Israel's English Speaking Immigrant Parents' Family Language Policy Management: Language in the Education Domain (original) (raw)
Related papers
International Journal of Linguistics, 2012
This study explores Family Language Policy (FLP) processes of the English speaking families with young children in Israel. This paper is the first in series aimed at describing and exploring the FLP processes and outcomes of this community in detail. FLP includes ideologies and beliefs, planning and management, as well as the linguistic outcomes of those practices. In the current paper we describe our participants' language use and dominance and explore the degree to which planning occurred and through which means. We also look at the FLP outcomes as exhibited through children"s language choice and use.
Immigrant parents’ and teachers’ views on bilingual preschool language policy
Language and Education, 2012
It has been found that parents, searching for external control of a supporting sociolinguistic environment for L1 and L2 development, can plan several relevant strategies and implement them as a part of their family language policy. The choice of bilingual education serves as an important link in the practical realization of family language ideology. This paper aims to examine language policy and models in bilingual preschools from immigrant parents’ and bilingual teachers’ perspectives. The focus was on the following topics: (1) the parents’ views on the language policy of the bilingual preschool education, (2) the teachers’ reflections on their language policy and (3) the negotiation between parents’ and teachers’ views on bilingual preschool language policy. It was important to address both parents’ and teachers’ opinions in order to obtain a deeper understanding of parent–teacher interactions and negotiations of their views. The study was conducted in two bilingual Russian-Hebrew speaking preschools in Israel. I applied methodological triangulation with a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods. The study revealed that questions regarding input in each language, ratio between L1 and L2, and changes of this ratio in different age groups are central concerns for both the pedagogical staff and parents.
European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 2011
This study analyses Russian-speaking immigrant parents' beliefs and attitudes toward the education of their children in German and Israeli bilingual kindergartens. Why did the parents chose bilingual education? Which convergences and divergences exist in parents' beliefs, expectations and attitudes toward bilingual kindergartens in Germany and Israel? A quasi-experimental design was employed to evaluate the effect of the sociocultural context on how immigrant parents relate to their children's pre-school bilingual development. The main difference found between German and Israeli parents was their general representation of the optimal model of bilingual development. While German parents seem to be more oriented to a balanced development of both target languages, the Israeli parents prefer the ‘first language first’ approach. These findings are discussed in light of state and local language policies in Germany and Israel as well as in light of the language teaching models adopted by kindergarten policy makers.RÉSUMÉ: Nous nous proposons d'analyser les opinions et attitudes de parents migrants russophones quant à l'éducation de leurs enfants qui fréquentent des jardins d'enfants bilingues en Allemagne et en Israël. Pourquoi les parents ont-ils choisi l'éducation bilingue ? Leurs accords, désaccords et espérances quant à ces jardins d'enfants, s'expliquent-ils par le fait qu'ils se trouvent en Allemagne ou en Israël ? Un procédé quasi-expérimental a été utilisé afin d´ évaluer l'impact du contexte socioculturel sur l'attitude des parents migrants à l'égard de l'éducation bilingue de leurs enfants. Il s'avère que les principales différences entre parents russophones dans les deux pays dépendent de leur façon d'apprécier le modèle optimal de l'éducation bilingue et de leurs opinions sur l'équilibre – désiré et réel – entre les langues maternelle et dominante (l'allemand ou l'hébreu). Si les parents, en Allemagne, semblent opter pour l'acquisition simultanée des deux langues, les Israéliens favorisent l'approche ‘first language first’ (‘la langue maternelle en premier’). Les résultats de la recherche sont examinés dans le contexte de la politique des gouvernements et des institutions locales concernés quant à la langue, ainsi que des modèles d'enseignement des langues admis dans les jardins d'enfants en question.ZUSAMMENFASSUNG: Die Studie analysiert Vorstellungen und Einstellungen russischsprachiger Eltern mit Migrationshintergrund in Bezug auf die Erziehung ihrer Kinder in deutschen und israelischen zweisprachigen Kindergärten. Zwei Fragen