WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.000 Music 00:00:02.000 --> 00:00:04.000 Music 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:06.000 Music 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:08.000 Music 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:12.000 Music 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:16.000 This first session is an introduction to bilingual education 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:18.000 and 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:20.000 we're going to be stopping, starting 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:22.000 having you 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:24.000 having some discussions at your table 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:26.000 and I would welcome you 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:28.000 at any point to actually 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:31.400 ask any questions you would like to ask to interrupt. 00:00:34.740 --> 00:00:40.960 So first, perhaps just a couple of words about my background, why I presume to speak about 00:00:40.960 --> 00:00:42.080 bilingual education. 00:00:42.980 --> 00:00:44.300 That is Estonia. 00:00:44.840 --> 00:00:45.680 I'm Estonian. 00:00:46.740 --> 00:00:51.740 That is perhaps a little bit difficult to believe when you hear me speak English, but 00:00:51.740 --> 00:00:53.660 that will be explained shortly. 00:00:54.660 --> 00:00:56.860 Estonia is a pretty empty country. 00:00:56.860 --> 00:01:00.240 the country, 1.3 million people. 00:01:00.241 --> 00:01:03.141 size of a little bigger than Holland, a little bigger than Belgium. 00:01:07.881 --> 00:01:15.301 But in the last five years, I've been living in England, and I've had a chance to research 00:01:15.301 --> 00:01:21.821 the management and pedagogical implications of bilingual programming, working through 00:01:21.821 --> 00:01:22.921 the University of London. 00:01:22.921 --> 00:01:31.341 and here are the reasons those two symbols are the reasons why I speak English the way I do 00:01:31.341 --> 00:01:37.161 because I learned to speak English at age five growing up in Canada. Canada also has quite a few 00:01:37.161 --> 00:01:42.621 bilingual programs that I've been involved with while I was there. Immersion programs in particular 00:01:42.621 --> 00:01:50.781 which I'll be speaking about later on. America, I've had a chance to spend seven years living in 00:01:50.781 --> 00:01:54.381 I find it a very unusual place in some ways 00:01:54.381 --> 00:01:57.121 when it comes to bilingual education. 00:01:57.121 --> 00:02:00.481 There is the state of Utah, which is going gung-ho 00:02:00.482 --> 00:02:06.502 on bilingual education, developing tremendous, powerful bilingual programs. 00:02:07.282 --> 00:02:10.282 And there are other places, such as the state of California, 00:02:10.742 --> 00:02:13.962 which are restricting access to bilingual education. 00:02:14.862 --> 00:02:19.062 And why? Because it seems to be counterintuitive. 00:02:19.762 --> 00:02:24.482 People have trouble believing the research, they just don't seem to want to look at it. 00:02:24.482 --> 00:02:36.082 Had some experience in Asia, been able to work with schools from seven countries who 00:02:36.082 --> 00:02:42.242 come together in Malaysia for several weeks, and an opportunity to work in Paris. 00:02:42.242 --> 00:02:47.242 Does anyone recognize that tower? 00:02:47.242 --> 00:02:52.202 Yes. 00:02:52.202 --> 00:02:53.202 Are you Kazakh? 00:02:53.202 --> 00:02:54.702 Ah, Kyrgyz. 00:02:54.702 --> 00:03:00.722 Well, this is the Beitarek Tower in Astana in Kazakhstan. 00:03:00.723 --> 00:03:12.063 and Kazakhstan has established, is establishing a trilingual network of schools called the Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools 00:03:12.063 --> 00:03:21.663 and are going about this in perhaps the most systematic manner that any education system has ever done it. 00:03:21.663 --> 00:03:33.003 It's a very special set of circumstances because there are 20 schools and they're being purpose-built and they're exceptionally well-resourced. 00:03:33.463 --> 00:03:43.403 But nonetheless, they're going about it in a very systematic way, working with Cambridge, working with international organizations to help them get the program off the ground. 00:03:44.183 --> 00:03:46.503 And I've been involved in that program as well. 00:03:46.503 --> 00:03:53.503 And I've also worked for the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Estonian Ministry of Education. 