Who else is raising children multilingually in a monolingual environment?

[Finny]

Update: since I last posted, I've started teaching the kids French on top of Spanish, using the one parent two language variation of OPOL I found a couple of moms on the Internet using successfully. Right now, I speak to them in Spanish from Monday to Thursday and in French from Friday through Sunday. I'm still learning the language, so this is very much a work in progress, but it's lots of fun. We have about 30 kids' books in French with a few more on the way, and I of course have my personal collection of books I'm using for my learning.

Comprehension: both kids pretty much understand all three languages without issue. When reading to my daughter in French, she initially asked me lots of times if I could explain particular things to her in Spanish, but almost never does now. She has begun to ask what particular things are called in French or in Spanish, which sometimes / often requires my looking things up in the moment or later. Today, for example, they were eating asparagus and she asked for the word in Sp / Fr, and I looked both of those up. However, they both understand pretty much anything they hear in all three languages when we use them orally (Mom using English and my using Sp / Fr), which I love.

On the Spanish days, I speak completely in Spanish to them except when reading books in French, which I'll read and talk about in French. On French days, it's the opposite, except I'll also drop into Spanish when I need to explain something and don't have the words in French. I'll also use the Spanish word when my daughter asks for what something means in French, although I'm increasingly explaining it in French as my vocabulary and grammar increase.

Production: My daughter speaks English and Spanish without issue; she'll occasionally insert an English word in a Spanish sentence when she doesn't know the Spanish word, and I'll supply and have her repeat the Spanish word, or look it up (rare) if I don't know it. She's gradually trying a bit more French here and there; the other day she exclaimed "le lait est froid!" while drinking, which wowed my wife. I don't have her repeat things in French with very rare exceptions (e.g., "oui" ou "je voudrais du lait", ou "s'il te plait") because a.) I want them to have much more time hearing it before asking for production, and b.) I want my grammar to be rock solid first to avoid teaching any more mistakes than necessary (e.g., she says "niege" instead of "neige" because I pronounced that incorrectly for a few months before correcting myself). On our French days of the week, I've noted her starting to speak a bit of Franish, like "Mes chaussettes están aquí", which I love, because it shows she's starting to get comfortable enough with French to insert parts of it into her speech. Otherwise, she pretty much speaks Spanish to me (with the exception of "oui!") when I'm speaking to her in French. In time.

My son has several active words in English and perhaps a handful in Spanish and French; he probably has more than I'm aware of because I'm sure I miss words he's trying to use due to his pronunciation. When with me, for example, he'll use "lait!" to ask for milk, but I rarely hear him use "leche" without prompting him. In English, he'll use "mo' milk!" over and over again. He also willingly uses "sí" and perhaps "en haut" without prompting. He's very willing to repeat things, so I can pretty much give him any single word and he'll make a go of it.

In conclusion, things are rocking right now. I'm most impressed at how quickly their comprehension has picked up. I started actively using French (reading it to the kids) back in August, and didn't start speaking it to them in bits and pieces until...September, I think...but they're definitely passively trilingual at this point. I'm excited to see where this goes. The reason I started speaking long before I was comfortable doing so was to take advantage of how flexible their minds are right now. I can literally have conversations with my daughter in French even though I only started using the language in the house a few months ago. She turns 3 early next year. And my son (at 1.5) prefers asking for "lait" over "leche", even though I exclusively spoke to him in Spanish for the first 10 months of his life. I'm loving this.

[DaveBee]

Update: since I last posted, I've started teaching the kids French on top of Spanish, using the one parent two language variation of OPOL I found a couple of moms on the Internet using successfully. Right now, I speak to them in Spanish from Monday to Thursday and in French from Friday through Sunday. I'm still learning the language, so this is very much a work in progress, but it's lots of fun. We have about 30 kids' books in French with a few more on the way, and I of course have my personal collection of books I'm using for my learning.

