13 facts that parents who want to raise a bilingual child need to know. You can also find different bilingual parenting approaches.
Can you raise a bilingual child if you don't speak a second language? Yes! here's how you can teach your child a language you don't speak.
How do you raise bilingual children? How to teach a child a second language at home? 5-step action plan to teach kids foreign languages.
There are many benefits of raising a bilingual child. From cultural and family benefits, to educational and career benefits and more.
13 facts that parents who want to raise a bilingual child need to know. You can also find different bilingual parenting approaches.
Raising a bilingual child using the Montessori approach is quite complimentary and it is becoming very popular due to the many Bilingual Montessori Schools.
I Wanted My Daughter to Be Bilingual Like Me. Turns Out That’s No Easy Feat
Tips on raising bilingual multilingual children in a multilingual family
Blog a kétnyelvű gyereknevelésről (magyar/angol) saját tapasztalatok alapján raising a child bilingual (Hungarian- English) personal experience
Are bilinguals or multilinguals any different from monolinguals when it comes to speaking? Well, yes and no. Bilinguals might start speaking somewhat later; however, the latest research totally rejects a clinical language delays in bilingual or multilingual children as a result of exposure to two or more languages simultaneously. In "Language development in bilingual babies: no delays, just a few adjustments" François Rochon talks about research of Professor Christopher Fennell of the University of Ottawa's School of Psychology: Research has shown [...], that monolingual toddlers learn to distinguish similar-sounding words at around 17 months old. Professor Fennell has found that bilingual infants start to do this at 20 months. Prof. Fennell doesn't at all believe the "delay" in sound distinction is a hindrance. Bilingual babies are simply learning an adaptive strategy because they're facing a more challenging language environment. That strategy sees them unconsciously ignore some of the sound cues they receive so that they can concentrate on matching the word with the object it represents. What does it mean for you as a parent? It means that you should not worry that two or more languages are too much for a child, and that you should focus on how to help your child and ease that task of connecting words with objects. Do not think about it as something not natural and extra work for you. Look at this the same way you look at helping your child keep his balance while he is making his first steps. Come down to your child's level of understanding when you read or talk to him; proving extra explanations. According to the researchers, a 4 month old baby is already learning to connect words with objects. So start early! Point on the objects while talking about them, and do the same on the pictures in the books, following a story as you read it to your child. You need to catch new words and follow on them explaining their meanings. I often use Google to find pictures of words that are not pictured in books we read, or when I'd like to provide some extra explanation and show something in details. Pointing is a powerful tool for creating word-object connection. So make a point to point :) Read also How to read to a baby? Researchers also found that children have difficulties to distinguish one languages from another, if the languages you expose your child to belong to the same rhythm category (such as English and German (stress-timed), French and Spanish (syllable timed), Japanese and Tamil (mora-timed)) . Deborah D.K. Ruuskanen, Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Vaasa, Finland, and mother of three bilingual children says: if there is more than one language in the baby's home environment, then the baby will be learning first to process and separate the different languages, before talking begins. As you probably already experienced yourself, there are natural obstacles in the language learning process. So be ready to face this challenge and simplify the language learning task for your child by being consistent. Speak only the language you choose to speak with your child. If you decided to speak only one language to your child - then do it all the time, without mixing with other languages in direct interactions. If you, as one person, decided to speak to your child two or more languages, think of the best strategy to separate the languages one from another. You could alternate days or even weeks when languages are spoken to your child, for instance, one day / week Italian only and another day / week - Hungarian. You could also assign a language to a certain activity: bathing, family meals, playgroups ... Think of some possible, appropriate to the child's age sign that you can give to your baby, to help him to understand what languages you speak and when. It could be a different color bow in your hair, a scarf, different picture on the wall. Just use your imagination! You also need to be consistent with the language you speak to others at front of your child. If you decided to speak to your spouse other language then to your child, please make an effort and speak only that language. This brings structure to the language recognition and, hopefully, helps the child to sort out the languages fast. Nothing dramatic will happen if you mix the languages. There is a number of parents that does it and they have a bilingual or multilingual child afterwards. However, my position on it: if you dedicate your time to your child, why not just take care of the language consistency part as well to speed up and simplify language learning. I found that naming the languages with