00:03:53.503 --> 00:04:00.963 Whenever one is going to begin to discuss anything or work on any program, it's important 00:04:00.964 --> 00:04:11.684 important to at least begin to agree on terms. And even a term such as bilingualism is a 00:04:11.684 --> 00:04:18.804 highly contentious term. People understand it in very different ways. So I would ask 00:04:18.804 --> 00:04:22.844 for a show of hands. Who in this room is bilingual? 00:04:22.844 --> 00:04:31.604 Okay, who is monolingual? 00:04:37.604 --> 00:04:41.964 Okay, now, who is trilingual? 00:04:44.104 --> 00:04:47.864 Okay, now one person, quadrilingual? 00:04:49.704 --> 00:04:50.324 Ah. 00:04:50.324 --> 00:04:55.324 And it'd be interesting to see how far we could go up. 00:04:57.924 --> 00:05:01.204 In fact, these terms are very difficult to determine 00:05:01.206 --> 00:05:12.046 And if you understood the question, and English isn't your first language, you're clearly on some level bilingual. 00:05:13.786 --> 00:05:19.786 So let's try and look at some of the terminology around this. 00:05:20.566 --> 00:05:27.406 You have a sheet in your folder with some definitions of bilingualism. 00:05:31.206 --> 00:05:35.206 At least I was under the impression you do. 00:05:35.206 --> 00:05:37.706 You do, excellent. 00:05:37.706 --> 00:05:40.706 Definitions of bilingualism? 00:05:40.706 --> 00:05:45.126 All right. 00:05:45.126 --> 00:05:53.666 Could I ask you in your group to simply have a look at some of those first definitions, 00:05:53.666 --> 00:05:57.546 or have a look at all of those definitions except for the last two, the bilingual student 00:05:57.546 --> 00:06:00.406 and bilingual education? 00:06:00.406 --> 00:06:01.446 And can you discuss 00:06:01.447 --> 00:06:15.107 in your group what you think about these definitions. Do you like the definitions? Do you see them 00:06:15.107 --> 00:06:25.027 as problematic in any way? So could you just take two, three minutes to read through them 00:06:25.027 --> 00:06:31.187 and to discuss those definitions? And how is each definition different from the other? 00:06:31.447 --> 00:06:43.407 So, how are these definitions different from one another? 00:06:43.407 --> 00:06:47.567 Which definition do you like? 00:06:47.567 --> 00:06:51.427 Which ones don't you like and why? 00:06:51.427 --> 00:06:54.927 So what did you come up with? 00:06:54.927 --> 00:07:00.427 What about that first definition? 00:07:00.427 --> 00:07:01.687 The native-like control of the 00:07:01.688 --> 00:07:08.688 two or more languages. Does this seem like a reasonable definition? 00:07:08.688 --> 00:07:15.288 Thank you. I think for 1935 it was a good definition, but for where we're at today 00:07:15.288 --> 00:07:19.568 it was just a little bit vague. It didn't give us enough information. 00:07:19.568 --> 00:07:27.568 Okay, anyone else? This gentleman, our Kyrgyz colleague. 00:07:27.568 --> 00:07:38.568 The other languages, we don't have to know like native-like, you know, if we can communicate in that language, if we can understand each other, it is enough. 00:07:39.188 --> 00:07:44.928 I mean, we should improve, but we don't have to know like native-like. 00:07:45.548 --> 00:07:49.448 Right. Anyone else like to make a comment about that first definition? 00:07:49.448 --> 00:08:01.928 All right, well, in fact, it's very hard to actually define what 00:08:01.929 --> 00:08:10.589 what native-like control is, because if we think of the range of people that we've met in our lives 00:08:10.589 --> 00:08:16.069 who speak what is for us our first and strongest, most dominant language, 00:08:16.069 --> 00:08:23.389 then there's a wide range, actually, in people use that language. 00:08:23.389 --> 00:08:37.649 For instance, an academic will speak English at Oxford in a completely different way, for instance, from someone who may be serving you in a restaurant. 00:08:38.109 --> 00:08:39.749 May not, but likely will. 00:08:40.589 --> 00:08:45.949 So there's a wide range in the way people speak any language. 00:08:45.949 --> 00:08:53.549 and no one has ever actually come up with a good way of saying this is the absolute standard. 00:08:53.749 --> 00:08:56.509 I mean, there is the Oxford English Dictionary, etc., 00:08:56.509 --> 00:09:02.169 but there is no really strong standard of saying what need of light control is. 00:09:02.170 --> 00:09:06.650 and I think our Kirky's colleague made a very important point 00:09:06.650 --> 00:09:10.530 that the bottom line is that people communicate 00:09:10.530 --> 00:09:15.830 and if you communicate effectively, that is, you're bilingual. 00:09:17.050 --> 00:09:21.190 You're able to get your message across. 00:09:21.350 --> 00:09:23.510 You're able to understand someone else. 00:09:24.510 --> 00:09:29.550 So in fact, unfortunately, Bloomfield's definition, it's an old one, 00:09:29.550 --> 00:09:34.790 but there are still a lot of people who sort of expect this 00:09:34.790 --> 00:09:37.230 and there is one unfortunate thing. 