Raising Bilingual Children Written by Antonella Sorace and Bob Ladd research found were - PDF document

research found were generally disadvan-tages, linked to the hardships of immigrants픀lives. Bilingual development sometimes results in slightlyslower language development than for some mono-lingual children. Our older child was still saying Where you are? instead of Where are you? in English at four and a half. This is a normal devel-nglish children, butthey usually figure out that they have to say Whereare you? by the time they픀re three or four. Our olderchild just took a little longer. Don't bilingual children ever mix their Like adult bilinguals, bilingual children often usewords from one language when speaking the other.(This is called .) But this doesn해mean they are confused about which language theyare speaking. In our Italian-English bilingual home, alot of our food vocabulary is Italian, and we use thiseven when we픀re speaking English (and when Englishwords are available). So we픀ll talk about instead of and instead of . Yet incareful to use only the relevant language. So how do we start teaching our The main thing to keep in mind is that parents don해en to speak, any more than theyteach them to walk or smile. The most importantthings in language development are exposure need . I ety of circumstances with many different people fromthe time they are born, and if they feel they f they are exposed to two lan-guages in varied circumstances with different peoplefrom the moment they are born, and if they need Why want bilingual children? There are many reasons, but the two most common are:ꔀThe parents speak different languages (say, anAmerican woman and a Turkish man).ꔀThe parents speak the same language, but live inelse (say, a Korean couple living in the USA).In the first case, both the mother and father maywant to be able to use their own language whentalking to their children. This is the bilingual home situation. In the second, the parents may want to be able to use their own language at home eventhough their children also need to function in theworld outside the front door. This is the setting situation. Our own situation is anItalian/English bilingual home in an English-speakingsetting, and some of what we say here is baseddirectly on our experience bringing up bilingual children. Don't children get confused when theyhear two languages spoken around The short answer is no. Children are incredibly sensitive to the different ways people speak. Evenwhen they only hear one language, they learn veryquickly about differences between the way men andwomen talk, the difference between polite and impolite ways of talking, and so on. For children, difference between people!Fifty years ago educators throughout North Americas schooling if they spoke English atome researchers thought that early exposureto two languages put children at a disadvantage.Newer research tells us that this is not so, and there advantages knowing more than one language), such as moreflexible thinking. The disadvantages that earlierSee also: Birner, Betty. 2002. Bilingualism FAQ . Washington, DC:Linguistic Society of America. www.lsadc.org. , Betty. Language Acquisition FQ Linguistic Society of America. www.lsadc.org. Would it be better to start teaching thesecond language after children have agood start on the first? No, definitely not , especially in the bilingual home situation where the second language is likely toseem Òless importantÓ to the children anyway.Introducing the second language later is just aboutguaranteed to make them think it픀s less importantand not worth the effort.On the other hand, in the bilingual setting situation (say, the Korean couple living in the United States),there isnÕt any harm in letting children픀s exposure toEnglish begin naturally and gradually. As long as thefamily stays in the US and the children go toAmerican schools, there is no risk that they will failto learn English. Actually, the more common problem bilingual setting dren sometimes reject their home language in favor My partner and I speak different lan-en in our own language if we Many experts recommend the Òone-parent-one-lan-guageÓ method for a bilingual home. The idea isthat Mommy (or Mamma, or Mutti) her own language with the children, and Daddy (orPapa, or Vati) speaks his own language withthem. This is a good basis for a successful bilingual픀s not the only one, and even one-par- oblems withone-parent-one-language? ne problem can be balance. Children need to hearboth languages often and in a variety of circum-stances. If they never hear the Òless importantÓ lan-enough exposure for that language to develop natu-t is especially true that when both parentsdren donÕt feel they need the Òless importantÓ one. Do you really mean that if our childrenare exposed to two languages frombirth they will learn both, just like No, but children do this with no difficulty, and itdoesnÕt do them any harm. The hard part is makingsure they have enough natural exposure to guages. Most of the time, one of the two languagesyou want them to learn will be Òmore important팀somehow, and the trick is to provide enough oppor-tunities for them to use the Òless importantÓ one ina way that isnÕt forced or artificial. The best way, ifyou can manage it, is