their proper name helps in the language separation process. As you see, there are many variables that can affect when your child starts speaking. My children started speaking within the same time frame as monolinguals do. Since my concentration was on speaking Russian language, their first words and sentences were mostly in Russian. Interestingly, both children started speaking full sentences in Italian without usual long practice of words. They simply transferred the knowledge about building the sentences from one language into another by modeling the Italian speakers. If you are pregnant, you might like to know that it is also beneficial to speak the languages you are going to use with your child during the last trimester. Research shows that infants are able to show preferences to and thus, recognition of the languages they were spoken to during the pregnancy after they were born. When did your bilingual, trilingual or multilingual child start speaking? What do you think helped or delayed the child's speaking in your particular case? Share your thoughts to help other parents who read this page. Useful Resources: Language development milestones by ASHA - American Speech-Language-Hearing Association BE AWARE! Your child can have fluid in the middle ear (otitis media) without you noticing it! As it can cause absolutely NO PAIN and your child will not complain. READ MORE HERE: Speech delay due to fluid collection in the middle ear. Books about helping children to talk: Time to Talk: What You Need to Know About Your Child's Speech and Language Development My Toddler Talks: Strategies and Activities to Promote Your Child's Language Development by Kimberly Scanlon The Cow Says Moo: Ten Tips to Teach Toddlers to Talk: An Early Intervention Guide by Vicky McErlean Talking with Your Toddler: 75 Fun Activities and Interactive Games that Teach Your Child to Talk by Teresa Laikko M.S. CCC-SLP and Laura Laikko M.S. CF-SLP Late-Talking Children: A Symptom or a Stage? by Stephen M. Camarata Never miss a new post! 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by Semiha Sözeri We are a family of three living in the Netherlands. I am originally from Bulgaria and I belong to the Turkish minority there. I grew up bilingual: speaking Bulgarian and Turkish equally well. When I was born, my parents spoke primarily Turkish to me. I started learning Bulgarian at the kindergarten when I was 2 years old. Both of my parents were teachers in primary schools located in areas with high percentage of Turkish minority population. They were experienced in supporting majority language acquisition without attrition of the minority language. In this respect, they spoke both in Turkish and in Bulgarian with me and my brother in order to maintain both languages simultaneously. Their only rule was never to mix the languages within the same sentence. I think I have adopted a great deal of their approach to me in the linguistic education of my own son, whom I raise trilingually in Turkish, Dutch and English and expose to the fourth language - Bulgarian. As many expat parents, I was wondering which language teaching approach we should adopt. I have read extensively on the topic and I have benefited from observing other expat families with kids. I have seen that for many families where the father and the mother have different mother tongues, it is rather easier to follow the One Parent – One Language method and to obtain good results. However, in our case we had more than two languages which we needed to teach our son. My husband is Turkish from Turkey. Significant part of our education was in English: we started learning English in secondary school, then our bachelor and master’s degrees were completely taught in English. Right now, we have many international friends. Thus, even before our son was born we knew that he will be exposed to multiple languages. We knew it was possible for a child to learn up to four languages simultaneously and the literature on the subject was indicating that as long as the parents are consistent in their approach, the exposure to more languages would only be beneficial. When my son was born, my husband was working full-time and I was lucky enough to be working part-time from home. The first language I started speaking with him was Turkish, but from the very beginning I exposed him to English and Dutch nursery rhymes, books and videos as well. Our child started going to Dutch daycare two days a week when he was 18 months old. In the meantime, we were attending English speaking playgroups in The Hague. This way we made sure he gets sufficient exposure to Turkish, Dutch and English. When we read a book, I always ask him in which language he would like to hear it and I translate accordingly. When we learn the name of a new object, we try to name it in all of the languages we use making clear that things have different names in the different languages. Same goes for counting as well. Now that my son is 2 years and 11 months, he has the same level of proficiency in Turkish and English with Dutch lagging somewhat behind these two. Nevertheless, he speaks in whole sentences in all three of them and I hope that going to a Dutch school will help him a lot. Neither I, nor my husband is a native speaker of Dutch and we started learning the language only after we settled in the Netherlands 5 years ago. Also, I must admit that although Bulgarian is one of my native languages, I was a bit reluctant to introduce it. There are a number of reasons behind this decision. First of all, during my early childhood the Bulgarian state has banned speaking Turkish in public as a part of the assimilationist policy of the communist state. Because of this I had developed an idea of the Bulgarian state