DarrenDaka wrote: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
My daughter is bilingual. But bilingual constitutes a broad range. You can be bilingual and have much weaker abilities in one language. Still, her ability to comprehend French is very close behind English, to the point it'd be hard to choose a 'winner'. When it comes to speaking, she tends to want to answer me some of the time in English. Her French speech is perhaps 75% as good as her English. I will tell her to answer me in French when she uses English with me. She does. Sometimes if there's some resistance, I have to give her a clue in the form of half the sentence, which she then completes for me.
The reason for a lot of my success with her (she's nearly four), I feel is only ever speaking to her in French. Admittedly I've probably 'slipped' and spoken a very small amount of English to her (a word or so) a handful of times, and utilized English perhaps a dozen times to aid in defining a French word. But I strictly forbid myself from doing that, yet on the rare occasion I've broken my own rules, swearing to myself to not do it again, because it doesn't help. The stricter I am (while kind, not mean) the better the results. If I start answering her in French when she speaks English (instead of correcting her and encouraging a French sentence in place of the English one), the more that floodgate opens and English comes to the forefront very quickly. Thus, the door must remain shut, if it's ajar, well there's a whole reservoir of English behind that door.
She watches French TV (films, cartoons, educational TV) around 85% of the time, has stories read to her 50% of the time in EN, 50% in FR. Music is around 85% French (and she sings along at times). She finishes off words for me in books sometimes if I trail off and slow down for whatever reason. She has even corrected me here and there when I've accidentally mispronounced a word. She attends 2 French play groups or kindergarten classes once a week, both on the same day (one morning, one afternoon).
Both of her native French teachers are very impressed with her - one stating from very early on that her level of French comprehension was excellent despite her not speaking much (in the beginning, this has changed). The other more recently stated her French is better than some French children raised by Francophone parents in Australia. I'm not a French native speaker. I started speaking French with her from when she was born, which was when my level was not that far beyond B1, (now at B2 and beyond), which adds to my desire to improve my French. Accent is a very important part of my learning process. I'm not sure I would've done this, had I felt my accent was too clearly obviously foreign (i.e. not French sounding). My wife encouraged me to do this from the start. I was initially reluctant. At times I feel like it's kinda perhaps slightly sad or limited that I won't communicate with my children in my native language. Doesn't matter, I just need to get even better at French in every which way possible and they still hear me speak English with my wife.
I realise that when school starts, it will, theoretically be a massive challenge holding back a sea of English. But I have some weapons up my sleeve. Home schooling (I'm planning to educate her in French for my part, my wife in English), and time in Francophone countries with an intended 12 months abroad in the coming one to two years if we can manage to pull it off.