Befenefits Of Bilingualism

Index

1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………p.2

2. Statement of the problem……………………………………………………p.2

3. Theoretical Background…………………………………………………….p.3

4. Objectives of the study………………………………………………………p.10

5. Research Questions…………………………………………………………p.10

6. Methodology…………………………………………………………………..p.10

7. Data analysis………………………………………………………………….p.11

8.Results……………………………………………………………………….p.11

9. Conclusions………………………………………………………………….p.16

10. Bibliography Resources…………………………………………………..p.17

11. Annex ………………………………………………………………………..p.19
1. Introduction

T
his project deals with the performance of students who study in bilingual schools. First of all, I would like introduce the most important term which is crucial to understand what is going on during this project. The first term which I am going to talkabout is Bilingualism. What is the meaning of this term? “Bilingualism is the ability to speak two languages. There is a difference between individual and social bilingualism as well as between instrumental and integrative bilingualism. Individual bilingualism means the bilingualism of the person, while social bilingualism refers to a bilingual society (e.g. Canada or Switzerland). An integratedbilingualism stands for the will of a person to integrate into a new society by learning its language as a second language”. (Bilingual Education in US. English as a second language for Hispanic children in School. Editorial Grin).
As Lam (2001: 93) Bilingualism is “the phenomenon of competition and communication in two languages”.
Despite these definitions, there are countless people who aretrying to find a proper definition of Bilingualism, which is really complex. Personally, I would define bilingualism as the ability of humans to speak two languages fluently. But this is a very subjective matter, because the individual will always be more fluent and will have a native level in only one of the two languages. A person will never have the skill to speak two languages in the same level.It would be very important to explain terms such as multilingualism, but will define it in point number three.

2. Statement of the problem
In this point, I am going to develop what is the ‘problem’ which I am going to investigate during this project, which is: Have pupils who study in bilingual schools highest academic outcomes than those who study in monolingual schools?
According to anarticle from El País, Elena Hidalgo, 2010, “the balance mandated by the Ministry of Education and the British Council on the experience of one hundred twenty Spanish public schools confirms the trend already showing other studies: that the bilingual students improve their ability to learn. This happens also in Spanish language, a fact which was register in autonomous that also have two officiallanguages.” In our country, these autonomous are Valencia, Basque country and Catalonia.
3. Theoretical Background
This research project focuses on the concepts of bilingual education, Immersion programs and academic achievement. I would also like to talk about Immersion programs, which sometimes is confused with Bilingual terms. And finally, I will introduce some theories/information aboutMultilingualism.
As Blanc, Michel; Hamers, Josiane (2000: 322) […] considering our definition, most programs of bilingual education fit into one of three categories:
(1) Instruction is given in both languages simultaneously.
(2)Instruction is given first in L and the pupil is taught until such time as he is able to use L as a means of learning.
(3) The largest proportion of instruction is giventhrough L , and L is introduced at a later stage, first as a subject and later as a medium of instruction.
This is a far cry from Mackey’s (1970; 1976) typology in which he distinguishes 90 types of bilingual education. He proposes a typology based on language use and distributed in space and time in four domains: home, school, environment and nation....