The old pattern of learning the heritage language has been disturbed because nowadays, some parents do no longer speak their heritage to their children as a mother tongue that consequently may result ...in a language shift among Acehnese children. The study aims to find out the role of parents in speaking Acehnese as a mother tongue to their children and how speaking Acehnese as a mother tongue for the children impacts on language maintenance and language shift among Acehnese children. This research is a case study that employed qualitative description. The data was collected based on interviews and observation. The informants of the study are six Acehnese people who live in Blang Puntuet village, one of the suburbs in Lhokseumawe city. The informants consist of three female parents and three Acehnese youths aged over 16 years old. The result of the study shows that from three families, one parent is actively speaking Acehnese to their children, one other parent is actively speaking Indonesian to their children, and the rest one is actively speaking Acehnese only to one of her three daughters. Therefore, the study indicates that once the old pattern is disturbed the ability of the children in speaking their heritage language is also disturbed because they are no longer actively speaking Acehnese in home in speech community.
Language is an important factor that constitutes national identity. Language policies have become a state structure that aims to unite peoples under state rule, as well as organize and reorganize ...their lives. The establishment of a political central authority that dominates the society’s thoughts through language is the most essential element of social construction processes in the new world order. This study examines the current situation of Azerbaijani Turkish in Borchali (Georgia) and South Azerbaijan (Iran) from socio-political and sociolinguistic perspectives. In this context, language policies, language planning and language rights, and monolingualism with its assimilationist characteristics, are included in the theoretical framework for the first part of this research. The second part explains the language policy implemented in Georgia and discusses the mother tongue education problems faced by minorities. Data on language policy practices in Iran, the position of Azerbaijani Turkish against the titular language, and the problems related to South Azerbaijan Turks’ right to education in their mother tongue are interpreted in the third part. In the last section, attention is drawn to the role of language policy in Azerbaijan’s multi-culturalism model, as a solution method for the aforementioned problems.
The current study seeks to illustrate the relationships between child bilinguals' mother tongue language (MTL) exposure and reading activities at home, children's receptive MTL proficiency, and their ...socio-emotional and behavioral skills (SEBS). Data from 202 Singapore preschoolers (4-5 years old) who are learning English and Mandarin were analyzed. A parental questionnaire and standard Mandarin tests (i.e., receptive vocabulary, receptive grammar) were used to assess children's Mandarin language-literacy environment at home, as well as their receptive language skills in Mandarin. Children's SEBS were evaluated with the strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ) (parental version). A series of variables which might influence SEBS and MTL proficiency (e.g., gender and SES) were controlled and SEMs were used to conduct data analysis. Results demonstrated that both Mandarin language and literacy environmental factors are related to children's receptive language outcomes in Mandarin, while only literacy environmental factors associate with children's difficulty level, and prosocial skills. This suggests that good parental support in bilingual children's MTL literacy should be promoted not only for the sake of their early language development but also because of the potential benefits to their social emotional wellbeing.
Input is considered crucial in bilingual children's language development. This is especially true for bilingual children's mother tongue language learning given its common reduction in input ...opportunities due to the dominance of one language within society, as seen in countries and regions from Wales to Singapore. Previous studies tend to focus on the quantity and quality of conventional active communication and resources (e.g., speaking and reading with parents) on bilingual children's language development, and substantially, fewer studies have explored this topic from the perspective of digital media. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated the critical role of digital media in various aspects of life, including bilingual children's home language environment. Thus, to holistically understand bilingual children's daily language input patterns, it is imperative to explore both their conventional and digital media input resources. The current study focuses on English-Mandarin bilingual children in Singapore and would like to explore (1) whether their conventional and digital media language environments have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and (2) whether the societal status of a language and familial socioeconomic status (SES) would affect bilingual children's conventional and digital media input. Survey data from 162 parents of English-Mandarin bilingual preschoolers (3 to 6 years old) were used to explore the two research questions. Two online parental questionnaires were employed for data collection. One-way repeated-measures MANOVA and path models were used to address the questions. The results indicated that input patterns from nuclear family members had not been affected by COVID-19; however, the amount and frequency of conventional and digital media materials and activities increased significantly since COVID-19. Higher-SES families possessed more conventional materials and conducted conventional activities more often, while lower-SES families possessed more digital media materials. Both conventional and digital media materials and activities were richer in English than in Mandarin. Higher-SES families perceived digital media usage for learning to be of less importance than lower-SES families. The implications for early bilingual learning following COVID-19 are discussed.
Mother tongue classes Sullivan, Kirk P. H.; Egan Sjölander, Annika
Education in the North,
12/2019, Volume:
26, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
In Sweden, all children who speak a language other than Swedish at home have a right to mother tongue classes when there are five children in the municipality who request the language as a mother ...tongue class. This paper reports on ongoing research that is investigating parental involvement and engagement in their children’s learning of their mother tongue language. Even though mother tongue classes require an active parental choice and the filling in of an application form, some children drop out of their mother tongue classes claiming the classes are boring and uninteresting, and teachers find that some children do not meet the requirement of using the language as an active home language. Through examination of young learner and school-aged students’ mother tongue provision and prompted reflection with parents, we tease apart the elements of agency necessary for parents to feel involved and engaged in their children’s mother tongue lessons.
Language is a cognitive function that is asymmetrically distributed across both hemispheres, with left dominance for most linguistic operations. One key question of interest in cognitive neuroscience ...studies is related to the contribution of both hemispheres in bilingualism. Previous work shows a difference of both hemispheres for auditory processing of emotional and non-emotional words in bilinguals and monolinguals. In this study, we examined the differences between both hemispheres in the processing of emotional and non-emotional words of mother tongue language and foreign language. Sixty university students with Persian mother tongue and English as their second language were included. Differences between hemispheres were compared using the dichotic listening test. We tested the effect of hemisphere, language and emotion and their interaction. The right ear (associated with the left hemisphere) showed an advantage for the processing of all words in the first language, and positive words in the second language. Overall, our findings support previous studies reporting left-hemispheric dominance in late bilinguals for processing auditory stimuli.
This study evaluated the effectiveness of the mother tongue. It was adopted in a pre-test post-test quasi-experimental design with 82 pupils in the second-grade elementary school as samples. The test ...from the District Office of the Department of Education was used to collect data from the subjects. Findings showed that the use of Mother Tongue Language (MTL) is more effective than the Non-MTL teaching the concepts of fractions. It resolved that MTL could be used as a medium of instruction. It is an effective teaching-learning process.
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