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Mixing Languages during Learning? Testing the One Subject—One Language Rule
In bilingual communities, mixing languages is avoided in formal schooling: even if two languages are used on a daily basis for teaching, only one language is used to teach each given academic subject. This tenet known as the one subject-one language rule avoids mixing languages in formal schooling b...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2015
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4479465/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26107624 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0130069 |
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author | Antón, Eneko Thierry, Guillaume Duñabeitia, Jon Andoni |
author_facet | Antón, Eneko Thierry, Guillaume Duñabeitia, Jon Andoni |
author_sort | Antón, Eneko |
collection | PubMed |
description | In bilingual communities, mixing languages is avoided in formal schooling: even if two languages are used on a daily basis for teaching, only one language is used to teach each given academic subject. This tenet known as the one subject-one language rule avoids mixing languages in formal schooling because it may hinder learning. The aim of this study was to test the scientific ground of this assumption by investigating the consequences of acquiring new concepts using a method in which two languages are mixed as compared to a purely monolingual method. Native balanced bilingual speakers of Basque and Spanish—adults (Experiment 1) and children (Experiment 2)—learnt new concepts by associating two different features to novel objects. Half of the participants completed the learning process in a multilingual context (one feature was described in Basque and the other one in Spanish); while the other half completed the learning phase in a purely monolingual context (both features were described in Spanish). Different measures of learning were taken, as well as direct and indirect indicators of concept consolidation. We found no evidence in favor of the non-mixing method when comparing the results of two groups in either experiment, and thus failed to give scientific support for the educational premise of the one subject—one language rule. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4479465 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-44794652015-06-29 Mixing Languages during Learning? Testing the One Subject—One Language Rule Antón, Eneko Thierry, Guillaume Duñabeitia, Jon Andoni PLoS One Research Article In bilingual communities, mixing languages is avoided in formal schooling: even if two languages are used on a daily basis for teaching, only one language is used to teach each given academic subject. This tenet known as the one subject-one language rule avoids mixing languages in formal schooling because it may hinder learning. The aim of this study was to test the scientific ground of this assumption by investigating the consequences of acquiring new concepts using a method in which two languages are mixed as compared to a purely monolingual method. Native balanced bilingual speakers of Basque and Spanish—adults (Experiment 1) and children (Experiment 2)—learnt new concepts by associating two different features to novel objects. Half of the participants completed the learning process in a multilingual context (one feature was described in Basque and the other one in Spanish); while the other half completed the learning phase in a purely monolingual context (both features were described in Spanish). Different measures of learning were taken, as well as direct and indirect indicators of concept consolidation. We found no evidence in favor of the non-mixing method when comparing the results of two groups in either experiment, and thus failed to give scientific support for the educational premise of the one subject—one language rule. Public Library of Science 2015-06-24 /pmc/articles/PMC4479465/ /pubmed/26107624 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0130069 Text en © 2015 Antón et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Antón, Eneko Thierry, Guillaume Duñabeitia, Jon Andoni Mixing Languages during Learning? Testing the One Subject—One Language Rule |
title | Mixing Languages during Learning? Testing the One Subject—One Language Rule |
title_full | Mixing Languages during Learning? Testing the One Subject—One Language Rule |
title_fullStr | Mixing Languages during Learning? Testing the One Subject—One Language Rule |
title_full_unstemmed | Mixing Languages during Learning? Testing the One Subject—One Language Rule |
title_short | Mixing Languages during Learning? Testing the One Subject—One Language Rule |
title_sort | mixing languages during learning? testing the one subject—one language rule |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4479465/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26107624 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0130069 |
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