This is the second part in my A-B-C for parents passing on their languages to their little ones. G is for Grandparents Grandparents and other family members can be of great help when raising a bilingual child. This is especially important to remember if you are the minority language parent and might be struggling with […]

Is "the earlier, the better" always best? A linguist demystifies common myths about bilingual learning in children How do you begin to introduce children

Bringing up a bilingual child has its challenges and it is natural for parents to worry whether their children will learn the family languages.

Bringing up bilingual children, what I wish I had known before, what is difficult about bilingual parenting and why it's worth doing.

Imagine homework that doesn't mean sitting and memorizing math facts and spelling words, but brings your family together in a meaningful way. One Irish

Bringing up bilingual children, what I wish I had known before, what is difficult about bilingual parenting and why it's worth doing.

In order to help the kids continue to immerse themselves in German, I pull them out of their regular school about one day every week (or once every other week) and home school them in German. Like I've mentioned before, my kids' primary language is slowly switching from German to English. This is inevitable, since we live in the United States, my husband and I are native English speakers, all their friends speak English, and they attend an English-speaking public school. So, naturally, their primary language will eventually be Englsih. In fact, I am quite surprised at how long we were able to keep German as their primary language! They only started increasingly speaking English at home in the past 9 months! It is not my intention to "fight" the English that is creeping into our home, but merely to continue to encourage as much German as possible. I want to give them opportunities where it feels comfortable and natural to speak German (our target language). Our pseudo-German-home-school is one of those opportunities. As we work on German work sheets and read German books, the kids naturally start speaking mostly in German to each other.

This is the last post in my four-part A-B-C for parents in families with more than one language. T is for Talk Interaction is the key to learning a language. Talk a lot to your children. Ideally start before they are born – this way you get used to speaking your language with your children. […]

Parents raising bilingual children can learn a great deal from parents whose children grew up to be monolingual in a multilingual family.

Raising bilingual children is an enriching and worthwhile pursuit. Teaching kids a second language early in life provides cognitive, social, cultural, and professional benefits that can last a lifetime. However, bilingual parenting also brings challe

Non-native bilingual parenting. Raising children in a foreign language--meaning a language which neither of the parents speak natively.

When my twins were 18 months old, and I was waiting for them to turn babble into words, I still wondered: would they say agua or water? Más or more? Thinking back, it was a preposterous thought. My husband Adrian and I had spoken only Spanish to them since they were three months old. Having [...]

So you want to pass on your language to your children, but feel that they are not getting enough exposure to it – a familiar scenario for many minority language parents. You have made a quick calculation and noticed that you are not reaching the recommended thirty percent of exposure during your child’s waking time. […]

This is the second part in my A-B-C for parents passing on their languages to their little ones. G is for Grandparents Grandparents and other family members can be of great help when raising a bilingual child. This is especially important to remember if you are the minority language parent and might be struggling with […]

Need help reminding parents to bring extra clothes for their children? Here's a cute idea to help you throughout the year. This notice is only half page and comes in English and Spanish.

Activities, resource reviews, multilingual family profiles, and stories from a mom who only speaks non-native French with her kids.