Parents should not assume that young children’s natural language abilities will lead to true grown-up language skills without

admin2022-01-20  59

问题   Parents should not assume that young children’s natural language abilities will lead to true grown-up language skills without a good deal of effort. Erika Hoff, a developmental psychologist who is a professor at Florida Atlantic University and the lead author of a 2015 review article on bilingual development, said: "For everybody trying to raise a bilingual child, whatever your background and reason, it’ s very important to realize that acquiring a language requires massive exposure to that language."
    Pediatricians routinely advise parents to talk as much as possible to their young children, to read to them and sing to them. Part of the point is to increase their language exposure, a major concern even for children growing up with only one language. And in order to foster language development, the exposure has to be person-to-person; screen time doesn’t count for learning language in young children—even one language—though kids can learn content and vocabulary from educational screen time later on. "For bilingual development, the child will need exposure to both languages," Dr. Hoff said, "and that’s really difficult in a monolingual environment, which is what the U.S. is."
    "A child who is learning two languages will have a smaller vocabulary in each than a child who is only learning one; there are only so many hours in the day, and you’re either hearing English or Spanish," Dr. Hoff said. The children will be fine, though, she said. They may mix the languages, but that doesn’t indicate confusion. "Adult bilinguals mix their languages all the time; it’s a sign of language ability," she said.
    Dr. Hoff works in South Florida, where there is a very educated and affluent population raising children in Spanish and English. "The children start out as baby bilinguals, but the older they get, the more English overtakes Spanish," she said. "The ones who are successful bilinguals as adults are still much better in English than they are in Spanish—they didn’ t go to school in Spanish, they don’ t read books in Spanish, and when you actually measure the size of their vocabularies, or the grammar they understand, or the coherence of the narrative they produce, they are not as proficient as they are in English." Parents will need to be mindful about introducing the child to literacy in that language. They will need to be thoughtful about ways they will encourage the child to maintain the language.
Based on the information in Paragraph 3, the followings are true EXCEPT________.

选项 A、even though they mix up two languages, children will not get confused
B、adults’ bilingual language ability are weaker than that of children
C、children who study one language have a larger vocabulary than those with two languages
D、children cannot acquire two languages simultaneously

答案D

解析 细节题。根据题干关键词定位到文章第三段。A项意为“尽管孩子们混淆了两种语言,他们也不会感到困惑”,与文中They may mix the languages,but that doesn’t indicate confusion(他们或许会把两种语言混在一起,但这并不意味着他们感到困惑)表述一致,故正确。B项意为“成人双语者的语言学习能力比小孩子弱”,根据该段最后一句Adult bilinguals mix their languages all the time(成人双语者总是混用语言)可知,该项正确。C项意为“学习一种语言的孩子词汇量大于学习双语的孩子”,其与该段第一句A child who is learning two languages will have a smaller vocabulary in each than a child who is only learning one(正在学习两种语言的孩子掌握每一门语言的词汇量少于只学习一种语言的孩子)表述一致,故正确。D项意为“孩子们没有同时习得两种语言的能力”,其与文中The children will be fine,though表述不一致。故本题选D。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/Mni4777K
0

最新回复(0)