Forum: Biliteracy Times Read: 3 Date: 05-14-2004 19:49
Author: Deckard, Carla <carla@ourcornerstone.com>
Subject Monolingual or Bilingual?
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Being bilingual definitely opens up more worlds to a person. I can remember as a child growing up in Taiwan and learning to speak Chinese and Taiwanese, as well as English. It just came naturally. I am a firm believer that children should be encouraged, whenever possible, to keep up their native language and not just assimilate into the dominant culture. Current research also shows that the child who speaks more than one language when they are young, will tend to do better academically later in life. I consider myself bilingual, but not fluent, in Mandarin. I consider myself very limited but somewhat biliterate in Mandarin. For this I am grateful because it is a part of my indentity and of who I have been, am and can strive to be. As a future educator I would continually encourage my students to learn another language whenever possible and most definitely stress the importance to them as well as their parents to keep their native language alive in the home environment.