I found that the readings this week all explored a topic that keeps reappearing throughout multiple weeks of this class: the harms of monolingual ideology. Bilingualism and Achievement by Garcia et al. and Betty Yu’s research article mention how there is a widely held belief that teaching emergent bilingual students English alongside their home language would make it more difficult for students to learn English correctly. Many assert that it would be too much for the students to handle, especially for students with special needs as seen with Oscar. I also saw this in my language policy research as many people discouraged Chinese immigrants in sending their children to Chinese complementary schools as it would be too big of a burden. However, research has shown there are many cognitive benefits to being bilingual like more creative thinking, more communicative sensitivity, etc. Furthermore, research has also shown that teaching emergent bilinguals English by utilizing their home language is more effective than english only programs. Although emergent bilingual students in dual language programs are reclassified as fluent bilinguals slower than students in other programs, they have a higher reclassification rate and better academic performance. Overall research shows that dual language programs are overall more effective compared to English only programs, yet they are being utilized less in recent years which doesn’t make sense to me.
Another interesting point that I never really thought about is how directly linked the construct of language is to power. Similarly to those in power determining what is the standard language that should be used, it is those in power that establish what counts as a language. We saw this in the presentations with AAVE oftentimes not being recognized as its own language and instead as slang, even though it has its own grammar, sentence structure, and it traces some of its words back from West African languages. This is because it originated from the marginalized Black community. Similarly it took ASL decades to be recognized as an official language due to the emphasis on oral language. Another example is the hundreds of dialects in China that aren’t recognized as official languages despite how these dialects are often mutually unintelligible. Like AAVE in the US, with the focus on a standard language (Mandarin in China and English in the US), these other languages are ignored and suppressed.
The last point that piqued my interest is how translanguaging is different from code switching because the way language naturally works in our brain doesn’t separate and compartmentalize the languages with such clear boundaries. This is shown in Oscar’s case as he is still absorbing and understanding Mandarin despite usually being only directly spoken to in English. This case study reemphasizes that being bilingual isn’t too much for students with special needs and that we need to break free from that monolingual and monoglossic ideology.