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    Cognitive Theories of Bilingualism and The Curriculum

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    Estrella Janirol Humoc Piccio
    The document is a student's reflection assignment on theories of bilingualism and the curriculum. It discusses how early research viewed bilinguals as inferior to monolinguals, connected to naive theories where languages were kept separate and in balance. However, research now shows languages transfer between each other interactively from a common underlying proficiency. Theories now recognize the brain has capacity for multiple languages and attributes readily transfer between languages used in school lessons. Developing speaking, listening, reading and writing in both first and second languages helps the whole cognitive system, while insufficient development in the second language may negatively impact cognitive functioning and academic performance.

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    Cognitive Theories of Bilingualism and The Curriculum

    Uploaded by

    Estrella Janirol Humoc Piccio
    85 views3 pages
    The document is a student's reflection assignment on theories of bilingualism and the curriculum. It discusses how early research viewed bilinguals as inferior to monolinguals, connected to naive theories where languages were kept separate and in balance. However, research now shows languages transfer between each other interactively from a common underlying proficiency. Theories now recognize the brain has capacity for multiple languages and attributes readily transfer between languages used in school lessons. Developing speaking, listening, reading and writing in both first and second languages helps the whole cognitive system, while insufficient development in the second language may negatively impact cognitive functioning and academic performance.

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    Cognitive theories of Bilingualism and the Curriculum

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    The document is a student's reflection assignment on theories of bilingualism and the curriculum. It discusses how early research viewed bilinguals as inferior to monolinguals, connected to naive theories where languages were kept separate and in balance. However, research now shows languages transfer between each other interactively from a common underlying proficiency. Theories now recognize the brain has capacity for multiple languages and attributes readily transfer between languages used in school lessons. Developing speaking, listening, reading and writing in both first and second languages helps the whole cognitive system, while insufficient development in the second language may negatively impact cognitive functioning and academic performance.

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    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    85 views3 pages

    Cognitive Theories of Bilingualism and The Curriculum

    Uploaded by

    Estrella Janirol Humoc Piccio
    The document is a student's reflection assignment on theories of bilingualism and the curriculum. It discusses how early research viewed bilinguals as inferior to monolinguals, connected to naive theories where languages were kept separate and in balance. However, research now shows languages transfer between each other interactively from a common underlying proficiency. Theories now recognize the brain has capacity for multiple languages and attributes readily transfer between languages used in school lessons. Developing speaking, listening, reading and writing in both first and second languages helps the whole cognitive system, while insufficient development in the second language may negatively impact cognitive functioning and academic performance.

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    Republic of the Philippines

    BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY


    Gov. Pablo Borbon Campus I, Batangas City, Philippines 4200
    COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
    Tel. No. 980-0385 local 1125

    Name: ESTRELLA H. PICCIO Date: March 06,2021


    Course: LANG 606- BILINGUALISM AND BILINGUAL EDUCATION
    PROFESSOR: BENEDICT O. MEDINA, PhD

    ASSIGNMENT 03
    REFLECTION:  COGNITIVE THEORIES OF BILINGUALISM AND THE
    CURRICULUM

    Bilingualism and bilingual education need to consider other


    variables: cultural, social, political, community, teacher expectations,
    and home factors. In this chapter, it was noted that initial research
    into bilingualism and cognitive functioning and into bilingualism and
    educational attainment often found bilinguals to be inferior to
    monolinguals. This connects with a naive theory of bilingualism which
    represents the two languages as existing together in balance. The
    balance and balloon picture theories of bilingualism and cognition
    appear to be held intuitively by many people. Many parents and
    teachers, politicians and large sections of the public appear to
    latently, subconsciously take the balloon picture as the one that best
    represents bilingual functioning. Cummins (1980a) refers to this as
    the Separate Underlying Proficiency Model of Bilingualism. This
    model conceives of the two languages operating separately without
    transfer and with a restricted amount of ‘room’ for languages. Initially
    Cummins did not address these issues but has since revised his
    theoretical framework (Baker 2011). Research has also suggested
    that it is wrong to assume that the brain has only a limited amount of

    GRADUATE SCHOOL
    room for language skills, such that monolingualism is preferable.
    There is another fallacy with the balance or balloon theory. The
    assumption of the theory is that the first and second language are
    kept apart in two ‘balloons’ inside the head. The evidence suggests
    the opposite – that language attributes are not separated in the
    cognitive system, but transfer readily and are interactive. For
    example, when school lessons are through the medium of Spanish,
    they do not solely feed a Spanish part of the brain. Or when other
    lessons are in English, they do not only feed the English part of the
    brain. Rather lessons learnt in one language can readily transfer into
    the other language. Teaching a child to multiply numbers in Spanish
    or use a dictionary in English easily transfers to multiplication or
    dictionary use in the other language. A child does not have to be re-
    taught to multiply numbers in English. A mathematical concept can be
    easily and immediately used in English or Spanish if those languages
    are sufficiently well developed. Such easy exchange leads to an
    alternative idea called Common Underlying Proficiency (Cummins,
    1980a, 1981a).

    To sum it up, the researcher came up with these outlines that


    when a person owns two or more languages they come from the
    same central engine. Bilingualism and multilingualism are possible
    because we have the capacity to store two or more languages.
    Informational processing and educational attainment can be
    developed through two languages. Language in the classroom needs
    to be well developed to process cognitive challenges. Speaking,
    listening, reading, and writing in L1 and L2 helps the whole cognitive
    system to develop, but if children operate in an insufficiently
    developed L2 the system will not function.When one or both
    languages are not functioning fully cognitive functioning and
    academic performance may be negatively affected.

    GRADUATE SCHOOL
    GRADUATE SCHOOL

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