Welcome to 2015!

The EAL Team is hoping that this year we will be more active in the blogging area. We would like to keep you updated with news and information regarding our school community and particularly regarding our students who speak an additional language/s at home.

The Team

 If you’re considering teaching your children more than one language at home, it helps to be able to sort the myths from the facts.

For example …

Dad is at the sink washing dishes when he feels a tug on his pants:

• ‘Daddy? Can I have some biscuits?’
• ‘I don’t know, Alex. Go ask your mum, I think she brought home something special for dessert tonight.’

Running over to the dining room, Alex meets her mum clearing the last of the dinner plates off the table:

• ‘Mami … papi dice que puedo comer una galleta porque me acabé toda la cena.’
• ‘Mijo, pero compré fresas para el postre. Mañana puedes comer una galleta.’
• ‘Pero mami no me gustan las fresas. Quiero una galleta … por favor.’

You don’t need to speak Spanish to understand that what’s going on here is more than a request for a biscuit. Alex is one of a growing number of children whose home is a real-world classroom for learning to speak, read and write more than one language.

A question of language

In the cities and suburbs around the country, the sounds of Vietnamese, Arabic, Cantonese and many other languages are becoming more and more common. More and more multilingual families in Australia are facing a tough question – should my child learn more than one language, or only English?

In the example above, the answer is simple – Alex would learn both. Although her parents are fluent in both languages, dad is more comfortable with English and he uses it most of the time. For mum, Spanish is the language of her family, her culture and her heritage, a connection that she wants to pass on to her daughter.

In this country, there are lots of different views about the increasing numbers of bilingual children. A closer look at research suggests that teaching children more than one language at home has its own set of challenges and rewards.

Learning two languages

There are many reasons to teach children multiple languages when they’re young:

• Young children can pick up a new language faster and more easily than a teenager or an adult, although some experts suggest this difference can be attributed to the level of exposure rather than the age of the child.
• A second language is a skill that allows a child to explore other cultures and communicate with more people – at home and abroad.
• The ability to speak more than one language can create broader opportunities for employment in the future.

But as the number of bilingual children has grown in Australia, so have the myths about how learning two languages affects children. Have you ever heard that bilingual children are more prone to language disorders, such as using the wrong word? Or that bilingual children have trouble communicating in both languages? Do bilingual kids struggle more with reading and writing?

Facts about bilingual children

Research clearly shows that bilingualism doesn’t cause language disorders. From time to time, children might use a word from one language while speaking in another. But these moments of ‘language switching’ disappear after a few years, usually by age five.

• Children can master more than one language at a time – it might just take a little longer. Learning one language is a big challenge for everyone. Learning a second set of words and grammar takes even more effort. It all boils down to exposure and practice. The more children hear and use a language, the faster they’ll learn it.
• Exposure to more than one language at an early age doesn’t make it harder to read and write later. In fact, there’s some evidence that shows the opposite is true – that learning to read in one language helps a child learn to read in another.

There’s another benefit to teaching children to speak more than one language at an early age. Some studies suggest that bilingualism might help children develop certain attention skills sooner. ‘Selective attention’ is the ability to focus on important details while ignoring distracting and misleading information. It’s something bilingual children do a lot as they learn to filter out words from one language when speaking in another.

Overcoming challenges of learning two languages

As already mentioned, learning two languages requires more practice than learning one. And that leads to some potential challenges for children in bilingual households.

The first is that it might take more time to develop a large vocabulary in each of the languages. Studies have shown that bilingual children tend to have somewhat smaller vocabularies in each language than classmates who speak only one language. But the reason is simple – they need to learn new words in both languages, instead of just one. That doesn’t mean they know fewer words.

Some studies suggest that bilingual children actually have a larger overall vocabulary if you count the words they know in both languages. Over time, bilingual children catch up to their single-language peers, and most differences disappear by grade five.

