Wellington Today Wellington Today 2018 en | Page 11

2018
WELLINGTON INSIGHTS
BILINGUALISM
Speech Emergent Intermediate Fluency
In this stage the child will begin to speak in sentences. They
may be able to hold a conversation and will be more easily
understood. At this point, somewhere between one and
three years of exposure to English, children’s development of
proficiency increases drastically. They use phrases and sentences,
and their vocabulary is between 3,000 and will grow to nearly
7,000 words. They will ask simple questions that may or may
not be grammatically correct, such as ‘May I go to bathroom?’
Children will also initiate short conversations with classmates.
They will understand easy stories read in class with the support
of pictures. They will also be able to do some content work with
teacher support. This is a high level of language development. The child is now
quite fluent and able to hold a conversation but will still make
minor errors. A shift occurs at this level, after about 3 to 4
years of exposure to English, because students begin to develop
Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency in English. Having
mastered the knowledge and skills required for social language
(Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills), students have
accumulated approximately 12,000 receptive words. They have
gone beyond speaking in phrases and simple sentences to being
able to engage in conversations. They can answer complex
questions as they are able to evaluate information.
Questions they are now able to answer include ‘how’ and
‘why,’ which require fairly complex responses. Because they
can understand a great deal and can express themselves fairly
effectively, albeit with grammatical simplicity and developmental
errors. General student-centred practices such as scaffolding
and expansion, poetry, songs, prediction, comparing/contrasting,
describing, cooperative learning, problem solving, charting, and
graphing are appropriate for children, but the classroom teacher
must remember to provide them with additional support.
Here are some simple tasks they can complete:
• Sound out stories phonetically
• Read short, modified texts in content area subjects
• Complete graphic organizers with word banks
• Understand and answer questions about charts and graphs
• Match vocabulary words to definitions
• Write and illustrate riddles
• Understand teacher explanations and two-step directions
• Compose brief stories based on personal experience
• Write in dialogue journals
This means that they can participate in essay writing, complex
problem solving, researching and supporting their positions, and
critiquing and analysing.
Students at the intermediate fluency stage have a vocabulary of
6000 active words. They are beginning to use more complex
sentences when speaking and writing and are willing to express
opinions and share their thoughts. They will ask questions to
clarify what they are learning in class.
Advanced Fluency
At this stage the child is considered to be fully bilingual although
they still may make an occasional error. It takes students from
4-10 years to achieve cognitive academic language proficiency in a
second language. Students at this stage will be near-native in their
ability to perform in content area learning.
Ultimately, the process of bilingualism is a journey, not a race.
Every child is unique and will follow their own path to becoming
bilingual and bi-literate. Attending Wellington College China
Bilingual Shanghai and following the EYFS curriculum allows
your child to start this process by learning through play and this
replicates how they learned, and are still learning, their native
language in a natural environment.
HOW TO SUPPORT OUR
EARLY YEARS LEARNERS
ON THEIR JOURNEY TO
BILINGUALISM
By Simon Ruscoe-Price, Director of Language, Wellington College China
At Wellington College China our goal is to develop the whole
child as an innovative, truly bilingual and multi-cultural individual
equipping him or her with the confidence and skills to flourish in
the modern world. In order to achieve this, we must be clear on
our common definition of what a bilingual learner is. We define
someone as being bilingual as an individual who is able to make
a seamless transition between the two languages of instruction.
A bilingual person can read, write, understand, think and speak
in the two languages without hindrance at all levels. This is to
say that they are able to make the intercultural and linguistic
transitions seamlessly, whether it be for study, business or leisure.
Bilingual learners think, dream and tell jokes in the two languages.
At the Wellington College Bilingual Shanghai setting our two-way
immersion comprises a 50/50% exposure to Chinese and English
fostering bilingualism and biliteracy. We also recognise that with
our early learners there are approaches that can be reinforced in
the home setting to build upon the educational experience.
The bilingual immersion experience offers each and every child
their own, personalised learning journey and there are a number
of key approaches that can be reinforced at home to support that
learning journey.
The mastery of language is an exciting lifelong journey of
discovery. We must remember that all journeys start with
small steps, supported by guides who help us on the way. We
must celebrate and relish each of those milestones. As children
transition through the phases of language development from ‘the
silent period’ through ‘early production’ to ‘speech emergence’
and beyond, three practical steps are listed below that we can use
as we guide them.
If a child is at the ‘the silent period’ the use of singing; which
activates the right side of the brain whereas our speech is
activated from the left side of the brain; helps compensate for
the later development of the language centres in the left side
of the brain. Nursery rhymes and songs are excellent ways of
familiarising a child with language.
Another technique is to model speaking through child directed
speech. The Stanford Report, October 15, 2013 identified
that young children learn language in the context of meaningful
interactions with those around them. The research showed that
children who had experienced more child-directed speech were
more efficient at processing language.
‘The analyses revealed a cascade of effects – those toddlers who
heard more child-directed talk became faster and more reliable
in interpreting speech, and it was their superior skill in processing
language that then increased their success in vocabulary learning.’
Source: Bjorn Carey Stanford Report, October 15, 2013
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