Copyright © 2017, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

Benefits of Bilingualism in Early Childhood: A Booster ofTeaching English to Young Learners

Rismareni Pransiska

Department of Early Childhood Education, Faculty of Education, Universitas Negeri Padang

Corresponding e-mail: pransiskaunp2008@gmail.com

Abstract

For many years, bilingual program continues to receive criticism. Many experts believed that it could affect intellectualdevelopment. A number of opinions on bilingualism are often based on myths and misinterpretations, but less on scientificfindings. There are numbers of myths about bilingualism and in particular about teaching children a second language earlysuch as, language learning delay, split personality, cerebral confusion or mixing language that affects confusion. In spite ofreceiving criticism, there are many advantages that support bilingualism. This article is going to discuss about the definitionof bilingualism, benefits of bilingualism in early childhood; cognitive advantages, social-emotional advantages, and careeradvantages. Furthermore, this article highlights about the phenomenon of teaching English to young learners in Indonesia inrelation to benefits of being bilingual. Since English has gained the status of international lingua franca, therefore teachingEnglish as a foreign language (afterward EFL) has become one of the major issues both to governments and individuals.Introducing English to young learner meets the benefits of bilingualism in early childhood.

Keywords: Bilingualism, Early Childhood, TEYL

1 INTRODUCTION

In Indonesia, English is still regarded as a foreignlanguage. EFL program is only taught in Englishclass, mostly two or three hours a week inSecondary school and High school level. EFL is notused in daily communication. Indonesian people useBahasa or their mother tongue. In the past, teachingEnglish in Indonesia was started from elementaryschool, even in many kindergartens children learnedEnglish. However, nowadays, the government omitsEnglish as a subject in Elementary school becauseEnglish is considered as a difficult subject forchildren and it will burden them. It is also believedthat teaching English in early childhood will causebilingualism which impacts the children in anegative way.

This phenomenon is completely different withother countries. Malaysia, for instance, encouragestheir students to learn English as early as possible.Most of the kindergarten program provide Englishsubject to their students. In addition, Malaysia putsEnglish as their second language, which is widelyused in school, public communication and much

more. The government also has begun implementingnew curriculum to help boost the English languagelearning as a means of encouraging the youngergeneration towards being better compete with theglobal community for nowadays and future.Furthermore, the government gives attention toensuring students' English language proficiencythrough an emphasis on bilingualism (BahasaMalaysia and English)

In the USA, bilingualism is viewed as an effortto give an opportunity to learn a second language ata young age (King & Fogle, 2006). Many two-waybilingual education programs are growing rapidly asthe explosive demand of parents who want theirchildren being bilingual, in which both majority-language and minority-language children learn twolanguages (Center for Applied Linguistics, 2005). Itis implied that bilingualism starts from family andcontinued with a supported education program.Parents could start it with providing their childrenwith video, flashcard, and books in the targetlanguage. By providing the children with plenty of

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input and interaction with the second language,bilingualism could proceed effectively.

This article is going to examine aboutbilingualism; separating between myth and scientificfinding on bilingualism. There are many advantagesof bilingualism in early childhood. Bilingualismgives benefit on cognitive, social-emotional, andacademic/career advantages toward the children. It ishoped that this article helps parents and teachersavoid common misconceptions about bilingualism.

2 BILINGUALISM

2.1 What is bilingualism?

Language is a part of our lives. Most of our activitiesare used to communicate. People start communicatessince they are babies. When a baby born, theenvironment influence what language she/he willuse later on. At the first time, the baby acquireshis/her mother tongue. Later on, she/he learnsanother language. Some people find it easier thanothers in learning a new language but most of us cando it. People who can speak two languages areconsidered as bilingual. Bilingualism is known asability to use two languages in everyday life.Bilingualism is quite common and happen in manyparts of the world, with perhaps one in three peoplebeing bilingual or multilingual (Wei, 2000).

2.1.1 Fact and Myth about Bilingualism

Naturally, children have the capacity and ability tolearn more than one languages at their age. Theirinterest to language is quite huge. This concept has aclose connection with how the children acquirelanguage and how their language progress years byyears. Actually, many factors influence them such aschildren age, language exposure, and socialinteraction. Raising bilingual children not only achallenge but also remains many questions on it.There are a number of myths about bilingualism andin particular about teaching children a secondlanguage early such as, language learning delay, splitpersonality, cerebral confusion or mixing languagethat affects confusion.

