Acquisition of Multiple Languages Among Children of Immigrant Families: Parents' Role in the Home-School Language Pendulum

Abstract

This study examined immigrant parents' role in their young children's language learning and development in linguistically different contexts in Chicago. At home the children lived with parents who spoke little or no English. At school the children were taught by mostly English speaking teachers, occasionally with teacher aides who spoke some of the other languages the children understood. The children had to operate in two linguistic worlds that were considerably different. The study sought to explain the means by which immigrant parents helped their children learn English effectively and also maintain their mother tongue.Five data collection instruments were used in the study: a parent questionnaire, an activity chart, audio recorders, an observation guide during home visits and parent interviews. The parent interviews were conducted towards the end of the study as a means to triangulate information and to crosscheck and clarify meanings of the data from the other instruments.The study revealed that parents' roles included different factors that supported children's learning of the languages. The factors included: the parents' attitudes towards language in general, parents' interest in both mother tongue and English, joint parent-child activities and direct, linguistic exchange between child and parent. Other factors included teacher flexibility, teacher-parent communication, parents' English classes school support, and parents' sensitivity to school support.Problems faced by parents and teachers included parents' lack of English proficiency to communicate effectively about children's school learning, and lack of effective linguistic link between home learning and school learning.

Increasing Latino Parents’ Verbal Interactions with Their Preschool-Aged Children

“…By augmenting home-language resources with storybooks and a program to support and encourage home storybook reading, children's language development may be modified. This is further supported by Mushi's finding that the more immigrant parents participated in a joint activity with their children, the more the children engaged in linguistic behavior [14]. The majority of immigrant parents, regardless of the level of education, display willingness to participate in their child's education but did not necessarily know the steps to take [15].…”

“…We developed an early childhood literacy program following evidence-based recommendation to partner with immigrant parents "by showing them how their participation in their children's learning through concrete activities (such as daily reading) may increase their chances of achieving academic success" [13] and supplementing home-language resources with storybooks and a program to support and encourage home storybook reading [14]. The bilingual early language development intervention was designed to build school readiness in preschoolers through increased parental verbal participation in Spanish (e.g., built parental skills and knowledge around daily reading, playing word games, how to talk to children, turning off the television) drawn from sections of a tested curriculum, Language is The Key [24].…”

Learning English as a foreign language in Taiwan: students’ experiences and beyond

“…All three parents admitted their weakness in English in their interviews. Their limited proficiency did not grant them the ability to support their children by going over English lesson content at home, as Mushi (2002) observed, and yet, they were criticised for failing in their responsibility to assist their children in their learning of English.…”

Does Preschool Education Help Immigrant Children Reach Their Native Peers’ Academic Levels?: A Case of Turkish Immigrant Children in Sweden

“…It appears that the Swedish preschool education programme was not able to close the gap between the Turkish and Swedish children observed prior to program implementation. A body of research literature indicated that pre-school education programs with native language support were effective in supporting immigrant children's language skills, concept development, and school readiness (Becker et al, 2013;Leseman & Tuijl, 2001;Magnuson et al, 2006;Mushi, 2002;Wilson et al, 2013), a number of studies, on the other hand, suggest that the support provided through pre-school education programs might not be sufficient in helping immigrant children reach their native peers. Previous studies have demonstrated that immigrant status associates with low performances on tasks that assess school readiness and cognitive and language skills (Fröhlich, Petermann & Metz, 2013;Schonewille & van der Leij, 1993).…”