Cummins, Jim

  Cummins, Jim is  professor James Patrick Cummins who is one of the world's most influential researchers in bilingualism studies. He was born in Dublin, Ireland whose language is on the verge of extinction, so he learned to revive an endangered language.   His research has focused on many aspects of literacy development in multilingualism school contexts. Especially, he studied the relationship between L1 and their developing proficiency in the dominant languages of instruction. We learned L1 in the class of teacher Yoshii, so I remembered a little. I think we learned as follow. the further and further the distance between L1 and L2 is, more and more difficulty we have in study .
   In this material, the them is about the benefit of learning different languages and minority language in bilingualism. There were contradiction among studies about the benefits. In the early studies, researchers pointed out the negative cognitive and academic consequences associated with bilingualism. However, in more recent studies, researchers reported the potential cognitive benefits of bilingualism. But, he resolved it by proposing two achievements of students.
1) to avoid the negative effects  associated with instruction through a weaker language
2) to experience the enhancement of cognitive and linguistic functioning that knowledge of two or more languages confers on the developing child.
   Then, he referred to some studies to correct the recognition about minorities. Minorities students are not different from majorities. However, minority students ad been unfairly tested and labeled  as deficient in terms of their capacities, background, and environment.
These are so difficult for me, but when I knew the meaning, I thought how interesting the world of education was.