The Impact of Teaching Bilingual Language to

Early Age Children and Its Effects on First

Language Acquisition

PSYCHOLINGUISTICS’ PAPER

BY:

RAMITA

15018039

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
UNIVERSITAS NEGERI PADANG
The Impact of Teaching Bilingual Language to Early Age Children and First

Language Acquisition

ABSTRACT:

This paper is aimed to discuss about the impact of

teaching bilingual language to the early age children.
Moreover, this research show its impact to the children’s first
language acquisition. Teaching second language to early age
children will cause several impact which can negative or
positive. It depends on in what age the students is taught their
second language. There are several things that should be
teacher’s consideration to teach second language to children.
The first is the age of the children, second is the second
language should be based on the majority language that widely
use in their environment, and the last is bilingual should be
taught after they are relly know their first language.

KEYWORDS: Bilingual language, early age children, first

language acquisition.
A. Introduction

Children learn the language unconsciously. They learn their

language which differs from the other social world. They get the prior

language from their mother tongue. When the children acquire the

language, there are several stages which tell the development of children’s

ability to speak until they are native with their own language. The stages

are cooing, babbling, one word, two word, telegraphic speech and school

age.

Children acquire the language based on what they have listened,

experienced, and communicated. Most of children have the same stages

while acquiring their first language but several of them still have some

problem such phoneme problem. Children and toddler learn the first

language which is not to be taught about the rule of language such as

grammar. During the first language acquisition, there are a lot of obstacles

that they face until they understand the rule of language itself. They need

to acquire such as phonology, morphology, and syntax. When they get

these acquisitions, they can be said as the native for their own language.

To learn the second language, students must be native on their first

language which known as critical period. It happens when the children is

in eleven years old. There is still a doubt to let children learn the second

language in the early age. From this paper, it will show what will happen if

the students get early acquisition on their second language. Is it affect on

their first language or might be erasing their first language. Is it influences

 their first language’s vocabulary development or not? What will happen to

the students’ cognitive ability in the early age to acquire the early second

language?

Teaching bilingual language might have some advantages or

disadvantages if it is applied to the early age student. It might also affect to

their first language acquisition. In letting children learn bilingual language,

the cognitive development might show the student ability in acquire both

of the language. Thus, this paper will show what will happen if the

bilingual language is taught in the early age.

B. Bilingualism

Bilingualism is the ability of human to use two languages in their

daily life which are related to factors such as ability, function and attitude

to the language (Byers-Heinlein, 2013). The Oxford English Dictionary

(2010) defines a bilingual as “speaking two languages fluently” or

“expressed in or using two languages”. The ability of children in using two

languages are now commonly become the usual thing for some mother

throughout the world. They tend to teach their children the second

language in the early age.

C. Children’s cognitive development in bilingual

According to Piaget (1896) there are four stages of children’s

cognitive development. Firstly, at the age of two years old, children

construct the understanding of the world by using the sensory motor

signal. The children can learn their first language by hearing and asking
the language. From this stage, the children begin to acquire their first

language.

Secondly, at the age of three to seven years old, the children are in

preoperational stages. The children represent the world by word. In this

stage, there is a relation between sensory information and physical action.

They understand the language and perform it based on their basic

knowledge about the language.

Thirdly, at the age of seven to eleven years of age, the children are

in concrete operational stage. In this stage, the children able to use their

intuitive thought. The can apply the language in the real context with the

concrete example. From this stage, it relates to critical period. At the age

of eleven, the children called native to their own language.

Fourthly, at the age of eleven to fifteenth, the children are in formal

operational stage. In this stage, the children can be called as teenager.

They place themselves beyond the world. They try to find their interest

and they begin to entertain their future by doing something they like.

Many researchers found that there is a relationship between

children’s cognitive and bilingual. During the children acquire their first

language; the children get some inputs from their environment. In this

condition, there is reinforcement for the children to produce and apply the

language in the social context. To process this acquisition, the children

actively construct their own world by learning the language (Lee, 2009).

According to Barac and Bialystok (2011) Learning two

languages in childhood changed the way in which children
 could think about language. Such meta-linguistic insights
are a central component of academic success in that they
are in part what schools are designed to teach. Learning two
languages shall improve the students’ literacy ability.

