Prejudice against plurilinguals by monolinguals?

[Bonsoir]

I live in a plurilingual sort of environment and have done for much of my life. Bringing up my DD bilingually, I have become aware of a great deal of prejudice against bilinguals and plurilingualism by monolinguals. Has anyone else encountered this? Do you think it is fueled by fear? Ignorance? Envy?

We haven't done Ucas yet so I'm interested in actually what is asked with regard to how good your 2nd language is judged?

My dc won't get straightforward benefit in MFL as if you're educated in Gaelic in Scotland, you sit Ghaidhlig (native speakers) and if you learn it at secondary as a second language you sit Gaelic (learners).

However, the next language comes more easily and dd1 will sit N5 French and Spanish taught in one subject space.

Dd1 will sit English, Ghaidlig, maths, physics, history, French, Spanish, Art and Design&Manufacture. More than her friends from other schools.

I don't regret it for a second.

weegiemum - there are plenty of "allies" around me too - so many, in fact, that it took me longer than it should to cotton on to the strength of the opposition! I know that lone bilingualism is hard - especially when DC have no educational support for a rarely spoken home language. I was fully aware of that sort of prejudice.

Bonsoir, I don't understand the desire to leave out the language result/s when calculating averages. Surely a well taught DC could get 100% in the exam. A bilingual DC can hardly get more then 100% so what exactly is the problem?

No-one can get 100%.

Bilingual DC get much higher marks in languages than monolingual DC. Hence, if languages are included, their overall average gets a major boost.

Is it usual to set exams where no one can get 100%? My DD has just finished her end of year 8 exams and several DD achieved 100% in a range of exams including English and French.

Perhaps a different exam for mono/bi- linguals as weegiemum outlined previously would make the situation at your school 'fairer' Bonsoir?

I know for GCSE Spanish (and I'd only done it at school) I managed 358 out of 360, losing marks on my oral, so I expect it could be done. Actually, I know another girl who had the same, except she lost the marks on her writing, so it obviously was possible to get full marks in every section.

If the school is set up the same way that the French school, there is no way peoe can get 100%, bilingual or not.
When I was a child, getting 16 over 20 mark (so about 80%) was considered excellent, anything above exceptional.

The culture of evaluation is indeed very particular to each country.

You can get 100% ums for each paper at GCSE.

Even teachers wouldn't get 20/20 in the bac. There's always something - the structure of the answer, a word you could have used but didn't etc.

I sort of get what bonsoir means. It's seen as cheating because bilingualism, if you live in another country or have a parents with different native languages, is 'easy'. If you acquired it during a prolonged stay abroad, however, it's a positive. Attitudes to languages can be very strange.

I get it often - "oh, they go to the Gaelic school"

Yes. I applied for them and they got in. No trouble (though now Sgoil Ghaidlig Glaschu is so popular it's hard to get a place!). I thought ahead - we a
So have Hebridean connections which made it important to me.

I am a bit late coming to this thread and it is a long one. DD has just completed double honours in MFL. There were several bilingual people on her courses and her University definitely counted their MFL A levels. They do have an advantage at A level and degree level because, frankly, if you have spoken a language from birth, but you are taking an identical course as others who have only learnt the language from age 12, it is likely the bilingual person will have an advantage in some modules. Not necessarily all modules. A friend's DD is bilingual German/English and studies German at Oxford. They did not refuse her because she was bilingual. Conversely another friend's DD felt she could not cope on her Spanish degree because she felt useless compared to the bilingual students. I accept she had low self esteem, but the bilingual students were there and doing well. I may be a bit dim, but if you do not say on your UCAS application that you are bilingual, how will anyone know? They just look like clever students but maybe have not had to work so hard as the ones without that birth good fortune or even the money for holidays abroad to practice a new subject they love.

HesterShaw - Welsh doesn't necessarily get 'counted' as a MFL, though, even if studied as a 2nd language. A friend checked this out because her DS was potentially interested in a (totally non language related) course at Imperial, she was told they'd look poorly on a candidate with no MFL at GCSE and Welsh 2nd language wouldn't be counted.

