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The key takeaways: 1. Ensuring rich, socially-contextualized language exposure in both languages. Pediatricians advise non-English-speaking parents to read aloud and sing and tell stories and speak with their children in their native languages, so the children get that rich and complex language exposure, along with sophisticated content and information, rather than the more limited exposure you get from someone speaking a language in which the speaker is not entirely comfortable. 2. Exposure has to be person-to-person; screen time doesn't count for learning language in young children - even one language - though kids can learn content and vocabulary from educational screen time later on. 3. It does take longer to acquire two languages than one, says Dr. Erika Hoff, a developmental psychologist who specializes in early language development. "A child who is learning two languages will have a smaller vocabulary in each than a child who is only learning one; there are only so many hours in the day, and you're either hearing English or Spanish," Dr. Hoff said. The children will be fine, though, she said. They may mix the languages, but that doesn't indicate confusion. "Adult bilinguals mix their languages all the time; it's a sign of language ability," she said. 4. If exposed to the target languages at a younger age, children generally will sound more nativelike. On the other hand, older children may learn more easily. Gigliana Melzi, a developmental psychologist and associate professor of applied psychology, states, "The younger you are, the more head start you have," she said. "The older you are, the more efficient learner you are, you have a first language you can use as a bootstrap."

This week's question is: What are the best ways to teach the Next Generation Science Standards to English Language Learners? In Part One, educators Alicia Johal, Maria Montalvo-Balbed, Donna Barrett-Williams, Caleb Cheung, Laura Prival , Claudio Vargas and Ariane Huddleston share their suggestions on using the NGSS with English Language Learners.

This week's question is: What are the best ways to teach the Next Generation Science Standards to English Language Learners? In Part One, educators Alicia Johal, Maria Montalvo-Balbed, Donna Barrett-Williams, Caleb Cheung, Laura Prival , Claudio Vargas and Ariane Huddleston share their suggestions on using the NGSS with English Language Learners.

One could argue that Niʻihau Hawaiian is the closest we've got to early forms of the language spoken in the islands. However, the language may be dying out. One interviewee noted the more frequent use of English amongst younger Ni`hau residents and expressed worry that when young speakers use English, they'll start to think in English, possibly leading them to abandon the Hawaiian way of thinking, and perhaps the language. Niʻihau speakers don't use diacritical marks like ʻokina (glottal stop) and kahakō (macron), which have become invaluable aids for language learners. They do, however, use "t"s and "r"s in place of "k"s and "l"s (e.g. ke aloha= te aroha, Ni`ihau style) - something that isn't taught in universities and immersion schools. Hawaiian language scholar Keao NeSmith says there's a history there. He says missionaries were confused by the Hawaiian language when they arrived. They were determined to translate the Bible into Hawaiian, but they couldn't figure out when to swap the "t" for the "k" and the "l" for the "r". So they created a standardized alphabet that dropped the use of "t'"s and "r"s. NeSmith says Niʻihau speakers chose not to alter their spoken language. But the missionary system gained a stronghold in the rest of the islands through the 1800s. Many of the Hawaiian language documents developed during this period, including newspapers, would become a go-to repository for the revitalization of the ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi a century later as the number of native speakers began to decline.

Introduction: There is not one single Chinese language, but many different versions or dialects including Wu, Cantonese and Taiwanese. Northern Chinese, also known as Mandarin, is the mother tongue of about 70% of Chinese speakers and is the accepted written language for all Chinese.

This article talks about the differences between Chinese and English regarding the alphabet, phonology, and grammar. Chinese doesn't use an alphabet, but a logographic system where the symbols themselves represent the words. This causes Chinese learners to have difficultly reading English texts and spelling words correctly. Because Chinese is a tonal language, the pitch of a sound is what distinguishes the word meaning whereas, in English, changes in pitch are used to emphasize or express emotion and not give a different word meaning to the sound. Chinese grammar is also very much different from English grammar. For example, English uses a lot of auxiliaries and verb inflections, but Chinese is an uninflected language and conveys meaning through word order and shared understanding of context. For example, time in Chinese does not go through the use of different tenses and verb forms, which makes it difficult to understand the complexities of things like is/are/were and eats, eat, ate, eaten.

Learning English as a second language is far from uncommon around the world. Looking more specifically, what is it like learning English as a Chinese first language individual. This paper covers three main topics: 1. The differences between the Chinese and English languages 2. The differences between Chinese and American culture 3. The differences between Chinese and American educational practices When teaching English as a second language, it is important to know the what fits the students particular needs in learning and how your teaching will be most effective. This paper allows teachers to understand more about their Chinese students and their general linguistic and cultural background.

Cartoonist LA Johnson employs a graphic novel-style approach to a story about a dual-language school: Bruce-Monroe Elementary School in Washington, D.C. In a dual-language classroom, sometimes you're the student and sometimes you're the teacher. Here's what it's like for 6-year-old Merari, an L1=Spanish ELL (English Language Learner).

This article discusses how "trendy slangs" are becoming more appealing to foreigners wanting to learn english. In the UK a survey was conducted to determine the type of slang these foreigners are hearing amongst social media platforms. This article relates how many slangs have a root in Multicultural London English (MLE) or African-American Vernacular English (AAVE). This article informs those learning english the type of slangs to use and when appropriate to do so. The slangs range from an older generation to current-ish slangs.

With voters' decision to repeal English-only instruction in California, public schools across the state now have more power to operate bilingual and dual-language programs. White, middle-class, English-speaking parents who want their children to learn Spanish are driving the demand for new dual-language programs.The passage of Proposition 58 last week means that public schools are now free of any restrictions on using various forms of bilingual education, most notably for teaching the state's 1.5 million English-language learners, although students are still mandated to become proficient in English.

David Moser, of the University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies and a L1= English speaker, reflects on his adult language learning struggles with Chinese, his L2. His takeaways as to why the language is so difficult, even for L1= Chinese speakers: 1. Because the writing system is ridiculous: need to recognize a whole lot of characters to be literate, specifically 7-8 years to recognize and write 3000 characters. 2. Because the language doesn't have the common sense to use an alphabet, which would make learning the components of words more simple. 3. Because the writing system just ain't very phonetic. 4. Because you can't cheat by using cognates. 5. Because even looking up a word in the dictionary is complicated. 6. Then there's classical Chinese (wenyanwen 文言文). 7. Because there are too many romanization methods and they all suck. 8. Because tonal languages are weird. 9. Because east is east and west is west, and the twain have only recently met. When you consider all the above-mentioned things a learner of Chinese has to acquire -- ability to use a dictionary, familiarity with two or three romanization methods, a grasp of principles involved in writing characters (both simplified and traditional) -- it adds up to an awful lot of down time while one is "learning to learn" Chinese.

This article describes how knowing Latin roots can be beneficial to English learners. Essentially, researchers found that Latin roots help Spanish speaking students learn English by finding connections between certain words.

This article is about how researchers have found that in teaching students who are trying to learn English the Latin roots of words, it has helped them figure out the meaning of unfamiliar words.

This study looks at how age of acquisition affects second language learning and how it can influence cognitive processing. Bilingual Spanish and English speakers appear to have an advantage over monolingual individuals, with bilingualism shaping word learning and memory capacity. Specifically, early bilinguals performed better than monolingual individuals and late bilingual learners. There were two mechanisms discussed at the end of the study. The first is based on the critical-period-based phenomenon. The second is based on longer exposure to the two languages, which contributes to bilingual advantages.

The BBC is helping English learners understand the news. Each article is in a "mad lib" format where people learn idioms and difficult vocab by matching up the words in a sentence.