Introduction

The association between second language acquisition and the cognitive ability of the learner is still a divisive topic that generates a lot of debate. Some scholars argue that the acquisition of the second language tends to enhance the cognitive abilities of various individuals, but at the same time it could hinder the same abilities in other people. Currently, immersion is a common occurrence in Canada and other countries. In the recent past, it has significantly increased in its popularity, which has caused parents, professionals, and researchers to question whether second language acquisition has a positive impact on cognitive development, including brain and mental functions. In summary, they would like to understand the impacts of second language acquisition on the literal skills associated with the first (mother tongue) language.

Context of acquiring the foreign language

The impact or influence of the foreign language on the literal skills of the first language cannot be assessed independently without considering the context under which the second language was learned. The political and social context of the foreign language learning is a critical variable in the exploration of its effects on mother tongue. In this regard, it is vital to describe the diverse contexts from which surveys are conducted and correlate their findings to these contexts. There are two primary contexts second or foreign language acquisition that can be identified, they include transitional and submersion bilingual programs used in the US and French immersion programs used in Canada (Barik & Swain, 1976; Cummins, 1978). As a consequence, these programs result in subtractive and additive bilingualism respectively.

Subtractive bilingualism

The terminologies additive and subtractive bilingualism were first used by a prominent scholar known as Lambert in 1964. The critical component distinguishing the two concepts of bilingualism is based on social nature. Subtractive bilingualism is observed in minority children who are coerced to assimilate into the dominant culture, such as Mexican children in the US. These children often begin school were they are given instructions using a second (foreign) language (English). In this respect, it manes that their first (mother tongue) language is gradually being replaced (Beatty, Gardner, Madden, & Karlsen, 1984). Therefore, their bilingualism is characterized by an increasing disuse of their mother tongue and its sociocultural accompaniments. This means that the mother tongue is being subtracted out (Lambert, 1992, p. 213). When they begin their learning of the foreign language (L2), their mother tongue (L1) is often not yet fully developed, and because they are not able to enhance it outside the family setting, it usually results in a deficiency in both the L2 and L1 languages described as semi-lingualism.

To mitigate against this situation, the debate about bilingual education continues to be a critical political issue in the United States. Because submersion appears to have considerable adverse impacts on the development of minority children, through the elimination of their mother tongue language it has weakened their social-cultural identity, and hence exposing them risks academically that is why transitional programs have been introduced. In such programs, most of the instructions issued in writing and reading are conducted in the first language (mother tongue) that the children understand during the initial years of their learning process (Bournot-Trites & Reeder, 2001). Similarly, they also receive intensive instructions through the foreign or second language. In this regard, the programs have the ability to offer a time transition between learning in the first (mother tongue) and when their second language or foreign language has been acquired to a significant degree so that it can be used as the main language of providing instructions. It has been influential in encouraging self-confidence in children from immigrant families and promoting a positive attitude towards their native cultures.

Some studies have compared transitional and submersion bilingual programs in the USA and determined that students who are taught in their mother tongue while also receiving intensive instructions through a foreign language tend to perform better in their academics in comparison to that only receive learning instructions through a foreign language only. These results were positive in mother tongue and English as the foreign language, as well as in social sciences. The learners in the transitional programs were also associated with higher positive attitudes with regard to themselves and the school, which is an aspect that assisted scholastic success. This findings have been supported by many other studies (Cummins, 1976; Darcy, 1953). It has also been observed that the strong encouragement of minority students’ mother tongue throughout their initial school years has a critical contribution to their success in academics. However, even these transitional programs result in monolinguality in the foreign language towards the end of their elementary learning because they are conceptualized as pedagogical support to encourage the utilization of mother tongue in their entire educational career. Regardless of the efforts made, transitional programs still cause subtractive bilingualism.

Additive bilingualism

The circumstances are different in bilingual programs in which mother tongue is widely used. This is often the scenario with English speaking students being enrolled in a French immersion program in Canada. The foreign language which is French is often introduced in diverse forms of core French with about 30 minutes of daily instructions offered through the second language, or through immersion programs. The diverse forms of immersion include early, mid, or late immersion. During immersion, some or all of the classes are instructed through the foreign language. For instance, science or mathematics are instructed through French (Ben-Zeev, 1977; Lambert, 1992). In this regard, these programs in Canada can be described as either partial or comprehensive immersion. There are also enriched foreign language programs in which only a single subject and language arts are instructed through the foreign language. In most occasions, all the classes are instructed through French from the elementary school until the third grade. From the fourth grade, more than a half of the classes are instructed in a foreign language while the rest are taught us through the mother tongue. Nonetheless, the variations of this design are observed throughout Canada.

