LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 10 : 9 September 2010
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         K. Karunakaran, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.

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The Interaction between Bilingualism,
Educational and Social Factors and
Foreign Language Leaning in Iran

Mojtaba Maghsoudi, Ph.D.

Abstract

The main concern of the present study was to probe the probable differences between Iranian bilingual/monolingual learners of English regarding their syntactic knowledge. It was an attempt to investigate whether bilingual and monolingual learners of English differ significantly in learning embedded question, preposition stranding and pied piping knowledge. To carry out this study, a total of 399 male and female subjects at seven pre-university centers in Arak were randomly selected from among two groups of Turkish-Persian bilinguals and Persian monolinguals. A general English proficiency test, a questionnaire, and a syntactic structure test were administered to both groups. Statistical analyses including ANOVA, t-test, post-hoc Scheffe test, and descriptive statistics revealed the following outcomes:

1. Monolingual and bilingual learners did not differ in acquiring syntactic structure.

2. No significant difference was observed between gender of monolinguals and bilinguals' performances in acquiring syntactic structure.

3. Learners whose parents are in low educational level had significantly lower scores in syntactic structure compared to learners whose parents are in high educational level.

4. Monolingual participants surpassed bilingual participants in general English proficiency.

5. Learners with high SES had significantly higher scores in general English proficiency than learners from low SES.

Key words: General English proficiency, Socio-economic status, bilingualism, gender and third language learning.

1. Introduction

We all know that language is a source of communication. Whether this language refers to Russian, English, Swedish or Sign Language is irrelevant, the importance is that we have some sorts of sources for human interaction. Knowing many different languages provides us with enormous possibilities in our contact and understanding of other people living in other parts of the world. We may actually draw a conclusion already that knowing many languages is an asset for communication.

This brings us to an important topic, namely, bilingualism which will be studied on closer examination in this paper. There are and has always been a great interest among linguists and psychologists to study bilingualism and how it affects people. There are plenty of theories about bilinguals, and children's psychologists have not always drawn the right conclusions due to results from early studies on bilingualism.

Results from some studies show that children were negatively affected by bilingualism. It claimed that it confused the child (Fromkin et al 2003). Nowadays, the majority of children's psychologists are in favor of bilingualism and see it as an advantage rather than a disadvantage. This paper will examine whether being bilingual may help a person in their additional language acquisition?

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Right to Education and Languages in India - Part I | An Application of Skills Integration in Language Teaching | Official Ways to Subjugate Languages - School Setting as a Cause of Pahari Dhundi-Kairali Decline | Speech Identification Scores in Children With Bimodal Hearing | Continuous Professional Development - An Issue in Tertiary Education in Bangladesh | Teaching the Extra - Essentiality of Bringing Eclecticism into Classroom | Effective Teaching of English: A CLT Perspective for Haryana | ELT in Libyan Universities - A Pragmatic Approach | Behavioural Problems of Secondary School Students - A Pakistani Scene | Selection Procedure for English Language Teachers' Professional Development Courses of HEC Pakistan - A Case Study | Cohesion and Coherence in the novel The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James | A Review of A. R. Kidwai 2009: Literary Orientalism: a companion | Dravidian Ideologue Kanimozhi and Her Language | Extensive Reading and Reading Strategies: A Try-Out | Trends in Language Shift and Maintenance in the Eranad Dialect of Malayalam | Interdependence of Law and Literature in Shakespeare's and Charles Dickens's Writings - A Reflection | The Interaction between Bilingualism, Educational and Social Factors and Foreign Language Leaning in Iran | Code Switching in Kailasam's Play - Poli Kitty | Morph-Synthesizer for Oriya Language Computational Approach | Question Formation in Pahari | Language in Politics of Recognition: A Case of the Nepali Language in the Creation of Political Identity of the Nepalis in Darjeeling | Technology Note - Creating Parallel Test Items with Microsoft Excel | Politeness Strategies Across Cultures | Bridge between East and West - Iqbal and Goethe | Syntactic Errors Made by Science Students at the Graduate Level in Pakistan - Causes and Remedies | Prospective Teachers of English in India: A Perspective | Reported Perceptions and Practices of English Language Teachers at Secondary Level in Pakistan | A PRINT VERSION OF ALL THE PAPERS OF SEPTEMBER, 2010 ISSUE IN BOOK FORMAT. | HOME PAGE of September 2010 Issue | HOME PAGE | CONTACT EDITOR languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com

Mojtaba Maghsoudi, Ph.D. in EFL
Faculty
Shahid Bahonar TTC of Arak
Vice Chancellor of Payam Noor University of Shazand
Arak, Iran
maghsudim@yahoo.com

 
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