Education et Sociétés Plurilingues 13-décembre 2002
First and second language learning in early bilingual education. Cognitive
theories and their implications for teachers
Christine HÉLOT
L'articolo riguarda il rapporto fra acquisizione/apprendimento della lingua materna e
della lingua seconda nei programmi didattici bilingui, da un punto di vista cognitivo. La
sua finalità è presentare ai docenti alcune diverse prospettive di ricerca, in particolare
per ciٍ che concerne la relazione tra il livello di competenza in L1 necessario per
un'efficace acquisizione della L2, e le modalità con cui l'approccio riflessivo puٍ avere
un'influenza positiva sulla L1.
L'article concerne la relation entre l'acquisition/apprentissage de la langue maternelle et
de la langue seconde dans les programmes d'éducation bilingue d'un point de vue
cognitif. Son objectif est de présenter aux enseignants différentes perspectives de
recherche en particulier la relation entre un certain niveau de compétence en L1
nécessaire pour l'acquisition réussie de la L2 et comment une approche réflexive dans
l'apprentissage des L2 peut aussi avoir une influence positive sur la L1.
Introduction
Models of bilingual education vary a lot from country to country: either
children are schooled through two prestigious languages, as in Argentina
with Spanish and English, in Alsace (France) with French and German, in
Canada with English and French, or through two languages which do not
have the same status, as in the United States where Spanish is considered as
a minority language, or in the Basque Country in France where the Basque
language is seen as a regional language.
Keeping that in mind, this presentation will report on research from
different contexts of bilingual education as well as from the field of second
language acquisition (SLA) and foreign language learning (FLL), in order
to give teachers a broader view of different hypotheses and theoretical
frameworks concerning the relationship between first language (L1) and
second/foreign language (L2/FL) learning and teaching.
Several terminological remarks need to be made: "second language" refers
here to a language being added to the first as a learning medium in school
(English in bilingual schools in Argentina for example), whereas "foreign
language" refers to a language being taught as a subject in school (English
in French schools). In the same way, we use the term "learning" for the
latter," more formal context and acquisition" for the informal context of the
first language and less informal context of the second language in bilingual
schools. Obviously, in school, there is also learning of the L1 and
C. Hélot, First and second language learning
acquisition of the FL, this is the reason why specialists of didactics in
France prefer to use the generic term "appropriation", to cover the various
processes of language learning and acquisition from the linguistic, social,
psychological etc., point of view.
Another distinction must be made between "simultaneous bilingualism",
where children are exposed to two languages before the age of 3 (Mc
Laughlin, 1984) and what different researchers call either "successive
bilingualism" (Harding and Riley, 1986) or "sequential bilingualism"
(Baker, 1996, Mac Laughlin, 1984), or "consecutive bilingualism",
(Hamers et Blanc, 1983), meaning that the second language is acquired at
home or learned in the school context after the acquisition of the first
language, even if children are schooled at a very young age.
The paper will look first at the importance of L1 and the fact that children
are already competent learners when they come to school, and at the
difference between SLA, L2 learning and FLL. It will then summarize
Cummins' research (1976, 1980, 1981, 1983, 1984) on the correlation
between a certain level of competence in L1 for the successful acquisition
of L2, Luc and Bailly work (1992) on how a reflexive approach on L1 can
be a basis for FLL, Germain and Netten's study (2001) on how 2LL can
improve proficiency in both L1 and L2 and Jacobson's (1990) and
Castellotti's (2001) research on the value of integrating L1 and L2 in
bilingual lessons.
First and second language acquisition: is it the same process?
Despite intense research we still know very little about how children
acquire language(s). However, what is possible is to observe children and
see what they can do with language. Children use language for building
relationships, exchanging information, thinking, playing with words,
learning and communicating while learning. We know today that the ability
to communicate is prior to linguistic development: for example babies start
to communicate before they can produce any words; then they want to
exchange information and they start naming people around them, then they
try to make sense of the world around them. As they continue to grow, their
language develops and they become more sophisticated interactors (for ex
as reflected in the use of pronouns: using you to call their mother and
father, children show they are aware of the separate existence of others);
from then on their personality develops and when they go to school they
start playing with other children and cooperating and use their language(s)
to interact with peers and adults and to learn.
