It happens, we’ve all heard the stories. Bilingualism comes easily to some, and in some situations, and for other families and situations, it’s a struggle. So if you are a few years down your bilingualism road and you feel like you are not getting the “results” you expected with your child, what can you do? In many cases, professionals will tell you to just drop the “extra” languages and be happy with having a monolingual child. I think that is very rarely good advice (see this post: Dropping a language?). If you are dedicated to your languages (and in most cases you should be!) what are your options if things just aren’t working?
Basically, you can look for help in one of three areas.
Firstly, if your child is showing delays in all languages, it would be a good idea to have an evaluation with a Speech Language Therapist (SLP). Ideally, a child should be evaluated in both/all languages, in order to get a clear picture of language development in each. If that is not possible, it’s very important to work with an SLP who understands bilingual development and who will work with the parents to understand the child’s global language development.
A second option is to work with a professional in bilingual development. This is useful if you feel that your child is really only using one language, and isn’t developing the second/other language alongside. A professional with training in bilingual development may be able to help you identify ways and means to adjust your family language plan in order to better work towards your goals. This can be as simple as identifying input needs, or helping to plan for a structured enhanced input for a lesser used language. In all cases, they can help parents understand what elements are within their control in terms of maximizing their children’s potential.
Finally, in more complex cases, an educational psychologist can help parents identify learning issues that may be impacting language use or development. Many children with Autism Spectrum Disorders struggle with different aspects of language development, and other educational challenges also impact language or involve language use. While children who have special educational needs may struggle more, they can certainly, with the help of their parents and a dedicated and knowledgeable professional, successfully learn to use more than one language.
In all cases, I advise parents to reach out for help as soon as they start to have concerns. The right professional can either put your mind at ease, or get your child immediate and accurate help if needed. In either case, parents are saved the stress of worrying “what if”, and of trying to figure things out themselves.
Tag Archives: bilingualism
So this bilingualism thing isn’t really working… now what?
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Different Perspectives on OPOL
Since I published this blog, two bloggers that I know and love to read have posted their stories and their take on the OPOL issue, so I thought I’d share them with you.
Stephanie Meade of InCultureParent shares her family’s OPOL experiment here: Why OPOL Doesn’t Always Work.
Annabelle Humanes of the piri-piri lexicon tells of her journey from OPOL researcher to OPOL parent here: From linguist to mum: looking back
I’d love to hear your OPOL stories if you’d like to share them too.
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Looking for Saturday/Sunday Heritage Language Schools
I am participating in the organistion of the DRONGO festival of multilingualism, being held in Amsterdam on September 28, 2013 (2nd edition).
We are looking for Saturday/Sunday Heritage language schools, to participate in multilingual children’s activities. In particular, we are holding a multilingual reading of Eric Carle’s “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”. We’d like to have as many languages represented as possible, so if you belong to, or know of a language school, please contact me at eowyn@crisfieldeducationalconsulting.com
Also, if you belong to any other organisation that might like to participate, please let me know – we are trying to include the international community this year, and there will be events and activities in English, alongside the Dutch stream.
Thanks in advance for spreading the word!
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The Multilingual World of Irish Dance
Over the weekend, I spent many hours running the canteen at an Irish dance “Feis”. My daughter is a dancer, and every year they host a competition, attracting dancers from various parts of Europe. Over the weekend, I spoke to people from Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, Finland, England, Ireland, the US and Canada. The most satisfying part of the experience was being able to help people in their own language. People say that English is the global language, and that if you speak English you don’t need anything else. I disagree, and this weekend was a good example of why. When people approached my canteen counter, I could often tell they were hesitant to order – worried about which language to use, and not wanting to get it wrong. I quickly figured out that the best way to put them at ease was to offer “English, francais or nederlands?”. I only speak a little German, but there was a German woman helping out and she took over the German side of things. It was such an amazing experience to see how people relax and feel more at ease when someone offers them linguistic options – and communication becomes an act of inclusion rather than exclusion when both people are making an effort.
