Weblinks and articles about bilingualism

Plenamente

This article, written by Silvia Pellegrini Ruschel, talks about the advantages of a bilingual education and discuss doubts parents may have when raising their children in a bilingual environment. Can children that learn two languages at the same time be affected in their speech development? Is it normal to mix the languages that you know? Can bilingualism delay the development of the speech?

Instituto Ciência Hoje

This article comments on a research of a psychologist (Elizabete Flory) from University of Sao Paulo that analyses the advantages and disadvantages of bilingualism in children under four years old. What are the effects of an early learning of a foreigner language? She came to the conclusion that the possible benefits of learning a foreigner language will depend on the environment that the child is brought up.

Viver na Alemanha

The site was created for Brazilians resident in Germany. In this section they define the concept of bilingualism and try to explain some myths created around bilingual education.

Fórum Educação

The site presents and discuss topics about education and, in this specific article, Flávio Boleiz Júnior, a student of pedagogy from University of São Paulo, talks about the experience of a bilingual education in the city of São Paulo and some characteristics of the socialization process experienced by children in a “bi-cultural” world.

http://www.bilinguisme.ch/
This site is in French or Deutsch, if you know the language, enjoy it!

Associação Brasileira de Educação e Cultura

ABEC is a non-governmental association that works for the learning of the Brazilian Portuguese language and culture for Brazilian infants resident in Switzerland. It also works for the integration between Brazil and Switzerland. According to the website, many brazilian children who are eradicated in Switzerland lose their identity and are not able to learn more about Brazil due to the distance and lack of opportunity. Thus, the institution offers courses and events to spread Portuguese language and culture among the Brazilians who live in Switzerland. The institution lives off contributions made by members and volunteers.

Organização das Escolas Bilingues do Estado de São Paulo - OEBi

Founded in 2000, this ONG aims at congregating schools and professionals interested in discussing and spreading bilingual education in the State of São Paulo, Brazil.

Portal Aprende Brasil

The glossary entry “Escola bilingue” gives a broader view of some characteristics of a bilingual school and a panorama in Brazil.

http://issuu.com/jardinsdagua/docs/cl_-_lc
This site contains a “book” from University of Açores which talks about bilingualism, its characteristics, benefits and the translator's circumstance.

Revista Espaço Acadêmico

This article written by Josélia Gomes Neves is referred to the intercultural literacy among Indians in Brazil. It discusses the acquisition process of reading and writing among societies that does not have a writing system. The researcher poses the difficulties in education and integration of Indians in our society. This article was published by Revista Espaço Acadêmico, created by Professors from Universidade Estadual de Maringá in March, 2001.

Biblioteca virtual em saúde

This article, written by Ágnes Melinda Kovács and Jacques Mehler shows that seven-month-old infants, raised with two languages from birth, display improved cognitive control abilities compared with matched monolinguals. It is known that children exposed to bilingual input typically learn two languages without obvious difficulties. However, it is unclear how preverbal infants cope with the inconsistent input and how bilingualism affects early development. The article poses the question of how bilinguals succeeded in redirecting their anticipatory looks when the cue began signaling the reward on the opposite side. It is published by Biblioteca Virtual em Saúde, which is centered on the premise that scientific and technical information is an integrating part of a healthy development process. The idea is to enhance the knowledge of the players involved in this process of education, including managers, authorities, health professionals, and citizens.

http://www.unicentro.br/editora/revistas/guairaca/17/artigo%203%20o%20bilinguismo.pdf

Being Portuguese the official language of the adopted country, its acquisition became necessary for Portuguese-Ukrainian population. However, socio demographic situation, together with socio-cultural aspects, necessarily produced the propitious environment for the appearance of the detected bilingual situation. This article, based on Labov’s sociolinguistics, presents and analyzes socio-demographic data about a Portuguese-Ukrainian target population and their correlation with the detected linguistic situation. The fact of forming a major ethnic group, the majority of which professing the same religion, and the rites of which are still performed in the original language made the maintenance of the ethnic language possible. The article was published by Revista Guairacá from Universidade Estadual do Centro-Oeste.

http://www.revel.inf.br/site2007/_pdf/5/artigos/revel_5_bilinguismo_e_educacao_bilingue.pdf

This article, written by Antonieta Hayden Megale, discusses a new proposal of bilingualism and bilingual education. She argues that there is a difference between these two phenomena. Her work is divided in two parts. In the first part, she presents the different concepts and definitions of bilingualism, based on the one-dimensional conception posed by Bloomfield (1935), Mcnamara (1967) and Titone (1972) and multidimensional concepts made by Harmers and Blanc (2000). The second part deals with the concept of bilingual education and proposes different approaches given by Harmers e Blanc (2000) e Mackey (2001). The article was published by ReVEL, Virtual Journal of Language Studies, which deals with a specific field of linguistic studies on each edition published twice a year.

http://www.jornalcomunicacao.ufpr.br/node/1149

This article, written by Alive Pavanell, mentions ideas related to bilingualism education, its problems (price, lack of specialized professionals) and its advantages.

http://www.alobebe.com.br/site/revista/reportagem.asp?Texto=449
The article talks about bilingual education in São Paulo and the curriculum adopted by some schools.

http://www.virtual.udesc.br/Midiateca/Publicacoes_Educacao_de_Surdos/artigo02.htm

This article, written by Vilmar Silva, discuss the aspect of bilingualism education in the case of children with hearing impairment.

http://revistaseletronicas.pucrs.br/ojs/index.php/letronica/article/viewFile/5432/4064

A dissertation on policies concerning bilingualism: Is Brazil a monolingual country? This essay opposes the ideological-driven idea that in Brazil there is just one language shared by all its members. According to Cruz-Ferreira, depending on the context, a person will develop as many languages as necessary. She states that “bilinguals and monolinguals alike speak exactly the number of languages that they need to speak, that they acquire these languages for exactly the same reasons”. So, in short, monolingual and bilinguals use different strategies to achieve the same efficiency in order to communicate.

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