00:09:37.450 --> 00:09:40.170 Sometimes, in some circumstances, 00:09:40.410 --> 00:09:44.310 the marketplace will demand from some people 00:09:44.310 --> 00:09:46.450 in a very small number of professions 00:09:46.450 --> 00:09:50.250 a very high degree of bilingualism. 00:09:50.970 --> 00:09:54.090 What about this one, the McNamara one? 00:09:54.090 --> 00:10:24.070 Thank you. 00:10:02.411 --> 00:10:13.971 Anything that bothers you about that definition? 00:10:13.971 --> 00:10:22.391 It's a very low level and consequently you, this gentleman himself, wouldn't consider 00:10:22.391 --> 00:10:29.131 himself a bilingual and there are other people who might not consider you a bilingual. 00:10:29.131 --> 00:10:32.951 So it's a very generous definition. 00:10:32.951 --> 00:10:36.311 It works on some level. 00:10:36.311 --> 00:10:41.891 Very few people are monolingual anymore in a sense. 00:10:41.891 --> 00:10:49.371 Even in English-speaking societies in countries where we know that there isn't a large, the 00:10:49.371 --> 00:10:54.531 percentage of people who speak foreign languages is relatively small in comparison with other 00:10:54.531 --> 00:10:55.731 countries. 00:10:55.731 --> 00:10:58.691 Even those people have picked up some phrases. 00:10:58.691 --> 00:11:02.651 So there's some level of bilingualism. 00:11:02.652 --> 00:11:05.792 But it's not really enough to do a great deal with. 00:11:06.392 --> 00:11:07.532 What about this one? 00:11:08.212 --> 00:11:09.412 Ortiz et al. 00:11:10.792 --> 00:11:13.192 Anything that's been added to this definition? 00:11:16.792 --> 00:11:20.972 Perhaps the key thing here is that they've added the word effectively. 00:11:23.092 --> 00:11:28.692 And so what is important there is that communication is taking place. 00:11:28.692 --> 00:11:37.532 people are able to do what they need to do with the language, but it's not important whether 00:11:37.532 --> 00:11:45.612 they're making any grammatical errors. And the reason they're neurologists, they look at the 00:11:45.612 --> 00:11:53.152 brain, they also wanted to have a sweeping definition to cover all age ranges. So that's 00:11:53.152 --> 00:11:54.352 And that's why they've added 00:11:54.352 --> 00:11:55.752 that in there. 00:11:55.752 --> 00:11:57.692 And they've added in the concept 00:11:57.692 --> 00:12:00.132 of context. 00:12:00.132 --> 00:12:02.892 So I have to be able to communicate 00:12:02.893 --> 00:12:10.253 effectively in a given context, in a given situation. 00:12:10.253 --> 00:12:13.233 What about this definition from the Council of Europe? 00:12:13.233 --> 00:12:22.993 These are bits and pieces pulled out from a more eloquently written definition. 00:12:22.993 --> 00:12:25.853 What has been added to this? 00:12:25.853 --> 00:12:32.673 What are the new elements? 00:12:32.673 --> 00:12:33.373 I heard it. 00:12:35.513 --> 00:12:39.293 A social agent, intercultural action. 00:12:40.533 --> 00:12:46.033 So here the expectation is that bilingualism isn't just a matter of language. 00:12:46.833 --> 00:12:49.513 It's also a matter of culture. 00:12:49.873 --> 00:12:58.973 It's a matter of not simply learning the language and then sitting in my room reading books, 00:12:58.973 --> 00:13:00.213 not to say it's not a service, 00:13:00.213 --> 00:13:03.133 but it's saying that I actually 00:13:03.135 --> 00:13:13.035 interaction, intercultural interaction. So their concept of plurilingualism or bilingualism, 00:13:13.035 --> 00:13:23.095 in this case three or more languages, includes this extra element of intercultural communication, 00:13:23.095 --> 00:13:33.335 implying that language is much more than simply a set of symbols and words that we use. 00:13:35.555 --> 00:13:44.015 So perhaps the one that I'm using at the moment as a simple one is that bilinguals are individuals 00:13:44.015 --> 00:13:50.875 and groups of people who effectively use two or more languages for intercultural communication 00:13:50.875 --> 00:13:52.715 in various contexts. 00:13:53.095 --> 00:14:03.375 Can we work with that? Would anyone like to protest? 00:14:03.376 --> 00:14:10.376 How have you benefited from bilingualism? 00:14:10.376 --> 00:14:13.376 Take a few moments to talk about that at your table, 00:14:13.376 --> 00:14:16.376 and then we'll pass the mic around and hear about that. 00:14:16.376 --> 00:14:23.376 I get the sense that either you've met up with people you haven't seen in a long time, 00:14:23.376 --> 00:14:29.376 or that there are an awful lot of benefits to bilingual education, 00:14:29.376 --> 00:14:32.376 based on at least that exchange. 