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C. Hélot, First and second language learning
Therefore, children need language to socialize, to communicate, to
understand the world and to learn. As Harding and Riley (1986: 8) write:
"A child learning a language is learning about the world, about how it is
organised and how it works. This is very different from the adult learning a
second language who tends to work the other way round: he brings his
world with him and uses the language to try to express it."
When children join a bilingual program where they are going to learn
through their L1 as well as through an additional language, it is important
to acknowledge several facts about the L1: first it has been acquired in the
home context and second its development is not finished by the time
children enter school. As to the L2, its development will not be the same
process simply because the L1 (and sometimes other languages) is already
present.
The importance of L1
It is because children have been acquiring their L1 that they can learn,
which means that they have started learning before entering school or preschool and this should not be overlooked by teachers. As Vygotsky (1978)
wrote, “Children’s learning begins long before they attend school so any
learning encountered in school by a child has a previous history”.
What have children learned before coming to school? They have learned to
make sense of the world around them, to interpret situations including clues
from cultural input, in other words to make their own meaning from their
experience and through collaborating and negotiating with others. By the
age of 5 or 6 children are successful communicators; they can make what
they say intelligible to their listeners even before they have reached mature
levels of comprehension and production. Indeed, children understand more
than what they are able to say and this is thought to be essential for their
language development. By the time they start school, children also have
developed an innate knowledge of how language works which is revealed
in the errors they make (I *goed to the zoo shows they are testing the "ed"
inflection on all verbs) and in the fact that they are aware that some things
they say are not correct. They also invent rules, make hypotheses about
language, imitate, generalize, play language games etc., which shows the
"intelligence" of their learning process. All these abilities are essential to
the learning process and to the development of language.
So children come to the classroom with much to contribute: they have
some knowledge of the world and of their L1, different skills and ways of
processing information (visual, auditory, kinaesthetic), a range of
intelligence and learning styles, and they show creative and critical
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C. Hélot, First and second language learning
thinking. Therefore, teachers should build on what children already know
and help them to move from the known to the new, remembering how
complex it is to learn to speak and that errors are the evidence that children
are learning.
Second language acquisition in school
The context of acquisition of the L2 is obviously very different from the L1
home context. At home, children are immersed in a language “bath”, they
are surrounded by language which is contextualized and which is linked to
the here and now, to visible and immediate action. Language use within the
home context relates to the child directly and is linked to the care and
understanding of parents, grandparents, siblings, etc.; besides, it is both
verbal and non-verbal and includes a variety of speech acts, intonation,
stress, etc., but does not prioritize particular structures. Furthermore,
language at home is very repetitive on a daily basis, large in quantity over a
long period of time and it is also meaningful and purposeful because social
interaction is at the core of language use.
While the home context seems to provide ideal conditions for language
development, a school context where children learn through a L2 for a
substantial amount of time throughout the week, will not provide the same
learning environment. The dialogic relationship in the home language is
hard to replicate in a class of 20 or 30 children. As shown by Wells (1986:
87), teachers often dominate in conversation and do not take into account
the meaning children offer in their utterances as often as parents do. He
explains this by the considerable disparity between the teachers and the
children's linguistic resources and mental models and insists: “As
repeatedly emphasized, conversation is a reciprocal activity: the more one
participant dominates, the more opportunities for the other participant to
make his or her own personal contribution are reduced and constrained.”
In other words meaning making in conversation? whether in L1 or L2
should be a collaborative activity and teachers should make adjustments. It
is interesting to note that Wells saw this lack of reciprocity in activities
where teachers talked with a whole class following the reading of a story
when in fact the aim of such an activity is to expand on the children’s
language, on their comprehension, expression and meaning making.
Learning through two languages at school - the relationship between L1
and L2
Cummins' theories (1980, 1981) of the relationship between bilingualism
and cognition are particularly interesting because they directly address the
question of the relationship between L1 and L2, the question of level of
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C. Hélot, First and second language learning
bilingual competence, the nature of competence and the importance of
context as related to competence.
