Are foreign languages and a better communication related to each other?

by catmaster92

Hello, everybody, how are you? Hope everything is fine!

I found another fantastic image and decided to post it here.

Do you agree that foreign languages are related to a better communication?

I totally agree...I think those you who foreign languages, especially English, have more access to new information and are able to communicate with people from other places.

I'm looking forward to hear you opinion.

Thanks,

Amanda

Some fun...

Hello, everybody,

life isn't just made by serious moments, like academic conversations and texts...let's laugh a little bit!

...turns out that all those animal sounds Old McDonald taught you as a kid are only made by English speaking animals. Depending which country you are in animals make different sounds.

In France Ducks don't "quack" they "coin"
In Germany Bees don't "buzz" they "summ"
In Greece Dogs don't bark "woof" they bark "gav"

...and in Japan Sheep don't bleat "baa" they say "mee".

Who would have thought that animals have regional dialects hey?

Text and image by Ugghhzilla

A video from Parents TV about bilingual children

Hello, everybody,

I decided to post a new video.  As I've said, it's from Parents TV and is about bilingual children. Let's watch it. It's really interesting.

The most relevant points of this video for me are two. The first one is that, when the first language teacher that appears during the video is talking about the children, she says: "they don't think about 'I have to learn a new language, they just learn". I agree with her. The learning process for children is more natural..they're not worried that the have to get a good job or to read articles written in a foreign language for college papers, for example. As it's more natural, it's more free from pressure, which, in my opinion, provides more changes of success in the learning process. The second point is when she says: "when you learn a second language, you know a second culture; it means that you also can see your culture in different eyes." And I also agree with her. It's really nice to see what is out there, to see that there are different things in the world besides our own culture. I believe that to know another language enhances one's knowledge greatly.

Any comments on the video?

See you,
Amanda

Is Goethe right? A reflection on the first post of this blog

Hello again,

I'm here now to explain and make some comments about my first post with Goethe's sentence One who doesn't know another language doesn't truly know his own. Do you think this famous German writer is right? Why?

Well...here is my opinion...

I think he's totally right. When one starts learning another language, one starts being more aware of the mechanisms of his or her own language. I say that taking into account my own experience as a speaker of a foreign language. As the acquisition of the first language is a subconscious process, we generally don't think about why we say things in the way we say. However, after learning another language, one start to compare what is differences between the two languages. For example, the verb use in English is sometimes pretty different from the use in Portuguese. I would say "I have 4 classes this semester", in Portuguese, but in English the most common is to say "I'm taking 4 classes this semester."

I decided to post Goethe's sentence to make you to think what is the importance of learning another language.

I believe that children can especially benefit from an early learning process, because they will also start this comparison earlier in their lives. As Bialystok, Luk, and Kwan show in the article I posted, Bilingualism, Biliteracy, and Learning to Read: Interactions Among Languages and Writing Systems, bilingual children do better in writing and reading test than monolingual children.

What do you think? Do you believe that children benefit from early foreign language learning or not? And why?

Let's make a discussion about this topic!

See you,
Amanda

Stephen D. Krashen

Hello, everybody,

today I'm talking about an author that I've been reading for a while, Stephen D. Krashen. He is a professor at the University of Southern California (USC) and is most know for his 5 hypotheses on second language acquisition, like the affective filter one. In my opinion, his hypotheses are very coherent and relevant. However, there are some people that don't agree with them. The controversy is huge.
There are two of his books that I strongly recommend. The first one is Principles and practice in second language acquisition (1982) and Explorations in language acquisition and use: the Tapei lectures (2003). In this second book, Krashen revises his theory on second language acquisition that is in the first book.

There is also a video on YouTube with the polyglot Steve Kaufmann talking about Krashen's hypotheses. It is very interesting for those who don't know anything about Krashen's work and want to learn something quickly. Kaufmann is not a linguistic, but, as I've said, is a polyglot and started studying more about language acquisition motivated by his interest in different languages. This is the video I'm talking about:

For those who want to learn more about Krashen's work, you should visit his website http://www.sdkrashen.com/. There are a lot of articles and some of his books available there, including the first book I mentioned.

I'll be glad to read some comments on Krashen's hypotheses...so feel free to express yourself here!

See you,
Amanda

Learn another language...the world is changing...

by *Mouseleaf

It's true, the world is changing. Everyday it becomes a more globalized world. Are you changing too??

Articles on foreign language learning by children

Hello, everybody,

as I've already said, the main goal of my research project is to discuss wheter learning another language is beneficial or not to children's literacy skills. In order to accomplish this goal, I read some articles are about this issue in particular ways. I decided to post here these articles.

Bilingualism, Biliteracy, and Learning to Read: Interactions Among Languages and Writing Systems, by Ellen Bialystok, Gigi Luk, and Ernest Kwan

Emergent literacy skills in bilingual children: evidence for the role of L1 syntactic comprehension, by Alison Gabriele, Erika Troseth, Gita Martohardjono, and Ricardo Otheguy

Pupils' attitudes towards foreign-language learning and the development of literacy skills in bilingual education, by Merisuo-Storm, Tuula

They are all really interesting, and the best part it that none of the research projects found bad consequences of foreign language learning for children's literacy skills.

Hope you get motivated to read the articles, and if you do, feel free to post your comments on them here.

See you,
Amanda