I was looking for french book series for adults the other day, and came across one aimed at children on the way: Martine.

[Ani]

I was looking for french book series for adults the other day, and came across one aimed at children on the way: Martine.

We love Martine here! Used old copies can either be really cheap or really expensive here so I try to keep an eye and grab therm up when I can.

[Cainntear]

I see the vast majority if not all the cases here are of "one parent speaks only X, the other only Y" to the child, so that he or she has to use the assigned language for communication.

I wonder if there has ever been a study on how effective different types of multilingual raising are. The above is one scenario. And probably the most typical since usually one parent has a mother tongue the other parent has another and thus by default the child will be encouraged to use the appropriate one for each parent.

I do recall reading recently (probably here) that a study had found that better results were obtained by tying languages to situations rather than people, e.g. have a "language of the playpark". I can't remember the details, and I don't think I even read the original paper, just a news report.

[aokoye]

I see the vast majority if not all the cases here are of "one parent speaks only X, the other only Y" to the child, so that he or she has to use the assigned language for communication.

I wonder if there has ever been a study on how effective different types of multilingual raising are. The above is one scenario. And probably the most typical since usually one parent has a mother tongue the other parent has another and thus by default the child will be encouraged to use the appropriate one for each parent.

I don't know that one could say that the above scenarios is the most typical when you also consider situations such as children whose parents are immigrants or where the children are also immigrants. I don't have the energy this early in the day to research what percentage of children in the US have two parents (or one parent who is raising them as a single parent) who don't speak English at a high proficiency. Even if both parents speak their L2 at a high proficiancy they might still prefer the home language to be their L1 (obviously there are tons of situations where the parents will demand that their L2 - in the case of the US English - be spoken at home as well but that won't help produce bilingual children).

That said, to your other question about the studies on how effective different types of multilingual child raising are, those studies definitely exist. From the first few pages of my google scholar search (filtering so I was only shown studies from 1990 and later):
Parental language input patterns and children's bilingual use
A bilingual child's struggle to comply with the ‘one parent‐one language’ rule (that one is a case study - they only looked at one child)
The relation of input factors to lexical learning by bilingual infants
Bilingual Parenting as Good Parenting: Parents' Perspectives on Family Language Policy for Additive Bilingualism - from the abstract it isn't clear if this looks at the efficacy of parent's practices

[Systematiker]

But what about if both parents are bilingual, or have an excellent command of a shared 2nd language? In the USA the typical example would be both parents very strong in English and Spanish. What would happen if a language is "scheduled" instead of assigned to a parent? That is "mondays Spanish", "tuesdays English"... or a week Spanish, a week English, with both parents. Would the results or progress be different than in the one parent/one language scenario? This set-up would allow a 3rd language to be rotated in.

My wife and I do OPOL at present for the sake of accent formation. My wife doesn't have an identifiable accent, but one notes especially when she's tired that she's not a native, and I've seen the return of some anglophone accent in my German since we've come to the US. Our son is one, though - at four, I may be switching my habitual language with him to something else - depending on further children, situation, etc., so we haven't got a concrete plan yet. My wife is better than I in both Spanish and French, but I'll be the one to switch so he retains German input in an anglophone culture. We've also discussed introducing the other a couple years later, and he'll be free throughout to express himself to us in any of the languages. If we get lucky, he'll be bilingual but with a good command of all four.

Even now, though, my son seems to have no trouble with the concept that we both understand him in both languages, we just each only speak the one to him.

[Cainntear]

The understanding-but-answering-in-another-language is all down to how the brain works at its most basic level.

The two fundamental forces in the brain are "activations" and "inhibitions". Chains of neurons fire and activate each other, but this happens in parallel; the brain simultaneously evaluates multiple possible solutions to the problem at hand. "Inhibitions" are how the brain chooses one solution from many. The brain says "I've found a solution" and therefore inhibits (shuts down) all the other possible solutions.

