Bilingual Competence and Bilingual Proficiency in Child Development
Norbert Francis
The MIT Press
When two or more languages are part of a child's world, we are presented                  with a rich opportunity to learn something about language in general and about how                  the mind works. In this book, Norbert Francis examines the development of bilingual                  proficiency and the different kinds of competence that come together in making up                  its component parts. In particular, he explores problems of language ability when                  children use two languages for tasks related to schooling, especially in learning                  how to read and write. He considers both broader research issues and findings from                  an ongoing investigation of child bilingualism in an indigenous language--speaking                  community in Mexico. This special sociolinguistic context allows for a unique                  perspective on some of the central themes of bilingualism research today, including                  the distinction between competence and proficiency, modularity, and the Poverty of                  Stimulus problem. Francis proposes that competence (knowledge) should be considered                  as an integral component of proficiency (ability) rather than something separate and                  apart, arguing that this approach allows for a more inclusive assessment of research                  findings from diverse fields of study. The bilingual indigenous language project                  illustrates how the concepts of modularity and the competence-proficiency                  distinction in particular might be applied to problems of language learning and                  literacy. Few investigations of indigenous language and culture approach bilingual                  research problems from a cognitive science perspective. By suggesting connections to                  broader cognitive and linguistic issues, Francis points the way to further research                  along these lines.