Abstract:

In recent years, the mobility of people and the new political situation has led people to the creation and direction of the multinational and multicultural society. Cyprus has become a host country for both refugees and migrants and over the years there has been a huge increase in the number of bilingual and multilingual children from other states within the classrooms of kindergartens and schools in Cyprus. These children are not only aware of their mother tongue but also of Greek, which is the language of the environment in which they live, the school in which they are attending and their social circle. (Yagkounides, 2002).

Both bilingualism and multilingualism are a natural phenomenon in all countries and are the most important characteristics of verbal communication in today’s societies. The above phenomenon appeared with the conquests of the various countries, the migration of people and the contacts between neighboring countries that spoke different languages.

The first indications of the phenomenon of bilingualism began to appear approximately in 3000 B.C. in Sumerians, as mentioned by McLaughlin (1978, reference to the Triumarch-Herrmann 2000). In the years, where Greek culture and Greek language spread, various examples of bilingualism and even multilingualism were found, since civilizations apart from their own language had to possess the Greek language as well. Afterwards, this resulted in the assimilation of many elements from the Greek civilization. Many conquered people who had been imposed as Latin as an official language, offered their children bilingual education using Greek as a second language. This research has focused on issues related to bilingualism and multicultural awareness.

The main purpose of this research is to formulate the views of kindergarten teachers and public nursery schools in the following questions:
A) The evolution of language development of bilingual children aged 3-5:8 years in the public and private kindergarten
B) Does bilingualism affect the academic excellence of children in kindergarten?

A total of 50 nursery school and kindergarten teachers, from public nursery schools in three provinces of Cyprus, Larnaca, Nicosia and Limassol, took part in this investigation, between February and May 2018, by completing a questionnaire of 27 questions, after having agreed and signed the consent form, given to them by the researcher.

According to the views of kindergarten teachers, it appears that bilingual toddlers can adapt well to the educational process. Most nursery/kindergarten teachers believe that bilingualism affects the child's academic performance a little. Teachers characterize bilingualism as an advantage and an "asset " for the linguistic development of a child. Many talk about big challenges in the classeroom when you have more than 1/3 of children coming from multicultural societies.

Keywords:

Bilingualism, linguistic/language development, multilingualism, multicultural influence, speech attitude.