We have spent a significant amount of time in class discussing the importance of various skills in building literacy skills in the English language. However we haven't talked about how you build literacy skills when working with two different languages. Learning a second language increases cognitive skills.
Our country often offers students the opportunity to learn second languages in high school, sometimes middle schools. Rarely you are able to have your child learn a second language at the elementary or preschool level. In Montgomery county you can enter a lottery to be in an immersion school for a few languages. However, these are not opportunities available at large. Perhaps if one of the goals of our education system is to raise global leaders we should look at when second languages are introduced in schools. On the flip side we have so many students struggling with English, it would be unfair to confuse them by adding another language.
Our children attend a Greek immersion preschool twice a week in addition to traditional preschool. I have found that my son who is in his third year of Greek school is excited about learning Spanish from his friends at his traditional school and enjoys teaching them Greek words. These social learning experiences are occurring because the children are able to expose each other to multiple languages.
Do you think immersion elementary schools provide students with the benefit of knowing more than one language? or that it puts them at a disadvantage in their native language? I have enjoyed my son having both a traditional and immersion preschool experiences, as it has allowed him to prepare for Kindergarten in English, but given him the opportunity to learn another language. However, I am unsure about putting children in immersion elementary school, where English is the second language they are learning, as opposed to the focus. I value knowing multiple languages a great deal, as I feel it opens opportunities through out our lives.
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