I find this very interesting! I wonder what the reason is as to why students from both english language backgrounds and varying language backgrounds showed higher gains in developing language. My thought is that instruction may be more explicit in a bilingual education model than in English only instruction. By having more explicit instruction, students of all language backgrounds are able to think deeper and have more cognical awareness of the language skills that they are learning.

This makes me think of the timeline from Tongue Tied. One part of the timeline discussed how people were using instruction only in English to teach English, but it was proving to show unsuccessful progression of language development. This study solidifies this finding from the timeline of language accessibility. It does make me wonder how one would even do fully English only instruction to develop language skills. In my understanding, students would just be sitting listening to instruction they don't understand and never hearing their L1. I don't understand how this could be useful to language development in L2.

I like the figure that is used to represent the contextual support and degree cognitive involvement in communicative activities. In my teaching literacy course, we discussed the periods of time that children are more apt for language learning. This quote shows the ways that learning phonology and syntax at a young age, two and three, requires a lot of context and cognitive demand. From what I recall, language development in two languages at this age is more accessible for a child.

This is interesting to me. I have never really thought about how someone is determined being "proficient" in a language. It makes me think about how when you take language classes in school, you can take them for several years and still not be considered fluent. But I suppose fluency and proficiency have differing meanings. Is it our goal to have students proficient enough to participate in the L2 or do we want them fluent in both languages?

This makes me think about Part 1 of Tongue Tied. Especially the narrative of the young girl who was translating for her mother at the hospital on page 66. I am sure that it can be a lot of pressure for young children to be the one who is forced to be the translator for difficult conversations.

In a cross culture anthropology class I took last semester, we learned about this idea. There is times that there is a word in another language that doesn't translate to a word in english. By being able to use this word from another language, you are sometimes able to create a deeper meaning behind what you are trying to say. Being able to mix and pull from other languages, what someone is saying can begin to convey much more. Overall, this concept is very interesting to me. I wish I knew more languages so I can pull from them when I am speaking.

I am glad that the authors discussed this. I grew up in a single parent household and as I read this chapter I was thinking that the OWOL approach could not work in families like mine. However, as the author points out, most second language acquisition occurs outside of the home. So it is still plausible to teach a child one language at home and then at school and in the community they are learning another.

Wow! This is so interesting to think that children can be able to have this knowledge at such a young age. As I thought about this quote, I thought about a child from the day care I worked at who spoke french with their parents but in the day care knew to speak english with us. It amazes me that the brain is able to depict this so early on.

Sequential childhood bilingualism makes me think about how often this is done in countries outside of the U.S. Many countries teach English or other languages as a class starting early on in school so that students know more than the native language spoken at their school. Whereas in the U.S. second languages aren't usually offered as a class to take until middle and high school.

This reminds me of "natural acquisition settings" that we read about last week in Lightbown and Spada. Languages can be learned anywhere, but in these early stages of development, children are learning the language that they are exposed to the most at home. Lightbown and Spada point out that the school setting is another area that children will be exposed to languages and developing their ability in them. I like how this quote discusses how bilingual development doesn't happen in isolation. In order to learn languages, you need to be surrounded by others.