Bilingual Education: Impact on Young Children's Development in the UK - Research Paper

Introduction

Bilingual education has been a concern to many countries in the world, especially the United Kingdom. Globalization is the reason for multilingual knowledge to enable interactions between people around the world. The educators and policymakers in education are the coherence force that ensures the success of educational programs to promote bilingual study. The focus is to determine the effects of bilingual education on young children since their brain is undergoing the developmental process. The participants of this study were young learners of the age of four to six years old. The study involved experimentation tests on cognitive variables essential for a child's brain development. The variables are attention and retention skills, language comprehension, and language development. Multilingual studies have a positive impact on young children since new information occupies the brain of a child resulting in reasoning growth. Therefore, a strategic bilingual education program is critical in developing a child's cognitive amplitude.

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Bilingual Education for Young Children: Review of the Effects and Consequences

Exposing children to learning bilinguals in school is controversial and has been a problem to education policy development personnel in the United States and Britain. Young children are undergoing brain development, which is precarious in determining the effects that will be registered by them undergoing this process. The rise of globalization is what is necessitating the inclusion of bilingualism in the school curriculum of learning institutions. In a child's development to master languages, they first learn their parents' lingua before being introduced to others by society. Dialects have effects in developing cognitive abilities of a child. The results may be positive or negative depending on how they react to these changes. From the family level to education curriculum developers the decisions on learning languages are politically inclined. The linguistic environment in which a child is brought up in have a cognitive effect on the surface as a psychological or educational issue, but it is rooted in the political influences imposed by the society (Bialystok, 2007). For instance, parents of different originalities will confuse child understanding capabilities by being forced to learn both languages.

The study targets the young population that has recent exposure to bilingual education of the age between four to seven years of age. The test subject is ideal since their mental progress is still at the commencement level of registering ideas to the brain. Stakeholders in education vision the making of the world into a small village of understanding between nations of different language identities have put the mental intellect of young children into a daunting situation. Besides its well-intended determinations, consequences of the program are overlooked by education policymakers that are catastrophic to a child thought development abilities. Therefore the purpose of this study is to asses, analyze, and give an insight into the cognitive effects that a child undergoes, both positive and destructive when exposed to bilingual lessons at a young age.

By the purpose of this study, it is significant to note that there is no universally recognized system of multilingual studies fundamentally applicable to all countries. Henceforth, the perspective of bilingual learning depends entirely on the point of view of the selected environment. In sight of Baker's idea, the study will focus on the 'bilingual education in the United States of America as stipulated by its Department of Education. The Bilingual Education Act speared and implemented by the department focuses on improving a child state of understanding the English language, especially those of native and foreign countries. The criteria by which the education policymakers use to design the system may deter the cognitive development of the young child. The review determines if the language aptitude of a child is constructed or deteriorated by the education system at an early stage of learning.

The Hypothesis of the Review

The child's professional career builds at an earlier stage of learning activities they are introduced to for development. The goal of every educational system is building a strong foundation of skills, especially in language and literacy competence, for a brighter future of the children (Bialystok, 2018). This review is to determine if the bilingual studies improve the skills of a child to grasp more than two languages, especially at an early stage of development with the fact that they already know their native language. Also, the study will explore if the bilingual programs put in place by the United States of America have a cognitive effect on a child's brains through tests. Generally is the education system structure establish skills necessary to groom the future of a child's education since the brain is the determinant of reasoning.

Literature Review

Research studies have been conducted on the topic 'Bilingual Educational Programs' by different authors. The review is based on these articles in developing its topic on 'effects and consequences of bilingual studies in young children.' A study by MacsSwan Jeff and Rolstand Kellie (2005) was to establish the brain cognitive effect caused by the flow of academic information situated within the theory of psychology. The authors established that the same content could be presented to learners in different languages may cause a cognitive lapse of similar information by the brain, especially in young students. Information presented in different lingual is independent of linguistic knowledge; hence, the difference in interpretation since the mind has different blue-prints constructing each language individually (Jeff Macswan & Rolstad, 2005). Relating this to the review, the content packaging in the bilingual education may cause brain non-amalgamation of the child resulting in neurological damage at later stages of learning.