as an oppressor of its minorities and my ethnic identity as Turkish had a major place in my development. Therefore, it did not come natural to me to start speaking Bulgarian to my child after he was born. Nevertheless, I do want to teach him Bulgarian as well, but I would prefer to wait until the other languages are established. Besides, we have no one else who speaks Bulgarian around us: I would be the only person who speaks Bulgarian to him. So, I opted for my mother tongue Turkish together with Dutch (the majority language) and English (the language of the playgroup) and decided to postpone Bulgarian for a later stage. Luckily, I see that he shows interest in learning different languages (when we speak Turkish, for example, he is asking me “What do we call this in Dutch (or English)?”). This encouraged me to expose him to Bulgarian nursery rhymes as well. For now, Bulgarian is lagging very much behind the others but I am happy that he recognizes it and I believe that spending time in Bulgaria during the summer holidays, for example, will be beneficial for his learning. I notice that many parents are worried when they encounter situations which do not allow them to strictly follow One Language – One Parent or Minority Language at Home – Majority in Public methods. So far, in our experience few languages can be successfully absorbed by a child even when the same care-taker is exposing the child to more than one language. I just would like to underline that this should not be interpreted as mixing the languages. We are very careful not to mix words from different languages within the same sentence and we always try to make it clear for the child when we switch from one language to another. I am glad that the multilingual approach we have adopted has worked well for us so far. I do realize that it will become more challenging to sustain the minority languages once our son starts Dutch school. However, since I went to a majority school myself and managed to sustain my minority mother tongue skills at a native level, I am not very worried about it. I know that language maintenance through time requires the conscious effort of the family and the child himself. According to me every family can have different linguistic needs based on their cultural heritage and current circumstances. I know of single mothers successfully raising bilingual kids and homeschooling families who are the sole teachers of their children for all languages and subjects taught in a regular school. In this respect, I don’t think that there is one-fit-all formula when it comes to language teaching. Instead, I believe in adapting the existing methods to the unique needs of each family. ---- Are you interested to participate in the Life Story series and write about your experience as a bilingual or multilingual child and/or a parent? Would you like to take part in the Multilingual Family Interview series ? You can contact me here. Are you a multilingual family and looking for a playdate in your language or another family to chat with? Click here to find it now! You might also like reading: Pros and Cons of Raising a Trilingual Child Best Kids Radio Stations from around the world 7 facts that can determine the language spoken between multilingual siblings. Would like to teach your child English phonics? Check this interview for the resources: When your home languages are different from community language. How to Raise a Bilingual / Multilingual child. Where to start? What language should I speak to my child in public? - Multilingual parent dilemma Raising a Bilingual Child : Setting Your Priorities From The Start.
Tips on raising bilingual multilingual children in a multilingual family
Support for your family’s language learning journey! Parenting can be tough – in any language! Here I hope you find some support and guidance for your language learning goals for your family. Don’t forget to subscribe here so you can get my latest posts and …
13 facts that parents who want to raise a bilingual child need to know. You can also find different bilingual parenting approaches.
The hardest moment when raising a bilingual kid is when your child says "I don't want to!" (Speak another language). Here is my experience and some tips to help you.
Support for your family’s language learning journey! Parenting can be tough – in any language! Here I hope you find some support and guidance for your language learning goals for your family. Don’t forget to subscribe here so you can get my latest posts and …
Unless your child goes to a bilingual school it will be up to you as a parent to teach your child to read in the minority language.
Raising a bilingual child in Spanish and English? You will love this list of YouTube channels that are perfect for ages 2-5!
Since I wrote my first post about how I'm raising my bilingual children, I got so many questions that it made me realize how important it is and how difficult it can be. First question that I was asked frequently was how do I stick to speaking only one language to my kids? I must
How to raise bilingual kids can be a difficult decision to make. There isn't a one size fits all, but what's best for your family. Learn about these 5...
Not long after I started Spanish Playground, Adam Beck began writing his blog Bilingual Monkeys. As I read his early posts, I recognized a talented educator and a kindred spirit. His book Maximize Your Child’s Bilingual Ability (Amazon) was released last year, and since then I have recommended it
There is a critical period for langauge development, a "window of opportunity" they call it when children can best learn languages.
Explore 10 common misconceptions about raising bilingual children and discover why they are actually myths, not facts!
The trials of raising a bilingual child in small-town Italy - Guest post by Rochelle Del Borrello This week I'm delighted to welcome Rochelle Del Borrello from the wonderful blog Sicily Inside & Out Rochelle is an Australian with Italian heritage and lives in Sicily. She is married to an
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you know that my girls are bilingual. Obviously, I am Romanian but their daddy is English so although we don’t live in England anymore I am trying as much as I can to teach my girls about their home country as well. They were both born at St’ George’s Hospital in Wandsworth, London. Miss K lived half her life in London and half in my hometown and if you ask her what nationality she is she will always say: “First english, than Romanian”. For my youngest, Miss A things are a little bit different you see. At first she looks puzzled but after a bit of thinking she will answer: “I am Romanian and…English.” You see we moved away from London when she was only 5 months old and she is now almost 5 years old. They both continue to speak English although less than 40% of the time when their dad is not at home with us. I know not very good but I would love them to have their daddy accent in English and not mine and when we visited England two years ago it was obvious that at least Miss K accent changed…A friend even said that Miss K started to sound a bit like me…when I speak in English… Luckily when their daddy is hear they mostly speak in English – more than 70% of the time. Their daddy only speaks English so with him they only communicate in English. Miss K learned how to think in English when she was still in UK and with Miss A for the first two years of her life I spoke mostly in English and she has that skill too. I think that this is an important skill in keeping english as their first language although they both think in Romanian most of the time… What steps I took to ensure they continue to think in English Talking with their daddy daily when possible – although he travels a lot whenever the time allows they both talk to their daddy via the phone or FaceTime. Play in english – I encourage them to speak in english between each other when they play. Watch cartoon and movies in English – kids love their tablets and their time in front of TV so I make sure the programs they watch are always in English(not possible when the programs on TV are in Romanian). Teach them english nursery rhymes and songs – Miss K favourite nursery rhyme when we were living in UK was Row, Row, Row Your Boat so this was the first Miss A learned too. Of course we sing other songs too and from their other favourites I should mention “Twinkle twinkle” and “Five Little Ducks Went Out One Day”. Read them bedtime stories in English – We have over 40 books in english for all ages ever since I was an Usborne distributor in UK and we continue to buy maybe even more books in english than in romanian. My hubby brings books in english with every opportunity and thankfully i can even find books in english to buy here. I noticed that reading them illustrated storybooks is a great way to develop their language as every page is supported by visual clues.So even if want to introduce your children to english from a young age these kind of books will be a great choice. I do hope that I am doing enough to ensure that their english skills will stay and develop. For anyone that would like to teach their children to think in english – It is important to introduce a second language to your children as early as possible especially if english is a second language for both parents. Of course all the above activities are done in Romanian too. It is impossible not to when you want your children to know and speak their second language well and for us it’s important because they both go to school and nursery here. We read stories in Romanian too and we listen and watch nursery rhymes in Romanian too. I am sure that there are other ways to ensure that kids learn a second language and if you do something I don’t please do get in touch with any advice you might have. Is your family bilingual? Or do you teach your kids a second language? How do you make sure they grow up bilingual? Like this Article? Subscribe to Our Feed!
There are ways you can increase your child's exposure to Mandarin without actually speaking or reading it yourself. Fiona Walker from Julia Gabriel shares with us how.
10 resources on raising global citizens, featuring alldonemonkey.com - covering multicultural kids, bilingual families, and more
Raising a bilingual child is easy, really. Just speak the language you want the kid to learn and you will be all set. Or will you?
7 Language learning hacks for holidays Are you off on holiday soon and not sure who to keep up with your child' language learning? Or maybe you're around this Summer and would love to begin or continue the momentum you've created? If so I've gathered together 7 products which can be used
Here you can find the ultimate guide for raising bilingual kids with strategies, tips and resources to help your family.
There are a few things parents should know about raising a bilingual child. A few I wish I knew before my children were born. Here are the top 6.
Tips on raising bilingual multilingual children in a multilingual family
13 facts that parents who want to raise a bilingual child need to know. You can also find different bilingual parenting approaches.
Many kids in India today speak more than one language. Raising a bilingual child may have its challenges but the benefits far outweigh them in the long run.
Did you know there are many benefits to raising a bilingual child? Not only does it give them more professional opportunities, it does more! Find out how! #bilingualkids #languagelearning
Are you raising your child bilingually, or planning to do so in the future, but are unsure how to proceed? Using a question-and-answer format, this practical and reassuring guide will enable readers to make informed decisions about how to raise their child with two or more languages. To grow up bilingually is a necessity or an opportunity for more children today than ever before. However, parents are frequently uncertain about what to do, or even fear that they may be putting their child's development at risk. Disentangling fact from myth, it shows that a child can acquire more than one 'first' language simultaneously and that one language need not have negative effects on the other. Each chapter is devoted to a question typically asked by parents in counselling sessions, followed by a concise answer, summaries of the evidence and practical tips. Worked examples or Exercises; 6 Halftones, black and white
Kids are showing reading gains in dual-language classrooms. There may be underlying brain advantages at work.
Tips on raising bilingual multilingual children in a multilingual family
40 easy to implement tips for parents raising bilingual children from a linguist and mother of children exposed to 4 languages
Many kids in India today speak more than one language. Raising a bilingual child may have its challenges but the benefits far outweigh them in the long run.
From speaking to many parents who are raising bilingual or multilingual children, I have compiled a list of the most common mistakes:
The evidence keeps on stacking up to suggest that being bilingual is very good for us, and particularly very good for our brains.
Using Montessori approach when raising multilingual children at home.
13 facts that parents who want to raise a bilingual child need to know. You can also find different bilingual parenting approaches.
