首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Six Potential Brain Benefits of Bilingual Education A) Brains, brains, brains. People are fascinated by brain research. And y
Six Potential Brain Benefits of Bilingual Education A) Brains, brains, brains. People are fascinated by brain research. And y
admin
2021-01-08
67
问题
Six Potential Brain Benefits of Bilingual Education
A) Brains, brains, brains. People are fascinated by brain research. And yet it can be hard to point to places where our education system is really making use of the latest neuroscience (神经科学) findings. But there is one happy link where research is meeting practice: bilingual (双语的) education. "In the last 20 years or so, there’s been a virtual explosion of research on bilingualism," says Judith Kroll, a professor at the University of California, Riverside.
B) Again and again, researchers have found, "bilingualism is an experience that shapes our brain for life," in the words of Gigi Luk, an associate professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. At the same time, one of the hottest trends in public schooling is what’s often called dual-language or two-way immersion programs.
C) Traditional programs for English-language learners, or ELLs, focus on assimilating students into English as quickly as possible. Dual-language classrooms, by contrast, provide instruction across subjects to both English natives and English learners, in both English and a target language. The goal is functional bilingualism and biliteracy for all students by middle school. New York City, North Carolina, Delaware, Utah, Oregon and Washington state are among the places expanding dual-language classrooms.
D) The trend flies in the face of some of the culture wars of two decades ago, when advocates insisted on "English first" education. Most famously, California passed Proposition 227 in 1998. It was intended to sharply reduce the amount of time that English-language learners spent in bilingual settings. Proposition 58, passed by California voters on November 8, largely reversed that decision, paving the way for a huge expansion of bilingual education in the state that has the largest population of English-language learners.
E) Some of the insistence on English-first was founded on research produced decades ago, in which bilingual students underperformed monolingual (单语的) English speakers and had lower IQ scores. Today’s scholars, like Ellen Bialystok at York University in Toronto, say that research was "deeply flawed." "Earlier research looked at socially disadvantaged groups," agrees Antonella Sorace at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. "This has been completely contradicted by recent research" that compares groups more similar to each other.
F) So what does recent research say about the potential benefits of bilingual education? It turns out that, in many ways, the real trick to speaking two languages consists in managing not to speak one of those languages at a given moment—which is fundamentally a feat of paying attention. Saying "Goodbye" to mom and then "Guten tag" to your teacher, or managing to ask for a crayola roja instead of a red crayon (蜡笔), requires skills called "inhibition" and "task switching." These skills are subsets of an ability called executive function.
G) People who speak two languages often outperform monolinguals on general measures of executive function. "Bilinguals can pay focused attention without being distracted and also improve in the ability to switch from one task to another," says Sorace.
H) Do these same advantages benefit a child who begins learning a second language in kindergarten instead of as a baby? We don’t yet know. Patterns of language learning and language use are complex. But Gigi Luk at Harvard cites at least one brain-imaging study on adolescents that shows similar changes in brain structure when compared with those who are bilingual from birth, even when they didn’t begin practicing a second language in earnest before late childhood.
I) Young children being raised bilingual have to follow social cues to figure out which language to use with which person and in what setting. As a result, says Sorace, bilingual children as young as age 3 have demonstrated a head start on tests of perspective-taking and theory of mind—both of which are fundamental social and emotional skills.
J) About 10 percent of students in the Portland, Oregon public schools are assigned by lottery to dual-language classrooms that offer instruction in Spanish, Japanese or Mandarin, alongside English. Jennifer Steele at American University conducted a four-year, randomized trial and found that these dual-language students outperformed their peers in English-reading skills by a full school-year’s worth of learning by the end of middle school. Because the effects are found in reading, not in math or science where there were few differences, Steele suggests that learning two languages makes students more aware of how language works in general.
K) The research of Gigi Luk at Harvard offers a slightly different explanation. She has recently done a small study looking at a group of 100 fourth-graders in Massachusetts who had similar reading scores on a standard test, but very different language experiences. Some were foreign-language dominant and others were English natives. Here’s what’s interesting. The students who were dominant in a foreign language weren’t yet comfortably bilingual; they were just starting to learn English. Therefore, by definition, they had a much weaker English vocabulary than the native speakers. Yet they were just as good at interpreting a text. "This is very surprising," Luk says. "You would expect the reading comprehension performance to mirror the vocabulary—it’s a cornerstone of comprehension."
L) How did the foreign-language dominant speakers manage this feat? Well, Luk found, they also scored higher on tests of executive functioning. So, even though they didn’t have huge mental dictionaries to draw on, they may have been great puzzle-solvers, taking into account higher-level concepts such as whether a single sentence made sense within an overall story line. They got to the same results as the monolinguals, by a different path.
M) American public school classrooms as a whole are becoming more segregated by race and class. Dual-language programs can be an exception. Because they are composed of native English speakers deliberately placed together with recent immigrants, they tend to be more ethnically and economically balanced. And there is some evidence that this helps kids of all backgrounds gain comfort with diversity and different cultures.