But watching my daughter do the same was equally moving as well – she speaks English and French fluently and her Dutch is reasonably good, but she is shy about using it. Having the opportunity to use all three languages, sometimes in the same conversation was something that really brought home to her how lucky she is to have the opportunity to be multilingual, and how powerful it can be to speak to people in their own languages, rather than always through the medium of English.
The whole event was surrounded by an impressive linguistic atmosphere, with people speaking in many languages, and moving back and forth between them to achieve the best communication. Germans speaking French with Belgians, and Belgians speaking English with Italians and so many other combinations. It led me to reflect, once again, on the idea of “translanguaging” in bilingualism. Once we move past our ideas that a language is static and must be used as such, we realize that language is infinitely changeable and malleable and that we can do whatever we want with it to promote communication and inclusion. Seeing translanguaging in action was a brief insight into what communication could be like if we all make an effort to use the languages of people around us.
Next week: An introduction to translanguaging for bilingual education and bilingual families.
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Heritage languages: Fighting a losing battle?
I’ve been thinking about this issue for a while, and was finally motivated to write about it by a post on a parenting board. A Spanish-speaking American mother was considering her language use with her children, and how much Spanish she does or should use with her children. This sparked a discussion with some other children of immigrants, and even from that small sample, the trends of language use in the US came through. Statistically, by the third generation, Americans have lost the language that came to the country with their grandparents. Despite the recent increase in xenophobic panic and “English only” movements, this trend is still firmly in place (Source). First generation immigrants tend to arrive with limited English, so they continue to speak to their children in their own language (Mother Tongue, heritage language, first language, community language…). The second generation grows up bilingual, in their parents’ language and in English, but they raise their own children, the third generation, to be English monolinguals.
Why is this? Is it something we should be worried about? Is there anything that can be done? The answers to the first and last questions are quite clear-cut. The answer to the second one, however, is much more personal.
The reasons for the shift away from bilingualism can’t be described in one short post, but in a nutshell, I think the most important elements are language status and lack of information. You can read more about language status here but basically, home languages in the US are viewed as unnecessary and not worthy of serious effort to sustain. On the flip side, in Canada, where “Heritage Languages” receive government support, in policy and in funding, the results are quite different. Over the last 50 years, the number of immigrants succeeding in transferring their language through three generations has increased greatly (Source. The difference in perceived value and institutional support helps immigrants maintain their language, and pass it on to their children. So, that’s the “why”, in brief (and only for a certain situation).
Now let’s look at what can be done. Firstly, every immigrant, migrant, refugee needs to understand the value of the language and the culture they bring with them. You can be American, or Canadian, and be bilingual, or not speak English perfectly. After all, the first languages of these countries were hugely diverse, and none of them were English. Secondly, there needs to be a better transmission of knowledge about the benefits of bilingualism. There are so many potential cognitive, linguistic and social benefits to bilingualism that people don’t always know about, or understand. There needs to be a better societal and educational understanding of why bilingualism is beneficial, to refute the on-going discussions about bilingualism being a threat. This starts with everyone who works with parents and small children – doctors, nurses, health clinics, social workers, teachers – these people all need a better understanding of why bilingualism should be encouraged, and how to do so.
And now the stickier question – should we be worried? In my opinion, absolutely, but of course I am going to say that. In reality, every family facing the choice of moving to a new monolingual standard after immigration, or keeping bilingualism alive in their family has to make their own choice. For families who arrive in a new language location with young children, the best choice is to maintain bilingualism. The potential risks of “dropping” a language for a child are great – these populations are at risk of not “mastering” any language and therefore suffering academically. But for families who are raising the third generation, parents who can speak English (or the main language of their new home) fluently, is there an imperative to pass on the “old” language and aim for bilingualism? And if this choice is made, is it possible to pass on another language when faced with the juggernaut of English in the US (or Canada, or the UK…)? Yes, it is possible, but it takes dedication and planning. Do some research, and understand first all of the really great things your kids will take away from being bilingual. Consider how hard it will be for them to try and learn another language later, through an imperfect education system. Consider also the benefits that you, yourself, have had from being bilingual- linguistic benefits, but also the contact with your culture and your heritage. If all of these combine to make you sure that you want to pass your language on, then make a plan that will get you there. You need to consistently expose your children to the other language, you need to have resources for reading, and encourage other family members and friends to use the language with your children. You need to bring the language alive for your children, so that they can understand and communicate and feel a part of the people represented by the language.
