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Jennifer M. Worden Harvard Graduate School of Education February 11, 2011
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Agenda for today What we think we know The U.S. Case Doubly Damned (neuromyths) Problems of Definition & Identity MBE, Policy, and the big question
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Scaffolding, and the Transfer of Knowledge across Generations
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The Social Construction of Mind Vygotsky (1896-1934) Social Learning Theory We are essentially social beings Tomasello (1999) builds on this tradition, including connecting biology and culture.
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Language as a cultural tool Infant Family Community Country World Bi- or Multilingualism is now the norm for large percentages of the global population, with estimates that as much as 2/3 of the world population speak at least two languages (Baker, 2006).
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Kovelman, I., Baker, S.A., and Pettito, L.A. (2008). Bilingual and Monolingual Brains Compared: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of Syntactic Processing and a Possible “Neural Signature” of Bilingualism. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 20(1): 153–169.
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What we think we know about Bilinguals/Multilinguals Overall, meta-cognitive skills and meta-linguistic abilities tend to be more complex in bilinguals (Bialystok, 1988; Bialystok, 2001; Cromdal, 1999; Kotz, 2001;Ransdell, 2006 ). Bilinguals are able to draw on greater meta-linguistic and meta-cognitive resources to transfer skills to other areas, in particular literacy. These and other advantages appear to transfer beyond linguistic competence to other cognitive areas such as attention and memory (Bialystok, et al.,2009). There is some evidence that the process of learning a second or third language increases and extends neuro- plasticity, allowing for increased cognitive flexibility and memory retention that extends across domains ( Kovelman, et al., 2007, 2008; MacSwan & Rolstad, 2005; Mechelli, et al., 2004; Moreno, et al., 2008; Rodriguez-Fornells, et al., 2002 ).
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The Flip Side There do appear to be some disadvantages to bilingualism, most notably in terms of vocabulary development (Bialystok, et al., 2009). What happens outside of the laboratory? In schools and families Influences on identity and cultural competence Citizenship and civic participation
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Shift and Maintenance Studies seem to indicate that once language shift has begun, it is incredibly hard to reverse (e.g., Fishman, 2001) In the U.S., historically and currently, we expect to see shift from the mother tongue to English as the preferred/dominant language with formal schooling (Bayley, et al, 1996) and total loss of productive abilities in the mother tongue in the 2 nd generation (Portes & Hao, 1998)***
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The U.S. Case
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Doubly Damned Neuromyth One: Critical periods What does this mean for what “we” expect ELLs to be able to do in school? Neuromyth Two: Cognitive Load Limits How does this affect overall attitudes towards bilingual language development?
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Definitions Matter Confound between ELL & Bilinguals Education SES Prior linguistic experience
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