N) Several of the researchers also pointed out that, in bilingual education, non-English-dominant students and their families tend to feel that their home language is heard and valued, compared with a classroom where the home language is left at the door in favor of English. This can improve students’ sense of belonging and increase parents’ involvement in their children’s education, including behaviors like reading to children. "Many parents fear their language is an obstacle, a problem, and if they abandon it their child will integrate better," says Antonella Sorace of the University of Edinburgh. "We tell them they’re not doing their child a favor by giving up their language. "
O) One theme that was striking in speaking to all these researchers was just how strongly they advocated for dual-language classrooms. Thomas and Collier have advised many school systems on how to expand their dual-language programs, and Sorace runs "Bilingualism Matters," an international network of researchers who promote bilingual education projects. This type of advocacy among scientists is unusual; even more so because the "bilingual advantage hypothesis" is being challenged once again.
P) A review of studies published last year found that cognitive advantages failed to appear in 83 percent of published studies, though in a separate analysis, the sum of effects was still significantly positive. One potential explanation offered by the researchers is that advantages that are measurable in the very young and very old tend to fade when testing young adults at the peak of their cognitive powers. And, they countered that no negative effects of bilingual education have been found. So, even if the advantages are small, they are still worth it. Not to mention one obvious, outstanding fact: "Bilingual children can speak two languages!"
About twenty years ago, bilingual practice was strongly discouraged, especially in California.
选项
答案
D
解析
细节归纳题。定位句提到,这一趋势与20年前的一些文化战背道而驰,当时倡导者坚持“英语优先”的教育。可知20年前的教育理念是“英语优先”,不提倡双语教学,特别是在加利福尼亚州。题干中的bilingual practice was strongly discouraged是对定位句中The trend flies in the face of the culture wars和“English first”education这两处信息的概括总结,故答案为D)。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/nKP7777K
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
Scatteredaroundtheglobearemorethan100smallregionsofisolatedvolcanicactivityknowntogeologistsashotspots.Unlik
Manycountrieshaveaholidaytocelebrateworkers’rightsonoraroundMay1,butLabourDayinCanadaiscelebratedonthefir
Manycountrieshaveaholidaytocelebrateworkers’rightsonoraroundMay1,butLabourDayinCanadaiscelebratedonthefir
RenewableEnergy[A]Inthepastcentury,ithasbeenseenthattheconsumptionofnon-renewablesourcesofenergyhascaused
RenewableEnergy[A]Inthepastcentury,ithasbeenseenthattheconsumptionofnon-renewablesourcesofenergyhascaused
ToliveintheUnitedStatestodayistogainanappreciationforDahrendorf’sassertionthatsocialchangeexistseverywhere.T
中国菜(cuisine)是中国各地区、各民族各种菜肴的统称,也指发源于中国的烹饪方式。中国菜历史悠久,流派(genre)众多,主要代表菜系有“八大菜系”。每一菜系因气候、地理、历史、烹饪技巧和生活方式的差异而风格各异。中国菜的调料(seasoning)丰富
Forthispart,youareallowed30minutestowriteashortessayentitledOnCollegeStudents’CrazeforFamousBrands.Youress
A、Anancientbuilding.B、Aworldofantiques.C、AnEgyptianmuseum.D、AnEgyptianMemorial.A
A、Darkerskinnedpeople.B、lighterskinnedpeople.C、Theoldagedpeople.D、Peoplelivinginthenorth.B短文提到,深色皮肤的人比浅色皮肤的人产生的维生
随机试题
交换式以太网的基本拓扑结构可以是星型的,也可以是总线型的。()
口腔环境最重要的缓冲系统是
有关乙脑临床分型,下列正确的是
A、痰蒙心神B、痰火扰心C、肝风夹痰D、肝风内动E、肝阳上亢狂病的病机为()
下列关于混凝土的强度,描述正确的是( )。
在考虑下级的晋升问题时,领导打算提升一位副处长的职务,但民主测评的结果表明,职工们对此人的评价很低。局党组决定由你找这位副处长谈话.你准备怎样与他谈话?
某百货公司销售空调机,在门口广告牌上写明:“凡在本处购买空调者,给付总价款3%的回扣,介绍推销者给付总价款1%的佣金。”被人发现后举报到有关部门,经调查发现该公司给付的回扣,账面上均有明确记载。该公司给付回扣的行为是()。
“东胡林人”遗址是新石器时代早期的人类文化遗址,在遗址中发现的人骨化石经鉴定属两个成年男性个体和一个少年女性个体。在少女遗骸的颈部位置有用小螺壳串制的项链,腕部佩戴有牛肋骨制成的骨镯。这说明在新石器时代早期,人类的审美意识已开始萌动。以下哪项如果为
GM
在表单中要使控件成为可见的,应设置控件的【】属性。
最新回复
(
0
)