Bilingual Education and Children's Cognitive and Academic Development - Essay Sample

A) Explain how Bilingual Education Can Promote Ethnic Minority Children's Cognitive and Academic Development

Language plays an integral part in the cognitive and emotional growth of any child’s life. Besides, the changing world demands proficiency in multiple languages; hence teachers should allow minority learners to retain their language while still practicing English. Due to differences in languages, one would think allowing bilingualism in school would foster confusion, but this is not the case. Bilingualism does not promote confusion; however, it boosts a child's development, among other significant cognitive and social advantages.

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Bilingual learning helps children have a better understanding and grasp of communication; they have a vast knowledge of communication ques acquired from the mother language and the foreign language. Bilingual children perform better in school academically than children who speak one language. Areas they show prowess include problem-solving nonverbal tests, differentiation of phonetics and semantics, and the ability to identify grammatical correctness ‘of a sentence among other cognitive tests. Due to increased cognitive development in the bilingual learners, depict better presentation capabilities' this is due to their well-developed communication and broad knowledge of information. This is because they can understand information from two different language points of view, giving them a more comprehensive room for understanding resulting in better elaboration and presentation. Bilingualism demand grasping two languages and, at times, can be confusing to young learners. However, bilingual learners begin to learn the difference between two languages from a young age. As they grow, they develop a higher ability to focus on essential variables eliminating the likelihood of contradictions in ambiguous contexts.

B) Attributions for Academic Successes and Failures in Elementary School

When I was in elementary school, I remember I did not perform well earlier on. I was used to my mother language at home, and she would explain to me information in my ethic language. When I attended school in elementary classes, I was confused because I did not understand the language used in class until we were taught from scratch the alphabets, word formation, and names of nouns. After one term, I realized I understood what my mother said and what my teacher taught in class with ease despite differences in language. I began to improve when I was conversant with the English language without getting agitated. Whenever I could not process information in English, I would fall back to my mother language, creating ease in understanding and quick grasp of knowledge. This has not changed. I find myself interpreting information from my ethics language and translating in English, which has always made me seem academically sharp among my peers.

I like being praised for doing well, and I love attention. Young, I was always angry to see others receive more notice than I did, and that made me work harder in learning the English language. It was also difficult to communicate, but after I learned English, I stood out. I was better at speaking, and often, the teacher would recognize me or the effort in learning the English language and, at the same time, on my excellent performance. I remember I was good at presenting stories, poems, and songs. Today I am an excellent presenter, and I often do not shy out of a conversation that demands critical evaluations and discussions.