scholarly journals From Oracy to Literacy in the Classroom: Implications for Mother Tongue-based Bilingual Education in Cameroon

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. p43
Author(s):  
Blasius Agha-ah Chiatoh
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Bilingual Education ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Oral Communication ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
Literacy Achievement ◽  
The Family ◽  
Working Families ◽  
Training Of Trainers ◽  
Communication Competencies

Observation of early childhood education in Cameroon reveals that children on their first day at school have not acquired sufficient oral competence in their L1. They go to school at the age of two when the language acquisition phase is still in its initial stages. The result is systematic separation of the child from the family. Among educated and working families, this separation becomes almost total and communication significantly reduces between parents and their children who are either under the care of the school mistress or that of the caretaker. This has a serious effect on the development of oral communication competencies as an essential phase in language acquisition and learning. In this paper, I examine oral competence in the classroom as an important phase in the successful development of children’s reading and writing skills. Based on the Cameroonian situation, I argue that efficient mother tongue-based bilingual education must consider oracy as a primary link in overall literacy achievement in the classroom. Oracy is presented to have significant cultural, cognitive and pedagogic implications. Accordingly, programmes for the training of trainers should systematically integrate oral mother tongue teaching at all levels for better and improved levels of sustained literacy skills.

First-Language Acquisition of Morphology

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorit Ravid
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Structural Information ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
First Language ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
Language Diversity ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Cognitive Changes ◽  
Ambient Language ◽  
Adolescents And Adults

First-language acquisition of morphology refers to the process whereby native speakers gain full and automatic command of the inflectional and derivational machinery of their mother tongue. Despite language diversity, evidence shows that morphological acquisition follows a shared path in development in evolving from semantically and structurally simplex and non-productive to more complex and productive. The emergence and consolidation of the central morphological systems in a language typically take place between the ages of two and six years, while mature command of all systems and subsystems can take up to 10 more years, and is mediated by the consolidation of literacy skills. Morphological learning in both inflection and derivation is always interwoven with lexical growth, and derivational acquisition is highly dependent on the development of a large and coherent lexicon. Three critical factors platform the acquisition of morphology. One factor is the input patterns in the ambient language, including various types of frequency. Input provides the context for children to pay attention to morphological markers as meaningful cues to caregivers’ intentions in interactive sociopragmatic settings of joint attention. A second factor is language typology, given that languages differ in the amount of word-internal information they package in words. The “typological impact” in morphology directs children to the ways pertinent conceptual and structural information is encoded in morphological structures. It is thus responsible for great differences among languages in the timing and pace of learning morphological categories such as passive verbs. Finally, development itself is a central mechanism that drives morphological acquisition from emergence to productivity in three senses: as the filtering device that enables the break into the morphological system, in providing the span of time necessary for the consolidation of morphological systems in children, and in hosting the cognitive changes that usher in mature morphological systems in both speech and writing in adolescents and adults.

Building a Bridge to English Literacy in Aboriginal Bilingual Education Programs

1981 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 3-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Graham
Keyword(s):  
Bilingual Education ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
School Life ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
The World ◽  
English Literacy

The aim of bilingual education is to develop a person who can think, speak, read, write and act appropriately in the language and culture of both his home and the wider society. Therefore, although for sound educational reasons the first formal reading experiences of children in a bilingual program are provided in their mother-tongue and these activities are maintained and extended throughout the child’s school life, at an appropriate time a bridge to English literacy needs to be built. Once this is done the world of English literature should be explored as far as is possible for each individual child. Sarah Gudschinsky stresses the importance of the addition of English literacy skills for pre-literate groups within a wider society when she reminds us that people who are deprived of this opportunity will find it difficult to take their rightful place in modern society. (1973, p.138)She has defined a literate person as one who in language that he speaks, can read and understand anything he could have understood if it had been spoken to him and can write, so that it can be read, anything that he can say. (1973, p.5)

Preserving the Mother Tongue of English Language Learners

2020 ◽  
pp. 14-31
Author(s):  
Jatnna Acosta
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Bilingual Education ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Language Abilities ◽  
Effective Strategies ◽  
Academic Level ◽  
Word Gap

The growing presence of English language learners (ELLs) in classrooms throughout the country highlights the need for effective strategies in the process of language acquisition. Through the language acquisition process students are able to progress towards becoming fluent in the English language and ultimately perform on the same academic level as their English-speaking peers. The issue arises when ELLs enter the classroom with a language or word gap that places them at an academic disadvantage. Bilingual education is an option that is offered to students seeking to enhance their native language abilities as they acquire the English language. However, bilingual education is limited to the presence of a specific language community and an effective language teacher. This chapter presents the benefits of preserving the mother tongue among ELLs and the strategies necessary to replicate mother tongue preservation with language learners in non-bilingual classrooms.

