Professor's research confirms competency of bilingual students

Berkeley, Calif.—Bilingual students are usually placed in special language classes and are considered to be at an academic disadvantage when compared to monolingual children.

This approach, which most educators practice in bilingual education, has many problems, according to psychology professor Fred Genesee of Montreal’s McGill University.

Last Friday afternoon, Genesee delivered a lecture entitled, “Growing Up Bilingual: Competence or Confusion,” at the Alumni House.

Genesee, who specializes in the psychology of bilingualism, said that education programs treat bilingual students as if they are “handicapped.”

“Students who speak two languages are treated as if they have a handicap, but these children are, in fact, bright,” he said.

Genesee added, “Their code-mixing, or using elements of two languages in the same conversation, is an example of their competence. The more rapidly and fluidly they can do this indicates their sophisticated use of the two languages.”

UC Berkeley professor Clair Kramsch, the director of the Berkeley Language Center, who introduced Genesee, said his ground-breaking research has already raised greater awareness of bilingual children and adults.

“Dr. Genesee has contributed much to the field of bilingual education,” Kramsch said. “Our esteemed colleague’s research will help shed light on the issue of bilingual students.”

After researching the field of bilingual children for more than ten years, Genesee challenges the notion that bilingual children are not “normal.”

He said that there are actually more bilingual than monolingual children in the world.

Most psychologists and linguists claim children who acquire two languages at the same time during their preschool years go through an initial stage where they cannot differentiate between the two languages.

These claims are based on the observation that most bilingual children mix elements from their two languages in the same stretch of conversation.

Genesee said such a phenomenon should be considered normal. His presentation reviewed a series of studies on French-English bilingual children that address pragmatic and grammatical aspects of their development.

French and English are the two languages Genesee used in his research, because he knows both languages.

Genesee used evidence from bilingual children’s ability to use their languages differently to research language development and comprehension.

After he observed five children, who were all younger than two years of age, to test his hypothesis of bilingual children, Genesee said he had a better understanding of the autonomy of the children’s developing grammatical systems.

The subjects all had one French-speaking and one English-speaking parent.

Because he studied such young children, Genesee said it would be easier for him to trace the origins of the children’s bilingual development.

“After about two years of age, the children develop distinct language styles and patterns,” he said. “If we can study them before they reach that critical period, we can learn more about their language acquisition.”

Genesee then described the theoretical and applied implications of these findings.

“Acquiring two languages simultaneously requires a bright mind,” he said. “Children who have two language traditions are not confused, but they are competent and capable. They may even have an upper hand over monolingual students.”

Genesee’s research has gained much acclaim in both the French and English speaking world.

Genesee received his doctorate in psychology from McGill University in 1974. His research on alternative forms of second language immersion and bilingual education, code-switching by adult and child bilinguals, pre-school bilingual education and learning to read a second language has been widely published.

Three of Genesee’s most popular books include: “Learning Through Two Languages: Studies of Immersion and Bilingual Education,” “Educating Second Language Children” and “Classroom-Based Evaluation in Second Language Education.”

Genesee’s latest work is titled “Beyond Bilingualism: Multilingualism and Multilingual Education.”

At McGill University, Genesee teaches psychology of bilingualism, which examines issues in bilingualism from both individual and societal perspectives.

His students learn about second language acquisition in children and adults, critical period hypothesis, cognitive consequences and correlates of bilingualism, social psychological aspects of bilingualism and bilingual education.

Working in the developmental psychology and cognition, language and perception departments at McGill University, Genesee works to inform his colleagues and educators that bilingual students do not have a problem.

He said he wants people to understand how physical, psychological and social factors influence the development of bilinguals, including the developmental origins of adults.

Genesee is the recipient of the 1990 Paul Pimsleur Award for Research on Foreign Language Education.

The College of Letters and Science and International Area Studies sponsored the event, as a part of the Berkeley Language Center’s lecture series.

The Berkeley Language Center seeks to improve and strengthen foreign language instruction at UC Berkeley by keeping instructors informed on new developments in the fields of language pedagogy, second language acquisition and applied linguistics.



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