A Biling Gal

Receptive activities     1. Reading Ø      Level of L1 reading ability is a very strong predictor of how successful students will be in learning to read L2. This is true even when the L1 is represented in a different symbolic writing system Ø       Learners whose L1 is written in a different writing system  from their L2 need to be able to recognize symbols in the target language as an early step     Table  Writing system of the world Ø     What learners need to encounter at an early stage -      Directionality (whether that L2 is written from left to right, right to left or top to bottom) -      Blank spaces between words -      Punctuation Ø      Developing fluency in reading requires acquiring sufficient knowledge of the new language elements especially vocabulary, basic grammar and dis...

     Comprehension of written or spoken language involves  both bottom-up and top-down processing. Fig. 3 Receptive processing Example   A Thai woman walks into a supermarket in the USA. She wants to buy some fruit. The cashier asks her, “Paper or plastic?” Knowledge from bottom-up process: knowing the meaning and part of speech of the words “paper” and “plastic”, and knowing that high pitch intonation indicates an interrogative sentence (question).         Knowledge from top-down process: understanding the context and the situation that the cashier is asking if he wants a paper or a plastic bag. This applies to both receptive (listening,reading) and productive (speaking,writing) activities.

Table  Classification of activities involving language use Written mode Oral mode Receptive Reading Listening Productive Writing Speaking         Four areas of language activities (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) can be classified into receptive and productive ; and as seen in the  Table , they also can be divided into written and oral modes.   Important activities in academic and interpersonal competences.                   Receptive activities are most important for processing academic competence input, while oral activities are most important for processing interpersonal competence input and expression.          Even though in each language level, knowledge of all four activities would overlap each other, the activities are also independent to some exte...

  T o be able to communicate no matter what language, you need to have the language knowledge including culture knowledge, context, content and language use. Relationship of communicative competence We can classify communicative competence by purposes for learning L2 as follows: Academic competence It occurs when learners want to use the L2 primarily as a tool scholarly research, to learn about the other subjects, and as a medium in a specific professional/occupation field. For example - If language learner plan to study the subject at an L2-medium university (i.e., a Thai student studying in the university at the US or studying in Thailand but need to do a thesis in English) - You are likely to need proficiency in L2 academic writing in order to display your knowledge on examinations that may be required for university admission and to earn academic degrees. However, it doesn’t necessarily require fluent speaking ability when you’re profici...

B ilinguals are classified on the basis of dimensions, including: v     Depending on the age of exposure to two (or more) languages Early bilingualism is defined as the acquisition of more than one language in the pre-adolescent phase of life.                                  Late bilingualism has been defined as the acquisition of one language before and the other language after the age of 8 years (after critical period) , especially when L2 is learned in adulthood or adolescence. v      Depending on the relationship between the fluency and proficiency  of languages. Balanced bilinguals acquire similar degrees of proficiency and mastery in both languages. Dominant (or unbalanced) bilinguals are those individuals whom their proficiency in one language is highe...

Here , we take a look at some facts and stats of bilingualism.      1.     It is estimated that two-thirds of children worldwide          are brought up bilingual or multilingual.      2.    In Canada, 11.9% speak a language other than English at home.      3.    In the U.S., around 21% of children aged five to 17 speak a               language other than English at home.     4.    Between 1980 and 2007 there has been a 140% increase in         the number of American speaking a language other than         English at home.     5.    In Sweden and Luxembourg, bilingualism figures stand at         97% and 99% respectively.     6.    In Belgium, French is compulsor...

Good morning, guys! This is my first article in " A BILING GAL ." In order not to waste your time, I will be straight to our topic right away! As the topic above says, "Do you know what a bilingualism is?" Can you guess? A combination of the words "Bi-" which means two, and "Lingualism" which related to language. Yes, you're right but this is not all.  So, let's get to the beginning of bilingualism. In the Bible, there was Babel city where the leaders were building a tower in ordered to reach the heaven. And God punished the builder by destroying their, unity, giving them different languages. So, they couldn't work together because they couldn't understand each other's languages. It became the diversity in languages. The tower of Babel Recently, the main factors such as immigration, business travel and education are forces bringing people together. Someone acquires languages from their society ...