I’ve had this book, The Bilingual Edge (Kendall King & Alison Mackey) on my book shelf for a couple of years, but hadn’t got around to reading it. While looking for books to bring with me for the long flight to DC, it caught my eye. I’ve read it now, and thought that I would review it here.
Overall, it’s a smart little book about bilingualism, but I found it to be quite US-centred and US-biased. That’s to be expected, I suppose – both the authors are researchers in the US. However, it means that the book’s usefulness is limited for parents dealing with anything other than English-something bilingualism.
The book is divided into four sections: Why are two languages better than one?, Which language and when?, How?, and What if…? The first section is definitely “research lite”, in that they paint broad strokes about the research base in child bilingualism, but they do a very good job of dealing with many of the common misconceptions about bilingualism. For anyone dealing with family (or other) disapproval about choosing bilingualism for their children, this book is worth buying, for this section alone. The authors’ support for bilingualism comes across as solid, accessible and most of all, short and sweet. This is the chapter you give to your pediatrician who is counseling you to only speak one language to your child, to your child’s teacher when issues arise or to any other naysayers along the way.
The second section is really mostly relevant for parents who are choosing bilingualism for their children, rather than for families for whom bilingualism is a necessity. The examples (and there are many) try to include bilingual families, but the whole tone of this section and the information included is much more geared towards monolingual English-speaking parents who want to raise their children bilingually, with a heavy emphasis on a US language paradigm.
The third section is similar, in that although it does address the “How” for bilingual families (parents speak different languages), it is more useful to monolingual families seeking to include another language in their lives. However, this is certainly an important audience to reach, and although I don’t agree with all their suggestions, it does provide monolingual parents with guidance and encouragement for the possibilities they can give their children.
The final section, which deals with possible problems, is appropriate for all types of situations. The authors deal very well with the issue of bilingualism and language delays, special educational needs or other challenges. In addition, they tackle the tricky issues of family disagreements about language use, refusal of one language and a variety of other problems that can be encountered by families dealing with more than one language.
Overall, this book has some useful information, and is definitely accurate and research-based. However, the bias towards the US language landscape means that much of the book would be inapplicable to families living outside the US. And as a small aside, there were far too many exclamation points for my liking.
Monthly Archives: March 2012
The Bilingual Edge (book review)
Filed under Content
Talking to Child-minders about Bilingualism
Although I certainly have no objection to working parents (I am one myself, after all!), being a two-working parent family adds another layer to your family language dynamic, and another element to your Family Language Plan.
There are a few issues that come into play when choosing/using child care for your children, in a multilingual family.
Firstly, what language childcare are you going to choose, presuming you have a choice? The easy answer is that you should choose someone who is a proficient speaker of the language your child hears least. In our case, that meant that when our twins were little, we choose a nanny who would speak Dutch with them. Our reasoning was that Dutch is a language they need (we do live in the Netherlands, after all) and we do not speak it at home.
However, it is not always that easy to choose or find childcare in the language you need. For families dealing with a minority language only spoken by one (working) parent, it’s often best to choose childcare with that language in mind. Sometimes difficult decisions need to be made about which languages take priority over others – a process that should be addressed in the family language planning process.
Once you have chosen your childcare, there are two other issues that may arise. The question of “proficient speaker” is one of these. I encounter many families who have chosen in-home care for their children, often in the form of live-in au pairs or nannies. Frequently, these caregivers are not native English speakers (or Dutch) but come from other parts of the world. Many parents worry that their children hearing “substandard” language input will be affected by it. For the most part, I encourage parents not to worry – as long as the children are getting ample correct input (from parents, schools etc) there shouldn’t be an issue, beyond some minor and easily rectified items.
However, a secondary concern is “What language is your childminder actually speaking with your children?” I know from experience that all too frequently, childminders use the language that is easiest, rather than the language the parents want them to use. This is especially common in cases where parents put their children into daycare/creche in the majority language, aiming to have their children become fluent. The strength of the Dutch in learning English often becomes a drawback here – in an attempt to be “nice” or to help the children understand better, many childcare workers here will talk to non-Dutch speaking children in English. While their aims may be noble, in fact they are undermining the language acquisition process, by not maximizing language input in the target language. I’m sure this happens elsewhere in the world as well, and it leads me to my title of today – talking to childminders about bilingualism.
If you childminder is a part of your language plan for your children (and they should be!) then you need to have an on-going discussion about your language goals for your children, and the part the nanny/creche etc plays in those goals. Generally speaking, if you include childminders in your plans, and explain to them their important roles, they will be more likely to be consistent in their language use, and therefore your children will get better input in the target language.
So this week’s task is to talk to your childminder about bilingualism – considering how many childminders I know who are bilingual themselves, it’s bound to be an interesting discussion!
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Talking to the Consultatiebureau…
This one is for my Dutch readers – you will all recognize that from the title! The consultatiebureau is the “well-baby clinic”, loosely translated. Any baby/child in the Netherlands between birth and four years old visits these clinics on a regular basis, for everything from vaccines to developmental milestones, eye tests and so on.
The great thing about these clinics is that all the staff are specialized in baby/child health. It’s a one-stop health shop for your children, until school age. The drawback is that the training in many clinics has not yet caught up with the multilingual populations in many areas of the Netherlands. One of the areas of development the consultatiebureaus track is language development. At every visit after one year, parents are asked about language development, in terms of number of words, combinations, sounds etc. They enter this information into a computer, and recommend evaluations/therapy as needed.
When my kids were in their consultatiebureau phases of life, we had very different experiences. The clinic my oldest went to had a doctor who knew quite a lot about bilingualism, and was happy to have my daughter respond in whichever language was more comfortable for her (on her 3-year eye test, she used English, French and Dutch words). We had a great experience, and never felt any pressure to do things differently with her.
With my twins, we had a slightly different experience. For whatever reason, the doctor we saw regularly was not a fan of bilingualism. The conversations about language development would always include questions like “Are you sure three isn’t too much for them?” and “Do they have the same number of words in all three languages – they should, you know.”. Luckily for me, I was confident in our language decisions and language plan for our children, and her comments never made me worry. However, I’ve known many parents who ended up questioning themselves and their family language goals when faced with skepticism from medical professionals. I’ve even known a couple of families who went monolingual, after being scared by advice from doctors.
It’s important to keep in mind that doctors do not study child language development as a part of their medical training, and neither do nurses. Any opinions they offer you (unless they have had outside training) are based on their personal opinions and experiences. Even the consultatiebureau employees are just filling in check lists – they are not speech and language professionals. As parents choosing bilingualism for your children, you should be prepared to question any advice you get (Why do you believe that? What training have you had in this area?) and make your own decisions, based on your family situation and your research. So, if needed, don’t be afraid to talk to a medical professional about bilingualism.
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