Language Education and Children

[DarrenDaka]

Hi guys

I have been thinking a lot recently about bilingualism particularly bilingualism in children and how children are raised multilingual. I am interested in any comments but in particular by those who have successfully raised their children multilingual. How did you do it? What were the problems? What techniques did you use? etc I'm also interested in hearing from anyone who was raised as a multilingual child and what the experience was like etc and anything really pertaining to how you feel about it now and what being multilingual has done for you.

Hope to hear form you guys soon

[Speakeasy]

I conducted a few Google searches using elements of your question and, like you, I came up with with more information (and opinion) than I could ever digest. In addition, although I cannot respond directly to your question, I conducted a quick search of this forum and of its predecessor and came up with the following discussion threads which might be of some help or which might might otherwise serve as a point of departure for discussions. By far the most active discussion thread in this forum is the "Homeschoolers united!" at the bottom of the list.

How to raise Bilingual Children – HTLAL -- October 2006
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4110&PN=86

Observing your own children learn – HTLAL – October 2007
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=7777&PN=7

Raising a multilingual child in Japan – LLORG -- February 2018
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=7711

Raising Multilingual Children – LLORG – September 2015
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1347

Who else is raising children in a multilingual environment? – LLORG – May 2016
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2840

The child-driven education – LLORG – July 2015
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=893

Homeschoolers united! – LLORG – May 2016
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2845&hilit=homeschooler

EDITED:
Typos.

[Cainntear]

True childhood bi/multilingualism is only really possible in a multilingual environment -- i.e. with regular contact with speakers of the languages in question. Sadly, parents in monolingual countries tend to find that their children choose to become monolingual when they hit primary school, starting to talk only in the language of their peers. Regardless, the early exposure means that they can pick things up more easily later in life.

Where you're not bringing up kids as true bilinguals, but instead directly "teaching" the language, well there's no evidence that there's much value in doing that with children below high school age.

Learning a language consciously is cognitively demanding, and young children aren't mature enough to do so. Children can learn unconsciously, but that requires an awful lot of contact time, and a competent speaker to interact with.

[harikishore]

If you are lucky to have a native language that is different from the language spoken in the country you live, then raising your child to be bilingual is easy. No additional effort required.

We speak Telugu at home (Native language). Both when I was in India(Bangalore) and now in US, the language spoken at school and outside (at stores, friends, cartoons etc) is English. So, my daughter grew up with both the languages as near native language with no additional effort. My parents watch only Tamil movies and TV shows. With TV running in the background always, she started understanding Tamil too, again without any effort to "teach" her the language. So, consistent exposure to the language is all that was necessary for her to pick the third language (Tamil).

But now, I've started teaching her Hindi, which is required at school when we move back to India. She does not have an exposure to the language in the background. The only time she hears/reads Hindi is when she sits with me for "formal learning". I've been trying to teach for the past 6 months or so, but she hasn't learned much. She definitely shows interest in learning (She picked up writing, much faster than she did for Telugu), but clearly lack of continuous and consistent practice and exposure is slowing her down to the point of "no progress.

To sum it up : Constant exposure is much much better than an hour a day learning.

[Whodathunkitz]

I've been told by several people that it's best for each parent to speak their own language with the child.

That hasn't happened with mine as he was a slow talker (more than made up for it now...) and his mum found it hard to switch languages. Also the health visitors (UK term for community childcare nurses), nursery etc stick with the line to only use English.

So he mostly had English until I started to learn his Mum's language and use it with him. He has of course heard a dreadful version of it.

He understands a bit but only uses a few specific words (food, play).

I do wish I'd learned earlier (but was clueless how) and that his mum had used only her language. Difficult as she was trying to improve her English and had exams to do, I was English only, so I understand why it didn't happen.

Just be aware that bilingual children can take longer to start talking but normally eclipse monolinguals by 7. My child has much better speech than monolingual children now (5). But like everything, it can be a struggle. All the kids I know listen in L2 and answer in L1. L1/L2 can swap on extended stays in the other country though. Takes a week or so I've been told.

Now then.... the earlier Telagu/English/Hindi post leads onto what to do for raising polyglots.....

[Cainntear]

That hasn't happened with mine as he was a slow talker (more than made up for it now...)
...
Just be aware that bilingual children can take longer to start talking but normally eclipse monolinguals by 7.