In the past, bilingualism was considered ascauses of slow language development. Many parentsare apprehensive their children having languagedelay if they learn two different languages at thesame period. But the fact is, speech and languagedelays can have many causes, mostly neurological orphysiological. However, there is no strong evidencerelated to bilingualism. In addition, one myth aboutbeing bilingual is bilinguals have double or splitpersonalities. The fact is, bilinguals, like no

bilingual, suit their attitude to different circumstancesand people. This often leads to a change of languagein bilingual. This phenomenon shows that, languageis a unique system. As Grosjean cited, after havingreorganized themselves, the language of bilingualusually attain the linguistic level needed for theperson's new life (Grosjean: 2010, p 244).

One of the biggest attention that parents haveabout raising children in a bilingual environment isconfusion. When bilingual children mix words fromtwo languages in the same sentence, it is often takenas evidence for confusion. This is what we call ascode mixing. Actually, code mixing is a usual andnatural part of bilingual development, and bilingualchildren surely have good motivation to do code mix(Pearson, 2008.) Instead of being a sign ofconfusion, code mixing can be viewed as anindication of bilingual children’s creativity inlanguage (Heinlein and Williams, 2013).

2.1.2 Benefits of Bilingualism

After separating fact and myth about bilingualism,now let's take a look at benefits of bilingualism.Many studies show that raising bilingual childrengive many benefits and advantages. Baker (2002:12) cited that there are some advantages of beingbilingual; communication, cultural, cognitive,character, curriculum and career advantages. Thisarticle is going to discuss only cognitive, social-emotional, and career/academic advantages.

2.1.2.1 Cognitive benefits

Being bilingual has connected to a number ofcognitive advantages. Cognitive function refers tothe mechanism of brain acquiring information.Children who are raised in bilingual environmenthave been found to be better competence than theirmonolingual peers at focusing on a task while tuningout disruption. Their capability to concentrate isbetter than no bilingual. The result is strongest inpeople who learned a second language before fiveand in those who are most capable in their secondlanguage. This finding implies that being bilingualfrom an early age significantly alters the brain'sstructure of the human. However, as Rueda ‘work(1983) using analytical orientation in language testfound that cognitive advantages may be shared bybelow average ability children and not just averageand above ability children (Baker, 2011: 160). Inaddition, being bilingual makes mechanism ofcognitive more flexible, which is applied to atemporal domain (efficient switching betweenpreparatory intervals of different duration), andextends to the cognitive control processes in social

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categorization tasks (Marzecova, Bukowski, Correa,Boros, Lupianez, Wodniccka, 2013).

2.1.2.2 Social-Emotional Benefits

Bilingual children have benefit to able to make newfriendship conveniently. They also can make goodcompanionship using their second language becausethey can speak more than one language. This is animportant skill in making new networking in thisglobal world. They also can learn new culturethrough language. People say, learn a languagemeans we learn the culture as well. As King andMackey (2007: 8) stated that bilingual children aremore simply to make friends from other languagesand culture groups, both within their languageschool programs and. They also have positiveattitude and respect about other culture and groupsas well. It implies that bilingual children could bemulticultural and they appreciate people from othercountries and culture more.

2.1.2.3 Academic and Career Benefits

Speaking more than one language could open a bigchance for children to enter their favorite university.Entering good universities need requirements forpassing language tests especially English test. Whenthey are introduced to English from early yearsespecially in Kindergarten, it will give positiveimpact later on. As Jafar (2011) did in her researchin Jordan, she found that kindergarten years provedto be effective for bilinguals who were to learnanother language in order to engage in themainstream community, and to learn a thirdlanguage as well.

Related to vocabulary development,Thordardottir (2011) found strong relationshipbetween amount of exposure to a language andperformance. Her research is on 5-year-old Montrealchildren that acquiring French and English. She saidthat “Children having been exposed to bothlanguages equally scored comparably tomonolingual children in receptive vocabulary, butgreater exposure was required to match monolingualstandards in expressive vocabulary.” It implies thatbeing bilingual give impact to vocabularydevelopment, however, this relationship wasdifferent for receptive and expressive vocabulary.

Encouraging children learn the secondlanguage also open a competitive on the job marketin the future. Many workplaces and company wanttheir employees who are proficient in multiplelanguages. Mastering different language is an assetfor children in the future.