For more information on Family Language Planning you can read here.
For more information on minority language support you can read this post about creating monolingual situations to support minority language growth, and this post for families where only one parent speaks the minority language.
In my opinion, not only as a specialist, but also as a bilingual who worked very hard as an adult to become bilingual, it’s absolutely worth the effort and planning to pass another language, and a cultural heritage, on to a new generation.
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Guest post: Bilingualism and Survival of the Toughest Language
A few weeks ago I was approached by a writer, asking to submit a guest post to my blog. This isn’t something I do very often, but she is a former ESL teacher and is interested in bilingualism. She works for a UK college that supports international students preparing for university studies in the UK. So, I thought, why not give a guest post a chance? (NB. I was not paid to publish this…) Here is the article from Corina David.
Bilingualism and Survival of the Toughest Language
There are more and more scientists and researchers that dedicate their time to the study of languages, and the discovery of their common ancestor. According to Mark Pagel, in one of his TED lectures: “Each of you possesses the most powerful, dangerous and subversive trait that natural selection has ever devised. It’s a piece of neural audio technology for rewiring other people’s minds. I’m talking about your language”.
Language and the way language is acquired is indeed a fascinating subject.
Consider children: they start with strange sounds, then half words, then funny words, then proper words and proper sentences. They need no explanation as far as how to link words, how to start a sentence or how to ask a question. They know it instinctively. Now, in families where two languages are spoken this is all the more interesting. Of course, only if the parents decide that both languages will be spoken.
Confused?!
Now, one of the major concerns in bilingual families is that being exposed to two languages, the child might be a bit confused and therefore start using language only later. While this is a popular concern, it is also a myth, as researchers do not have any data to support that bilingual children start developing language with a certain delay.
On the contrary; according to an article in Science Daily babies as young as seven months can distinguish between, and begin to learn two languages with vastly different grammatical structures. The research was done by University of British Columbia and Université Paris Descartes. The study revealed that infants in bilingual milieus use pitch and duration cues to distinguish between English and Japanese – languages that have opposite word orders.
Werker, a linguist at the Université Paris Descartes and co-author of the new study said: “If you speak two languages at home, don’t be afraid, it’s not a zero-sum game.” “Your baby is very equipped to keep these languages separate and they do so in remarkable ways.”
Even if other researchers state that talking to children in two languages, mixing words or borrowing them from the other language might confuse the child at first, they still admit that bilingualism has much more advantages in the long term. It is also recognised that bilingual children have a better “working memory” than monolingual children.
Bilingualism as part of international mobility
Children are exposed to a second language not only because of a bilingual family, but because of international mobility. This makes it all the more interesting as the parents themselves may not speak the new language, and therefore cannot explain it to their children, yet these manage to master it. Age plays an important role here. If children are exposed to the new language as babies, they will acquire and speak it as if it were their native language, without parents contributing to this. The older they get, the more difficult it will be for children to acquire the new language without any help.
Now, with international mobility, the use of the internet and globalisation, English has come to be the dominant language. It may not be so in 20 years’ time, but for the time being it is. And what if there were really gifted children who cannot get their ideas across because English might constitute a barrier?
This is a very interesting question and it was voiced by Patricia Ryan, English teacher (30 years of experience) in the Arabic countries. One of her brilliant questions is: “What if Einstein had to pass a TOEFL test?” Her TED talk can be seen here.
The question is absolutely mind boggling, and although there is great truth in her statements and efforts are made to preserve the endangered languages, the rule of success is that children, students, adults and entrepreneurs will have to accept that the same rule of the survival of the toughest applies in the fascinating universe of languages. Some languages slowly fade away, some struggle and others just bloom. It’s a matter of getting adapted to the new rules.
This is a guest post on behalf of an International College in the UK. Their main goal is to help international students achieve their ambitions, and therefore offer various courses to help them do that. English language courses and IELTS preparation courses are also available.
