The Role of Acquisition and Learning In Young Children's Bilingual Development: A Sociocultural Interpretation

Abstract

This paper takes a sociocultural approach to exploring the factors that enhance young children's bilingual development. The language excerpts presented were gathered as part of a three-year Early Childhood Centre of Innovation project funded by the New Zealand government. Data gathered in this project challenge Krashen's (1981) position that young children will generally acquire another language through subconscious osmosis, rather than through the conscious effort of learning. Evidence is put forward that illustrates how young children's bilingual development is in fact mediated by their teachers and peers, as well as the cultural tools provided in the environment and the nature of the language input itself. Young children are also revealed as active language learners who interact collaboratively with others and with their environment. Thus, the value of early childhood teachers in taking a more proactive role to support the process of young children's bilingual development is affirmed.

Teacher-researchers promoting cultural learning in an intercultural kindergarten inAotearoaNew Zealand

“…The home language is also regarded as an important tool for thinking and cognitive development, and interactions among learners provide possible opportunities for furthering learning (Baker, 2006;Vine, 2003). These perspectives fit well with the concept of co-construction and the idea that it is through exploratory talk that teacher and learners actively collaborate to build ideas (Black, 2004); and with recent insights into young children as active bilingual learners (Haworth et al, 2006b). Furthermore, these ideas mesh effectively with the concept of knowledge creation as a social process proposed by Paavola et al (2004) as a third metaphor of learning (in addition to the acquisition and participation metaphors).…”

“…Cycle 1 focused on children's friendships in an intercultural setting and yielded considerable insight into purposeful Samoan language use in informal play settings (Haworth et al, 2006b) and the significance of intercultural interaction and friendships for this process. The focus in Cycle 2 was on how teachers support children's active engagement in complex and sustained learning (Simmons et al, 2005) and yielded five teaching strategies consistent with sociocultural pedagogy.…”

“…Participation is inherent in the community of learners approach at WNT. Haworth et al (2006aHaworth et al ( , 2006b highlight how many mediators (including peers, teachers and other adults, as well as language input from these sources, and cultural tools that bring meaning to the environment) facilitate the bilingual development of young children.…”

Factors Influencing the Effectiveness of Bilingual Educational Programs: The Prospects of Pilot Programs in Georgia

“…Haworth et al (2004) pointed out that literature does not clearly determine the importance of teachers in developing young children's bilingualism. This is explained by the dominance of Krashen's (1981) theories, "which hold that fluency in another language is gained through a process of natural acquisition, rather than through conscious learning" (p. 302).…”

An Analysis of Communicative Language Functions in the Speech Patterns of Bilingual Korean and Mexican Immigrant Children

“…That is, social interactions take place in geographical and interpersonal spaces that are characterized by a set of norms and expectations about communicative behavior, and therefore, the development of language competence is shaped by the types of exposure to language input, opportunities to practice the language, and the norms and expectations that are related to language use (Blommaert et al, 2005). Thus, differences in home and school settings as well as other relevant settings (like peer groups and neighborhoods) provide different kinds of spaces for language use and opportunities for language development among children (Haworth, 2006). Second, since language is embedded in the cultural context, one must examine the pragmatics of language use to understand how language is used and interpreted in a given context.…”