Forum Index
»
Infants, Toddlers, & Preschoolers
Multilingual family - what language to use? Pls recommend books on this topic
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
| Husband and I are not Americans and will raise our son in DC. He's now 4 months old and I speak to him in Portuguese, whereas his dad uses either Arabic or French, both his native languages. Between us we speak French. English will of course be added once he goes to daycare and interacts with others. I once read that when talking to your child, each parent should stick to one language only and be consistent, but apart from that I know little about language development and how to make things less confusing for your child, while maximizing his language skills. Is anyone on a similar situation? Can you recommend any books on this topic? |
Anonymous
|
Lucky son! He will grow up effortlessly learning 3 or 4 languages.
Yes, as far as I know, each parent should consistently speak one language with the child. (Your husband should choose Arabic or French) When you are all together, continue to speak French. Your child may start to speak somewhat later than a monolingual child, but will soon catch up. http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/raisebilingchild.html |
Anonymous
|
OP, I speak Portuguese and DH has 2 mother tongues. English came later in life for both of us.
We visit his family often and where they come from everybody grows up with at least 3 languages - spoken and written with different characters. They've been doing it for centuries so I guess this is the way to go. Each parent sticks to it's language and talk to each other using the 3rd language the family will speak. If there's a 4th language involved let school and social activities/TV take care of it. The myth of "language development delay" hunts polyglot families but there's no research to prove it. Same thing with "confusion". There's no confusion if each sticks to their own language and talk to each other using the 3rd on. |
Anonymous
| OP here. Many thanks for your responses. I feel better now that we're on the right track. Sometimes it's better to keep things simple and worry less about theories. |
Anonymous
|
What a lovely range of languages your family has!
For a quick read, try "Bilingual Edge". It has useful tactics for figuring out what might work best for your family. http://www.thebilingualedge.com/ Interesting observation on OPOL (one parent, one language): "parents should focus on the quality and quantity of input children receive in each language, and not worry about maintaining strict separation... There are many different ways of organizing language in the home, and strict separation of languages is generally not realistic and not necessary." It's not a perfect book on multilingualism, but it was helpful for our bilingual family in sorting out how to structure our language and culture practices in a way that has been easier for us than strict separation. (We weren't very good at OPOL. Bad grammar in both languages lol. ) In English, our young boys were evaluated as "actively" bilingual with no delays or confusion and stronger communication skills than expected for their age, gender and ethnicity (not white). Emphasis on expected. My children are not geniuses. Language skill expectations for boys seem quite low here. In other countries they would not be considered exceptional. We put them in a bilingual school and we are all quite happy. |
Anonymous
I agree with the above. I'm an ESL teacher. What I usually tell parents of my students in such situations is that parents and other fmaily members should speak the language they feel most comfortable in. You want to constantly present the correct language to the child. At times, I've seen this situation: An older relative such as an aunt or grandmother might live with the family, maybe providing the bulk of childcare in the early years; she speaks mostly Arabic, but also some English, and the parents ask her to converse only in English with the children. This unfortunately leads to the children learning a kind of broken English from the grandmother. It is much better for people to speak the language they feel most proficient in. That way they can use rich vocabulary and complex structures with the children. In your case, because the language you and your husband speak together is French, if it is also his native language or one he is very fluent in, that should be the language you use as a family, at meals and so on. But you should use Portugese when you are alone with yor child. |
slwhiddon
Member Offline
Member Offline
| This is Shelley from Jabberu - I wanted to second the recommendation for "The Bilingual Edge". That is consistently the book that our multilingual families find helpful. As the other poster mentioned, it includes practical information that you can apply to your specific situation. Folks have also found helpful the attention paid to different learning styles and how that might impact the approach you take. |