to put children in situationswhere only the Òless importantÓ language is used sothat there is no temptation to mix languages orrevert to the Òmore importantÓ language. What do you mean by saying that onetant"? One language is likely to seem more important toe fre-quently than the other. For example, suppose theAmerican woman and Turkish man in the bilingualnglish with each other. The childrenwill notice that English is used in cases whereTurkish isnÕt and think that English is Òmore impor-tantÓ. But if the same family moves to Turkey, thechildren will notice that Turkish is used in lots ofcases where English isnÕt, and may decide Turkish is툀more importantÓ. Some children are very sensitiveto these differences and may be reluctant to use theÒless importantÓ languageÐespecially if other childrendonÕt use it. Others donÕt seem to mind. When we talk about one language being ÒmoreimportantÓ here, we픀re only talking about the chil-dren픀s point of view! Nonetheless, many adult bilin-guals are ÒdominantÓ in one of their languages. Eveneen their two languages aresubtle, most bilinguals feel slightly more at home in My children used to speak our homelanguage just fine, but now that they'reEnglish all the time. What can I do? Relax. Language mixing is normal where everyonespeaks both languages. It doesnÕt mean that thechildren will forget one language, and it doesn해mean that they canÕt tell the difference any morebetween two languages. If you scold them for speak-ing English it may create a negative attitude aboutInstead, create natural situations where the childrenreally need the home language Ð like calling onthose monolingual grandparents again!You can understand this kind of language mixing if you keep in mind that simple exposure is animportant ingredient of children's language development. When your children were small, theywere probably more exposed to your home language Ð say Korean Ð than they were to English.Now that they are going to school, they are exposedonly to English for hours a day, and they are learn-ing all kinds of new words and new ways of using language Ð but only in English. They probably don해know the Korean word for ÒnotebookÓ or ÒsocialstudiesÓ or ÒprincipalÓ. When they use an Englishword in a Korean sentence, tell them what it픀s calledin Korean rather than worrying that they픀re losingtheir home language. Remember, even if they end upwith English as their dominant language, they canstill be perfectly competent Korean speakers as well. dditional Reading Baker, Colin. 1995. AParents픀and Teachers픀Guide to Grosjean, Franois. 1982. Life with Two Languages Harvard University Press.Harding-Esch, Edith, and Philip Riley. 2003. Bilingual Family: AHandbook for Parents Cambridge University Press.In these cases it is essential to find other sources ofexposure and other ways of creating the sense ofneed. Monolingual grandparents can be especiallyhelpful! Can you enlist a cousin or grandmother or apaid babysitter who speaks the other language tolook after the children? Is there a daycare or play-group where they can hear the other language? Canyou get videos and story tapes in the other lan-guage? All of these can make a big differenceÐespe-cially exposure that involves interaction with otherpeople, not just watching TV. When our childrenwere small, we did things like this to reinforce Italianin a largely English-speaking setting. Another problem is keeping the situation natural. Ifchildren feel that they are being forced to do some-thing weird or embarrassing, they will probably resistit. Explicit rulesÐsay, speaking one language on somedays and the other on othersÐcan be very hard toenforce and can help create a negative attitude.Still another problem is exclusion. If one of the par-ents doesnÕt speak the otherÕs language (in ourexample, suppose the American woman doesn해speak Turkish), the children will know that everytime they say something in Turkish to their fatherthey are excluding their mother from the conversa-tion. This may make children reluctant to speak oneof the parents픀languages when both parents areesent. In our experience, a bilingual home is morelikely to succeed if both parents at least understander excluded The arrival of a second child can upset the languagebalance in a bilingual home, and it픀s common for a툀more importantÓ language, increasing the exposurethe second child gets to that language and decreas-advance. Come up with a strategy that fits your own픀s probably worthwhile to try to enlist The Linguistic Society of America 1924 for the advancement of the scientific study oflanguage. The Society serves its nearly 7,000 person-al and institutional members through scholarly meet-advance the discipline.The Society holds its Annual Meeting in early Januaryeach year and publishes a quarterly journal, LAN-GUAGE and the LSABulletin. Among its special educa-tion activities are the Linguistic Institutes held everyother summer in odd-numbered years and co-spon-sored by a host university.The web site for the Society (http://www.lsadc.org)includes a Directory of Programs in Linguistics in theUnited States and Canada, The Field of Linguistics(brief, nontechnical essays describing the disciplineissued by the Society on matters such as languaget, NW, Suite 211Duplicate as needed