In most of these cases, the mother tongue language (English) is further enhanced in school, within the family, and other scenarios outside the school environment. Therefore, the resulting form of bilingualism is referred to as additive bilingualism since the second language has been added to the mother tongue competencies without any loss to the first language. In this regard, both languages are perceived to have bot social values and respect, particularly since both languages are used as official dialects in Canada. In some instances, the mother tongue (English) language is often given more or a higher status in comparison to the second/foreign (French) language (De Courcy & Burston, 2000; Marsh, 2000). In these circumstances, learning in the foreign language has demonstrated positive effects on the overall cognitive capacities, especially in the mother tongue literal skills. The disparities between both forms of situational contexts, immersion or submersion bilingual education could result in additive or subtractive bilingualism. It is significant since it leads to diverse outcomes in surveys conducted on the impact or influence of the acquisition of the second language on the development of mother tongue languages.

The influence of foreign languages on the mother tongue

Over the ages, there has been a significant amount of studies with regard to the impact of the first language (mother tongue) on the second language (foreign), but the general outcomes have indicated that the mother tongue is a critical factor in the acquisition of any second language. However, the influence of the foreign language acquisition on the mother tongue has yet to be fully exhausted. Nonetheless, surveys conducted with regard to immersion education have made a good attempt to address this question. The opponents of the immersion programs during their inception had projected that the students’ mother tongue abilities and their overall academic growth would be hindered as a result of receiving instructions for various subjects from foreign languages (French). Nonetheless, the findings from a decade of scientific research have revealed no evidence of any lag in the growth of English proficiencies in most immersion programs (Harley, Hart, & Lapkin, 1986). Despite immersion students lagging behind in comparison to their monolingual peers in various aspects of literal skills in English, most of these disparities tend to disappear when learning instructions incorporate the English language. Research has revealed that bilingual students have been known to outperform their unilingual peers. This has been observed in English grammatical usage, vocabulary, as well as punctuations. The reduction of the time when English is used as the instructional language did not appear to have an adverse influence on English literacy skills.

Lambert and Tucker (1972) explored an early French immersion program in the city of Montreal. The first French immersion was begun by a group of parents who were predominantly English speaking. The objective of the experiments was to offer English-speaking children with the ability and competence in both spoken and written French while also maintaining and encouraging normal degrees of English growth. All the learning instructions were administered through the French language during kindergarten through to the first grade. During the experiment, the English language arts instructions were later introduced during the second grade. Therefore, the researchers’ compared the immersion group with an English control group towards the end of grades one, two, three, and four. Before the commencement of English instructions during the first grade, the immersion learners scored relatively lower in English literal skills like spelling, reading comprehensions, and written vocabulary (Cummins, 1979; Genesee, 1987). Nonetheless, the students recovered from this lag by the end of completing their second grade, but the only exception was with regard to spelling by the time they were completing the fourth grade. In terms of English skills such as oral production, listening comprehension, or oral vocabulary skills, students in the immersion group did not lag behind at any stage.

The speaking skills of first and second graders were also assessed by asking them to create a fictional story from a comic trip. The stories were collected through tape recordings and examined for various nouns, adjectives, verbs, as well as grammatical errors. The narratives collected from the immersion students were observed to be similar to those collected from English students in the control group. They were also required to listen to a brief story and respond to multiple choice questions. The observations made in this study were not surprising since the immersion students relied on their first language (English/mother tongue) beyond the school environment from which they developed their oral skills. The researchers described their positive outcomes from the immersion group as a result of the early growth of a detective capacity (Genesee, 1979; Genesee & Stanley, 1976). They argued that the experience form the French immersion facilitates the engagement of students in contrastive linguistics through the comparison of differences and similarities in both languages. This resulted in positive influences on their literal skills in English, and assists them to build vocabulary and understand complex linguistic functions. The notion of the transfer of skills was also introduced from one language to the next or the development of a higher degree of cognitive skills, which is created in one language and applied to the other to increase proficiency.