stehen dabei im Mittelpunkt der Betrachtung: Warum haben sich die Eltern für eine zweisprachige Erziehung entschieden? Welche Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede bestehen zwischen Vorstellungen, Einstellungen und Erwartungen der Eltern in Deutschland und in Israel? In einem quasi-experimentellen Design wurde untersucht, wie sich der soziokulturelle Kontext auf die Einstellung der Eltern zur zweisprachigen Entwicklung der Kinder im Vorschulalter auswirkt. Der Hauptunterschied zwischen den Eltern in Deutschland und in Israel besteht in generellen Vorstellungen über das optimale Modell der zweisprachigen Entwicklung und in den Einstellungen zum gewünschten und tatsächlichen Verhältnis zwischen der Herkunftssprache und der Landessprache in zweisprachigen Kindergärten. Während Eltern in Deutschland eher für eine gleichwertige Entwicklung beider Zielsprachen plädieren, bevorzugen Eltern in Israel den Ansatz ‘Herkunftssprache zuerst’. Die Ergebnisse werden hinsichtlich der föderalen und lokalen Sprachpolitik in Deutschland und in Israel sowie hinsichtlich der Modelle zur Sprachvermittlung diskutiert, die von jeweiligen politischen Entscheidungsträgern übernommen wurden.RESUMEN: Este estudio, viene a analizar las diferentes creencias y actitudes de los inmigrantes de Rusia hacia la educación de sus hijos en los jardines de infantes bilingües en Alemania e Israel. ¿Cuál es la razón por la que estos padres deciden mandar a sus hijos a estos tipos de Jardines? ¿Cuáles son las convergencias y divergencias que existen en las creencias, expectativas y actitudes de estos padres acerca de los jardines bilingües en Alemania e Israel? Un diseño cuasi-experimental se utilizó para evaluar el efecto del contexto sociocultural en la forma en la que los inmigrantes relacionan el desarrollo bilingüe de sus hijos en la edad preescolar. La principal diferencia que se encontró entre los padres de Alemania e Israel, fue en la representación general del modelo óptimo acerca del desarrollo bilingüe. Mientras que los padres alemanes parecen estar más orientados a un desarrollo equilibrado de ambas lenguas, en los padres israelíes se encontró la preferencia por una educación más enfocada en la lengua madre.
The relationship between family language policy (FLP) and language choice, language use, proficiency in Russian and Hebrew, codeswitching (CS) and linguistic performance was studied in Russian-speaking immigrant parents and their Russian-Hebrew bilingual preschool children. By means of Glaser's Grounded Theory, the content of sociolinguistic interviews with 65 parents was classified to form families with strict-Russian, mild-Russian and pro-bilingual language policies. Preschool children (M = 6; 0) from these families were asked to respond to questions about language use, language choice, proficiency in Russian and Hebrew and CS on 10-point graphic rating scales as well as perform three linguistic tasks: noun-verb picture naming, non-word repetition and complex syntax in sentence repetition. Findings for language use and selfrated proficiency showed the varying degrees of reported Russian language maintenance depending on the FLP applied in the home. Yet, performance on complex syntax showed better performance in Hebrew than Russian, and children reported more CS into L2/Hebrew than into their home language. These latter findings in the three FLP groups are interpreted as evidence for language shift and may be attributed to greater influence of peers and siblings rather than parents.
Parents' Discourses About Language Strategies for Their Children's Preschool Bilingual Development
Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education, 2011
The study focused on immigrant parents' discourses about strategies for their children's preschool bilingual development and education. The article investigated how immigrant parents described and explained these strategies. The study was based on semi-structured interviews with 4 families. The 8 parents were Russian-speaking immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union. Analysis of the data showed that all the parents desired their children to maintain the heritage language and to acquire the host language. At the same time, they were realistically skeptical of achieving balanced bilingualism in their children's language development. Nevertheless, most reported clearly elaborated intervention plans to support the children's balanced bilingualism. The regulation of language interaction with the child at home occupied a central place in parents' strategies for their children's bilingual development; however, some chose bilingual kindergarten for their children, whereas others chose monolingual programs. To explain and justify this choice, parents adduced different motives and representations about trajectories of children's bilingual development.