scholarly journals The French-Farsi Simultaneous Early Bilingualism in an Iranian Child—Study on the Regularity of the Presence of the Minority Language in the First Lexical Productions of a Bilingual Child

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 156
Author(s):  
Sahar Jalilian ◽  
Rouhollah Rahmatian ◽  
Parivash Safa ◽  
Roya Letafati
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Bilingual Education ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Parental Attitudes ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Child Study ◽  
Iranian Child ◽  
Audio Files ◽  
A Minor

In a simultaneous bilingual education, there are many factors that can affect its success, primarily the age of the child and socio-cognitive elements. This phenomenon can be initially studied in the first lexical productions of either language in a child. The present study focuses on the early lexical developments of a child, who lives in the monolingual society of Iran, where there is no linguistic milieu for French, and has been exposed to a bilingual education since birth. Applying Ronjat’s principle of “one parent-one language” (1913), the parents have formed the child’s basic linguistic interactions; the father employs Farsi in his interactions with the child as his mother tongue while the mother uses French as her foreign language. The data is collected from audio files recorded in the period between 18 and 36 months old of the child, containing her everyday interactions with her parents. Through the analysis of the data with the purpose of studying the changes of the presence of the minority language words, i.e. French, in the child’s sentences at different ages, questions are raised regarding the conditions of a persistent presence of both languages and the reason due to which one language positions as a minor means of communication, observing parental attitudes and environmental issues that can influence the language acquisition procedure.

Sense of local identity, attitudes toward dialects and language teaching: The Hungarian minority in Serbia

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleonora Kovacs Rac ◽  
Sabina Halupka-Rešetar
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Value Judgments ◽  
Language Retention ◽  
Language Varieties ◽  
The Family ◽  
8Th Grade ◽  
Identity Attitudes

Abstract A large body of academic literature (e.g. Fishman 1977, 1999; Giles and Johnson 1981; Romaine 2000, among others) claims that language is one of the most significant markers of ethnic identification and that it plays a crucial role not only in the external perception of an ethnic group by outsiders but also in the selfidentification of an ethnic group. In a minority environment, sense of ethnic identity and language retention are connected very tightly, which is why it is of extreme importance to study attitudes towards the dialects of a language and value judgments about them. The paper presents the results of a research into attitudes toward dialects, conducted with approximately three hundred 5th and 8th grade pupils (age 12 and 15, respectively) attending school in Hungarian in two regions of Vojvodina, Serbia. It explores the subjects’ local features of identity, given that the research was conducted in eight different localities. The results of the research serve as a sound basis for developing use-centered, functional-situational mother tongue education of Hungarian minority pupils living in Serbia, since the current curriculum completely disregards the language varieties of many Hungarian minority pupils brought up and living in rural areas, who acquire and use the dialect spoken in the family.

scholarly journals A Systematic Approach to Spanish Neuropsychological Evaluation: Case Report with a Mexican Woman in an Outpatient Setting

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (7) ◽  
pp. 1291-1291
Author(s):  
P Rivera ◽  
K Savage ◽  
A Ball
Keyword(s):  
Formal Education ◽  
Systematic Approach ◽  
The United States ◽  
Test Construction ◽  
Outpatient Setting ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
Neuropsychological Evaluation ◽  
Her Family ◽  
Mexican Woman ◽  
The Family

Abstract Objective The following case will demonstrate a systematic approach to neuropsychological evaluation with Spanish-speaking individuals, which includes creating a suitable test battery, interpreting results with appropriate normative samples, and incorporating personal history. Case Description 61-year-old, right-handed, Mexican female with 2 years of formal education, and with a recent history of subarachnoid hemorrhage with hydrocephalus. She was referred by her social worker and primary care provider to discern whether the reported cognitive complaints were due to a neurocognitive condition or depression. Diagnostic Impressions and Outcomes The evaluation was administered entirely in Spanish and some exams were modified to accommodate her limited literacy skills. She exhibited deficits in executive functioning, verbal fluency, and memory. Emotional testing revealed moderate depression with anxious distress, which she attributed to significant changes in everyday life. Her family informed us that she was the “matriarch of the family” and worked as a farm field truck driver, with significant difficulties/lack of engagement in both of these roles. Therefore, diagnoses of probable major vascular neurocognitive disorder and major depressive disorder with anxious distress were assigned. With this information, her providers were able to connect the family with community resources. Discussion The Hispanic population continues to be the fastest growing demographic in the United States. As more clinicians will work with members of this ethnicity in outpatient settings, it is important that they incorporate culturally-relevant factors in their approach to testing and interpretation of results. Nonetheless, this case demonstrates the current challenges and limitations, including modification of exams, differences in educational system that underlie test construction, and patient’s history. Recommendations for future areas of study and practice will also be discussed.

