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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Experts in bilingualism all say you need to follow the one parent one language rule. There may be truth to it, but I think that is not enough exposure to fully learn a language that is not dominant in your environment.
We moved away from our ‘home’ language country when I was 10. My mom always made the effort to speak to us in her language. What else could she have spoken since her English was not that strong. I really really hated that she would do that. One day walking home from school I just ran around the block just to avoid being greeted by her in our native language  in front of my friends.

The bilingualism advocates are aggressive, to the point of almost brandishing the kid who refuses to speak language 2 as an evil traitor 
I came across someone advocating totally refusing to speak to a child unless they speak to you in your language. Apparently that worked with someone whose kid was force fed this for 6 months.
Nobody though of advising you to talk with children, no matter what, and regardless of what language that happens to be in[/quote]

I appreciate this perspective because we are a semi-bilingual family but English dominates. Due to certain circumstances, our children are mostly friends with other bilingual families. There is a lot of sanctimony about how important it is for everyone to be bilingual, and a lot of strange looks when we say that we all prefer English at home and are not putting that much effort in the second language. But several of these other children are struggling in school because their parents only read/speak/write to them in the second language at home. Sometimes people forget the "bi" in bilingualism. If your child is 8 years old in 2nd grade and still can't read in English, something's wrong.[/quote]

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