This is hugely important. The reason so many teachers, health visitors etc think childhood bilingualism is bad is that bilingual kids do generally take longer to start to speak, and when they start school, they often have gaps in their vocabulary in the local language because they only talk about certain things in their other language.

This view is subject to confirmation bias -- if the parents of child A stop using one language and child A starts talking a while later, they'll believe it's "because of" their intervention, proving they were right. If the parents of child B keep using both languages and child B starts talking a while later, that's "delayed" because of the initial bilingualism, proving they were right. And that's even if child A and child B both start talking at the same age.

You may well hear this. But research shows Whodathunkitz is right. (For true bilingual children.)

[Elexi]

Is the language delay theory correct? It was my understanding (and I haven't studied linguistics since the 1990s) that the most recent studies on this topic have largely disproved this common nugget of wisdom. For example, De Houwer's 1999 summary article (see link below) states 'there is no scientific evidence to date that hearing two or more languages leads to delays or disorders in language acquisition'. Is there anything more up to date that demonstrates language delay?

From my personal experience, my son, who was raised bilingually in English and German, had no language delay. There was a degree of blending when he was about 2 (e.g. he called a TV remote control a 'di' (i.e. fernbeDIenung)). At age 9 he can switch his languages without a blink. The strict rule we applied was that the parent would never speak in anything other than their native language and that media - tv, videos, books, audiobooks - would be split equally.

In my personal experience, and from observing other parents who follow this rule, the way to true bilingualism lies with the parents never relenting (which can be hard when the child has a meltdown, or tries to place off one parent against the other). On the other hand, parents who find talking to their child in their native language all the time too difficult (because they find switching hard) often complain of the type of rebellions and losses described by Cainntear.

Article:
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... mendations

[Random Review]

Is the language delay theory correct? It was my understanding (and I haven't studied linguistics since the 1990s) that the most recent studies on this topic have largely disproved this common nugget of wisdom. For example, De Houwer's 1999 summary article (see link below) states 'there is no scientific evidence to date that hearing two or more languages leads to delays or disorders in language acquisition'. Is there anything more up to date that demonstrates language delay?

From my personal experience, my son, who was raised bilingually in English and German, had no language delay. There was a degree of blending when he was about 2 (e.g. he called a TV remote control a 'di' (i.e. fernbeDIenung)). At age 9 he can switch his languages without a blink. The strict rule we applied was that the parent would never speak in anything other than their native language and that media - tv, videos, books, audiobooks - would be split equally.

In my personal experience, and from observing other parents who follow this rule, the way to true bilingualism lies with the parents never relenting (which can be hard when the child has a meltdown, or tries to place off one parent against the other). On the other hand, parents who find talking to their child in their native language all the time too difficult (because they find switching hard) often complain of the type of rebellions and losses described by Cainntear.

Article:
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... mendations

My niece grew up hearing 3 languages (Romanian, Spanish and English) and was very late in speaking. I know this is just anecdotal evidence; but since I encountered this before ever hearing the theory, to me it feels quite striking.

[Cainntear]

Is the language delay theory correct? It was my understanding (and I haven't studied linguistics since the 1990s) that the most recent studies on this topic have largely disproved this common nugget of wisdom. For example, De Houwer's 1999 summary article (see link below) states 'there is no scientific evidence to date that hearing two or more languages leads to delays or disorders in language acquisition'. Is there anything more up to date that demonstrates language delay?

There's nothing in language acquisition that isn't controversial at some level, so there will always be disagreements.

I do recall reading about an analysis that took the data that had been used to suggest bilinguals were late speakers and turned it on his head. The idea was that acquisition of language occurs after a certain amount of exposure to a given form, and that bilinguals are exposed to each form on average half as much as monolinguals. They suggested that the observed "lateness" in the initial stages of acquisition could be completely accounted for by this volume and frequency of exposure. They argued that this proved the lateness was no indicator of any difficulty for the child, meaning early bilingualism is not harmful to normal development.

[tastyonions]

If the delay does exist, it makes me wonder whether kids who grew up hearing two very closely-related languages would be less delayed than kids who grew up hearing two very different languages (since two very close languages would be reinforcing each other somewhat).