Perspectives on the ‘silent period’ for emergent bilinguals in England

This paper draws together the research findings from two ethnographic studies (Drury, 2007; Bligh, 2011) as a means to problematize the ‘silent period’ as experienced by young bilingual learners in two English speaking early years settings in England. Most teachers and senior early years practitioners in England are monolingual English speakers. The children (regardless of their mother tongue) are taught through the medium of spoken and written English in and through all subject areas. Bilingual learning through the mother tongue is not only disregarded in most schools in England but is actively discouraged in some. Three emergent bilingual learners were re-examined as case studies. Suki and Adyta (Bligh, 2011) of Japanese and Punjabi decent and Nazma (Drury, 2007) of Kashmiri descent were observed whilst they each negotiated new ways of knowing within and through an English pre-school setting. Sociocultural insights into how these young children employ their silenced mother tongue to negotiate their learning creates a fuller and richer portrait of the emergent bilingual learner both in and outside of preschool. These collaborative research findings present the silent period as agentive (Drury, 2007) and as a crucial time for self-mediated learning (Bligh, 2011) within the early years community of practice

From Bengali to English: sequential bilingualism of a second-generation British Bangladeshi

The paper discusses sequential language acquisition of the researcher's daughter Safa who transformed from a monolingual Bengali speaker to an almost monolingual English speaker in a few months after moving to the UK. Safa was born in Bangladesh and was a monolingual Bengali speaker until she was three years and nine months when the family moved to the UK. Unlike most research on sequential bilingualism, Safa's transition from Bengali to English went through a period of an invented language, which she developed and used for a few months. Safa then underwent language shift as Bengali became her passive language. Safa's loss of fluency in Bengali was mainly due to the absence of Bengali linguistic environment, because her family lived outside the community. Safa's mother's indifference to Bangladeshi ethnicity and her parents’ positive attitude towards Britishness meant that her decline in Bengali did not cause them much concern. Despite the lack of proficiency in Bengali, Safa still retains a strong ethnic Bangladeshi identity. Tabors and Snow’s four-stage developmental process of sequential second-language acquisition has been applied to find the similarities and differences in Safa's case, while language maintenance and shift theories have contributed to the analysis of the process of her language shift

Predictors of reading literacy for first and second language learners

In this study an attempt was made to construct a multi-factor model predicting the development of reading literacy in the upper grades of primary school in the Netherlands for subgroups of 729 first language (L1) learners and 93 second language (L2) learners. Following a longitudinal design, it was explored to what extent the variation in reading literacy development in L1 and L2 from grade 4 to grade 6 can be explained from children’s word decoding, language, mathematics and nonverbal reasoning skills, reading motivation and self confidence as well as their home reading resources. The results showed that L1 and L2 learners differed in reading literacy skills, language, mathematics, and reasoning skills. Structural equation modelling showed that the reading literacy development in both L1 and L2 learners could be explained from decoding, language, mathematics and reasoning skills, as well as their motivation and self-confidence. A striking difference was the fact that home reading resources had an impact on reading literacy in L1 learners but not in L2 learners

Home language, school language and children's literacy attainments: A systematic review of evidence from low‐ and middle‐income countries

The general consensus in the field is that when the home language is different from the language of instruction in school then children's literacy attainments could slow down. In this 26-year review of the literature on children's literacy attainments in low- to middle-income countries, 40 correlational, ethnographic and intervention studies provide the data. We test the ‘home language advantage’ hypothesis where we expect children who speak the same language at home and school to show better literacy learning. We also examine other attributes in the home language and literacy environment (HLLE). Among the multivariate studies, trends differ across countries, age and grade levels, and child measures. Rather than a universal home language advantage, the evidence shows that home language advantage is context-sensitive. The correlational and ethnographic evidence point to a multiple risk factors model of home and school language disconnection; and the ethnographic and intervention studies provide complementary evidence of both feelings of unease, disempowerment and wish to help among family members, and increased confidence following guided support. Possible underlying mechanisms are examined through parallel synthesis of evidence from multiple research methods on three HLLE dimensions—books-at-home, home tutoring and adult literacy practices. The data partially corroborate findings from high-income countries (e.g. home environments impact literacy development, responsive parenting is present across families) but also bring focus on context-specific realities. Neither low-income nor low-print environments are uniform constraints because communities differ and some homes use available resources more efficiently than others

Maternal and child predictors of low-income children's educational attainment

Much research has investigated maternal and child predictors of educational attainment. This longitudinal study builds on past research by examining how everyday mother-child conversations about decision-making in early adolescence predict adolescents' decisions to drop out of high school, terminate their education with a high school degree, or complete high school and enroll in tertiary education. Forty-four mothers' use of emotionally enabling speech and willingness to allow their 7th grade children (25 girls; 19 boys) to select their friends predicted children's later decisions about educational attainment in high school. In contrast, children's reported intrinsic motivation, receptive vocabulary scores, and mothers' education did not predict children's educational attainment. These findings underscore the importance of going beyond status variables such as maternal education, to incorporate measures of parent-child interaction in predicting adolescents' educational trajectories. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved