Essay Example on Bilingualism: Benefits, Myths & Misconceptions of Raising Bilingual Kids

Bilingualism is the capability to use two languages in life. Many children around the globe are raised with exposure to two or more languages from an early age due to diverse circumstances. In the previous years, knowing two or more languages has been perceived of value across communities and the globe; thus, the increase in bilingualism in parents and, therefore, in children. In the past, there have been myths and misinterpretations on childhood bilingualism; therefore, many people are unable to address the questions that are raised each day about the matter. Parents, speech-lingual professionals, and elementary teachers tend to help the growth of bilingualism in children, and it is expected, for example, by the year 2049, half of the children that will be joining kindergarten will have been raised talking more than the English language. With the increase in bilingualism, shockingly, there is a little research that has been done on the topic, mostly, about the beginning of bilingual language education in babies and children. There has been a lot of questions that are asked on the normalcy of the children with bilingual abilities. For example, people ask on the intelligence of the child, frequency of using the same language on the child, fluency of the languages involved, or disorders.

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Many people ask if the bilingual children appear to be confused in case the parents use different languages in raising them, thus bringing confusion (Byers-Heinlein, Lew-Williams). For example, when the children frequently combine up words from the two languages in one statement which is usually part of the bilingual development, whereas, the bilingual infants show no confusion in their selection of words in a sentence. The bilingual children tend to be more understanding of the social surrounding since they have to fit through the languages of the multiple people that know a wide understanding of the language. Moreover, the opportunity of the toddlers to associate with multiple orators also increases the learning of the bilingual vocabulary.

The majority of the bilingual children tend to do their tasks that involve switching in a more reasoning manner than the monolingual children according to some studies that have been conducted in the past. A balanced exposure of the languages to the children also supports the success of the bilingual conversations. However, with times as the children grow up they tend to be more aware of the native language that is spoken in the community and mostly tend to adopt this language in school, (Byers-Heinlein, Lew-Williams,95). The parents that would want their kids to be bilingual should adopt all the quality and available strategies that would advance the level of exposure to multiple vocabularies.

The bilingual children may not be able to master new languages after a specific age since the brain is more receptive to the language that learned early in life. When it emanates that the parents have to raise bilingual children, some misconceptions and myths are usually wrong and some facts that are frequently rare. In my opinion, bilingualism in childhood should be widely acceptable as it promotes socialism and the growth of languages around the globe.

Works Cited

Byers-Heinlein, Krista, and Casey Lew-Williams. "Bilingualism in the early years: What the science says." LEARNing landscapes 7.1 (2013): 95. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6168212/