Education
Literacy is a major part of everyday life. Research conducted by Barratt-Pugh & Rohl (2000) outline that it is almost impossible to go without literacy in everyday practice. Spoken (oral) language is important in enhancing literacy (Hill, 2006 & Department of education and early childhood development,2008 ). Knowing more than one language is more important today than ever before. Research conducted by Cunnignham- Andersson & Andersson ( 2005) showed that whether its English, Spanish, French, Korean, or one of the other 6 thousand languages of the world, parents are increasingly drawn to the lifelong academic, social, cultural and intellectual advantages that come with learning an additional language. This essay concentrates on the second language learning for children and the major issues behind second language learning.
The major issues involved in oral language learning are parent’s attitudes towards bilingualism, ideologies created by society of the negative effects of second language learning, pressure to learn a dominant language over the loss of home language.
Lotherington (2000) suggest that there is strong evidence that we are born ready to develop language with a bit of help from our caretakers who surround us with particular language we will be using out of thousands of languages spoken around the world today.
Parents’ attitudes toward bilingualism are important in a more indirect way ( Lotherington, 2000). Lotherington (2000) states that because parents are models for their children, their attitudes and behaviour are often imitated by their children. Thus, if parents show that it is a useful and a positive thing to know two languages and to belong to two cultural groups this will help their children to develop similar positive attitudes. If, on the other hand, parents are negative toward one of the language and cultural groups this may in turn and make it difficult for their children to see the benefits...
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