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When Bilingualism Goes Political
As a Canadian, I am very aware of the political nature of bilingualism in many places. Historically, language has been used to dominate and assimilate, and to include or exclude certain groups from mainstream society. Language is not only about communication, but also about culture and thought and how we interact with others. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#atop) forbids discrimination on the basis of language. Yet still, in the 21st century, language is used as a political weapon.
A few weeks ago a good friend in Canada (hi Ian!) directed my attention to an article about the Quebec language laws, and plans to restrict English further. (http://m.publishing.rogers.com/macleans/share/2012-35/08a_nat_patriquin.html). I’ve been gone from Canada for a long time, but I lived in Quebec for almost ten years, and became bilingual in Quebec, and felt a strong sense of belonging in my “francophone” life there. It saddens me greatly to see that politicians in Quebec are still restricting access to English, for reasons that are entirely political and not at all pragmatic. For people who aren’t aware of the language laws in Quebec, Bill 101 lays out what activities can happen in English in the province, and under what conditions, including in the field of education. Generally speaking, the only people who have the right to English-language schooling for their children must also have been schooled in English themselves, at the primary or secondary levels. This was done to prevent immigrants and refugees from choosing English-language schools for their children, to increase the numbers of French speakers. A worthy end-goal, but certainly a vinegar approach rather than honey. In the new legislation, they would extend these limitations to post-secondary education as well, meaning that francophone students would no longer be allowed to attend English-language colleges (CEGEPS).
I absolutely understand the desire to maintain the French language as the language of Quebec, both emotionally and functionally. However, I abhor the use of language to segregate and marginalize. When I was teaching in France, my students often mentioned that it must be hard to teach such low-level learners, after teaching in Quebec, where everyone surely spoke English very well. Unfortunately, not true. Years of politicking about language and restricting language learning and use has led to a great divide in Quebec, as one of the only places in the world that I can think of where people actively refuse the use of a second language.
Far from learning from our past, when linguistic minority groups were routinely discriminated against and eliminated, language discrimination seems to be once again on the rise. From the Quebec situation to activist groups in the US pushing for “English-only” legislation, we seem to be celebrating bilingualism on an individual level, but still can’t deal with it on a societal level in many places. Europe has a “language rich Europe” program, but speakers of minority or immigrant languages are still routinely discriminated against. School children are still being forbidden the use of their home language at school, and being forced to use only a language that they do not master. And politicians are still using the emotional power that language stirs up to promote their own nationalist, discriminatory agendas.
There is not really one thing we can do to change this, except to keep advocating, not only for our own families, but for everyone’s families, the benefits of bilingualism and the understanding that comes with using the language of another.
In the next weeks I am going to spend some time looking for online resources to help share the message of positive bilingualism, please share your resources as well.
/end political diatribe…
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Can one parent pass on two languages?
Every so often, I meet a parent who would like to pass on more than one language to their children. Sometimes they are a single parent, dealing with a home and societal language, sometimes they are a bilingual themselves and want their children to speak both of their languages. So, the question comes up, is it possible for one person to be “in charge” of passing on more than one language?
There is no absolute answer, but I lean strongly towards “not a good idea”. While I understand the reasoning behind the desire, the elements for successful bilingualism are hard to achieve with one person and two languages.
Firstly, in the early years, consistency is important in helping your children’s brains anaylse input and create a fully competent language system. If one parent is attempting to use two languages, it would be very hard to structure the input to be always consistent in language usage. For example, you could try and do one language each day, and alternate, but may find that sometimes you slip into the other language without noticing. While this may not be a problem once in a while, trying to maintain artificial language use patterns may ultimately feel too hard.
Secondly, the amount of input needed to truly acquire a language is substantial, and one person trying to provide input in two languages may have a hard time finding enough waking hours in which to do so. A general benchmark is 20% input is the minimum for successful language acquisition, although I personally find that children need closer to 30% to begin using the language. So, if a child is awake 10 hours a day (when they are young), you would aim for about 3 hours minimum in each language. Of course input doesn’t need to be this rigid, sometimes it comes in chunks on the weekend and is limited during the week (for a working parent), so I encourage parents to look at the pattern of weeks. But realistically, it’s very hard for one person to have enough interaction time to successfully transmit two languages.