International Journal of Education, 2013
Family language policy (FLP) and language use in different domains and relationships was investigated in thirteen Israeli-Arab students enrolled in an institution of higher education in Israel. Participants came from Arabic FLPs, communities, and schools. The study was completed through semi-structured interviews. Our research objectives were to investigate the FLP of the sample and a possible presence of differences in the ideologies concerning their parent-led FLP and their future family's FLP, among other things. Our findings point to a possible change in ideologies toward the instrumentally oriented FLP which incorporates Hebrew language to a greater degree. Further investigations should focus on effects of generational FLP change on identity and related psychological factors.
International Multilingual Research Journal, 2013
This article analyzes the narratives of immigrant parents, describing their preschool children's bilingual development and their own involvement in it. The analyses found parents' lay theories (i.e., general reasoning about children's bilingual development) woven into the narratives. The parents used these theories to explain and justify their own language ideologies (aims, plans, and expectations concerning their children's bilingual development), language practices (parent-child language communication), and language management (ways of regulating the children's bilingual development). This pilot study was based on semi-structured interviews with 4 families (8 parents). The results show that the parents constructed their language theories based on self-evident truths; they reasoned as sociolinguists, focusing on external environmental and social factors, but ignored the child's personal characteristics. The parents viewed their children's Hebrew-Russian bilingualism as obligatory, rather than as an elite privilege. They believed in the tremendous power of early language acquisition and, based on this belief, constructed plans for managing their children's bilingual development, which were not always coherent or consistent with scientific data.
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 2011
Parents' assessment of children's development in the first and the second language is an essential part of their family language policy (FLP) and an important component of parent–child communication. This paper presents a pilot study focused on Russian-speaking immigrant parents' assessment of their children's language knowledge in Russian as a first language and Hebrew as the second language in the context of their FLP. The research questions were as follows: How is parents' assessment of their children's bilingual language development linked to their choice of bilingual versus monolingual preschool education? To what degree are parents' reports of their children's language knowledge similar or different to their children's actual language knowledge? Which domains of language knowledge do parents relate to or ignore when assessing their children's language development? The sample consisted of 27 children (14 from bilingual and 13 from monolingual kindergartens), and their parents. Two sets of measurements were used, one to obtain parents' reports on child's knowledge of Russian and Hebrew and the other to assess children. The finding points out parents' insensitiveness to the length of the children's utterances and their tendency to rationalise FLP by overestimating their children's general language knowledge.
This chapter examines the influence of sociolinguistic and exposure factors on second language (L2) proficiency in Russian-Hebrew and English-Hebrew (second generation) preschool children. The children come from two distinct ethnolinguistic populations with different motivations for immigration and different opportunities for linguistic exposure. Sociolinguistic factors include measures of ethnolinguistic identity and attitudes to speakers and languages. Quantitative L2 exposure is investigated in terms of chronological age, age of onset of language acquisition, and length of language exposure to the target language. Quality of L2 exposure is investigated in terms of parents' education, family size, and birth order. Thirty-one Russian-Hebrew children and 18 English-Hebrew children (4;4-6;1) participated. L2 acquisition was measured by a standardized screening test for Hebrew . Findings showed that Russian-Hebrew bilinguals exhibited higher L2 abilities than English-Hebrew bilinguals. Sociolinguistically, English-Hebrew children preferred to define themselves as Israelis regardless of their language ability or the amount of exposure to Hebrew. In contrast, for the Russian-Hebrew bilinguals, positive correlations emerged between exposure to Hebrew, L2 language ability and sociolinguistic identity. These findings show distinct L2 acquisition factors that reflect the ethnolinguistic identity and attitudes of two distinct populations and are discussed in light of differences in motivation for immigration.