00:14:32.376 --> 00:14:34.756 What are some of them that you've come up with? 00:14:35.356 --> 00:14:37.676 Okay, so my group came up with, 00:14:38.556 --> 00:14:42.236 they obviously understand that when we master, 00:14:42.596 --> 00:14:45.016 we have a command of another language, 00:14:45.996 --> 00:14:47.576 maybe two or three languages. 00:14:47.876 --> 00:14:53.756 We have an access to more knowledge and experience another culture. 00:14:54.356 --> 00:14:59.356 But in addition to that, my team here also say that in education, 00:14:59.356 --> 00:15:03.616 we're able to pick up some 00:15:03.617 --> 00:15:07.697 knowledge or another culture point in order to 00:15:07.697 --> 00:15:11.697 bring in education to teach our students 00:15:11.697 --> 00:15:15.737 about that. 00:15:15.737 --> 00:15:19.737 Thank you. Anyone else? 00:15:19.737 --> 00:15:23.777 I think that being bilingual, it just 00:15:23.777 --> 00:15:27.817 opens a door or window to the world. 00:15:27.817 --> 00:15:31.817 And especially in China, because Chinese is very different from 00:15:31.817 --> 00:15:33.597 English. 00:15:33.617 --> 00:15:37.577 So which means that if a Chinese people want to go abroad, 00:15:37.577 --> 00:15:40.657 want to actively involved in the World Fire, 00:15:40.657 --> 00:15:42.897 the language I think is the first, 00:15:42.897 --> 00:15:45.837 is the first tool to get you there. 00:15:45.837 --> 00:15:50.057 And also, I'm going to talk about this afternoon, 00:15:50.057 --> 00:15:54.937 it's offering the Cambridge course to Chinese students. 00:15:54.937 --> 00:15:57.217 I think it's very popular in China now. 00:15:57.217 --> 00:16:00.097 And more and more parents see the benefit 00:16:00.097 --> 00:16:01.657 of being bilingual. 00:16:01.657 --> 00:16:03.857 and more and more students get a 00:16:03.858 --> 00:16:07.618 benefit from the international education as well. Thank you. 00:16:09.498 --> 00:16:11.198 Thank you. Anyone else? 00:16:12.818 --> 00:16:13.218 Carrie? 00:16:14.538 --> 00:16:20.078 Just to add to that a little bit, because some of us have learned different languages. 00:16:20.298 --> 00:16:26.238 English is my first language, and when I was living in Egypt, I started to study Arabic 00:16:26.238 --> 00:16:33.438 fluently, and it opened up new understandings of the cultures. It enhanced relationships, 00:16:33.858 --> 00:16:38.098 and we really were able to share knowledge and understanding. 00:16:38.098 --> 00:16:44.098 So I think it's bilingualism is good all the way around. 00:16:44.098 --> 00:16:46.098 Someone? 00:16:46.098 --> 00:16:47.098 Yeah. 00:16:47.098 --> 00:16:55.998 In our school, some students, sorry, some teachers are worried about the examination result. 00:16:55.998 --> 00:17:03.838 If we teach chemistry or physics in English, the students can understand what they're doing 00:17:03.838 --> 00:17:04.098 Well. 00:17:04.099 --> 00:17:06.499 if we teach them in Chinese. 00:17:07.459 --> 00:17:13.559 So that is also not worries whether we should teach them in English 00:17:13.559 --> 00:17:16.159 or teach them in Chinese. 00:17:16.839 --> 00:17:18.479 So that's why I'm here. 00:17:19.819 --> 00:17:20.659 Thank you. 00:17:21.479 --> 00:17:26.799 In fact, there are lots of people who are kind of worried about bilingualism. 00:17:26.799 --> 00:17:43.819 In Estonia, because Estonia has a neighbor that has been somewhat aggressive, and so there was some concern in particular about Estonian and Russian. 00:17:44.479 --> 00:17:50.059 And Estonians worked very hard to preserve their language, and of course Russians have worked to preserve theirs. 00:17:50.059 --> 00:17:53.219 and people were afraid that bilingualism 00:17:53.219 --> 00:17:57.439 might actually diminish one language or the other language. 00:17:57.919 --> 00:18:00.539 And I think some people saw that there's a situation 00:18:00.539 --> 00:18:03.219 where there's only so much space in the brain. 00:18:04.340 --> 00:18:11.020 But, in fact, we're capable of learning a large number of languages and learning them 00:18:11.020 --> 00:18:12.520 quite well. 00:18:12.520 --> 00:18:16.780 And students are actually capable of learning through several languages. 00:18:16.780 --> 00:18:23.780 We'll come and look at the educational programs and some of their outcomes as long as the 00:18:23.780 --> 00:18:27.320 education is of good quality. 00:18:27.320 --> 00:18:34.860 So quality bilingual education in the long term delivers results. 