The Common Underlying Proficiency (CUP) model
Many parents and teachers still believe intuitively in naive theories of the
functioning of bilingualism in the brain as if the two languages existed
together in a balance, the second language increasing at the expense of the
first, as if monolingual individuals had one well-filled language balloon in
the head whereas bilinguals would have two less filled or half filled
language balloons. Cummins describes these naive theories of bilingualism
as the “Separate Underlying Proficiency Model”: it conceives of the two
languages functioning separately without transfer and with a restricted
amount of room.
Since the 70's, a growing body of research has shown convincingly that
there is enough room in the brain not only for two languages but for more
as well, that it is not a question of room, and that indeed language attributes
are not apart in the cognitive system but transfer readily and are interactive.
For example, lessons taught through the medium of English do not feed
only an English part of the brain and lessons learnt in one language can
readily transfer into the other; teaching a child to multiply in English or use
a dictionary can easily transfer in another language, the child does not have
to be retaught to multiply in Spanish or German.
This led Cummins to develop an alternative model of bilingualism which
he called “The Common Underlying Proficiency” model; this model
explains that the two languages are separate on the surface but fused below
(Baker 1996, represents it like one iceberg with two peaks above the
surface) therefore they do not function separately, but operate through the
same processing system even if above the two languages are visibly
different in outward conversation.
The CUP model suggests that when a person owns two or more languages
there is only one integrated source of thought and that bilingualism is
possible because people have the capacity to store easily two or more
languages. This means as Baker writes (1996: 148): "Information
processing skills and educational attainment may be developed through
two languages as well as through one language. Cognitive functioning and
school achievement may be fed through one monolingual channel or
equally successfully through two well developed language channels. Both
channels feed the same central processor".
But as Cummins (1976) and Toukomaa and Skutnabb-Kangas (1977)
pointed out, the cognitive challenges of the classroom demand a certain
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C. Hélot, First and second language learning
level of development in the language(s) the child is using. Cognitive
functioning and academic performance may be affected negatively if the
two languages of a bilingual are not functioning fully (because of social
pressure for example) or positively, if the child is moving towards balanced
bilingualism. This is summarized in the "Thresholds Theory".
The thresholds Theory
The Thresholds Theory looks at the relationship between the levels of
competence in both languages and the resulting consequences on cognition.
Baker (1996: 149) portrays the theory as a house with three floors. Each
threshold corresponds to a level of language competence that has
consequences for the child. The first threshold is the level to reach to avoid
negative consequences of bilingualism, the second is the level required to
experience the possible benefits of bilingualism. So the theory explains, up
to a certain point, why some children benefit cognitively from bilingualism
while for some others, bilingualism may have detrimental consequences.
Many other researches support the Thresholds Theory (see Baker, 1996 for
review). It should be made clear, however, that it was developed in the
context of bilingual education for minority students. The theory does help
to understand why minority language children taught through a second
language sometimes fail to develop sufficient competency in their second
language. For example the low level of proficiency in French of some
migrant children in France would limit their ability to cope in the
curriculum with the conceptual tasks of the classroom. However some
recent research (see, below, Germain and Netten, 2001) has validated the
Thresholds Theory in a non-minority context.
Cummins tried to understand further the relationship between the first
language and the second language and developed another theory: the
Developmental Interdependence hypothesis.
The Developmental Interdependence hypothesis
This theory suggests that a child’s L2 competence is partly dependent on
the level of competence already achieved in the L1. That is to say, the more
developed the L1, the easier it will be to develop the L2, and when the first
language is at a low stage of evolution, it will be more difficult to achieve
bilingualism. Many other researchers support this theory and those who
support bilingualism have shown how the L1 children bring with them to
school should be kept and developed because L2 development relies
strongly on L1 proficiency.
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C. Hélot, First and second language learning
The results of Cummins' research (1984) point to the need for teachers to
understand what is at stake when children come to school to learn in a
different language from the one they speak at home. In an additive
bilingual educational setting, even if the languages are separated within the
curriculum and according to teachers, it stresses the importance of building
on the language abilities already developed at home in the L1 and
obviously to develop further the L1, because the more developed the L1,
the easier it will be to develop the L2.
What Cummins regards as essential in the bilingual education of children is
that the CUP is sufficiently developed whether in the first or second
language or in both simultaneously, to cope with the curriculum processes
of the classroom. And to this end, he makes a distinction between two
different kinds of competence: "Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills"
(BICS) and "Cognitive/Academic Language Proficiency" (CALP).
