Native English Speakers

There are many reasons why children who are native English speakers begin learning a second language. The list below is not exhaustive, but can be used for some prominent reasons.

• Parents believe children will have better success as adults if they are fluent in more than just English.
• They themselves are able to speak multiple languages or have family members who speak a language other than English.
• A third situation may include children who move away from their English dominant community. Take military families who must move to countries where the language spoken is not English. The children in these families may then be required to learn to speak and understand a second language for academic success as well as for everyday communication in school and around town.

When a child already has a native language, in this case English, it is called their dominant language. Their bilingualism is then referred to as sequential bilingualism because they have learned first one language and then another rather than two at the same time, which is referred to as simultaneous bilingualism. The difference between successive and simultaneous is determined by the age a child starts learning their second language. Typically if the second language is learned after the age of three it is called successive. Click the link for detailed explanation of sequential bilingualism. 1)

There are a variety of factors influencing the level of proficiency a child learning a language may develop for the second language. Included in these are how frequently and consistently the child is encountering both languages, how long these interactions last for, who is speaking what language with the child (is it parents, classmates, a babysitter), and the child’s motivation to learn the language, their assessment of their need to know the second language, and the perception of usefulness attaining the second language will give them. Their levels of proficiency will then reflect their motivation to learn as well as how often the child is exposed to a language. If a child speaks English at home as well as with friends on the playground and thus only use the second language in a classroom setting, for example, they will not have much motivation to learn the second language and will thus not be as fluent in it as they are with their dominate language. Little is known to what level children with communication disorders are able to become proficient in their elective second language.

There may be some worry over the child being confused by the introduction of the second language. Parents and professionals usually begin to see children go back and forth between languages during conversations. This is called code switching. It typically occurs when the child is not certain of what the correct word would be in the second language, or when an idea or concept is difficult to express outside of that language. This is often the case with idioms. Take, for example, a native English speaking teenager living in Germany. If during a predominantly English conversation with a nosy sibling he were to get frustrated and proclaim in German, “Das ist nicht dein bier” his parents might be a little alarmed. This is especially true if they understood a little German themselves. The literal German-English translation is “That's not your beer”. However on a deeper level, it is often used as slang for “mind your own business”. If the teenager's bilingual skills were on similar levels it is likely he would be able to think through the idea he is trying to express and find an English equivalent. Children, on the other hand, are more likely to use the idiom in the language of origin and continue on with the conversation. They understand what is meant and feel little need to explain further for the listener's benefit. 2)

Individuals may also try to use the grammatical rules of their native English when speaking the second language. This transfer of rules is usually seen across populations and is not a concern for the individual alone. 3)

There is often concern among parents and professionals regarding whether the introduction of a second language will cause language delays in children. However, empirical research has shown over and over that the gaining of an additional language is in no way linked to developmental language delay in children. To have a true developmental language delay difficulties must be seen in both languages. If a disorder is suspected, it is important for the speech-language pathologist to test the child in their native language, English, as well as the second learned language.

Research shows individuals learn second languages in the same way they learned their first one. Mistakes made when they learned English will also be made when learning the new language. Language learning is a process and grammatical mistakes and mispronunciations should not be a source of concern for parents. 4)

Below are brief descriptions of the types of school environments in which second languages are often taught. Also listed are some of the schools in the Portland metropolitan region that offer second language opportunities at a more intensive level.

Language immersion schools are built around the idea of having the second language used as instruction and not as the subject in classes. Instead of having Spanish class, students would instead have math, science and their lunch period in Spanish, for example. There are three types of immersion schools.

• Total Immersion - These schools teach all subjects in the foreign language in lower grades (K-2)and then may increase the use of English when the students reach higher grade levels by 20%-30%.
• Partial Immersion - Up to 50% of subjects are taught in English with some programs reinforcing the material with English.
• Two-Way Immersion - The school gives equal emphasis to the English and non-English languages. These schools also tend to have 1/3-2/3 of their students as native speakers the non-English language. 5)

For most students wanting to learn a second language, the opportunity does not arise until middle or high school. Teenagers are customarily offered a choice between languages, most often those predominate in their area. Students are specifically taught the rules of the language and customs that may occur for individuals who are native speakers of that language. An example of customs/traditions taught in school would include Spanish students in Texas learning about Cinco de Mayo and Dia de los Muertos. Additionally, individuals may decide to take language classes at a college or university after graduating high school. They may decide to take more than one class and get a degree in a specific language. Without continued study it is unlikely that the second language skills will be developed beyond basic skills.

8500 NW Johnson St, Portland, OR 97229 (503-292-7776) 6)

• The FAIS program is private school broken into two parts. Students first attend elementary school (preschool - 5th grade) at the French American School (FAS) and then continue onto an immersion middle school (6-8) at Gilkey International Middle School (GIMS). It is based on the French school system and employs their ideology to classroom structure and settings.
• FAS: Preschool students must be three years of age by September 1st as well as potty trained. Students must be 4 years old to enter prekindergarten and five years old to being kindergarten. Children are taught both English and French throughout the course of the elementary school, however they may not be taught at the same time. For example, they will learn to read in French in first grade and then begin reading studies in English in second grade.
• GIMS: Offers programs in five different languages: English, French, German, Spanish, and Mandarin Chinese. It is meant to be a continuation of immersion programs from various other elementary schools around Portland providing second-language education. Those students will then being to learn a third language and continue course work in the second language learned at the elementary attended previous to starting at GIMS. There is also an international track for students without previous second language knowledge. Those students will then begin to learn a second language.

