Bilingualism Tool
Contents
Purpose
The purpose of this tool is to assist speakers of the language in assessing which people are bilingual and to what degree. A secondary purpose is to have them assess the changes that are occurring in bilingualism levels and their feelings about those changes.
Approach
Materials
Procedure
| Step # | Ask/Say | Do |
|---|---|---|
1) What are the two languages the [L1] people speak the most? This loop will represent the [L1] people who speak [L1] well. This loop will represent the [L1] people who speak [LWC] well. (Lay the circles on the ground) 2) When I overlap the two circles like this, what does this area where they overlap represent? ([L1] people who speak both [L1] and [LWC] well) 3) Let’s think first about [L1] people who speak [LWC] well. Which types of [L1] people speak [LWC] well? (Have them write each category of people on a separate paper and place in the LWC circle). 4) Which [L1] people speak [L1] well, but do not speak [LWC] well? (Have them write the category names and place them in the correct location) 5) Which [L1] people speak both [L1] and [LWC] well? (they may need to move some categories. They may need to refine labels they have already written. If they said that young ment speak the [LWC] well, they may want to clarify that young men living in the villages speak both well and the young men who were born in the towns only speak the [LWC]). 6) We have some plastic pieces that you can use to show which papers represent many people. Place one of these plastic pieces on each paper that represents many people (you may want to use another color to represent the papers that only represent very few people.) 7) When we think about people in these three different categories, which category has the most [L1] people? (usually it will be the one with the most plastic pieces in it) How do you feel about that? (let them express their feelings or you could ask “what do you think…”) 8) Is one of these three groups increasing more than the others? Why is that? How do you feel about that? (let them express their feelings or thoughts)
