19 февраля 2016г.
Abstract
The article analyzes key research studies concerning bilingual children. It represents the study results of peculiarities of young children’s bilingualism formation in the condition of social bilingualism (two official languages operation). The study result is the description of the main components of psychological and pedagogical support of school children, as well as the components of psychological and pedagogical factors of children’s education in a bilingual educational process.
Keywords: bilingualism, early bilingualism, bilingual educational process.
Besides the Russian state language the Russian general education system comprises about 80 native languages, including 30 languages with the status of state and majority ones at regional levels. Despite nearly a century experience of native and Russian languages teaching in national schools, the Russian Federation has not yet formed a stable system of coordinated and interconnected language teaching. Disintegrated teaching of different languages leads to development of mixed bilingualism causing language difficulties in the use of a native and the official Russian languages. The mechanism of bilingualism formation and quality of several languages proficiency have not yet become a subject of comprehensive scientific research and modeling of a pedagogical system forming bilingualism.
Thereafter, formation of children bilingualism, especially in the early school years, is one of the main tasks of the general education in the conditions of multilingual environment.
In recent years, the educational science and practice witness certain dynamics in studies and developments in the area of school-aged children bilingualism formation, particularly in the education of children – foreign languages speakers. The methods of teaching the Russian and native languages are built on the basis of cultural and communicational approaches to teaching.
The psychological science also has significant achievements in the study of bilingualism issues, including children's bilingualism. The study’s results recorded in the available scientific literature may be divided into two units.
The first unit may include research in the area of speech activity by L.S. Vygotskii (unity of generalization and communication, interaction and thinking) [4], A.A. Leontiev (arbitrariness and intentionality, unconsciousness and consciousness) [2], I.A. Zimnyaia (language as a social and historical product; unity of language/speech and communication; language as a form of consciousness existence; language as a means of communication) [5] and others.
The second unit is represented by studies related to language teaching sequence. Under successive acquisition of two languages the second language is inevitably learnt in the background/through a prism of/is based on the first one. The first language is leading in the cognitive development; it determines the intellectual view of the world. According to such researchers as D. Kammins, M. Ismailov, M. Viman, D. Slobin, E. Maklomin, consistent acquisition of two languages is most favorable for speech and psychological development of a child.
Parallel acquisition of languages involves the principle “one person - one language” (M. Grammont). This principle is met in the following cases: in families where a child communicates one family member in one language, and with the other member - in the other language; or when this principle is transferred to the educational environment (for example, in kindergarten a child speaks only in Russian, and at home - in Yakut). This principle leads to real bilingualism, preventing the situations when two languages are randomly mixed in one utterance [4]. Eventually, a child switches from one language to another without thinking. Nevertheless, practically the principle “one language - one person” is not always parity because this situation is not symmetric: for instance, if a child spends more time with mother than with father, the mother’s language will be likely dominant.
It should be noted that these studies generally describe the process of language acquisition in condition of family education and partly involve the problem of sensitive (favorable) age of beginning of second language learning.
In recent years, researchers of bilingualism single out a functional approach based on the criterion of communication activity [3]. First of all, a child should learn to distinguish social circles and situations (such as, Yakut is used in the educational process and Russian – in informal communication with peers, or vice versa).
In accordance with this approach, our study is based on definition of bilingualism as sufficient command of two different language systems for cohesion and coherence due to the external environment and situation.
At the same time, the need to improve the efficiency of children bilingualism formation and the quality of speech culture in both languages requires creation of a comprehensive psychological and pedagogical support in children bilingualism formation in an educational process on the basis of scientific achievements and the research results.
In this regard, the objective of the study is to identify the main components of psychological and pedagogical support in a bilingual educational process.
We conducted the study with the involvement of primary school children of Yakutsk educational institutions, their parents and teachers to identify components of the psychological and pedagogical factor influencing primary schoolers’ bilingualism formation.