The second challenge is that bilingual children may trail English-only classmates when it comes to specific language tests, at least in the early grades. One research study of nearly 1000 bilingual children showed that they tended to score lower on some oral language tests. But language tests aren’t the whole picture – when it came to talking to others and understanding them, bilingual children did well in both languages. And, as with vocabulary, the differences that showed up on the language tests tended to disappear in later grades.

Deciding whether to teach two languages

For any family facing the question of teaching their children more than one language, the answer is simple – do what feels right to you.

There’s growing agreement among researchers that learning two or more languages – while adding some specific challenges – doesn’t hurt a child’s development. In fact, it might help develop important mental skills and open up a world of opportunities later in life.

Language is more than a way to communicate – it’s a living expression of culture, community and family ties. And for a growing number of homes, that’s reason enough to fill a house with the sounds of more than one language.

Helpful tips

Are you wondering how to help your child learn two languages? Here are some ideas to keep in mind.

• Give your child plenty of practice in both languages. Children need to hear and speak each language often to learn the words and grammar of both.
• Children learn languages best from you. CDs and DVDs don’t work as well as a real person using language in everyday situations such as playing, shopping or just talking.
• Read to your children in both languages – it’s a great way to build vocabulary and early reading skills.
• Don’t be surprised if one language becomes stronger than the other. It’s common for one to become dominant, and it’s usually the one the child hears and uses most.
• Use language the same way with all of your children. Language and emotions are linked, so using English with one child and Mandarin with another could lead to hurt feelings.
• Have patience with mistakes or language switching. This is a normal part of learning two languages (and might even show a special skill). With more practice, these mistakes will fade.

 Some language facts

• According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in 2011, 20% of second generation migrants (children of migrants) spoke a language other than English at home.
• The most common languages other than English are Mandarin, Italian, Arabic and Greek.
• Collectively, Chinese languages (including Cantonese, Mandarin and others) have the greatest number of speakers after English.
• The three most commonly spoken indigenous languages are Kriol (an Australian Creole) and two Central Australian languages – Pitjantjatjara and Warlpiri.

Becoming literate is one of the most important journeys that your child will ever take and you are the person who shares most of this journey with your child. Studies often showed strong positive links between parental involvement in school and pupil progress. It was concluded that in-school involvement helped cause this progress.

So come and be part of our Holy Family Reads Together program!

WHEN:  Tue , Wed and Thu @ 8.25 -8.45am

WHERE: Playgroup Room (near the Canteen)

Coffee and tea provided.

Who are the refugees?

A Syrian girl refugee ( Image source: careersguardian.co.uk)

Until 1951 there was no commonly accepted term for people fleeing persecution. People who fled their country were known as stateless people, migrants or refugees. Different countries treated these people in different ways. Following the mass migrations caused by the Second World War (particularly in Europe) it was decided that there needed to be a common understanding of which people needed protection and how they should be protected.

The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol (commonly known as the Refugee Convention), to which Australia is a signatory, defines a refugee as:
Any person who owing to a well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his/her nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself/herself of the protection of that country.

The important parts of this definition are:

• The person has to be outside their country of origin
• The reason for their flight has to be a fear of persecution
• This fear of persecution has to be well founded (i.e. they must have experienced it or be likely to experience it if they return)
• The persecution has to result from one or more of the five grounds listed in the definition
• They have to be unwilling or unable to seek the protection of their country

 Source: Refugee Council of Australia- www.refugeecouncil.org.au

 Statistics at a glance

For more statistics, visit the Refugee Council of Australia website: www.refugeecouncil.org.au