When young children inoculate into the educational system, they at least know their first language at a basic level. An insight by Tamar Kremer-Sadlik (2005) gives an account of the estimated effect of the second language (L2) introduction to a young child on their first language (L1). When an L2 has stronger knowledge than the L1 the child learned before joining schools, they will forget their previous language and stick to the current, and if the vice-versa happens, the child will have difficulties coping with education (Kremer-Sadlik, 2005). For instance, a child with strong Spanish background will have problems understanding subject content taught in English despite undergoing bilingual studies.

The cognitive processes of a child's mind are very active hence the need for proper nurturing for effective coordination and comprehension of learning activities. Bialystokk Ellen (2007), researched on the effects of bilingual education to the cognitive response of a young child. The author focused on three cognitive elements, which are; the concept the volume of task switching, content formation and, and theory of the mind resulting from bilingual studies. The finding of this study was that children exposed to multilingual studies had developed abilities in paying attention and retaining information compared to their monolingual counterparts. Hence the studies develop the cognitive functions outlined by the researcher in particular.

Bialystok (2018) conducted similar research to the current review in determining the effects and consequences of bilingual education. The author's purpose, as outlined by the article, is to establish the outcomes of bilingual learning among children, their literacy achievement, and suitability of the program to young learners. The multilingual studies lead to the development of learning capabilities among young children (Bialystok, 2018). The article suggests that bilingual education is positive in improving students' minds, and there are no recorded instances of harmful consequences.

Another review established the relationship between mother tongue knowledge of a child and that for educational purposes. The study by Jim Cummins (2001) suggests that a child's exposure to multilingual at an early stage of learning, they develop a better understanding of the languages going through schooling to college level. The mother tongue should be promoted among school programs since they form the basis for the learner's comprehension of the secondary language introduced to the student for study purposes (Cummins, 2001). The child can learn the school language through the use of the mother tongue creed. The educators and policymakers should, therefore, consider teaching the second language by using the first language comprehended by a child as a tool.

The skill of interpretation identification by educators is nurtured to ensure the children acquire the ability at a younger age in their development. A child development study by Mezzacappaa Enrico (2004) is of interest to the review because of the focus on child educational improvement by educators. The article focused on identifying, defining, and training attention ability of a child by the instructor to build their educational career in schools. This skill can work when applied to bilingual studies since the stipulated programs can identify the appropriate strategy used on a child in ensuring that they attain the skills of comprehending multilingual surveys in schools.

Young children grow up in their origin culture determined by their parents. Their belief manifestation is a representation of the language they speak in the community. Amy A. Weimer and Phillip G. Gasquoine (2015) reviewed belief and emotion display by children when they learn bilinguals. The article analyzed the variables considering the family background, income, children, and literacy level of their guardians. The study of bilingual does not depreciate the emotions or the norm of the child; instead, it nourishes the knowledge of their culture by learning a new language (Amy A. Weimer & Gasquoine, 2015). The study of bilinguals enriches the culture of a child and consequently improves their emotion quo hence develop the brain.

Science and technology have improved interactions among people from different countries. Language use enables interactions through communication. Juan C. Godenzzi (2003) reviewed the influence of bilingual education to productive intercultural coexistence between people of different nations. Borrowing from the author's idea, when children are taught bilinguals in pre-school, they grow up with the lingual knowledge of different cultures of the world. This necessitates bilingual education to young children.

The knowledge of the language used in school is essential in understanding the content taught by teachers. Wen-Jui Han (2012) presented the importance of bilingual education to young children to attain educational goals, especially when they are from a foreign country. The multilingual studies are parallel to the educational achievement of students (Han, 2012). Bilingual studies enable students to understand their second language, which is used by their educators and necessary for their education.

The study of bilingual equips the leaner with more than two languages; it just depends on their understanding capacity. Jasone Cenoz (2003) reviewed the effect of multilingual education on a child's cognitive response, especially when introduced to a third language. The outcome in the proficiency of the third language is a determinant of the experience a child has with it (Cenoz, 2003). The educators of bilingual studies should expose the lea...