Multilingual Education – do bilinguals learn languages better?
Why I think you should find this interesting
In our rapidly globalizing world, multilingualism is becoming more and more common with at least half of the people in EU being able to speak at least two languages.
For me, it is an interesting topic as I am a Finnish person with Swedish as my mother tongue but find myself thinking in English as a result of having studied in English for almost 5 years. As about 5% of the Finnish population are Swedish Speaking Finns – or Fennoswedes – like I am, there has always been some debate in my life on the quality of Swedish spoken in Sweden vs the Swedish spoken in Finland. This can be tied to literacy acquisition in general, and is interesting to analyze in an educational setting.
With this, I’d like to welcome you to my topic: namely, multilingualism and bilingualism effects on literacy levels, mainly in children’s educational settings. This engages in my groups’ overall topic on education and low literacy, but from the perspective of multilingualism and its effect on literacy levels in a younger age (15 and younger).
Some definitions to get us started:
“Literacy“
can be defined as:
“the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts.
Literacy involves a continuum of learning in enabling individuals to achieve their goals, to develop their knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in their community and wider society ” (UNESCO, 2004; 2017).
“Bilingualism“
can be defined as when a person is proficient in two languages.
“Multilingualism“
has been defined as when an individual can express thoughts in several languages, usually more than two.
Some authors think that multilingualism includes bilingualism.
“Literacy Acquisition“
has been defined, narrowly, as learning how a writing system of a language works.
So, do bilinguals learn better?
There are contradicting findings on the relation between bilingualism and cognition, and most conclude that there’s just no simple answer for this complex matter. This is because there are many areas in literacy – reading, concepts of print, phonological awareness – and many factors that play a role on the findings – different social, political and educational contexts (e.g. Eisenchlas et al., 2015 and Bialystok & Herman, 1999).
Another point made by authors Daugaard & Laursen (2012) is that multilingual classrooms are not a very neutral setting to learn languages and literacy as there also many factors within the classroom:
- There is almost always a preferred/dominant language
- There are clashes of what counts as language and literacy
- The language ideologies clash between teachers, between students, and between teachers and students
- Language identities are highly differing between students
- Some linguistic practices valued over others
Before moving on with educational policies which tie to the points above, I would like to introduce yet another phenomenon, namely the “monolingual bias“. This has been defined as people assuming that speaking only one language is the norm and speaking more languages is the exception. This bias implies that monolinguals are the “model people”.
Reading this you might think it a counterintuitive conclusion, as you most likely find yourself surrounded by many different linguistic influences. Especially for students who are currently studying abroad and the majority of us are already studying in English as a second or third language. Even if you did not grow up with more than one language at home, most people tend to fail to see the disadvantages of having the “riches” of several languages.
Of course, I am building this on assumptions and I invite you to discuss this in the comments! In what situations do you find it either an advantage or disadvantage to speak/know several languages?
What’s up with the policies…?
Returning to educational policies, there are not a lot of governments who back up minority languages in their educational policies. Eisenchlas et al. (2015) point out how countries fail to achieve equal status of their languages even if they are listed as official languages of the country. The authors point out, as maybe you and I would have already reasoned, that multilingualism is indeed seen as a valuable skill and “commodity”. This hasn’t just yet translated into the academic world as there is a fear that in an educational setting, it will result in a below average literacy mastery in all languages of the speaker instead of very good knowledge in one.
This can in part be explained by the monolingual bias, as Eisenchlas et al. (2015) suggest.
There could be more emphasis on the political situations of multilingual countries done in future research, as I think a lot of factors when it comes down to government’s reluctance of educational policies related to language is somewhat of a political matter. Again, taking the example of Finland, some political parties and a number of the people do not want Swedish to be taught in schools anymore, partly as a result of patriotism.
Finishing off with some suggestions!
However, my group members’ blog posts offer a better understanding of the educational situations with regards to history and politics in the cases of Spain, Croatia, and Sweden and the levels of literacy in these countries! I suggest reading them for more concrete examples on education and literacy in Europe!