00:18:36.160 --> 00:18:43.260 And there is no reason to assume that if students are being taught through their mother tongue 00:18:43.260 --> 00:18:48.760 that they are listening or that they're paying attention 00:18:48.760 --> 00:18:52.540 or that they're understanding everything that's being said. 00:18:53.800 --> 00:18:56.680 Their minds are going to be wandering off. 00:18:57.320 --> 00:19:00.160 There's a fair amount of 00:19:00.160 --> 00:19:01.760 educational research that is 00:19:01.760 --> 00:19:04.560 also telling us that bilingual 00:19:04.581 --> 00:19:07.841 in some ways helps children to concentrate 00:19:07.841 --> 00:19:10.561 because they have to work harder. 00:19:11.461 --> 00:19:14.381 They have to work harder at getting it. 00:19:14.721 --> 00:19:18.721 They have to work harder at being careful about detail. 00:19:19.461 --> 00:19:20.821 But we'll come to that later. 00:19:21.601 --> 00:19:25.001 Allow me to go through some of the benefits of bilingualism. 00:19:25.001 --> 00:19:25.941 Here are a few. 00:19:28.841 --> 00:19:29.601 Thank you. 00:19:29.601 --> 00:19:40.561 First, let me go through some of the cognitive benefits of bilingualism, how it helps us 00:19:40.561 --> 00:19:42.641 to think. 00:19:42.641 --> 00:19:52.601 And I'm going to suggest to Ben that an academic paper I wrote on this be placed on the website 00:19:52.601 --> 00:19:56.021 or wherever you decide, you'll explain. 00:19:56.021 --> 00:19:59.621 the Cambridge Assessment Singapore website, 00:19:59.621 --> 00:20:03.321 which will have all of the academic references to this. 00:20:03.321 --> 00:20:04.821 But because we're racing through 00:20:04.822 --> 00:20:10.062 much of the material, I'm not going to go into tremendous detail. So I hope you'll take 00:20:10.062 --> 00:20:16.502 me, take these statements at face value, but there'll be an academic paper that you can 00:20:16.502 --> 00:20:29.182 go to for the sources. One of the pieces is that it's thought that bilinguals have a kind 00:20:29.182 --> 00:20:38.562 of a problem-solving mind. They have enhanced control over their thought processes. It's what's 00:20:38.562 --> 00:20:45.402 called executive control. They can better ignore distracting and irrelevant stimuli. 00:20:46.302 --> 00:20:53.902 So in test results, when bilingual students are put in situations where they're supposed to 00:20:53.902 --> 00:20:58.902 do a task and the researchers bombard them with 00:20:59.502 --> 00:21:03.222 or give them some irrelevant information, 00:21:03.222 --> 00:21:05.062 the bilinguals are better able 00:21:05.063 --> 00:21:12.783 to ignore it. And the better bilinguals are better able to focus in on the task. So they're 00:21:12.783 --> 00:21:19.103 used to probably processing, because as you're learning a language, you're processing things 00:21:19.103 --> 00:21:26.463 you don't completely understand yet. You're used to a little bit of confusion. And they 00:21:26.463 --> 00:21:33.103 can stay better focused. So says the research. The flexible mind. 00:21:35.063 --> 00:21:43.303 Actually, the mind is, people like Carol Dweck and Doidge would say, that the mind is more 00:21:43.303 --> 00:21:46.763 like a muscle. 00:21:46.763 --> 00:21:56.403 It's a physical organ, after all, and we can reshape our minds. 00:21:56.403 --> 00:22:01.063 One neuron can connect with up to 10,000 other neurons. 00:22:01.063 --> 00:22:05.303 and as we learn our neural networks 00:22:05.305 --> 00:22:11.425 become more extensive, and they become more robust for bilinguals. 00:22:13.545 --> 00:22:17.745 It's also thought that bilinguals can look at the world from different perspectives, 00:22:18.485 --> 00:22:21.325 so they have more avenues of thought. 00:22:22.325 --> 00:22:30.445 And so we're not just talking about two separate monolingual sort of minds working together, 00:22:30.445 --> 00:22:38.705 but it's one mind, in a sense, where the two languages are intertwined and supporting each other. 00:22:41.125 --> 00:22:45.185 It's a kind of what Vivian Cook calls multi-competence. 00:22:49.245 --> 00:22:51.905 It's also the interpersonal mind. 00:22:51.905 --> 00:22:56.905 Bilingualism seems to help build people's sensitivity 00:23:00.185 --> 00:23:01.405 to context. 00:23:04.065 --> 00:23:05.545 Once again, it's the same 00:23:05.546 --> 00:23:12.626 issue as with flexibility. People who are bilingual, at least in many of the research 00:23:12.626 --> 00:23:19.206 studies, tend to view the world from different perspectives. Also, for instance, when bilinguals 00:23:19.206 --> 00:23:27.126 are given images, shown images, where many images are embedded within one image, bilinguals 00:23:27.126 --> 00:23:33.846 are able to find more of those images. So they're able to look at the world from different 00:23:33.846 --> 00:23:41.206 perspectives, different angles. It gives one a slight edge, and it seems to be able to nurture 00:23:41.206 --> 00:23:55.526 or foster intercultural communication. The metalinguistic mind. Now, awareness of language, 00:23:55.526 --> 00:24:00.526 having metalinguistic awareness is having, 00:24:01.166 --> 00:24:04.326 being able to step back and look at the language, 00:24:04.326 --> 00:24:05.786 analyze the language. 