesting activities during the class, like singing foreign songs, dancing with foreign songs and telling foreign stories to arouse children’s interest. During this process, children may feel interesting and relaxing to learn a foreign language. Thus, they would probably prefer going to bilingual kindergarten to traditional kindergarten.

• Organize a parents’ meeting and invite some successful bilingual people to make a speech for parents. In that speech, these bilingual individuals share their experience of learning a second language and tell their stories about how they benefit from bilingualism to show the importance of learning a second language. Besides that, invite a medical specialist to explain why children can learn two languages easily at the same time in bilingual kindergarten from a medical point of view. As a result, parents will realize the important of choosing the bilingual kindergarten for their children and eventually send their children to bilingual kindergarten.

Reference list

Catherine E. 1978, ‘The Critical Period for Language Acquisition: Evidence from  Language Learning’, viewed 8 February 2015, <http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/stable/1128751>

Genesee, F 2004, ‘What do we know about bilingual education for majority language students?’, in TK Bhatia & W Ritchie , Handbook of bilingualism and multiculturalism, pp. 547-576.

Lee, Steven K 2006, ‘The Latino students’ attitudes, perceptions, and views on bilingual education’, Bilingual Research Journal, vol. 30, no.1, pp. 107-122, viewed 6 January 2015, Australian Public Affairs Full Text.