Nowadays
multilingual education gains essential importance among society. Studying the
languages becomes one of the most necessary options in globalized world. However,
this subject is very wide. It contains many aspects of languages. The particular point of
my interest is how multilingual and immigrant parents involved in
their children`s language learning in society.
Many
researchers tried to research the link between parental involvement and student`s
academic achievements. For instance, Thao (2009) compared immigrant parents
involvement in language learning and how United States parents involved in
education process of their children “it is concerning that while immigrant
parents highly value education, studies find they are also less likely to be
involved in their child’s education and school than parents born in the United
States” (p.1). It is known fact that new arrived people face difficulties such
as language differences, culture shock and adaptation in unfamiliar society.
Language acquisition is one of the most painful in this adaptation. Children
especially need the support from their parents at the first stage of learning.
Furthermore,
Soto (1997), Valenzuela (1999), Wang (1995), Wang & Phillion, (2007) stated
that “in order to maintain their [immigrants] home language, culture, and
identity, minority groups have had to fight for their [immigrants] home
languages and for broader issues of social justice” (as cited in Wang, 2009,
p.13). Investigating the problem of parental involvement we should not to
forget about minorities. For minority groups it is very encouraged to integrate
in the society and help their children to do so where the dominant language is
apart from their native one.
Noel,
Stark, and Redford (2013) in their research work made an survey among thousands
of parents and came to the conclusion that in primary school parents
participate actively in children`s education, while in high school this
indicator decreases and shows that parents involve less. Also the survey delineates
how the participation of parents depends on the sex of children: female
students` parents participate in school activities and help their children,
however, male students` parents attend less to their children`s education
process.
In
conclusion I want to emphasize the role of parents in complicated education
process of their children. At the first stages of studying languages, parents
should support them and attend in children`s language acquisition. One of the
main points is combining and reasonable studying languages in multilingual
families and immigrant families. That is the theme of my interest to
investigate.
References
Thao,
M. (2009). Parent Involvement in School: Engaging Immigrant Parents. Wilder Research. 4 pp.
Wang,
Y. (2009). Language, Parents' Involvement, and Social Justice: The Fight for
Maintaining Minority Home Language: A Chinese-Language Case Study. Multicultural Education, v16 n4 p13-18
Sum 2009. 6 pp.
Noel, A., Stark, P., & Redford, J. (2013). Parent
and Family Involvement in Education, from the National Household Education
Surveys Program of 2012. First Look. NCES 2013-028. National Center for
Education Statistics. 57 pp.
Parental involvement is very crucial for children’s academic achievement in a school, especially, when a student is not native speaker of school language. It is important to remember that the first language of the student is a basis for acquisition of host country’s language. Therefore, teaching staff and parents should assist children and facilitate the process of acquisition of the second language. Teaching staff should take into account the human linguistic rights of the student and prevent any discrimination toward the student in a class. However, immigrants and their children are marginalized in order to integrate in the society of the host country. The best example is USA. Children of Mexicans have to learn English and make language shift in their repertoires. There are some bilingual schools in USA; however, most of them aim to teach English and make them English speakers rather than bilingual.
ReplyDeleteThank you Dalmira for raising such an interesting issue. I also think that parents involvement in their children's education can play vital role on their success. Moreover, some international comparative studies (PISA, TIMSS) show, that some definite characteristics of parents, such as their education level, socio-economic background and even migration status help for development or degradation of their children. However, you raised the issue of parental involvement in the particularly sphere - language study. What if adults do not know language of migrated country? Can they still be engaged in?
ReplyDeleteThank you)
DeleteAccording to your questions, it might be obvious that most immigrants don`t know the language of the host society. However, after a while adults may learn the language at the job or due to social adjustment. Unfotunately, sometimes adults learn new language slower that their children who start to attend local schools. There might be gap in communication between parents and children. Fillmore (2000) tells the story of the Chinese family of mother, father, grandmother, and two children which immigrated to the USA. As children went to the local american school they have learnt English language very well, however parents were still bad in English. Soon between parent and children appeared the difficulties in understanding each other. Children started to lose Chinese language proficiency, but parents still continued speaking Chinese. It has led to the conflicts in the family and parents were not able to participate in children`s schooling anymore.
Reference
Fillmore, L. (2000). Loss of family languages: Should education be concerned? Children and Languages at School, 39(4),203-210
Dalmira, thank you for your interesting post. Being a parent I know how important to support children at any beginnings. Currently, language study becomes an important issue as new policy about multilingual education was undertaken. I studied at Russian school, at university I studied in Russian too. My children study at Kazakh school, but at home we speak in Russian. So, everyday we struggle when we do home tasks as I cannot explain properly in Kazakh and they do not understand some words in Russian. But, I do not give up and use vocabularies and call friends or relatives to help. Sometimes, I am eager to change the school and make life easier but I understand that children have to know their native language. I started to talk about Kazakh language because we face these challenges. Talking about English language for example, it is more easier for me to help them because I understand it more than Kazakh (unfortunately). So, my point of view is that even though parents do not know language and cannot help their children, they have to show support, interest and try to help, maybe find some good not expensive courses or private teacher (I mean to learn foreign languages).
ReplyDelete