Teaching bilingual language to the children still has several key

issues, such as culture and language maintenance, individual, community,

and national identity, and equitable access to social, economic, and

educational opportunities. Based on the cognitive perspective,

bilingualism is one of the issues which are still learned by psychologist.

The psychologist said that bilingual language has the effects on mental and

intellectual capacities. There is possibility of positive but also negative

effects on children’s cognitive. On the other hand, many educators argue

that monolingual is better because two languages should not be a primary

educational goal in teaching children (Lee, 2009).

There are several studies conducted since the 1960s that there are

some negatives and intermediate positions that maintain the opposite in

terms of how the language is presented to the child. For the children with

monolingual shall be fluent to the language rather than bilingual children.

According to Chomsky theory “the successful establishment of

bilingualism depends of psychological factors such as motivation,

attitudes, willingness rather than physiological or biological ones”. It

means that the consideration of the children itself influence the bilingual

itself. If the children are willing to learn the language except of their first

language, the bilingual will follow as easy as learning their first language.
 Bilinguals develop cognitive skills in greater extent than

monolinguals; however this is not applied to all bilinguals. Thus, teaching

bilingual to the children should have agreement from the children itself.

To avoid the negative cognitive such as disadvantages if the children have

not reached it, this implies low competences in both languages; contrary to

those who master the language and may benefit of the cognitive

development.

D. The impact of Teaching bilingual language to early age children

Haugen (1956) said that bilingualism begins when the speaker of one

language can develop complete meaningful utterances in the other language.

Addtionally, Bloomfield (1993) claims that a bilingual person must have

native speaking competence in both languages. The children became native

on their language at the age of eleven; there no reason bilingual is effective

to the early age children.

According to several experts from learning landscapes’ journal

(2013) there are several reasons why teaching early bilingual still in pros

and cons. The first is bilingual make the early age children confuse to use

the language. The children will mix the vocabulary use because of the

limited resource. They might borrow some word in other language to

complete their utterance. As the researcher said that bilingual begins when

people fluent the first language. So, this bilingual do not appropriate to the

early age children. Secondly, the early age children will get language
 disorder when the language has not heard yet by the children in their

environment.

For the exception, teaching bilingual to the early age will give

some advantages to the early children. It will increase their language

awareness. As we know, babies are ready to learn many languages when

they are born. The important thing to do to teach bilingual in the early age

children is teaching them by majority language which is widely use in the

babies’ social life (Werker & Byers-Heinlein, 2008).

Bilingual are different; these are built up in a common foundation of

knowledge, feelings, experiences related to events, actions, people, objects,

opinions, ideas and the relationship between them. However some have

argued that bilingualism will necessarily have a negative effect on

cognitive development because it will be confusing. According to Backer

(2007) in Child Language Acquisition Focusing on Bilingualism journal,

this negative view was attributed to the academic under achievement of

linguistic minorities due to the cognitive confusion it creates when the

brain must process two languages simultaneously. In some cases this may

cause identity crisis if the individual presents confusion, anxieties and

struggles. However, it could be other aspects that affect the development

of bilingualism such as social, economic or political conditions.

E. The impact of bilingual on children first language

 Based on the theory of language acquisition, children should be

native to their first language before they learn the second language. When

the children have not to acquire the first language yet, they might lost and

erase their first language. If they are fluent to their first language, it will be

no problem.

F. Conclusion

Based on the explanation above too early teaching billingual is not

quiet good to their language performance in the social context. It is better

to consider when the bilingual to be taught. There are several

consideration that should be decided. The first is the age of the children,

second is the second language should be based on the majority language

that widely use in their environment, and the last is bilingual should be

taught after they are relly know their first language.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ball. J. (2011). Enhancing Learning Of Children From Diverse Language

Backgrounds: Mother Tongue-Based Bilingual Or Multilingual Education
In The Early Years. Paris: the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
cultural organization.
Byers-Heinlein. K. (2013). Bilingualism in the Early Years: What the Science

Says. Retrieved from

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259822414.

Serpa. L.A.C. (2014). Child Language Acquisition Focusing on Bilingualism. A

study among Norwegian-Spanish bilingual kindergartens in Oslo, Norway.

Retrieved from http://www.duo.uio.no/.

Syafei. A. F.R. 2016. Teaching Englsh to Indonesian young Learners. Jakarta:

prenamedia group.

THE