scholarly journals The most prominent educational problems faced by teachers of Arabic language in the schools of education for middle-aged government in Riyadh: أبرز المشكلات التدريسية التي تواجه معلمي اللغة العربية في مدارس تعليم الكبار المتوسطة الحكومية بمدينة الرياض

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdul Aziz bin Othman Al Humeida
Keyword(s):  
Writing Skills ◽  
Arabic Language ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
Male Students ◽  
Educational Resource ◽  
Schools Of Education ◽  
Resource Center ◽  
The Family ◽  
Descriptive Method ◽  
Selection Of

The study aimed to identify the most prominent problems faced by teachers of Arabic language, and ways to address them. The researcher used the descriptive descriptive method. The study tool consisted of a questionnaire distributed to a sample of (55) all male students in the middle school for boys in Riyadh in the second semester of 1433-1434H. The teaching of the students is: The weakness of the student in the literacy skills, the obligations of the family learner do not help him to study. The most important problems related to the curricula are: the lack of curricula dedicated to the large student, the lack of participation in the selection of curricula, the lack of development and change constantly, not appropriate time to complete. The most important problems related to the environment are: There is no suitable library for adults, there is no suitable educational means, no furniture suitable for the age of the students, no educational resource center and a building of its own. There were no statistically significant differences at (α0.05) between the responses of the study members according to the following variables: qualification, experience. In the light of the results, the researcher made a number of recommendations: To promote the learner's knowledge of reading and writing skills, to take care of homework assignments, to develop special curricula for the great student and to involve the teacher in her selection; to create an appropriate library for adults;

scholarly journals The question of questions in Malaysian English

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Radina Mohamad Deli
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
English Language ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Oral Communication ◽  
Peninsular Malaysia ◽  
British English ◽  
Tag Questions

This paper examined the forms that interrogatives and tag questions can take when used by young Malaysian speakers of English language in oral communication. It offers a description of the features for both question forms as produced by the respondents compared to those of Singapore English (SE) and Standard British English (SBE). The influence of domains and the issue of mother tongue interference in relation to the subjects’ usage of such features will also be investigated. Data were obtained through interviews with 19 Malaysian English (ME) speakers from three major ethnic groups in Peninsular Malaysia and via the recording of six conversations. The results showed various distinctive forms and features of questions in ME used by the speakers. Their usage is found to have a certain link to the domains of conversation. Further analysis revealed that mother tongue interference at the grammatical level, particularly in the case of Malay and Cantonese, plays a major role in determining the structure of ME interrogatives and tag questions as well as the subjects’ unvarying use of the rising intonation as regards the latter. As a result of this interference, ME tag questions used are found to be confined to four forms whilst both the structure of wh- and polar interrogatives experience reduction in the system of tense, auxiliary and operator when used by the subjects.

scholarly journals AL-AKHTHA’ FII IKTISAB AL-TSUNAIYAT AL-SHUGHRA

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Miftahul Huda
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Error Analysis ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Minimal Pair ◽  
Minimal Pairs ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Child Age

Language acquisition starts from the ability of listening basic letter(iktisab al-ashwat) since child age. The letter of a language is limited in number, and sometimes there is similarity of letters among languages. The similarity of letters in two languages make it easy to learn the language. On the contrary, the obstacle of language learning can be caused by different letters between two languages (mother tongue and second/foreign language). The problem may be caused by minimal pairs (tsunaiyat al-shughro). This research aims at finding out the error of minimal pair acquisition, with the subject of Indonesian students in Jami’ah Malik Saud Saudi Arabia, with the method of error analysis. The study concludes that in iktisab al-ashwat of minimal pairs, the error is around 3,3 %-58,3%. Second: the error on minimal pairs occurs on the letters shift ?? ?? ? to be ? , letter ? to be ? , letter ? to be ? , letter ? to be ? , letter ? to be ?? , and letter ? to be ?.

Indigenous Languages Learning Through Serious Games Based on Second Language Acquisition Theories

2022 ◽  
pp. 1190-1204
Author(s):  
Miguel A. Sánchez-Acevedo
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Bilingual Education ◽  
Serious Games ◽  
Educational Games ◽  
Indigenous Languages ◽  
Future Trends ◽  
Linguistic Research

When new educational games are developed for teaching languages, a set of ideas or intuitions about how students can gain more knowledge are used; however, few of them are based on a solid theory or substantiated with linguistic research. This chapter presents a brief review about second language acquisition theories; describes the importance of recovering, maintaining, and transmitting indigenous languages; and analyzes efforts made for enhancing bilingual education. Serious games are presented as an alternative for learning indigenous languages, and guidelines to develop serious games implementing second language acquisition theories are proposed. Finally, a discussion about challenges and future trends in recovering, maintaining, and transmitting indigenous languages is presented.

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