This paper examines how transliteration can be used as a bridge to learning for children who are studying more than one script. The focus is on second and third generation British Bangladeshi children aged seven to eleven, attending London primary schools and learning to write in Bengali at community-run after-school classes. An action research project explored how Bengali could be used as well as English to enhance learning at mainstream school. Transliteration of Bengali into Roman script was found to aid this process in the following ways: as a communicative bridge between children, parents and teachers; as a conceptual bridge, promoting reflection on meanings and metalinguistic awareness; as a bridge to the Bengali script itself, mediating between oral and written representation; and as a bridge to new learner identities, enabling expression of ideas and building children's confidence as bilingual writers.
Throughout the English-speaking world, children from bilingual backgrounds are being educated in mainstream classrooms where they have little or no opportunity to use their mother tongue. Second and third generation children, in particular, are assumed to be learning sufficiently through English only. This study investigated how British Bangladeshi children, learning Bengali in after-school classes but mostly more fluent in English than in their mother tongue, responded when able to use their full language repertoire within the mainstream curriculum. Through action research with mainstream and community language class teachers, bilingual literacy and numeracy tasks were devised and carried out with pupils aged seven to eleven in two East London primary schools. The bilingual activities were videorecorded and analysed qualitatively to identify the strategies used. The following cognitive and cultural benefits of bilingual learning discovered by researchers in other contexts were also found to apply in this particular setting: conceptual transfer, enriched understanding through translation, metalinguistic awareness, bicultural knowledge and building bilingual learner identities. The findings suggest that second and third generation children should be enabled to learn bilingually, and appropriate strategies are put forward for use in the mainstream classroom.Keywords: England, Bengali, primary school, bilingual learning, cultural content, language and cognition IntroductionResearch on bilingual learning has demonstrated its cognitive and cultural benefits. However, studies have mostly been conducted in countries where there is mainstream bilingual education, and often with first generation children. This study set out to investigate how second and third generation British Bangladeshi children at primary schools in East London, where English is usually the only language in the classroom, would respond to using Bengali as well as English for learning. The participant children, aged from seven to eleven, were also studying Bengali at after-school community language classes, but were mostly more fluent in English than their mother tongue.
Stories and poetry have long been considered a resource for the language and literacy development of bilingual children, particularly if they can work with texts in both mother tongue and English. This paper demonstrates that bilingual learning is also beneficial for second and third generation children whose English is often stronger than their mother tongue. Presenting data from an action research project in East London primary schools, we show how children investigated metaphor and cultural content in a Bengali lullaby, clarifying concepts through dialogue with their parents.Comparison with a lullaby in English from North America generated additional ideas concerning different cultural values. The learning process enabled children to use their bilingual skills and draw on different aspects of their bicultural identities. Finally, we explain how bilingual poetry can be used to stimulate learning in a multilingual classroom context, through the example of a whole-class lesson based around Bengali and English lullabies.Keywords: bilingualism, biculturalism, poetry, metaphor, Bengali, learner identities Introduction We introduce this paper by considering key ideas emerging from research on bilingual approaches to stories and poetry in primary school. This discussion highlights the contribution that bilingual work can make to cognitive development and cultural understanding, and we focus on the potential (often unrealised) for enhancing the learning of second and third generation children in particular. We then describe how a group of ten-and eleven-year-old British Bangladeshi children in a London primary school, studying a Bengali lullaby in transliteration and translation alongside the original version, were able to explore the content with additional support from their parents. This process deepened their understanding of metaphor and consolidated their knowledge of Bangladeshi culture -a cultural background to which they were strongly attached but which was partly unfamiliar to them due to growing up in the UK. Comparing the poem with a lullaby in English from North America, known to them through school and through popular culture, sharpened their understanding of different cultural values. To fully investigate the meanings in the Bengali poem, children used both languages in their discussion, making use of bilingual skills that are at risk of being lost unless they are valued in mainstream education. By operating bilingually and drawing on their complete range of linguistic and cultural knowledge, children also broadened their learner identities. We conclude by examining how the children's classmates, including those who did not speak Bengali, benefited from a whole-class lesson developed around the Bengali and English lullabies.
Throughout the English-speaking world, children from bilingual backgrounds are being educated in mainstream classrooms where they have little or no opportunity to use their mother tongue. Second and third generation children, in particular, are assumed to be learning sufficiently through English only. This study investigated how British Bangladeshi children, learning Bengali in after-school classes but mostly more fluent in English than in their mother tongue, responded when able to use their full language repertoire within the mainstream curriculum. Through action research with mainstream and community language class teachers, bilingual literacy and numeracy tasks were devised and carried out with pupils aged seven to eleven in two East London primary schools. The bilingual activities were videorecorded and analysed qualitatively to identify the strategies used. The following cognitive and cultural benefits of bilingual learning discovered by researchers in other contexts were also found to apply in this particular setting: conceptual transfer, enriched understanding through translation, metalinguistic awareness, bicultural knowledge and building bilingual learner identities. The findings suggest that second and third generation children should be enabled to learn bilingually, and appropriate strategies are put forward for use in the mainstream classroom.Keywords: England, Bengali, primary school, bilingual learning, cultural content, language and cognition IntroductionResearch on bilingual learning has demonstrated its cognitive and cultural benefits. However, studies have mostly been conducted in countries where there is mainstream bilingual education, and often with first generation children. This study set out to investigate how second and third generation British Bangladeshi children at primary schools in East London, where English is usually the only language in the classroom, would respond to using Bengali as well as English for learning. The participant children, aged from seven to eleven, were also studying Bengali at after-school community language classes, but were mostly more fluent in English than their mother tongue.
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