00:24:05.787 --> 00:24:11.027 awareness of language as a tool for thinking and communication, and it's thought that the 00:24:11.027 --> 00:24:15.787 bilinguals are better able to do that, to step back from language for a moment, to look 00:24:15.787 --> 00:24:18.587 at it, to analyze it. 00:24:18.587 --> 00:24:23.987 Greater understanding of how language is used to achieve its goals. 00:24:23.987 --> 00:24:26.027 This has quite a few implications. 00:24:26.027 --> 00:24:35.767 For instance, in the Val d'Ost region in Italy, children are going through a trilingual program 00:24:35.767 --> 00:24:53.487 And it is found that when they're given mathematics tasks through the medium of a second language, that they're actually performing very well on the highly demanding cognitive questions. 00:24:53.487 --> 00:25:01.387 and that when those highly demanding cognitive questions are posed in the first language, 00:25:02.107 --> 00:25:06.027 then people just assume immediately that they've understood and get on with 00:25:06.028 --> 00:25:13.388 it, and whereas if they're functioning in their second language, they're having to concentrate 00:25:13.388 --> 00:25:21.328 harder on them. So, in a sense, it gives one, if you're aware of language, you're aware 00:25:21.328 --> 00:25:27.348 of ambiguity, you're aware of the fact that words may have several meanings, you're more 00:25:27.348 --> 00:25:34.108 likely to take a moment to think about what that word really meant. So, a greater understanding 00:25:34.108 --> 00:25:36.928 of how language is used to achieve specific goals. 00:25:38.868 --> 00:25:41.108 And the learning mind would be another one. 00:25:43.488 --> 00:25:47.228 It's thought the bilinguals have improved episodic memory. 00:25:48.308 --> 00:25:50.468 That's the what, when, and where. 00:25:51.648 --> 00:25:55.088 That they have improved semantic memory, the how. 00:25:56.968 --> 00:26:01.428 And that because memory is so important to learning in general, 00:26:01.888 --> 00:26:03.988 I mean, it's central to the learning process, 00:26:04.108 --> 00:26:06.268 That means that the bilingual 00:26:06.269 --> 00:26:14.649 may have an advantage in learning in general. 00:26:14.649 --> 00:26:20.849 And has anyone heard about the health benefits of bilingualism? 00:26:20.849 --> 00:26:28.829 The cognitive health, they're really cognitive benefits, but they have health implications. 00:26:28.829 --> 00:26:35.829 Bielestock at York University in Toronto and others have looked at the effects of aging, 00:26:36.969 --> 00:26:43.469 in particular, what happens when people get dementia and what happens when one is bilingual 00:26:43.469 --> 00:26:46.469 versus what happens when one is monolingual. 00:26:47.349 --> 00:26:55.509 And she's found that you get an extra 3.9 years of additional mental acuity, mental sharpness, 00:26:55.789 --> 00:26:57.089 if you're a bilingual. 00:26:57.089 --> 00:27:02.089 And what's particularly important is that they controlled 00:27:02.169 --> 00:27:04.689 for a large number of things. 00:27:04.689 --> 00:27:06.509 They controlled for things such as education, 00:27:06.510 --> 00:27:14.510 education, they control for gender, the different types of languages, and across each of these 00:27:14.510 --> 00:27:23.590 groups you get an extra four years. So if you're bilingual and you have a high school 00:27:23.590 --> 00:27:29.690 education, you're still going to get an extra four years. If you're university educated, 00:27:29.690 --> 00:27:36.190 compared to a university educated person, you should get an extra four years. And that 00:27:36.190 --> 00:27:41.550 doesn't mean that the disease wouldn't be present in your brain. The pathology would still be there. 00:27:42.230 --> 00:27:49.890 But because your neural networks are probably, in a bilingual, more robust, not unlike a national 00:27:49.890 --> 00:27:56.990 power grid, if you have a problem in a power grid, an outage, a power outage in some area, 00:27:57.570 --> 00:28:05.410 if you have a very complex grid, then you can bypass that problem in the grid and bring power 00:28:05.410 --> 00:28:06.750 to the community through other 00:28:06.751 --> 00:28:13.591 their roots. So it's thought that the bilingual is able to simply, because of their more robust 00:28:13.591 --> 00:28:20.831 neural network, bypass that pathology to some extent and compensate for it. 00:28:22.471 --> 00:28:29.351 So improved executive function control over thinking and memory may slow down the rate of 00:28:29.351 --> 00:28:40.371 decline. So there are quite a few benefits. And we're not going to go into the financial benefits 00:28:40.371 --> 00:28:48.391 here today. The financial benefits for countries, because countries that share a language have 00:28:48.391 --> 00:28:54.371 increased trade flows. We know that companies that have a good language policy or thought through 00:28:54.371 --> 00:28:59.311 what they're doing with language, tend to export more. 00:28:59.311 --> 00:29:02.211 If you export more, you get intelligence 00:29:02.211 --> 00:29:05.411 from other markets, et cetera. 