Bilingual Q & A 7: The relationship between children’s bilingual learning and school and family environment
The standard for bilingualism is that both languages have reached native level.
The critical point for learning the first language/native language is around 11 or 12 years old. In other words, for most people, they can learn the mother tongue from an early age, including listening, speaking, reading and writing, until around 11 or 12 years old. "native language level". If you want your children to have a second mother tongue, they must also spend a total of about 11 years of learning before the age of 12 or 10. Families must try their best to "provide and create" a learning environment that is close to the Chinese mother tongue, including an environment for speaking and reading. , giving children the opportunity to "immerse" themselves in it and achieve the goal of learning their mother tongue. During this 10-year period, once the provision of a mother-tongue-like environment is stopped, children may lose the language skills they have learned. This is because mother-tongue learning must continue to be learned and consolidated until around the age of 12. The characteristic of children learning Chinese is that they learn quickly and forget quickly. Unless the family and the child make "extra" efforts, the child will most likely lose a large part of the acquired abilities if input is interrupted during this 10-year period. , the younger you are, the easier it is to lose everything.
Real case: A 10-year-old child who immigrated to the United States from Hong Kong can already speak Cantonese fluently and can read and write simple Chinese. The mother is worried that the child will not be able to integrate into American society, so she no longer speaks English to the child. Without the input of "Chinese", and at the same time, there is no opportunity to learn Chinese in the school and social "environment" in which he lives. When this child grows up at the age of 18, he will not be able to speak Cantonese at all (can listen to a little), and will naturally not be able to read or write. . Both the general environment and the small environment are in English. It is natural and natural to become a monolingual person.
Starting to learn a new non-native language after the age of 11/12, such as moving to a new language environment, has exceeded the "critical point of mother tongue learning", usually through "second language learning" To learn the language, even if the language proficiency level increases with the increase of learning time, except for a very small number of people with language talent, or who pay "extra" learning costs, it is difficult for ordinary people to reach the native level of this new language. , and the way he learns this non-native language is mostly through second language learning. If we want our children to be bilingual, we must naturally start cultivating bilingualism before this "critical age" in order to achieve twice the result with half the effort and achieve the goal of bilingualism.
Additional Notes Reference:
#In Canada, bilingual schools often hear early immersion/late immersion/late immersion (referring to English and French)
Brief description:
---》"Early immersion" starts from primary school. The school provides 100% teaching in the second language (French) (students' first language is English). Then as the grades decrease, the first language (English) increases gradually. By 6th and 7th grade, there is no second language at all, but 100% first language (English).
---》"Late infiltration" means that from the first grade to the sixth grade, the school provides 6% teaching in the first language (English). The second language (French) study is only started in the sixth and seventh grade. Every year As time goes by, until the last year of secondary school, there is no first language at all, but 100% teaching in the second language (French).
# I personally asked several young people who have "experienced" teaching in these two languages (all of whom are native English speakers), and the answers I got were that those with "early immersion" are more "French" than those with "late immersion" Be higher.
This answer also proves once again that it is "easier" to reach the "native level" of a second language if you start learning it as young as 2 or 3 years old than waiting until you are 11/12 years old (first grade of secondary school) to start learning this non-native language. ”, become a second mother tongue and become a true bilingual.
Conclusion
In an English school environment, although English is not used at home at all, parents do not have to worry that their children will not be able to keep up with English and will not be able to integrate into society. There is no problem with their children's talent in language learning, but it will take a while for the children to integrate sooner or later. Just a difference.
Most people who start learning a second language in middle school use the second language method to learn "foreign language", and it is not a "late immersion method" because middle schools only have time for this Chinese class every year, and all other courses and extracurricular None of the activities are taught in the second language (there is no so-called "immersion"), and naturally it is unlikely that the students will reach the native level of the language.
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