What this means for the bilingual/multilingual is that the brain activates all possible languages at once, but something in the context says "I don't need that one" and switches off the unneeded language(s). But that's often because you know the person speaking to you won't understand it. Without that impetus, the kid's brain really has no reason to block out the language that the parent doesn't want.

Lately i've been encouraging her to pronounce French words- a word each page of a book for example, and if she says something to me in English I get her to say it again in French. I'm attempting to reinforce that to communicate with me she'll need to use French. I'm trying to encourage her activite participation in the Language. Many times i've heard of Italians and Greeks here (simply because there are plenty of them in Australia) growing up understanding their heritage language but not knowing how to speak it back. The reason i think is simple, they weren't encouraged to use it (which may have been for motivational reasons perhaps), or if they were they still didn't use it. The thing is if a child realises they won't get a response using Language A then they will likely aim to use Language B with that particular person in the family.

I think I can see why that works. Saying the French is presumably easy for her, as it's already been activated in her head. The effort of having to say it twice is presumably mild enough negative feedback to convince her brain that it'd be easier just to say it in French in the first place, without being so negative as to be a source of frustration.

Don't be surprised if it gets less effective with age, though.

[Ani]

I think I can see why that works. Saying the French is presumably easy for her, as it's already been activated in her head. The effort of having to say it twice is presumably mild enough negative feedback to convince her brain that it'd be easier just to say it in French in the first place, without being so negative as to be a source of frustration.

Don't be surprised if it gets less effective with age, though.

There is also a phonemic aspect going on with PM's strategy. Kids often hesitate to say a word themselves when, although they may recognize it, they have not actively integrated the phonetic sounds and sound order. Caterpillar/ cal-a-pitter is a good example since most of us are familiar with the common error but parents almost unconsciously give this phonemic training from birth. When you are the only parent with a minority language, you suddenly realize exactly how many hours of tutoring a child really needs to speak well

I have not found this type of exercise to get any less effective with age. I need to do this sort of thing all the time with my son because he picks up an accent from his best friend. Since the accent is not consistent, it just sounds like he doesn't know how to say certain words and so we "revise" his pronunciation.

[Finny]

Update: since I last posted, I've started teaching the kids French on top of Spanish, using the one parent two language variation of OPOL I found a couple of moms on the Internet using successfully. Right now, I speak to them in Spanish from Monday to Thursday and in French from Friday through Sunday. I'm still learning the language, so this is very much a work in progress, but it's lots of fun. We have about 30 kids' books in French with a few more on the way, and I of course have my personal collection of books I'm using for my learning.

I was looking for french book series for adults the other day, and came across one aimed at children on the way: Martine.

I might check those out someday! Right now, the majority of the kids' French library is the Princesse Parfaite series, along with a few other scattered books (e.g., Choisir un p'tite bete? Quel casse-tete!). But I love the PP loads, both from the instructional angle as well as from the social skills teaching angle (not to mention the lovely illustrations and the hilarious storylines at times); so many of them directly tie in to how our almost 3-year-old sees the world.

[Jimjam]

What would happen if a language is "scheduled" instead of assigned to a parent? That is "mondays Spanish", "tuesdays English"... or a week Spanish, a week English, with both parents. Would the results or progress be different than in the one parent/one language scenario? This set-up would allow a 3rd language to be rotated in.

I'm not sure about any research that has been done on the subject but a fun example of this being successful is how Richard Simcott and his wife raised his daughter. His wife spoke only macedonian to her, and he had designated times of the day and the week in which he used different languages (I believe english, german, spanish, and french). I can't remember exactly what the schedule was like but it included things like an hour of play time in german, taking her to different language play groups, speaking to her in different languages different days of the week, enrolling her in an english (i think) speaking international school, e.t.c. I believe by the time she was 10, she had a good level of fluency in all 5 languages. He has done a video on youtoube in which he explains it all which is quite fascinating.