00:29:05.411 --> 00:29:06.991 The benefits, the list of benefits 00:29:06.992 --> 00:29:09.752 is very, very long. 00:29:09.752 --> 00:29:13.612 And at the same time, there are a lot of myths out there about bilingualism. 00:29:13.612 --> 00:29:18.672 There's some concerns about what it might do. 00:29:18.672 --> 00:29:23.052 Are there any myths that you want to raise or any concerns? 00:29:23.052 --> 00:29:27.112 Anything that... 00:29:27.112 --> 00:29:30.172 Perhaps myths isn't the right word, because if it's a concern, it's a concern. 00:29:30.172 --> 00:29:34.312 Are there any concerns you have with bilingualism that you'd want to raise? 00:29:36.992 --> 00:29:41.572 No, one was raised. 00:29:41.752 --> 00:29:43.512 We'll come back to it later on. 00:29:45.312 --> 00:29:47.512 So let's go on with the definitions. 00:29:48.512 --> 00:29:49.752 Who's a bilingual student? 00:29:50.912 --> 00:29:57.912 It's someone who can meet curriculum expectations in those subjects taught primarily either through 00:29:57.912 --> 00:30:01.212 the first language or primarily through the second language. 00:30:02.392 --> 00:30:05.472 So that is how you judge. 00:30:05.692 --> 00:30:06.372 Are they coping? 00:30:06.372 --> 00:30:07.232 Are they working? 00:30:07.234 --> 00:30:12.634 able to do their schoolwork if they are in that environment, in those circumstances, they're 00:30:12.634 --> 00:30:19.474 bilingual. Now, if you pull a child out of a bilingual program in grade five, in the fifth 00:30:19.474 --> 00:30:25.774 year of school, if they're functioning very, very well, that does not mean that that child will be 00:30:25.774 --> 00:30:37.034 able to use that language at a very high level 20 years later. One of the unfortunate things about 00:30:37.034 --> 00:30:42.254 language is, we have to keep working on it. We have to keep working on it all of our lives. 00:30:42.994 --> 00:30:49.734 Language is dynamic. I think it is either going up or it's going down. I don't think there's a lot 00:30:49.734 --> 00:30:55.014 of staying in one place. We're either all the time learning or the other one's in decline. 00:30:55.014 --> 00:31:04.354 And I've got three strong languages, and I would say that two are particularly strong, 00:31:04.354 --> 00:31:07.474 among Estonian and English, and 00:31:07.475 --> 00:31:12.955 only when it comes to academic writing, because I write more and more in English, I now have 00:31:12.955 --> 00:31:19.215 to struggle with the academic writing in Estonian. But that's a natural part of the process. 00:31:20.175 --> 00:31:26.995 And I'd much rather be trilingual and have that struggle than be monolingual and not 00:31:26.995 --> 00:31:34.215 have that struggle. So a bilingual student is able to cope, and this includes biliteracy, 00:31:34.215 --> 00:31:37.355 the ability to read and write in two or more languages. 00:31:39.555 --> 00:31:43.935 I'd like to raise a couple of other terms because I think they're important. 00:31:44.155 --> 00:31:47.395 One is additive versus subtractive bilingualism. 00:31:48.895 --> 00:31:53.895 There are programs that are called bilingual by some people 00:31:53.895 --> 00:31:59.835 that don't have the goal of developing additive bilingualism. 00:31:59.835 --> 00:32:04.835 They have the goal of, in fact, having a child learn 00:32:04.835 --> 00:32:07.715 a society's dominant language 00:32:07.716 --> 00:32:12.036 and showing very little concern for the child's first language. 00:32:12.896 --> 00:32:15.496 And those could be called subtractive, 00:32:15.976 --> 00:32:21.696 because society's dominant language will become that child's dominant language, 00:32:21.696 --> 00:32:26.836 and the home language or the language of the community, 00:32:27.496 --> 00:32:32.316 that particular small community, might go into decline. 00:32:32.876 --> 00:32:36.236 So that would be called subtractive bilingualism. 00:32:36.236 --> 00:32:46.376 Most people working in the field are pro-additive bilingualism and work hard against subtractive bilingualism. 00:32:46.816 --> 00:32:53.636 But there are plenty of people in the world putting the label bilingual education on subtractive programs. 