The study methods were surveys of parents and teachers, standardized monitoring of the educational process, testing and interviewing of children.
The study was conducted in two stages: I stage - in the first grade, II stage - in the second grade.
To specify the sampling we held the first phase of the study through testing of the first grade as well as a survey of their parents to define bilingualism. According to the results, we chose 72 pupils from various educational institutions studying in the same conditions (teachers’ experience, the number of children in a class, secondary schools of the city) and divided them into two equal groups of 36 children:
Sampling 1. A group of children enrolled in the class with the Yakut language study, who were brought up in the pre-school age mainly in Russian;
Sampling 2. A group of children enrolled in the class with the Russian language study, who were brought up in the pre-school age mainly in the Yakut language.
Comparative analysis of the results obtained at the beginning of the first and second years of study indicated a positive shift.
When entering the first grade, most of the testees of both groups mixed the two languages in the educational process and in the informal communication (results of monitoring, surveys of parents and teachers). The same results were obtained by the method of the speech activity study. According to the method of verbal and logical thinking study, higher results were obtained in the group of the language, which at that time was dominant (in the first group - the Russian language, in the second group – the Yakut language). As for the results of the second phase of the study (considering psychological and pedagogical support), we recorded formation of bilingualism, when a pupil learned to distinguish the language under study and the language of informal communication.
In some communication areas a child may be ignorant in one of the languages he speaks. For example, a child fluently speaking his or her native language in family but studying in the class with the Russian language advanced study will not be able to qualitatively understand mathematics in his or her native language without specially organized psychological and pedagogical support.
In accordance with the results of the first study phase, we designed a model of psychological and pedagogical support of school children who undergo difficulties related to the language under study.
The conducted study showed that the effective formation of bilingualism at primary school age depends on the following psychological and pedagogical factors:
1. Development of the ability to focus attention and actively perceive and remember information for successful monitoring of switching from one language to another.
2. Use of different methods and techniques for memory improvement when teaching children a second language.
3. Formation of communicative personal qualities; consideration of peculiarities of a child character, temperament, and habit of mind.
4. Creation of a comfortable psychological and educational environment in the educational setting (interethnic
tolerance, adequate attitude to children's speech errors, situation of success, etc.).
5. Creation of necessary cultural and language background depending on the situation (carrying out class and school events dedicated to language and culture, introduction to the national culture, and others.).
6. Regulation of communication duration in both languages (if a child is enrolled in a class with the Russian language study, try to speak with him or her in the native language at home).
7. Use of methodological tools aimed at enhancing eye-mindedness in the teaching process, including signs, diagrams and symbols, taking into account age characteristics of pupils and their language problems.
8. Implementation of the forms and methods of activity approach to teaching aimed at undertaking pupils’ speech and learning activities (paired, group and collective forms).
It is obvious that bilingualism formation at primary school age is possible with proper psychological and
pedagogical support of this process.
List of references
1. Imedadze N.V. Eksperemental’no-psihologicheskije issledovanija ovladenija i vladenija vtorym jazykom [Experimental and psychological research of acquisition and command of the second language]. N.V. Imedadze. - Tbilisi, 1979. 4
2. Leontiev A.A. Yazik, rech, rechevaya deyatelnost’ [Language, speech, speech activity] – M.: Krasand, 2010. 2
3. Rozencveyg V.Y. Osnovnie voprosi teorii yazikovih kontaktov [The main problems in the theory of language contacts] // Novoye v lingvistike. Vip. VI. Yazikovie kontakti. M., 1972. S. 5-24. 5
4. Vygotskii L.S. Myshlenije i rech’ [Mentality and speech]. Moskva/Leningrad: OGIZ –SOTSEKIZ, 1934. 1
5. Zimnyaia I.A. lingvopsihologiya rechevoy deyatel’nosti [Psycholinguistics of speech activity] – M.: Moskovskiy psihologo-social’niy institute, Voronesh: NPO “MODEK”,2001. 3