Now, that being said, some people do choose to pass on two languages, and work very hard to ensure success. The vast majority of the time though, they need to bring in outside support for one or both, in order to ensure adequate input and consistency.
If you have a story of someone doing this successfully, I’d love to hear it.
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Dropping a language: Is it ever the right choice?
People often presume that if a bilingual child is struggling, the best thing to do is “drop” a language. I’ve worked with parents who have had this advice from doctors, teachers, speech therapists, family and on and on. It sounds fairly logical – if your child is struggling with two (or more) languages, just drop one, and they will get better. But is it actually true?
The bottom line is that it is not true that dropping one language will help the other become stronger. Children who are struggling with bilingual language acquisition would also be struggling if they were learning only one language. And generally, children who are being raised bilingual have a true need for both languages, so it would do them no favours to drop one language. In addition, it isn’t always obvious which language would be the best candidate for “dropping”. A child who has heard two languages consistently and in amounts that are substantial (over 30% of input) may not be obviously dominant in one language or another, or they may have mixed dominance. If the choice is made to drop a language and the wrong one is chosen, the consequences can be severe and long-lasting. With young children, parents often can not really tell which language they are most mature in, in terms of cognitive development. If the strongest language, in terms of cognitive development, is removed, you are left with a child who is at a cognitive disadvantage, and that can be hard to recover from, and can have permanent effects on their learning.
I was presenting with Annick De Houwer recently, and she used a very good analogy. Imagine your child is learning to play the guitar and the piano. They are better at the guitar, although you’d like them to be better at the piano. Will having them stop playing the guitar improve their piano playing? The answer is, of course, absolutely not. Only more practice or better teaching will improve your child’s piano skills. In addition, the skills learned from playing the guitar (such as reading music) are useful to apply to learning piano as well.
I thought this illustrates very well the lack of relationship between dropping one language and improving the other. If your child is struggling, you need to consider giving them better input to learn from, or looking for outside resources (professional help etc.) that will improve their language skills.
There is one situation in which I feel that dropping a language could be the right thing to do, and that is in cases where one language has been artificially introduced. For example, parents who decide to put their children in preschool or school in a new language may sometimes find out that their child has a language or learning difficulty. If the second language is obviously (from age of introduction) not dominant, and the language is not “necessary”, but was chosen for enrichment purposes, then there may be an argument for letting the second language go. But that is another post for another day…
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Upcoming Events and Webinars: Raising Bilingual Children: Six steps for success
A brief post to announce the arrival of webinars! In partnership with an online community, I have made two short webinars on raising bilingual children. They are both introductory seminars, and therefore are short and (hopefully) sweet.
The first is “highlights” version of my “Raising Bilingual Children: Six steps to success” seminar. This seminar, and the program it introduces, has been designed and refined over the last nine years of working with bilingual families. The experiences, questions, problems and successes of many hundreds of families have led me to identify six key areas that parents need to know about in order to have the best chances for success. This short webinar introduces the six steps in short format (the full seminar is 120 minutes).
The second seminar is called “Bilingualism for the Global Nomad Family”. It is designed to help families decide whether or not to include a new language into their families, and under what circumstances this can be beneficial to children. This seminar is based on a conference session of the same name that I presented for the 2012 Families in Global Transition conference.
Both webinars can be found at http://www.nomadparents.com/webinars/ and can be “rented” for 5 euros.
If anyone is local to me and interested in seeing the whole “Raising Bilingual Children” seminar, I will be doing a session in Amsterdam on February 7, in cooperation with Amsterdam Mamas. More information about registration, venue etc. will be up on their website shortly.
http://www.amsterdam-mamas.nl/
Upcoming on the blog: A guest post from Adam Beck, author of the Bilingual Monkeys blog. Adam is a teacher and parent to two bilingual children, and has some greats advice about using reading to support bilingual language acquisition, especially for the minority language, and he is going to share it with us here soon! in the meantime, Adam has just published this article: http://www.incultureparent.com/2013/01/29-tips-for-raising-bilingual-kids/ which is definitely worth a read.
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