Sandor PAPER Bilingualism in EYS in the Eyes of a Bilingual Educator

Proceedings of ‏The 2nd World Conference on Teaching and Education

Year: 2021

DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/2nd.worldcte.2021.01.05

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Sandor PAPER Bilingualism in EYS in the Eyes of a Bilingual Educator

Judit Sandor

 

ABSTRACT: 

Parents often seek advice from pediatricians and early education professionals on what to teach their children in a bilingual household. The most common questions are, “Should I introduce a second language to my child? Is this going to confuse my child? This paper will give parents and educators a clear answer to these questions proved by many research and statistics. It will also give an overall idea of how to behave in a bilingual environment, giving them methods of teaching and ways of exercising bilingualism with their children in or outside the family environment. In this paper I also discuss not just the importance of learning a second language from a very young age, but also, how important it is to teach a new culture alongside the second language itself. I have used Qualitative and online researches.  Working in this sector for eight years, I also had the opportunity to participate in many courses held by experts in bilingualism. According to statistics, 40% of all adults across the globe are monolingual, 43% are bilingual, 13% are trilingual and 4% can speak 4 or more languages fluently. By these statistics alone, those who speak only one language are already in the minority. What does this mean for a child? Well, being in the language minority will most certainly limit the opportunities available to the child as he/she reaches adulthood. By limiting their ability to communicate on a multilingual basis, it is simultaneously limiting their qualifications for future successes.

Keywords: bilingualism, young age, culture, education, experience.