6318 SW Corbett Ave, Portland, OR 97239 (503-452-4160) 7)

• Structured in much the same way as the French American International School.
• Students being school at 2-2.5 years of age and continue at the International Middle School (IMS) through 8th grade.
• The middle school offers a Bilingual French American curriculum that follows the International Baccalaureate Middle Year Program. In middle school the students will also begin to learn a third language (Chinese or Spanish).

3900 SW Murray Blvd. Beaverton, OR 97005 (503-6260-9089) 8)

• Preschool classes (beginning at 3 years of age) are conducted entirely in German. English is only used if a child is confused or needs to be comforted.
• 1-5 grades children participate in an Immersion program wherein all classes are offered in German except music and English. Children are taught about the German culture and experience many traditions found in German.
• Native and non-native German speakers attend all classes together.
• When the student reaches middle school their parents will often choose to continue their education at GIMS, wherein they will learn a third language and continue to become proficient in German.

12000 SW 49th Ave, Portland, OR 97219 9)

• This school is a little bit different from those previously discussed. The program is held once a week on Saturday for ten weeks at the Portland Community College Sylvania Campus. According to the site, nine level of Chinese language courses are offered along with art classes. Their main goals are to create an environment where students can obtain proficiency in Chinese and appreciate art through hands on experiences.

025 SW Sherman Street, Portland, OR 97201 (503-226-2496) 10)

• The International School (TIS) is a total immersion K-5th grade school that offers Japanese, Spanish and Chinese languages. All teachers are native speakers of the immersion language chosen by the student's family. Math, science, social studies, and language arts are taught in the target language while classes like art, PE and music are taught by individuals trained in those areas who are also teachers.

Additional questions regarding admittance into the immersion programs and specifics regarding Portland Public Schools can be found at the link below. 11)

Often times the special circumstances that may arise for students with a communication disorder who are learning a second language in an elective environment are not considered by the speech-language pathologist who may have them on their caseload. We must remember to take into account the level of proficiency the students have when providing clinical services. Jim Cummins differentiates between social and academic language acquisition. 12) Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) are language skills needed for social situations. Second language learners use these skills while playing, talking amongst friends or talking on the phone. Their conversations are often context focused. This level of ability does not require a lot mental thought and is generally acquired within six months to two years after introduction of the second language. This level of acquisition does not equate to proficiency in the language. Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP), on the other hand, refers to academic learned formally. It includes listening, reading, conversing and writing. Students would need to have acquisition at this level to do well in academic situations given in the second language. It usually takes about five to seven years to reach this level. 13)

Fluent bilingual children eventually have full command of two phonological systems. Studies have found that these children often make the same type of errors in both languages. Generalization of intervention across both the child’s languages depends on the type of speech disorder. The research has found that articulation disorders can be treated with therapy in one language and the child will generalize the information to the sounds in the second language. Phonological treatment in one language does not appear to generalize to the second. This research was not developed for children in elective second language environments; however, so it is difficult to know how directly this information will apply to these populations.

One proposed frame for differentially diagnosis children with multiple languages with a speech disorder looks at four subgroups of disorders. Subgroups are differentiated by their surface speech error patters which are thought to “reflect different underlying deficits in the speech processing chain (Holm and Dodd, 1999). The four subgroups include articulation impairment; delayed phonological skills; consistent deviant disorder; and inconsistent speech disorder.

Research indicates that children with language impairments do as well in immersion programs as they do in institutions using only one language for curriculum class work. Kay-Raining Bird et al. (2005) relate that French-English bilingual children with specific language impairment (SLI) exhibit the same type and frequency of morphosyntactic errors as do their monolingual French or English controls with SLI. With so little research surrounding this population, it might be beneficial to the child in question to learn the second language later on in their development so that they can initially focus on proficiency in their first and dominant language.

A study of two groups of children with Down Syndrome (DS), one monolingual English and the other bilingual English-French, determined the two groups did not differ significantly on any of the English language measures. This supports the theory that bilingualism is not a detriment to the dominant language development, in this study English, of children with DS. However, the participants in the study were experiencing “on going and consistent exposure to both languages”. The study’s findings suggest that bilingual children with DS perform in their dominant language at least as well as their monolingual counterparts with DS. The children were able to successfully acquire two languages.

Center for Applied Linguistics. (2006). Directory of foreign language immersion programs in U.S. schools. Retrieved {insert date}, from http://www.cal.org/resources/immersion/. 14)

Holm, A., & Dodd, B. (1999). An intervention case study of a bilingual child with phonological disorder. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 15(2), 139-158.

Holm, A., & Dodd, B. (1999). Differential diagnosis of phonological disorder in two bilingual children acquiring italian and english. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 13(2), 113-129.

Kay-Raining Bird, E., Cleave, P., Trudeau, N., Thordardottir, E., & Sutton, A., Thorpe, A.(2005). The Language abilities of bilingual children with down syndrome. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 14, 187-199.

Rosenberg, M. (1996). Raising bilingual children. Teachers of English as a Second Language, 2(6).

Snow, C.E., & Hoefnagel-Hohle, M. (1978). The Critical period for language acquisition: Evidence from second language learning. Child Development, 49(4), 1114-1128.

Student Contributor for this page: Rashidah Hasan, Winter/2010