In relation to specific literal skills in contention, Genesse and Stanley (1976) explored the English writing skills among students from grade four to grade six in early immersion while making comparisons to a control group on English. The learners were required to construct compositions based on three different topics that were determined by the testers. Afterward, experienced teachers from the fourth to the six grade who were not aware of the experiment were recruited to mark the tests written by the students. It is also significant to note that the specific group that the students belonged was not disclosed to the teachers. The teachers charged with the responsibility of marking the tests then graded each test in relation to the spelling, punctuation, vocabulary, sentence complexity and variety, sentence accuracy, as well as originality and organization. Apart from originality and spelling in the fourth grade, no significant disparities between the immersion and the control group existed (Johnson & Swain, 1994; Lambert & Tucker, 1972). Other studies have collaborated these findings through an examination of writing skills. Research has shown that there is gain with regard to the communicative capacity of learners as well. Other surveys have established that early total immersion learners and partial immersion learners seemed to perform better in terms of interpersonal communication activities than their peers in the regular English schools. When required to describe how the game is played to a peer who could not see the game due to blindfolding, most of the immersion learners had the ability to take into consideration the handicap of the listeners. They began by first identifying the material that was used to construct the game before they delved into the regulations governing how the game was played (McLaughlin, 1990). This sensitivity manifested in the immersion learners is due to their enhanced awareness of the prerequisites of interpersonal communication.

In another study that reviewed the outcomes from the reading skills in the second and first languages, higher associations between the first and second language skills in reading were observed. In this regard, the proficiency is most probably transferred from one language to the next. Lapkin & Swain (1984) conducted several studies in the cities of Toronto, Ontario, and Ottawa. The main interest of the study was to explore whether the skills of the participating students in their mother tongue were influenced by participating in programs that used foreign languages to deliver instructions. The study was also focused on determining whether an association existed between cognitive growth and academic success among the students in the French immersion group. The experiment tested the learners under immersion and used an English group as a control annually when the students were approaching the end of their academic year. The results obtained from the survey revealed that even though the immersion learners appeared to have low literal skills in comparison to the unilingual learners in the initial two years, these disparities were eliminated as soon as the teaching of arts in English was introduced into the curriculum during the third grade. During the fifth grade, the student under immersion were observed to outperform their counterparts in the control group that received instructions strictly through English (Genesee, Tucker, & Lambert, 1975; Geva & Ryan, 1993). For instance, grammatical and vocabulary usage was better among the immersed group. This demonstrates that when literal skills are well developed in one language, they can be easily transferred to another. Moreover, in the same study, no disparities in term of English language proficiency between early stages of immersion and the full implementation of immersion during the fourth and third grade were observed. This implies that the amount of instructions issued in English did not have an impact on the students’ performance. However, researchers have noted that it is not always easy to determine and measure disparities of motivation among different groups. This is because most students in the immersion group are drawn from the middle-class families, they have higher educational objectives and motivation to understand foreign languages.

Conclusion

From the discussion above, it is evident that immersion and enrichment programs often tend to attain a functional bilinguality in their foreign language without any adverse effect on their mother tongue. Additionally, mother competencies are often enriched in comparison to control groups that have been educated using English only as the instructional language. This implies that even though there is very little educational instruction administered using the mother tongue language, the first language rarely suffers from the action. Therefore, it can be inferred that a transfer from the foreign language to mother tongue usually takes place. This suggests that language and thinking abilities are created in one language and replicated to another. There is a beneficial symbiotic correlation between the foreign language and mother tongue languages. Nonetheless, the findings from a decade of scientific research have revealed no evidence of any lag in the growth of English proficiencies in most immersion programs. Despite immersion students lagging behind in comparison to their monolingual peers in various aspects of literal skills in English, most of these disparities tend to disappear when learning instructions incorporate the English language. Research has revealed that bilingual students have been known to outperform their unilingual peers. This has been observed in English grammatical usage, vocabulary, as well as punctuations. The reduction of the time when English is used as the instructional language did not appear to have an adverse influence on English literacy skills.

 

 

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