3 TEACHING ENGLISH ININDONESIA

What about bilingualism in Indonesia? As one of theinternational language in the world, English shouldbe a priority to be chosen in term of bilingualism. Itneeds extra effort to do it. Let us start from home.Many parents do not have competency inintroducing English in their family. They also do notknow how to make their children get acquaintancewith English. As a result, children do not haveEnglish basic from their home. What about inschool? A small portion is given to English teaching.Several years ago, English is included in elementaryschool curriculum, but in recent year the governmentomits it. They assume it will confuse and burden thechildren. This opinion is contrary to the concept ofbilingual.

Early years is the golden moment to introducea second language; any language. Considering thebenefits of bilingualism, the government shouldencourage elementary school and kindergartenteachers to introduce and use English in theirclasses, in fun way, indeed. Being bilingual givesmany advantages for children especially for theirfuture particularly if they could master English.There are many methods and interesting media thatcan be used to teach English to children. It is hopedthat they are motivated to know and learn English.Parents could also start it with simple English fromhome so that the children get acquaintance withEnglish.

4 CONCLUSIONS

Bilingualism is not hazardous for children.Misunderstanding about the concept of bilingualismfor years make many parents, teachers, and peopledo not realize the benefit of it. After separating mythand fact about bilingualism, people realize that manybenefits and advantages could be gained from it. Topromote successful bilingual development, bothparents and teacher should work together. English asone of international language should be priory interm of bilingualism in Indonesia. It is usedworldwide, therefore, placing English as the secondlanguage is a good thought in Indonesia. Introducingand teaching English in early years of our childrencould give many benefits for their future.

After reading this article, it is hoped that manyparents and the teacher could put English as theirconcern to raise bilingual children in the home andschool. Do not afraid to teach your children Englishin early childhood. And for the government, it ishoped that the English language gets bigger portion

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in the school curriculum. It could be started fromkindergarten and elementary school. It gives noharmful for the children but on the contrary, it willgive many benefits for their future. Many factorsinfluence the successful of English learning, one ofthem is the age. It is a good idea to start Englishfrom early years without no worry aboutmisunderstanding about bilingualism.

5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was supported by Department of EarlyChildhood Education, Faculty of Education, andState University of Padang. Thank you to DewiMulya, Ph.D for helping me correcting my Englishand Dr. Sarah Ohi (Deakin University), for giving neinspiration to this writing.

6 REFERENCES

Baker, Colin. (2002). The care and education ofyoung bilinguals: An introduction forProffesionals. Great Britain: CambrianPrinters Ltd

Baker, C. (2006). Foundations of bilingualeducation and bilingualism (4th Ed.).Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters

Baker, C. (2011). Foundations of bilingualeducation and bilingualism (5th Ed.).Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters

Grosjean, François. (2010). Bilingual: life andreality. Harvard University Press

Heinlein, Krista Byersand Casey Lew Williams.(2013). Bilingualism in the Early Years:What the Science Say. LEARNingLandscapes | Vol. 7, No. 1, autumn 2013.LEARNing Landscapes | Vol. 7, No. 1, A

King, K.A. & Fogle, L. (2006) Bilingual Parentingas Good Parenting: Parents’ Perspectives onFamily Language Policy for AdditiveBilingualism. The International Journal ofBilingual Education and Bilingualism. Vol. 9,No. 6, 2006

King, Kendall & Mackey, Alison. (2007). TheBilingual Edge: The Ultimate Guide to Why,When and How to teach your Child SecondLangauge. USA: HarperCollins Publishers

Marzecova, A., Bukowski, M., Correa, A., Boros,M., Luianez, J., & Wodniccka, Z. 2013.Tracing the Bilingual Advantages inCognitive Control: The Role of Flexibility inTemporal Preparation and CategorySwitching. Journal of Cognitive Psycology.Vol 25 2013 page 586-604

Pearson, B. Z. (2008). Raising a bilingual child.NewYork: Random House.

Thordardortir, Elin. (2011). The relationshipbetween bilingual exposure and vocabularydevelopment. The International Journal ofBilingulism. Desember 2011, Vol 15 No 4page 426-445

Wei, L. (2000). Dimensions of bilingualism. InL.Wei (Ed.), The bilingualism reader (pp. 3–25).New York: Routledge.

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