Does foreign language education promote bilingualism?

JULY ALEJANDRA VERGARA

Becoming bilingual is a challenge for many schools around the world. Schools implement a foreign language in their syllabus  in order to promote bilingualism,  Learning a foreign language can be  one of the route that can be followed to acquire a second language but it is not always so positive. Children or adults who, despite extensive foreign language learning in school (and the extensive research on second language acquisition), only a small proportion of children learning a foreign language become functionally and fluently bilingual. 

It is important to know reasons for such failure: : the emphasis on reading and writing rather than on authentic communication; having a low aptitude to learn a second language; a lack of motivation and interest, and a lack of opportunity to practice second language skills. The age is also one of another popular reason, because  that is, believing that it is easier to learn a language when someone is younger rather than older. The issue of age in learning a language is considered later. A second language acquisition is often achieved trough the continuous social interaction from the street, screen, neighborhood, nursery, newspaper, children acquire another language in a unconscious way, without planning or intent by parents. Social groups in the streets, mass media as cartoons and shows are strong influences that can lead biligualism as an informal way for children and teenagers. 

Despite the above, schools are interested to produce a second language learning trough  their foreign language programs implementation; For that, in their syllabus they propose different task as language laboratories, drill and practice routines, immersion classes, drama and dance, al lof them in order to reinforce the language learning. How was metioned previously, acquire a second language from foreign language learning is not the best way but also this depends of different elements: To acquire a second language is totally necessary to be involved in the language learning so if a school wants to achieve bilingualism trough foreign language learning it is unlikely to   get the expected results, school needs to implement bilingual teachers to the students recieve their classes all the time with the foreign language, this guarantees the continuous interaction with the new language and achieve a successful acquisition.

According to the previous reasons, it can be concluded that foreign language implementation for schools can  get successful  results if it is worked in an intensive way, ensuring the learners with the continuous interaction. In ceartain way  students from a promoting bilingualism school  will be learning in a similar way as is made with second language learners who are involved in the language learning constantly. 

References

Baker, C (2001). Bilingualism: definitions and Distinctions. In Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism. Buffalo, NY: Multilingual Matters. pp. 2-16. Retrieved from https://criancabilingue.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/colin-baker-foundations-of-bilingual-education-and-bilingualism-bilingual-education-and-bilingualism-27-2001.pdf

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