S.L= M.L+L1
How many
languages can you speak? Before I start going into my topic, I would like to
briefly explain about the definition of the word “second language” first. We
can see from the title of this blog entry, the definition of “second language”
can be broken down into an equation like that. S.L= M.L+L1,
basically means that second language (S.L) is the language that we learn (L1)
after our mother tongue (M.L).
So, everyone
learns their first language which is their mother tongue from birth while some
people choose to learn a second or third language to be exposed to in education
or other experiences throughout life. However, the debate about learning a
second language continually exists and never comes to a conclusion: Why should
we learn a second language? Which language should we learn and why? How does
learning a second language benefit us? In this semester, I will be explaining
all the questions I raised above and in the last blog entry, I will be
concluding it with a statement, we all should learn a second language.
In today’s
blog entry, I am going to give you some backgrounds on how second language has
been developed in the world at this current period. You might be surprised with
all these facts: in Toronto, 31% of the population speaks a language other than
English or French at home; in United States, 21% of school-age children
(between ages 5-17) speak a language other than English at home[1];
in the world, there are 6900 languages existing[2];
only 5.6% of the world population speak English as a mother tongue but this
number doubles when English is a second language[3];
there are as many bilingual children as there are monolingual children[4].
From the above data, we can clearly see that there are quite a lot of people in
the world who have the knowledge of a language other than their first language.
However, is the acquisition of second language actually developed this well in
our world and society today? Globalization increases, but second language
learning does not
seems to have the same demand. Taking Australia
as an example, the number of people learning a second language is on the
downside and there is only 13% of year 12 students study a second language in
2011[5].
Even in Japan, the majority of people in Japan do not start learning English
until they are 10 years old or when they enter Junior High school[6].
So, why is second language not developing so well in our world today? When
globalization increases, use of languages should also be in demand as well. For
me, the main reason that second language is not developing well is because
people always forgot the benefits of learning a second language; whereas they
think that having a skill to understand another language is only for their own
future, they forgot how great languages can be benefit to us.
Therefore, in order to promote the greatness of learning
a second language to everyone, I will be talking about the benefits of second
language acquisition in my next blog’s entry.
[1] Lowry, L. (). Bilingualism in Young Children: Separating Fact
from Fiction. Available:
http://www.hanen.org/Helpful-Info/Articles/Bilingualism-in-Young-Children--Separating-Fact-fr.aspx.
Last accessed 25th Oct 2012.
[2] Clyne & Sussex, M & R 2010, '2020 - Languages', The
Australian, 1 December, accessed 25th Oct 2012,
www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/languages/story-e6frg8nf-1225961567476
[3] Why learn languages? 2011, World Languages and Culture, accessed 25th
Oct 2012, http://www.vistawide.com/languages/why_languages.htm
[4] Lowry, L. (). Bilingualism in Young Children: Separating Fact
from Fiction. Available:
http://www.hanen.org/Helpful-Info/Articles/Bilingualism-in-Young-Children--Separating-Fact-fr.aspx.
Last accessed 25th Oct 2012.
[5] Clyne
& Sussex, M & R 2010, '2020 - Languages', The Australian, 1 December,
accessed 25th Oct 2012, www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/languages/story-e6frg8nf-1225961567476
[6] Abe, N.
(n.d.). English language education in japan. Retrieved from http://japanese.about.com/od/japanesecultur1/a/070100.htm
It was interesting to see all information and exact percentages....
ReplyDeleteI once heard that learning second language too fast can provide children to be unable to speak fluently both mother and second languages. They can speak and understand both of them, but not perfectly as other people speaking only their mother language can. Could this also a reason why the second language education is not developing? And do you think this is true? I'd like to know your opinion for it :D