Reflection

During this project my language belief has not changed because I still believe that language is more than just words and is the best form of communication. Learning about bilingualism hasn't really reinforced it either though, because it only shows what communicating in two different languages is like.

Recommendations

I recommend for further research, to look at what languages parents speak with their children, or to see if certain languages are easier to speak together than others. I would also recommend looking at what ages children are becoming bilingual and if it helps with fluency later in life.

Interview

Conclusions

Based on my primary and secondary research I can conclude that many people believe bilingualism is important and is a skill that should be passed on to the next generation. There are some drawbacks to living in a bilingual home, but those cannot compare to the many many benefits that one receives. From my research, you can see that bilingualism is becoming an increasingly important part of everyday life. From my research you can learn about who thinks bilingualism is important and what benefits and drawbacks there are to being bilingual.

Above is a clip of Cathy and I discussing bilingualism

Interpretation of Data

The data that I have collected shows that many bilingual adults are also currently living in bilingual homes with their families. Of the people I surveyed, many also thought that being bilingual was very important to them both at work and at home. Being bilingual can connect you to your heritage and can come in handy especially if you want to communicate with older generations in your family. A lot of people also mentioned how being bilingual can help in the work place and provides more job opportunities because as the world is becoming more globally connected, companies and big businesses want people who can communicate with a variety of people from different cultures and areas. As for raising children to be bilingual, many said they believe it is important that our children are also bilingual for the same reasons stated above: to connect to their heritage, communicate with their elders, better job opportunities, etc. But they also said that they believe learning other languages will become easier if the children start young. The people I surveyed also said there were some drawbacks to raising children to be bilingual. For example: if you start speaking in two languages to a child before the child is starting to speak, the child may start speaking a lot later then his or her peers do, because they are learning both languages. Also switching back and forth between languages can be tedious sometimes especially when the society around you mostly speaks one language. I think my data shows that many people think that bilingualism is important and they want future generations to carry on being bilingual because it is a valuable skill that can be a big help in life.

Data

From my survey I found out that many of the people i surveyed became bilingual at a very young age and the same people that learned at a young age still find bilingualism very important today because it can provide job opportunities and gives people more knowledge about their heritage and cultures around them. Out of the people i interviewed, three spoke English and Spanish at home, one spoke English and Farsi, one spoke English and Mandarin and one spoke English and Urdu.

Primary Research

My subjects for this survey will be my mom's coworkers who are bilingual. I will try to gather between 6-12 subjects who can answer these questions:

-Do you currently live in a bilingual home?
-Did you grow up in a bilingual home?
-At what age were you bilingual?
-What languages do you speak at home?
-Is being bilingual important to you? Why or why not?
-Do you think it's important for your children to be bilingual? Why or why not?
-What are some benefits and drawbacks or raising your children to be bilingual?
-What are some benefits and drawbacks or living/growing up in a bilingual home?