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Biliteracy and trilingual practices in the home context: case studies of Chinese-Canadian children created by Guofang Li

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: Journal of Early Childhood Literacy ; Volume 6, number 3London: Sage, 2006Content type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISSN:
  • 14687984
Subject(s): LOC classification:
  • LB1139.5 JOU
Online resources: Abstract: Although Chinese has become the third largest mother tongue in both Canada and the USA, Chinese/English biliteracy development has received little attention in educational research.This article explores three Chinese-Canadian first and second graders’ biliteracy (Chinese/English reading and writing) and trilingual (Mandarin, Cantonese, and English) practices in the home milieu. Findings suggest that the home context is a crucial environment for success or failure in achieving biliteracy. All families expected their children to become biliterate and multilingual, but the three children vary in their preferences and use of different languages and literacies at home. Factors such as parents’ perceptions of their minority status in the host society, their attitudes toward the role of heritage language and their own proficiencies in the dominant language, as well as several school and societal factors, such as quality of instruction in heritage language schools, language policies in the mainstream schools, and the media, played an important role in shaping the children’s language choices and patterns of use at home. These multiple factors suggest that helping immigrant children become biliterate and multilingual is a challenging task that requires concerted efforts between parents, public schools, and community organizations.
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Although Chinese has become the third largest mother tongue in both Canada and the USA, Chinese/English biliteracy development has received little attention in educational research.This article explores three Chinese-Canadian first and second graders’ biliteracy (Chinese/English reading and writing) and trilingual (Mandarin, Cantonese, and English) practices in the home milieu. Findings suggest that the home context is a crucial environment for success or failure in achieving biliteracy. All families expected their children to become biliterate and multilingual, but the three children vary in their preferences and use of different languages and literacies at home. Factors such as parents’ perceptions of their minority status in the host society, their attitudes toward the role of heritage language and their own proficiencies in the dominant language, as well as several school and societal factors, such as quality of instruction in heritage language schools, language policies in the mainstream schools, and the media, played an important role in shaping the children’s language choices and patterns of use at home. These multiple factors suggest that helping immigrant children become biliterate and multilingual is a challenging task that requires concerted efforts between parents, public schools, and community organizations.

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