The Attitudes towards Bilingualism
Ami Sato 011064
Summary
This research tried to find out what people generally think of bilingualism. I gave a
questionnaire to a total of 141 subjects in order to reveal people’s attitudes towards
bilingualism.
The questionnaire is based on some of the bilingual beliefs that I found
on websites, such as these, for example;
1. Learning two languages confuses children and impairs their cognitive ability.
2. Bilingual education has been proven ineffective, it only serves to delay the learning
of English and slow students academically.
3. A child should learn one language properly first, then you can start teaching the
other.
Research questions
1. to reveal whether the bilingual beliefs I found on the websites are bilingual myths.
2. to find out people’s attitudes towards bilingualism.
Are they taken positive or
negative about bilingualism?
3. to investigate further implications for English education in Japan.
The experiment
Subject:
141 subjects from several age groups and backgrounds.
Instrument:
Questionnaire based on bilingual beliefs including 12 questions.
Procedure:
Questionnaires were given randomly to subjects including students,
teachers and people who are neither students nor teachers.
Subjects gave their age groups, occupation, years of learning foreign
languages and its levels.
For the questions, subjects answered each
questions by using scales to show their agreement with the question or
disagreement.
They also have some space to give reasons for why
they think in that way.
Results
1. Bilingual beliefs are bilingual myths？
Bilingual beliefs on the websites turned to be bilingual myths.
Over 80 % of
subjects disagreed with beliefs that are ‘Learning two languages lowers child’s
intelligence’, ‘Bilingual education has been proven ineffective and it only serves to
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Ami Sato
slow students academically’. The results appeared significantly on each questions
showing that people hold strong opinions. In other words, subjects have strong
interests in this topic.
2. Bilingualism is taken positively or negatively?
Most people take bilingualism positively.
Many of the subjects mentioned
cognitive encouragement when learning a second language.
117 out of 140 subjects answered that they want to bring up their children
bilingually in order to broaden children’s opportunities in job fields.
In addition,
some people mentioned that learning another language help their children
understand another culture as well.
3. Implications
Through this research, I found out that subjects hold positive attitudes towards
bilingualism.
This result will encourage our English education at earlier stage in
Japanese education system, because Japan in under an appropriate circumstance to
introduce English education to children.
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Ami Sato