Turkish Prime Minister recently visiting Germany said that children of Turks living there should learn Turkish first. But the German Foreign Minister Westerwelle was of the opinion "Children who grow up in Germany must learn German as the very first thing.” German Professor Petra Schulz, responding to questions on the issue by Spiegel last week said: “If Mr. Westerwelle means that Turkish parents in Germany should, as a matter of principle, speak German with their own children, he is wrong, at least from the standpoint of language acquisition research.” With their children, parents should speak the language with which they feel comfortable. That's because language also conveys identity and emotion, so that insecure parents would tend to be counterproductive, Schulz further said.
The German media Spiegel asked, “According to your model, isn't it the children who become insecure, so much so that they can no longer properly master any idiom?”
Professor Petra Schulz said: “Unfortunately, the myth of children speaking two languages, but neither one of them properly, still pervades politics and education. Those who grow up with two languages are soon able to switch back and forth easily, just like someone who speaks a dialect and then acquires the standard language. We have to abandon the idea that multilingualism is a cognitive state of exception.”
With the existing type of family, what the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had proposed is better, but German should be added as early as possible, even before the first language is completely developed, Schulz said.
“The human brain is very well equipped to learning more than one language at the same time. We know this from observing children whose parents have different first languages,” the language professor further said.
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Professor Dr. Petra Schulz, 47, of Goethe University in Frankfurt, specializing in German as Second Language [Image courtesy: uni-frankfurt.de]
Professor Petra Schulz said: “Unfortunately, the myth of children speaking two languages, but neither one of them properly, still pervades politics and education. Those who grow up with two languages are soon able to switch back and forth easily, just like someone who speaks a dialect and then acquires the standard language. We have to abandon the idea that multilingualism is a cognitive state of exception.”
With the existing type of family, what the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had proposed is better, but German should be added as early as possible, even before the first language is completely developed, Schulz said.
“The human brain is very well equipped to learning more than one language at the same time. We know this from observing children whose parents have different first languages,” the language professor further said.
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19.03.09 Speak your language at home: Lee Kuan Yew
External Links:
| Spiegel Online: | The German Debate: The Best Place for Language Acquisition Is Kindergarten |