• There were 42.5 million forcibly displaced people worldwide at the end of 2011. This figure includes 15.2 million refugees, 895,000 asylum seekers and 26.4 million internally displaced persons (IDPs).
• Of the global total of uprooted people, UNHCR cares for 25.9 million, including 10.4 million refugees and a15.5 million IDPs.
• Developing countries are host to 80%, of the refugee population. The 48 Least Developed Countries provided asylum to almost 2.3 million refugees. More than 4.7 million refugees, representing 45 per cent of the world’s refugees, resided in countries whose GDP per capital was below USD $3,000.
• Three-quarters of the world’s refugees resided in countries neighbouring their country of origin.
• By the end of 2011 an estimated 7.1 million refugees were living in one of 26 protracted refugee situations worldwide. UNHCR defines a protracted situation as one in which 25,000 or more refugees of the same nationality have been in exile for five years or longer in any given asylum country.
• The three major refugee hosting countries in 2011 were: Pakistan (1.7 million), followed by Iran (887,000) and Syria (755,400; Government estimate).
• Pakistan hosted the largest number of refugees in relation to the size of its economy with 605 refugees per 1 USD DGP (PPP) per capita. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (399) and Kenya (321) were second and third respectively.
• Afghanistan is the leading country of origin of refugees in 2011 with close to 2.7 million refugees in 79 countries. On overage, one out of four refugees in teh world originated from Afghanistan with 95 per cent of them located in Pakistan and Iran.
• During 2011, there were more than 876,100 individual applications for asylum or refugee status submitted. South Africa received them most applications with close to 107,000 claims registered in 2011, accounting for almost one-tenth of applications globally, followed by the United States of America (76,000) and France (52,100).
• By the end of 2011 women and girls made up 49% of refugees and asylum seekers. They constituted half of all IDP’s and returnees (former refugees).
• Forty-six (46) per cent of refugees and 34 per cent of asylum seekers are children below 18 years of age.
• More than 17,700 asylum applications were lodged by unaccompanied or separated children in 69 countries in 2011. The applications came mostly from Afghan and Somali children.

Next week, from Sunday 16 June to Saturday 22 June, we are celebrating Refugee Week, which is Australia’s peak annual activity to raise awareness about the issues affecting refugees and celebrate the positive contributions made by refugees to Australian society.

Refugee Week is always held from Sunday to Saturday of the week, which includes the World Refugee Day on June 20.

The theme for Refugee Week from 2012 to 2014 is Restoring Hope.

There will be a number of activities organized in South Australia. Please see next post.

A few weeks ago, the EAL team held an information session for parents- Holy Family Reads Together. The purpose of the session was to provide parents with strategies to help their children when listening to them read.

Adla Mattiske highlighted the importance of book orientation, looking and discussing the pictures before reading a book. Parents were given suggested prompts they can use when their children get stuck on a word.

Using pictures as cues is a really important reading strategy. So is waiting while your child has a go at unknown words.

The information session was well attended and we hope to hold more in the future.

It’s never too early or too late to start reading together!

Good books to share:

Mem Fox: Where is the Green Sheep?

Sue Wright: I went walking

Michael Rosen: We’re going on a Bear Hunt 

Eric Hill: Where’s Spot 

Jack and the Beanstalk

The Gingerbread Man

Pamela Allen:

• Herbert and Harry 
• The Pear in the Pear Tree 
• The Potato People 
• Who Sank the Boat?

Bill Martin: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?

Marcia Vaughan: Wombat Stew

Dr Seuss:

• Cat in the Hat
• Green Eggs and Ham

Eric Carle:

The Very Hungry Caterpillar 

From Head to Toe

During the same session,  Magdalena Moise talked about the importance of maintaining the home language. She highlighted the benefits of bilingualism and  multilingualism. More on this topic on a separate post.

National Families Week is a time to celebrate with your immediate family, make contact with your extended family and friends and share in the enjoyment of family activities within the wider community. It is a time to celebrate the meaning of family and to make the most of family time.

National Families Week is timed to coincide with the United Nations International Day of Families on 15 May.  This day is observed by the United Nations to mark the importance that the international community place on families as the most fundamental units of society, as well as to show concern about their situation in many parts of the world.

(Source: http://www.familiesaustralia.org.au/familiesweek/)