Generally also if you're Welsh 1st language - or even like my dd educated in Welsh though English mother tongue - you'd be taking Cymraeg GCSE, ie welsh 1st language. Come to that, I believe that there are equivalents for other commonly spoken languages - so you can take an IGCSE in French / Polish / Hindi etc as a first language rather than a foreign language.

milly the ONE big advantage of being raised bilingual us the accent.
For the rest, it will really depend in the environment the child is growing up in. The ones who take language at Uni are the ones who are more likely to have had a nice supportive environment.
For the others where there is no international community, little chance to back to the other country and spend time there, keeping that second language is very hard. I mean in that sort if environment people do loose their mother tongue! I know I have. So saying that 'oh it's all do much easier for them' isn't an actual reflection if the reality for most of these children.
And that is before even talking about the fact that a lot if them just refusing to speak that second language!
For example, I know of 6 different famines where the children should be bilingual English-French. One of the family have both parents French. And my dcs are the oy ones who speak to me in French. All the others are speaking English to their parents.
To improve my dcs French and hoping that they will also be able to read and write, they gave French lessons outside school vim organising some 'exchange' for the older one outside school. Etc etc. it's far from being easy, no effort and just 'happening'. If they are indeed fully bigusl (ie speaking, reading and writing) by the end of it, it will have happened ot because of the effort I will have put in it and the effort and time they will have spent learning.

Sorry for all the spelling mistakes! On phone.

MillyMollyMama - I am aware that many bilinguals do university language degrees - universities love bilingual students on language degrees as they raise the standards in class, in particular for subjects like translation and language essay writing. A-levels are not the only route to university and many bilingual students will have done IB or EB or will be native speakers with their own country's school leaving qualifications (particularly so on joint honors courses).

Ultimately I suppose that bi or plurilingualism to "native speaker" level requires so many resources that it is by and large the preserve of the highly privileged. Maybe the prejudice is against the privilege rather than the plurilingualism?

I teach in a bilingual and international school. We are bring up DS bilingually.

I can definietly distinguish the truly bilingual kids in their spoken English, but I see students who have had their whole primary education in Dutch who haven't had any support in developing their English in the same way. As a consequence their writing skills are awful. My DH's English is very fluent and he's often mistaken for a native English speaker when we're in the UK, but his written English is very basic.

I know that if I want DS's English skills to remain on a par with his Dutch I will have to put in a lot of hard work during the primary school years. DS is only 2 and even though he can switch well between languages, there is still language confusion coming in, especially when he's been at Dutch language nursery all day. He will go to a local Dutch primaryand then he can choose to go to bilingual or into Dutch language secondary education (depending on his
level).

And the final exams in secondary school here are hard! I took the exam for VWO6 a few years ago (top stream of education who get their diploma at 18) and only scored 80%, mainly because some of the questions (about unseen
English language texts) ask a question in Dutch which you have to answer in Dutch (if you answer in English you get 0 marks). My Dutch is pretty good, but I am not bilingual and had trouble interpreting the subtlties of these questions and answering them.

X-post bonsoir . I agree about privilege, though not always about money for resources but time and expertise. If we lived in the UK I think to give DS any chance of miantaining his Dutch we would have to find a tutor as DH doesn't have the skill to help DS in terms of teaching.

Since I'm an English teacher I imagine that I will be the one to work with DS on his reading and writing skills.

But then, I can't predict the future! I have a colleague who is also a native speaker and English teacher and her children mostly speak Dutch to her unless they are in the States or the UK.

Bilingualism isn't harmful but I did know someone who moved a lot as a child and spoke four languages, none of them really as a native language because he left his native land aged 7. Apparently this can cause quite a lot of psychological distress.

I agree that resources and privilege are just as much about time and skill as money. IMVHO all three are needed!

I had a teacher who said I shouldn't get an award for French when my mum is French... I only spoke English at home....

I speak 7 languages now and most of the time, people are genuinely surprised and want to know how I learned them.

I see kids at my school who speak 4 languages floppity - English as a school language - often learning as a "second" language as they've only just/recently started education in English, learning Dutch as a "second" language because we're in the Netherlands (there's a chance they may have to or want to move into Dutch education at some point as well as the obvious advantages of speaking the language of the country you live in), and then one language from mother and one language from father. Their mother tongue languages suffer because they're not getting any attention apart from spoken.

It really is hard work to maintain them!

I kind of know what you mean. One kindergarten school director told us that DD would be incredibly confused by being trilingual and we should concentrate immediately on French before she fell behind, however at another school the principal was extremely enthusiastic about DD's access to other cultures and her fluency in English which she hoped would encourage the other children to pick up the language easier. I have had a few French friends comment that DD would be confused by more than one language but they did tend to be people who did not speak other languages themselves.