00:32:53.636 --> 00:33:05.796 An example would simply be some countries that will remain unnamed at the moment that will provide, let's say, three years of mother tongue education. 00:33:06.236 --> 00:33:07.956 with the goal of 00:33:07.957 --> 00:33:16.397 of then transitioning children to starting to use the society's dominant language. 00:33:16.397 --> 00:33:23.537 And with, in a sense, a goal of providing some support in the beginning, but not showing 00:33:23.537 --> 00:33:29.037 a great deal of concern about that language later on. 00:33:29.037 --> 00:33:37.937 So if we sum up bilingual education, it supports an individual in becoming and remaining bilingual. 00:33:37.957 --> 00:33:40.117 So we're talking about additive bilingualism. 00:33:41.197 --> 00:33:47.377 At least two languages are used to teach different subjects, content subjects, such as mathematics. 00:33:48.717 --> 00:33:54.677 And I would add that this is also done in the ideal during the final years of schooling. 00:33:55.557 --> 00:34:02.477 Because if you're only using the two languages in the first few years, 00:34:02.937 --> 00:34:06.217 then by the time a child gets close to the end of their schooling, 00:34:06.217 --> 00:34:08.197 the building, well, there's a 00:34:08.198 --> 00:34:16.338 group of registers that that child will not be developing in the other language. 00:34:19.918 --> 00:34:29.958 So, quality ethical bilingual education, what is it not? Well, it's definitely not just for 00:34:29.958 --> 00:34:37.538 high achievers. We have plenty of research coming out of several continents, in particular, 00:34:37.538 --> 00:34:42.778 these programs were developed very thoroughly in Canada and the United States, and they've 00:34:42.778 --> 00:34:48.278 been most intensively researched, but there are bilingual programs in many countries from 00:34:48.278 --> 00:34:57.958 Australia to many European countries. In Estonia, we've also established a bilingual program 00:34:57.958 --> 00:35:04.058 in Russian language schools for the Russian language community, which is a voluntary program, 00:35:04.058 --> 00:35:06.558 And that is in research very 00:35:06.558 --> 00:35:08.438 thoroughly and the Russian 00:35:08.439 --> 00:35:10.939 are learning to speak Estonian, 00:35:10.939 --> 00:35:13.879 they're meeting curriculum expectations, 00:35:13.879 --> 00:35:18.599 and they're achieving well in Russian reading and writing 00:35:18.599 --> 00:35:22.059 tests, and the average student is coping. 00:35:22.059 --> 00:35:24.679 And we know from these studies that the student who 00:35:24.679 --> 00:35:28.479 tends to get a C functions perfectly well 00:35:28.479 --> 00:35:30.199 in bilingual programs. 00:35:30.199 --> 00:35:33.419 They may still continue to get a C, 00:35:33.419 --> 00:35:36.139 but at least they're bilingual. 00:35:36.139 --> 00:35:44.439 So ideally, quality bilingual education is not just for the elite, because the elite does quite well usually in life. 00:35:45.059 --> 00:36:00.139 It seems that a quality bilingual program could really offer some good, solid power to provide a path to improving the lives of people who don't belong to the elite, shall we say. 00:36:00.139 --> 00:36:08.679 And as said before, it's definitely not for suppressing the first language. 00:36:08.680 --> 00:36:17.160 And another mantra would be that it's not simply changing the language of instruction. 00:36:20.940 --> 00:36:29.220 So it would not simply be my starting to give this talk in Estonian and saying, good luck, sink or swim. 00:36:29.220 --> 00:36:39.840 It would mean providing lots of support, lots of visuals perhaps in the beginning, providing 00:36:39.840 --> 00:36:49.320 lots of organized phrases, et cetera, that students can use. 00:36:49.320 --> 00:36:55.760 Can you take a look in your folder now at this diagram that is called the Many Faces 00:36:55.760 --> 00:36:56.760 of CLIL? 00:36:56.760 --> 00:37:03.260 Now CLIL is a term we'll talk about in a moment. 00:37:03.260 --> 00:37:08.920 It's content and language integrated learning and some people see it as an umbrella term 00:37:08.921 --> 00:37:17.361 term that covers many types of programs. Now, here is a series of programs. Can you take 00:37:17.361 --> 00:37:24.841 a look at those and in your group discuss those and then to just find out whether there 00:37:24.841 --> 00:37:30.041 are some that you're not sure what they mean, to see if someone else in your group can tell 00:37:30.041 --> 00:37:37.921 you, and then I'll talk about those that any group would like to hear more about. 00:37:41.541 --> 00:37:51.201 So, look through them, see if in the group you can determine what they mean, and then 00:37:51.201 --> 00:37:52.741 I'll answer any questions you have. 00:38:00.041 --> 00:38:02.041 .