Thank you, readers for making this blog such a success. This weekend we hit a major milestone – one
thousand page views!
Last week’s conference was a wonderful success. For those of us that
attended, it was a time of professional rejuvenation, reconnecting with old
friends, and meeting new colleagues. For
those of you outside of Illinois ,
I am referring to the 35th Annual
Statewide Conference for Teachers Serving Linguistically and Culturally Diverse
Students (aka the bilingual conference) that is held annually in Oak
Brook, Illinois. It is a four day conference with local,
national and international speakers.
This year, more than 3,000 educators attended over the course of the
week.
This was the first year that I did four presentations. Needless to say, I was very busy and simply
ran out of time to blog. But don’t fear,
I have taken copious notes and am looking forward to sharing what I learned
with you. First, let me share with you the highlights of the opening keynote
address from Else Hamayan, director emeritus of the Illinois
Resource Center . Her talk was titled “Me washa la mano! Debunking some myths about early childhood
bilingualism.”
Photo
courtesy of Josie Yanguas, IRC
Dr. Hamayan started by saying that many people believe that it isn’t beneficial,
and may even be harmful, for children to grow up with two or three languages. She reminded the room of educators that what
we believe is important because it impacts how we teach our students. In all, Dr. Hamayan debunked a number of common myths about young
bilingual children. I’ll share my two
favorites with you.
Myth #1 – The monolingual brain
Dr. Hamayan stated, “nearly half of the world’s population is
functionally bilingual.” In other words,
it is normal for people to learn two, three or even four different
languages. She quoted a number of
experts including Kuhl, Garcia-Sierra and Bialystok. Ultimately,
she drew the conclusion that “a bilingual brain is not only possible, it is
desirable!”
Myth #2 - Code mixing is a sign
of something bad happening
“Me washa la mano!” This is an example of code mixing,
also known as code-switching. In a
nutshell, code mixing is evidence of cross-linguistic transfer. When a bilingual person uses specific
knowledge and skills from one language in their other language, it is cross-linguistic
transfer. It is a very valuable skill
that bilinguals use to help figure out the meaning of new words or phrases. Dr.
Hamayan reminded her audience that, “when students make a ‘mistake’ that is the
result of transfer, it is important to view it as an indication of students’
resourcefulness.” As teachers, we can use our students’ ability to transfer
knowledge between their languages to help our students attack unknown words and
look for cognates. Read more on Dr. Jill Kerper-Mora’s website, and Kathy
Escamilla’s wonderful article “Bilingual Means
Two: Assessment Issues, Early Literacy and Spanish-speaking Children.” In
short, Dr. Hamayan stated "code mixing is not only normal, it shows the use of good learning
behaviors."
Dr. Hamayan ended her keynote by telling her audience that we cannot
“washa la mano” of these myths. Rather,
as educators of linguistically and culturally diverse children, we need to base
our pedagogical decisions on sound research and experience, collect classroom-based
data to use as additional sources of information and tirelessly advocate for
our students.
Written by: Tammy King
Written by: Tammy King
Thanks for the quick summary of some of Dr. Hamayan's myths re early childhood bilingualism.
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