Children’s literacy development in the first and second languages

Language that children begin developing the skills of listening and understanding of the complex concepts, experiences and skills can bridge foundation for their future learning. If children’s mother tongue is continuously used in education for at “least eight years under less well- resourced conditions” (Heugh, 2006: 68), it enhances their “basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS) and cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP)” (Cummins, 2008:71). Moreover, Cummins (Ibid, 72) goes on saying, “Academic language proficiency develops through social interaction from birth but becomes differentiated from BICS after the early stages

59

of schooling to reflect primarily the language that children acquire in school and which they need to use effectively if they are to progress successfully through the grades”. This would mean that children develop gradually speaking and communicating skills that help them develop increasing abilities to understand and use the language to communicate information, experiences, ideas, feelings, opinions and others for various purposes. In this sense, they develop increasingly comprehensive and varied vocabularies for a variety of communications. Later, they develop literacy skill that provides foundations for later decoding, which includes phonological awareness, print awareness, alphabet knowledge and early word recognition, written expression advancing from scribbling to recognizable letters (Kleeck and Schuele, 2010: 351). Consequently, language literacy provides a foundation for literacy and numeracy development and children become aware of their social, political and economic issues. It also enables them to understand their social-cultural background.

The recent findings indicate that literacy skills can be transferable from one language to another language if one of the languages is the language acquired first and the other one is the language learnt second. Thus, the skills and experiences children acquired in their mother tongue or first language can help them to be competent in the academic sphere if they have good proficiency within mother tongue and sufficiently develop basic literacy skills in their first language. This transfer of literacy skill from one language to the others is termed as linguistic transfer or linguistic interdependence hypothesis (Cummins, 2008:68). This means that literacy skill that is developed in one language strongly predict corresponding skills in other languages acquired or learned later. Cummins (2008: 69) identified five types of linguistic transfer depending on sociolinguistic situations. These types of linguistic transfers are: (a) transfer of conceptual elements, (b) transfer of meta-cognitive and meta-linguistic strategies, (c) transfer of pragmatic aspects of language use, (d) transfer of specific linguistic elements and, (e) transfer of phonological awareness. All these forms of linguistic transfer can be paramount if sociolinguistic and educational contexts are conducive to or support, such transfer. Thus, situations can be used in schools to learn a second or third language and other curricula.

60

The children’s experiences and knowledge that they constructed from their social interactions, cultures, norms and values to help them relate to what they learn in the classrooms. In this regard, Cummins (2008:67) explicated that the theoretical rationale and empirical basis for teaching in cross-linguistic transfer can be derived from prior knowledge that a child has acquired from his/her sociological and cultural contexts of their family and local communities. This would mean that prior knowledge of the children and their experiences that they have acquired through their mother tongue enable them to use those skills in learning second or third language in the education of bilingual students. The situation is possible if children’s earlier experiences and knowledge are determined in their mother tongue. Then their first language is inevitably implicated in the learning of the other languages. This would mean that a strong instruction in children’s home language leads to better literacy results in a second or third language without hindering literacy results in their second language if this literacy skill in the first language is well acquired and developed. For example, if teachers teach reading, writing and opt to develop effective children’s literacy skills in their mother tongue, children can develop the literacy skills that can help them learn the second and third languages (Cummins, 2008:69). Therefore, to improve children’s literacy skills and their practice, the schools should do a lot to enhance students’ learning in their mother tongue. For example, schools and classrooms must be transformed from being storehouses of knowledge to being more like portable tents providing a shelter and a gathering place for students as they go out to explore, to question, to experiment, to discover knowledge by using their own skills and their preferable ways of learning. On top of that, the schools should facilitate teaching activities that focus on student-centred approaches. The teaching activities increase students’ interaction with their partners in classrooms. Here, in their interaction, teachers can act as the roles of facilitators and directors of the activity. Creative classrooms enable every student to engage in reflecting activities and analyzing their learning without boring. In this sense, classrooms become the places where everyone engages in learning, including teachers, themselves. In addition, the school should be active and creative in organizing curricula, classes and activities in a way that they enabled students to engage in problem solving and discovery. Thus, schools can provide a nearly limitless resource for real world learning of children. According to Scribner & Cole (1981; Taylor 1983) and Ochs (1986)

61

in Reyes and Moll (2008: 148), language and literacy practice in socio-cultural perspectives are socially constructed, culturally mediated practices and they essentially play a greater role in education. Understanding these socially constructed acts has important implications for how language and literacy could be developed. Reyes and Moll (Ibid) continued saying that those socialized acts are used as agents rather than passive initiates and the practices are co- constructed. Thus, the continued use of both first and second languages into additive bilingualism is a precondition for enhanced cognitive, linguistic and academic growth, but the inability of teachers, parents and school communities to support students’ literacy development in mother tongue and second language leads students to their general academic failure (Cummins, 2001:37). This would mean that education through students’ first language enables them to build their cognitive and basic communication skills, which enable them to develop skills in academic and lifelong learning. Thus, literacy development in mother tongue should be developed beyond early schooling and all subjects can be taught through mother tongue in order to advance children’s literacy skills.

In general, across cultures, the role of parents, relatives, community members, teachers and other caregivers play a tremendous significance in developing children’s language proficiency and literacy skills. The methods used to develop their literacy skills in their mother tongue and second language can affect their academic achievements. In this connection, Malone (2007: 3-5) has also observed that a strong and well-planned education through mother tongue, including second and other languages enables children to build a “strong educational foundation.” According to the author, successful first language learning can enhance successful achievement in second or third language. This could happen when students are encouraged to develop oral fluency and later, reading and writing in first language are introduced. As students become fluent and confident in their first language literacy, the other languages (second or third language) could be introduced orally and then, gradually, the teaching of reading and writing in a second or foreign language can be introduced in addition to teaching through mother tongue. This means that the best Medium of instruction is the children’s home language since it helps children build foundation to learn other languages.

62