Reflections on Cummins (1980), “The Cross‐Lingual Dimensions of Language Proficiency: Implications for Bilingual Education and the Optimal Age Issue.”

Abstract

M y 1980 article argued that cognitive/academic language proficiency (CALP) can be empirically distinguished from basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS) such as accent, oral fluency, and sociolinguistic competence in both first and second languages (L1 and L2), and that cognitive/academic proficiencies in both L1 and L2 are interdependent, that is, manifestations of a common underlying proficiency. These propositions were then applied to the interpretation of data relating to (a) age and L2 learning and (b) bilingual education. Specifically, older school-age students make faster progress in absolute terms than younger students in acquiring L2 academic proficiency because they can apply their better developed CALP to L2 learning. With respect to bilingual education, I used the common underlying proficiency construct to explain why less instructional time through the majority language results in no adverse academic consequences in that language. In fact, for students whose L1 is a minority language, the trend is toward an inverse relationship between achievement and instructional time through the majority language (e.g., Francis, Lesaux, & August, 2006). The common underlying proficiency makes possible transfer of concepts, skills, and learning strategies across languages.

Does Bilingual Instruction Impact Students’ Academic Performance in Content-Based Learning? Evidence from Business School Students Attending Bilingual and L1 Courses

“…As a result, the pre-course ELC training adapts the students well to bilingual courses. Linking Cummin's [46] additive bilingualism hypothesis to RQ2, we suggest that the insignificant correlation between CET4/CET6 and Score does not deny the positive role played by English proficiency in a bilingual environment. English proficiency is still an important contributing factor to their success in academic performance as shown in Model (5) in Table 3 of the sensitivity tests.…”

“…Similarly, an empirical study (Han and Yu, [45]) exploring requisite English skills for bilingual education among Chinese university students suggests that students can benefit from bilingual education when they achieve excellent scores in CET4 or CET6. For college students in bilingual education, new reflections by Cummins [46] indicated that older school-age students progress faster than younger students (e.g., students in kindergartens or junior schools) in acquiring L2 academic proficiency, because they can apply their better-developed cognitive/academic language proficiency to L2 learning. Bilingual instruction also brings social benefits, so students are likely to be more motivated when speaking to native speakers and develop more positive attitudes toward L2 (Lasagabaster and Sierra [47], Merisuo-Storm [48]).…”

Source use and argumentation behavior in L1 and L2 writing: a within-writer comparison

“…In later studies he named this idea the linguistic interdependence hypothesis (cf. Cummins, 2016), which ''assumes that two languages are distinct but are supported by shared concepts and knowledge derived from learning, experience, and the cognitive and language abilities of learners'' (Chuang, Joshi, & Dixon, 2012, p. 98). Nearly four decades after first proposing his hypothesis, Cummins concluded that ''The common underlying proficiency makes possible transfer of concepts, skills, and learning strategies across languages'' (Cummins, 2016, p. 940).…”

Does Bilingual Instruction Impact Students' Academic Performance in Content-Based Learning? - Evidence from Business School Students Attending Bilingual and L1 Courses

“…Similarly, an empirical study (Han & Yu, 2007) exploring the requisite English skills for bilingual education among Chinese university students suggested that student can benefit from bilingual education when they achieve excellent level in CET4 or CET6. For college students in bilingual education, new reflections by Cummins (2016) indicate that older school-age students make faster progress than younger students (e.g. students in kindergartens or junior schools) in acquiring L2 academic proficiency because they can apply their better-developed cognitive/academic language proficiency to L2 learning.…”

“…Cummins (1980) argues that cognitive/academic language proficiency (CALP) is empirically distinguished from basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS). The distinction between CALP and BICS is nearly universally acknowledged by scholars, educators and policy makers and demonstrated in many research papers and books (Cummins, 2016). However, many researches cannot specifically test CALP and BICS and apply them to the analysis.…”