As for multilingualism and education, further academic research could try to generalize the themes, factors and concepts that I very briefly summarized in this blog post to give people an easier time to engage in the discussion!
Featured Image Credit: Element5 Digital on Unsplash
You have written that “there are contradicting findings on the relation between bilingualism and cognition”. Is there a specific finding that you find most convincing, and if so, why?
I really appreciate this question!
To make it less abstract, I will assume that by cognition the authors are referring to reading, concepts of print, phonological awareness.
Durgunoglu (2002) discusses how having a strong first language can help in transferring the skills to a second language. Throughout the article Durgunoglu points to different findings suggesting that when learning a second language, already having a grasp of the different components of literacy (reading, concepts of print, phonological awareness) helps in understanding how another language works. What I like with her discussion is the references to concrete characteristic differences in languages and how that changes everything (like whether the two languages are English – Spanish or English – Turkish) since simply talking about bilingualism is too simplified. A finding by Geva et al. (1988, 2000) mentioned by Bialystok (2002) “backs up” the point that literacy acquisition is made easier by the general cognitive and linguistic development that one has and thus makes a persons literacy levels “equal” in all languages of a multilingual child.
This was probably a handful to take in, but essentially I find it interesting that these findings are both saying that “Yeah, a multilingual child has an easier time learning languages”, but only if the child already has a strong base in literacy, which sort of is paradoxical. Looking at what I discussed in the post, this again depends on whether the educational setting and policies are in favour of multilingual learning. What I find convincing , as you asked, is the references to differences in how the languages are built up, which not a lot of authors discuss!
(Links for references Durgunoglu: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11881-002-0012-y, Geva et al. as summarized in Bialystok: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9922.00180)
Thank you for your extensive answer to my question! Although it was indeed a lot of information in a short piece of text, it really has made the contradiction clearer for me. I agree with you that it is really interesting that the authors discuss the differences in the characteristics of languages, so I can see how that made it more convincing for you.
Concerning monolingual bias, do you think it applies more to primarily English speaking countries such as the UK or the US, as English is very often the second language of most people as well as internationally used ?
I am unsure if you are referring to whether the assumption is more prevalent when it comes to English speaking countries, or whether the assumption holds true in English speaking countries. But I will assume you are asking something along the lines of “do people assume that speaking one language is the norm more often in English speaking countries”. Do correct me if my reply didn’t quite hit the mark!
Answering your question with my interpretation of it, I think that yes, people do assume that more commonly in English speaking countries. I base this mainly on the idea of “Echo chambers” (explained in e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se20RoB331w), since none of the academic sources I review discussed this.
People who speak English might be in a position where they don’t need to learn other languages themselves and are just around people who speak primarily or only English. Also, as you say it’s internationally used and most media intake for them is in English (social media, movies, articles). Thus, their echo chambers would make it plausible for them to assume that most people are monolingual and only speak English. Although, I’m sure most people who think a step further realize since most things are available in English, but most countries are not officially English speaking, there must be multi/bilingual people behind the sources.
This answer only deals with the “average person” and I didn’t include the possible bias of people in the academic scene.
Do you have any thoughts that prompted your question?
Thank you Amanda for the great reply, it really answers the question I had in mind. I just assumed it would be logical that it would be more prominent in those countries, so I didn’t think of concepts like the echo chamber.
This blog post was very well written, both for the structure and for the content: I think the organization of the page is done well and there is a clear flow from one section to the next. I think the list of important vocabulary placed in the middle of the post, right after the introduction, is very convenient, also taking into account that since our audience comes from very different backgrounds they might have different knowledge on the vocabulary.
There is a question that I was wondering while reading your post that I would like to share: Of course knowing many languages can be both a challenge and an advantage, as you mentioned. From your personal experience what would you say was the most challenging aspect of knowing several languages in your daily life?
Thanks for the very nice feedback!
