Educational Programs (bilingual/ESL) and Instructional Language Strategies for helping English

Educational Programs (bilingual/ESL) and Instructional Language Strategies for helping English

Introduction

This research paper demonstrates that there are plenty of improvements to be made in parents and teachers minds about second language acquisition and bilingualism. The following information presented attempts to show you what is happening in homes and classrooms around the world and challenges readers to open their eyes to a different way of thinking. It includes a variety of strategies that can help teachers identify at-risks students and show them how they can make a few simple changes in their classroom to accommodate for ESL learners. Furthermore, this paper challenges parents to forget about their fear in exposing their child to a second language early on in their life, because there is no such thing as learning too early.

The Issue

There seems to be many advantages to learning a second language, however these advantages are normally mentioned in situations where children grow up, immersed in bilingual households from an early age. (Marcos, 1997, para 1; Pre School English Learners, 2005, para. 3). So what about older children. A Victorian based Department of Education and Training Video, (Finch, Vacirca, & Wright. 2003) shows English as a Second Language (ESL) students voicing their own personal experience, in trying to learn English as a second language. Comments were made about their need, for teachers to understand, that it does take time to translate information into their own native language and then back into English again. Teachers interviewed, made it known that there is a need for teachers to know and understand different cultures and there most definitely is a need for teachers to accommodate for ESL learners.

Second Language Acquisition

Through my research I have observed two sets of conditions at the heart of learning a language; first language acquisition and second language acquisition. First language acquisition is important to study before second language acquisition, so it is possible to see the many differences that arise from learning a second language, after you are already native in one language. A power point developed by Avondale College (2006), identifies FLA as being exclusive to humans. It's explanations as to why it is easier for young children to grasp onto a language include “no pressure” or “tests”; lots of “time” and “repetition”; “language learning” is essentially apart of their discovery, of the world around them and children slowly progress from concrete to “more abstract ideas”; children are young and therefore are not scared of failing or not understanding, in fact they see “language learning as fun” and falling back into a language they already know, doesn't come into play.

Second Language acquisition on the other hand is much more complex as it doesn't happen naturally unless a child has been immersed into a bilingual household since birth. Developing English as a second language on top of your native language can be broken up into five stages (Haynes, 2005). The first stage is the “pre-production ...