A monolingual future? INTERGENERATIONAL TRANSMISSION OF MINORITY LANGUAGES IN NEW ZEALAND
Transcript
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A monolingual future? INTERGENERATIONAL TRANSMISSION OF
MINORITY LANGUAGES IN NEW ZEALAND
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Overview Statistical situation Advice to parents in New Zealand
Plunket Huggies Office of Ethnic Affairs Report Our and others
critique (Massey and TESOLANZ) Our project Planned outcome
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Statistical situation At least 168 LOTE spoken by children in
NZ 240,750 of children living at home in NZ (20.1%) could speak
more than one language The highest proportion of children who speak
two languages or more is in Auckland (29.1%) In NZ as a whole 53%
of multilingual children are resident in Auckland 11,391 more
multilingual children living in Auckland since last census Twelve
out of sixteen districts now have >10% of children who are
multilingual
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Statistical situation Languages spoken by children living at
home Most spoken language by children in Auckland is Samoan Numbers
of German, French, Japanese and Spanish speakers inflated by those
learning at secondary school
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Statistical situation Percentage of NZ children who speak more
than one language by ethnicity, Census: 2013 Most European, Mori
and Pacific children are monolingual in English.
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Statistical situation Over one-third (35.0 percent) of
overseas-born children (aged 0 to 14 years) were able to speak two
or more languages, compared with 11.5 percent of New Zealand-born
children. Once children are born in NZ their likelihood of learning
their home language is not much greater than the percentage of NZ
born people who can speak more than one language
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Problem A recent report, Language and Integration in New
Zealand from the Office of Ethnic Affairs considering the role of
language in integration outcomes of migrants advises LOTE-parents
to speak English to their children to help the childs English
language development.
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Ethnic Affairs report Home is given as a key domain for both
acquiring proficiency in English and heritage language maintenance.
reference to interview data from the Longitudinal Immigration Study
about adult students preference for homestay (Learning the Lingo)
Dr Hilary Smith, President of TESOLANZ, wrote a response to the
report Dr Arianna Berardi-Wiltshire of Massey University expressed
her concern about the report to the Department. Those determined to
speak English took steps to live with native speakers. Some
participants families organised home -stay billets with Kiwi
families as part of a package in advance of leaving for New
Zealand, so you can speak English all the time, instead staying
with a friend [when] you speak Chinese all the time really no good
for you.
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Essers findings Objective is linguistic assimilation Shift
happens Only English language proficiency is predicative of school
results Reduced message that competence in LOTE is irrelevant to
academic success and exposure to English should be maximised, so
you should speak English at home No reason relevant to our context
to advise against raising baby bilingually.
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Our project Prong 1: interview study of families where NZ-born
bilingual child has reached year 12 or 13. What has been their
experience at different stages of the childs development? What
factors have influenced their decisions about languages? What
advice do they have for new parents? Prong 2: Study of commissioned
data from the 2013 Census focusing on the bilingual outcome of
NZ-born children who are in families where more than one language
is spoken. We are interested in the most widely spoken 20
languages.
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Christchurch 9% Asian children 10% speakers of languages other
than English What is the situation in Auckland and elsewhere in New
Zealand?
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Planned outcomes Brochures and research-informed professional
development for midwives, Plunket staff, early childhood educators
One-two Masters and/or doctoral theses sited in the project.
Website with research informed information and advice for parents
Interviews with parents and adult children
http://goo.gl/JHoysP
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References Bell, A., Harlow, R., and Stark, D. (2005).
Languages of New Zealand. Wellington, New Zealand: Victoria
University Press. Cunningham, U. (2011). Growing up with two
languages. London: Routledge. Esser, H. (2006). Migration, language
and integration AKI- Research Review 4. Office of Ethnic Affairs.
(2013). Language and integration in New Zealand. Retrieved from
http://ethnicaffairs.govt.nz/story/language-information-and-
advicehttp://ethnicaffairs.govt.nz/story/language-information-and-
advice