The project that I will be researching for the course Influences of Family, Culture, and Society in Early Childhood will be multiple language learners with a subtopic of home / school language divide.
I chose this challenge because I have always been fascinated with learning new languages and in the past have worked with immigrant families. In my work as a Home Visitor for Early Head Start I felt like the families who were not bilingual were not getting the same quality services as our English speaking families. The biggest reason for this I believed was a language barrier. I would like to discover how programs and educators can over come some of these challenges to support young children's language development in both home and school languages.
Some of the questions I have include:
Nelson Mandela once said: "If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart." I believe this quote exemplifies exactly what families of dual language learners need from educators.
I chose this challenge because I have always been fascinated with learning new languages and in the past have worked with immigrant families. In my work as a Home Visitor for Early Head Start I felt like the families who were not bilingual were not getting the same quality services as our English speaking families. The biggest reason for this I believed was a language barrier. I would like to discover how programs and educators can over come some of these challenges to support young children's language development in both home and school languages.
Some of the questions I have include:
- How can early childhood programs and public schools support a child's home language?
- How can early childhood programs and public schools communicate better with families who may not speak English or are Dual Language Learners?
- How can dual language families support their child in learning English?
- Should assessments be done in a child's home language or in both the home language and English?
- Should or can educators assess children's home language development?
- How can educators build relationships with immigrant families who may not speak English?
Nelson Mandela once said: "If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart." I believe this quote exemplifies exactly what families of dual language learners need from educators.