I have a lot of instances, but to keep it short I’ll pick the most interesting one to me:
Knowing many languages makes it difficult for me to express myself in only one, as I might know a much better word in another language that conveys something that you can’t really translate. So in a sense it’s a good thing, because I am aware that knowing many languages sort of enriches my thoughts, but It’s sad that only a handful of people have exactly the same linguistic combinations as me and I can’t express myself very well for everyone to understand :S
Hi Amanda, thank you for this very insightful topic. I really enjoyed diving into it! Actually, I had a very similar question to Giovanni (just above), as I wanted to ask “in what situations do YOU find it either an advantage or disadvantage to speak several languages?” Since you already explained one of the disadvantages for you, I wanted to know if you could tell me your personal most important advantage of speaking more than one language. Thank you!
Hi Florine! Thank you and this was a very pleasant question!
First of all, the “good side” of my answer to Giovanni, that I am aware of more nuanced words to describe things as words for “just the thing” I’m searching for might exist in one language but not the other.
But I also very much find it interesting to see in which way different language are the same, and at what point they differ. Especially the Scandinavian languages and how I can communicate with Norwegians and Danish speaking people since I know Swedish. I actually almost enrolled in a linguistics programme because I was really intrigued about the origins of words!
Hello Amanda! Your blog was very enjoyable to read!
Is there a clear pattern of children having difficulties with their first language because of them learning a second language at a young age? Could it be problematic to learn a second language before mastering your mother tongue? 😀
Hi Marie! Thanks, I am glad you found it enjoyable!
The findings I discuss more in depth in my literature review include those of Bialystok (2002) and Sorace (2011), is how multilingual children have an easier time learning a new language at an early age, but indeed mostly if they already have a strong first language. To build on this a bit more to answer your question, multilingual children have shown to sometimes have way smaller vocabularies than their monolingual peers (Sorace, 2011), and this is something I have found holding true for myself. To tie it into my answer to gsabbadin above, I think that I struggle very often to find a word in the language I am currently speaking, but can think of it in other languages…
This can be very problematic in academic settings, as very rarely do you actually write texts in more than one language!
(Sources mentioned Bialystok, 2002: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9922.00180, Sorace, 2011: http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~antonell/Sorace2011-Gargnano.pdf)
Hey Amanda!! Your topic is very interesting and very current for the more and more globalized world in which we live (as you clearly state in your blog). I was wondering about the concept of ‘monolingual bias’. Do you think this phenomenon is more widespread in some countries?
Hi Matilde! Thank you!
As for your question, with reference to my discussion above with Dario, I think that the monolingual bias occurs more often in some countries. As I stated in the other answer, those who only know one language themselves and are used to people speaking that language as well, as they maybe are a part of the majority.
To add an anecdote to this discussion, I think that many Finnish people really dislike learning Swedish as a second (or third language as English is also taught in schools) early on. However, as they age they are more aware of the fact that hold on, there are certain advantages to not only speaking one language even if I get by perfectly fine with it in my country!
I am really intrigued by your blog, I really liked it. It was an interesting topic! At some point you mention that, because of multilingualism, there is the fear that one will have below average literacy levels in multiple languages, instead of having a (very) good literacy level in one language. As you mention you have been raised as a multilingualist and have been studying in English for five years, I was wondering whether you have experienced this fear. Have you noticed that any of your knowledge or literacy was decreasing in its level, as a result of the fact that you have been speaking multiple languages? I have been raised as a monolingualist, but I have been learning multiple languages from a young age on, so I have become a multilingualist. Because of that and the fact that I have been studying in English for two years now, I notice that I find it very important to keep my literacy level in my first language (Dutch) at the same level or even increase it, though that is often hard to do in learning environments where English is the preferred (and often obligated) language. This was also the most important reason as to why my group chose to write our blog in Dutch.
Hi Amanda, what an interesting topic! As someone who was raised monolingual and then moved to an area with a strong regional dialect, I have always seen a lot of value of enforcing a single language in school settings, because this seems, to me, more inclusive and clear for everyone. would you say this is an example of my monolingual bias (always good to check your own biases, i guess haha), and thus, do you think that maybe we miss out by not making space for other languages (or in my example, dialects)? I just wondered what your thoughts on this would be 🙂