This sounds like a really big oversight on part of the theories and research done in communicative competence. No developmental perspective (students might have LDs or they might be developmentally ahead) can skew data. Not considering contexts can skew data (students who have access to different things). And certainly as we know so far from the textbook the cross-lingual relationship between L1 and L2 is probably the most pivotal thing to consider. Again, this really sounds like an oversight! And imagine, there's been generations of teachers who have been taught with that research.

Ghassane

Okay so it sounds like the comment earlier about researchers not having a good idea on how language proficiency works is a misdirection, as we have a good foundation here when they've discussed it in the article. I wish I remembered how I learned English, but I think I learned it all at once because I was heavily overexposed to it. I wanted to add that I have a 4th grader whose pronunciation isn't great (and it's not due to accent it's due to phonology), but he has spelling down very well. He asks me often if he is saying words right. I believe this is due to him reading the words proficiently before he's ever had a chance to say them or hear them. So it's worth keeping in mind that all learners are different.

Ghassane

I had this in mind when I began reading this article and it's sad to say that my worst fears are right. While I don't think the school's teachers can be to blame (though I'm sure several of them can), the actual structures and systems in place at the school which are determined by higher ups in the district or board should 100% be evaluated for their effectiveness. Saying it's the fault of the student sounds like a legal loophole so schools and school districts aren't held liable for someone's poor performance.

Ghassane

That's really crazy to think about, I never once would have imagined the discrepancy to be so large that psychologists and teachers would reach this weird conclusion. This also sounds somewhat discriminatory, but if the bilingual program is working that well then maybe it's not? I'm not sure, students are really eager to talk about who they are and the fact that this student didn't do that surprises me. Maybe that's a sign something else is going on between the teacher and the student relationship. I think it might be my Title I background, since teachers in those schools have really good methods for distinguishing students' needs, so I don't see how this mistake could be made by professionals right away. Either way, I really feel for the student in this situation, this is very much a I must scream but I have no mouth situation. Ghassane

In single parent cases, I am somewhat fed up with people blaming a child's problems on the fact that they come from a single parent, usually single mom, household. Too often working at schools do I hear "well they're always going to be struggling because they have just mom" and I think it's really disrespectful. It's good to hear some research that confirms it doesn't hinder bilingual development. I think people pigeonhole their thinking to find excuses or reasons why someone is struggling, when in all likelihood those students would be struggling if circumstances were different as well. There's many children with two parents who are struggling too.

Ghassane

This is actually an interesting study to me. So it sounds like M's Japanese is her dominant language and she has spent the majority of her time in Japan, but since her mother speaks English she got that exposure too, which compounded with living in Australia for extended stays placed her metalinguistic capabilities at similar to a monolingual. It makes sense that she would experience shifts depending on where she is at any given time.

Ghassane

If they can rapidly and accurately do that, then they're near fully fluent it sounds like. I want to point out that the research this is citing is from 2000, and the research that that research is citing is from 1996, and the other research it's citing is from 2003. That means from 1996 we've had this research conclusively done and replicated, but our educational policies do not reflect it. It's pretty frustrating to think about that.

In regards to this, as someone who could be considered bilingual, this is definitely a skill these children will use for the rest of their life as I do it every day depending on who I interact with.

Ghassane

I'm imagining when they tested this, this was one of the testing categories. I think it's funny that it's mentioned at all, if I was a baby and I heard my mom's voice backwards I think I would freak out. I really would like to see what the other categories are. Also, the bit about new prose vs. old prose is very interesting, It reads like infants are able to tell when they experience something they already have experienced, even at the level of books. I really would like to see how they did the research on this.

Ghassane

Okay so, to add onto this, the Child Development Psych textbook that the university typically requires us to buy by McDevitt & Ormrod (2019) goes onto say that babies develop understanding language in the womb when they hear their mother's voice. And it just gets further expanded from there. By age 3, they have the capacity to learn how to read two different languages as well.

To cite in example from my own life: I learned English and Arabic as two separate languages as a baby. My sister thought they were one language when she would speak but she knew they were separate in her brain. My brother only learned how to speak English but he can hear Arabic fluently since he was a baby.

Ghassane

This is discussed in the influences chapter of the Lightbown & Spada book. An example from that chapter for how someone in an elite group has their bilingualism affected, is if whether or not they have the income to afford a 2nd language tutor. Another example from that same idea, perhaps someone in an elite group might think they don't need to be bilingual because they're already "elite". The opposite example would be someone in an immigrant community with a minority language group might feel either negatively or positively affected by it depending on their community.

Bottom line of this paragraph, is how much support can someone have, and what kind of support do they have.

Ghassane

In the Tongue Tied book, part 2 goes over the history of bilingualism relative to law. It's a timeline on the major events involved in it. Laws affect bilingualism super extensively.

Edit: When I originally wrote this annotation I hadn't read past the first few pages of part 2, and I didn't anticipate just how deeply rooted the history of the political factors go. I wanted to add that political factors affect many, many aspects of bilingual education, ranging from its availability to its effectiveness.

Ghassane