BICS and CALP
BICS refers to surface fluency and abilities such as holding a simple
conversation in a shop for example, whereas CALP refers to the more
evolved language skills required to benefit from the education process.
BICS usually occur when there is contextual support for language delivery
(at home for example), and CALP occurs in context reduced academic
situations (at school).
This distinction was criticized by other researchers (Martin-Jones and
Romaine, 1986) as too simplified and imprecise so that Cummins proposed
another model looking at communicative proficiency with two dimensions.
The first dimension looks at the amount of contextual support available to a
learner (for example body language, intonation gestures, pointing to objetcs
are clues which help to understand a message), and the second at the level
of cognitive demands required in communication (it can be undemanding
in a conversation being held in a shop and demanding in a classroom where
a lot of information must be processed quickly). This model helps to
explain other research findings (see Baker 1996) and has obvious
curriculum relevance.
As Baker (1996: 156) writes, "what a child brings to the classroom in
terms of previous learning is a crucial starting point for the teacher"
because as we have explained above, the child's reservoir of knowledge,
understanding and experience provides a meaningful context. And it is
from this meaningful context that the teacher can build more or less
cognitively demanding tasks and activities which are more or less context
embedded. Baker (1996) gives the example of listening to a story which is
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C. Hélot, First and second language learning
dramatized: gestures, miming, pictures make it context embedded, whereas
listening to the same story on a cassette makes it context reduced.
However, it is not always easy to disentangle the cognitive from the
contextual and to elaborate appropriate teaching strategies according to
these two dimensions. But there is no doubt that understanding and
thinking are affected by the contextual support and the degree of cognitive
demands in a task. Therefore Cummins' theories, although presented here
very briefly, and questioned by other researchers, are relevant to bilingual
teachers' preoccupations.
The relationship between L& and L2: metalinguistic approaches
A different perspective and context for looking at the relationship between
L1 and L2 can be found in the field of FLL. Today, most researchers no
longer envisage learners of FLs as "victims" of the complex relationship
between L1 and FL, but rather as "active learners" who can call on their L1
whenever they need to in order to develop their own strategies for FLL (Py,
1992). And FL specialists are beginning to suggest a more integrated
approach of the teaching of L1 and FLs (Delamotte 1997, Castellotti,
2001).
An integrated didactic approach of L1 and L2
Metalinguistic reflection, i.e.; being able to explicitly describe and analyse
how some linguistic items work, is central to the complex question of the
relationship between L1 and L2 learning in a formal context. The French
education system for example insists on the importance of adopting a
comparative approach between the FL and L1 but in reality, L1 and FLs are
considered as different subjects in schools, each taught within their own
didactic and pedagogical principles, with very few links made in a cross
curricular way. The same situation can be observed in teacher education
where language contents are divided up according to each language.
Castellotti (2001) describes several interesting projects in different parts of
the world (Brazil, France and Canada) where an attempt has been made to
articulate the teaching of L2s or FLs to the teaching of L1. All these
projects tend to show the importance of metalinguistic reflection and
activities in order to bring the languages involved closer, to concentrate on
the pragmatic aspects of communicative competence, and to facilitate the
acquisition of L2/FL, as well as developing a clearer and more explicit
understanding of the way not only L2/FLs work but L1as well. She writes
"We should reflect more generally on the importance of metalinguistic
awareness in language acquisition and learning, on its role from the
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C. Hélot, First and second language learning
reflective as well as communicative point of view in so far as it allows a
more reasoned and efficient use of language" (p. 91).
A French primary school project led by Bailly and Luc (1992) illustrates
what is meant by metalinguistic reflection and activities. The project
concerned children of 10 in their last year of primary school, learning
English and German as FLs. The teachers started by getting the children to
reflect on the functioning of their L1 (French), i.e.; to start from what the
children knew best, before looking at the FLs they were beginning to learn.
Among other items, the question of gender through personal pronouns was
examined in French, English and German. In French, children know there
are two, "il" and "elle" and will see the rule for dividing humans between
feminine and masculine as logical, whereas the distribution is arbitrary for
non humans; confronted with English they will discover three pronouns
"he", "she" and "it", and that the relationship to reality is organised
differently and more logically in English than in French; looking next at
German they will find three pronouns as well "er", "sie" and "es" but again
organised differently from English and French.
