Talking about Bilingualism
26 February 2012
Across
the world most children born today will grow up in bilingual or
multi-lingual environments. These children will use two or more
languages regularly. One language might be for home, and another for
school; or parents might have different linguistic backgrounds. In
London and other major cities classrooms are increasingly multilingual.
The internet and TV also offer the opportunity for children to learn
and absorb new languages. In the past it was thought that early
exposure to two languages was confusing for children. But newer
research tells us this is not so, and that there are clear cognitive
and educational advantages to being bilingual, such as more being able
to divide attention between different tasks or understanding the
communicative intent of a speaker.
Festival of Social Science
On
Wednesday 2 November 2011, DCAL hosted an afternoon event of
presentations and discussion on bilingualism. The event was part of the
Economic and Social Research Council's (ESRC) annual Festival of Social
Science. The presentations related specifically to bilingualism in
signed and spoken language, but there was also an opportunity for
people to think about bilingualism and culture and education.
DCAL
deputy director Professor Gary Morgan from City University London, who
introduced the event, describes the context: "Deaf children learning
English and BSL are bilinguals. We have demonstrated in several areas
of our research that these two languages support each other in
cognitive, literacy and meta-linguistic development. Currently
bilingualism research is showing real advantages for hearing children's
development, but bilingual education (English and BSL) for deaf
children is on the decline. We wanted to address this issue in an ESRC
event as it is not Science but instead Economics that appears to be
behind the changes to provision of educational opportunities for deaf
children."
Held at University College London
(UCL), the event attracted a good mix of academics, general public and
professionals working on practical aspects around bilingualism. There
were four speakers whose presentations overlapped well, taking the
audience through a range of evidence based issues, with plenty of time
for audience participation and discussion.
Two languages in one brain
The
first presentation was from Professor of Developmental Linguistics at
University of Edinburgh, Antonella Sorace, and titled "Two languages in
one brain: why bilingualism is an investment for life". In her talk
Antonella described some of the research looking at why bilingualism
offers advantages for children as well as dispelling some of the myths
that surround children learning two languages simultaneously. Children
who use two languages seem to be able to get to grips faster with some
of the key concepts related to how we understand the world than those
who only use one language. More on Antonella's work and that of her
University of Edinburgh research colleagues is available at the
web-based information and consultancy service Bilingualism Matters.
Antonella founded this site to bridge the gap between researchers and
the community (bilingual families, educators, and policy makers) in
order to enable more and more children to benefit from bilingualism.
The
second presentation - "Bilingualism in two sign languages: British Sign
Language and Irish Sign Language" - was by DCAL researcher Robert Adam
and looked at the relationship between different dialects of British
Sign Language and Irish Sign Language. Robert was brought up in a
bilingual environment in Australia where both Auslan and Australian
Irish Sign Language (AISL) were used by different parents. AISL was
brought to Australia by Irish catholic nuns who taught his mother,
whereas Auslan, a language that has similar roots to BSL, was used by
his father. This experience has given Robert an insight into
bilingualism which has influenced his research into how two sign
languages interact with each other in places such as Australia, the
Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland.
Exploring identity in different cultures
The following presentation was given by Jane Thomas, who is a Specialist Speech and Language Therapist (SALT). Jane is one of the Project Directors of the Life and Deaf Association that has been using poetry as a way of working with Deaf children. Her presentation, "Exploring identity through poetry" discussed this inspirational project which aims to develop Deaf children's self-esteem and communication in signed, spoken and written languages.
In
Speech and Language Therapy sessions, the children explored their
feelings about their Deaf identity. They created mindmaps from
brainstorms, explored poetry about identity in different cultures,
developed their vocabulary of emotions and wrote their own unique
poetry. As the project developed, the Deaf children worked with Deaf
poets, Deaf instructors and actors, to translate their written poetry
into BSL and learn to perform confidently and professionally. They then
worked with designers, photographers, film-makers and editors (both
deaf and hearing) to create a beautiful book and a DVD of their BSL
poetry.
Spanish collaborations
The last presentation of the afternoon was by Mar Perez from the Special Education Services in Madrid, titled "Sign bilingual education in the Community of Madrid". This work is being carried out in collaboration with DCAL's Gary Morgan. Mar talked about a project they have been working on together for the last two years looking at how to develop assessments and evaluations of language and cognitive development in Spanish deaf children. Research at DCAL on sign language assessments are providing an evidence base for similar work in Spain. The work also involves Marian Valmaseda in Madrid and Dr. Ros Herman of City University London.
The feedback from the
afternoon was very positive, with fascinating presentations and an
engaged audience. DCAL looks forwards to holding similar events in the
future. Check DCAL's website for news of events and opportunities. Alternatively sign up to be added to DCAL's mailing list for publications, press releases and announcements.
This classroom photo shows a hearing teacher using Spanish Sign Language to explain a mathematics problem to a hearing child. In other parts of the classroom there are deaf children working.
ILLUSTRATION MARGARET SCOTT.