The approach consists in observing and discovering first how L1 works,
then how L2, L3 work, and understanding that there is no term for term
correspondence between different languages. The authors describe the
process as "deconstructing" what the children know unconsciously about
their L1 and "reconstructing" consciously new rules for the FLs. This
allows children to be confronted to the notion of relativity i.e.; to
understand that different languages express reality differently. It is a first
step towards moving from the L1 to other languages as the approach is
envisaged as a preparation for the learning of FLs and followed by
activities where the children practise the new rules they have discovered.
Second language learning to improve fluency, accuracy and proficiency
both in L1 and L2
In Canada, another approach was implemented in some schools in Labrador
and Newfoundland (Germain and Netten 2001), where pupils were given
intensive teaching of the L2 (French in Canada is not a FL) over a period of
time. The aims of the research were to test Cummins' Interdependence
Hypothesis, not to look at the transfer of competence from L1 to L2, but to
find out whether what is acquired in 2LL can also benefit the development
of L1 competence. The pedagogical approach is based on specific school
projects and aims at improving fluency, accuracy and proficiency in both
languages. The results at this stage seem to show that the various
competences acquired in L2 have been transferred to L1, which would
mean that Cummins' hypothesis is valid not only in the context of bilingual
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C. Hélot, First and second language learning
education for migrant children but also in other contexts, where the
motivation for 2LL is different.
Didactic integration of two languages in bilingual education
To finish, we shall return to the context of bilingual education. Language
allocation in bilingual classrooms is not the purpose of this paper (see
Baker, 1996: 232-241 for a summary). But it is interesting to mention the
work of some researchers (Jacobson, 1990, Coste et Pasquier, 1998) who
have argued that the integrated use of both languages as distinct from
separated use, can be of great value in a lesson; of course, the concurrent
use of the two languages need to be structured and purposeful.
Thus, in the Val d'Aoste in Italy, which is an officially bilingual
(French/Italian) region, an educational law stipulates that Italian and
French must be given an equal number of hours in schools, and that some
subjects can be taught through French. Since 1988, the two languages are
used in equal amounts for the teaching of all school subjects. This is
organised with three teachers working with two classes, each teacher being
responsible for one subject domain which will be taught in the two
languages, so that languages are not separated according to teachers or
subjects. The aim is to encourage the use of both languages at all levels but
always within clear objectives, that is to say to articulate closely language
switching and the construction of concepts with a great variety of teaching
supports. Castellotti (2001) shows from recordings she did in such classes
how the use of both languages during one activity can help to build the
same concept in an alternate way, giving it more substance from a
linguistic and cognitive point of view. After ten years, this program shows
that knowledge acquired in a more diversified way is richer, that concept
formation is finer and at the same time that the level of communicative
competence in both languages is very high. Using three teachers, two
languages and diversified documents means that children are exposed to
multiple points of view and resources on which they can build to develop
knowledge.
Conclusion
The relationship between L1 and L2 in learning and teaching is by no
means a simple one, neither in bilingual contexts nor in a formal FLL
context. Teachers should be made aware that children come to school with
some knowledge of language and how it works and that this very
knowledge is the basis on which to build further development of L1 and
acquisition/learning of L2/FL.
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Obviously educating children through two languages demands clear
choices as far as the way the two languages are used and boundaries set,
but teachers should not be afraid of making links between the L1 and the
L2/FL. Making links does not necessarily mean advocating code mixing in
class, (although most researchers see code mixing and code switching as a
specificity of bilingual speech), it means taking into account the fact that
children are learning from their experiences, from their knowledge of the
world which has been fashioned first by their L1; building on this
knowledge means the two languages can contribute to a higher level of
proficiency, a deeper understanding of how languages work, in the same
way as belonging to several cultures makes one richer. It also implies of
course that teachers should not look at bilingual individuals as if they were
two separate monolinguals, but as specific speakers/hearers of two or
several languages (Grosjean, 1982), as multilinguals who are able to build
bridges rather than erect frontiers.
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