What is the best method to Raise multilingual children?

Keywords: bilinguism, children, education, learning languages at an early age, multilinguism

Published On: Jun 30, 2008

Last updated on:: Jun 30, 2008

Having a multilingual family I have often ask myself what is the best method for helping my children to learn and be proficient at several languages at the same time. After 6 years, I am still trying to find the right balance and a concrete answer for this question.

So far, I believe that there is not a best method, but that there are several methods suitable for individual families. that is to say that for each family there is "one best method" that works for them.

There are clearly some approaches that allow the child to develop the consciousness of two language systems more quickly than others. For example, the most often cited is the "one parent one language" approach. There is also the family versus community language.

What is the best method to raise multilingual children?

For my own family, we have used and still practice a mixture of both methods. Might not be the best thing to do, but so far it is working great for us!

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Joy B wrote at 03:15:46 PM on Jul 01, 2008

In india - though may not be talked about much - this issue still provides a lot of challenge. Most children end up to learning at least 3 languages - regional, national and an official (English). They face added challenges if parents belong to two different regions (although mother’s tongue does take precedence).
i have found that most children learn pretty much any language, given an early exposure and support. However, language biases can play havoc with their ability to converse in them, if not to understand them.

i find it useful to leave my daughter with her grand parents' - especially if are good at story-telling. another bias killer is sleep-overs at her other multi-lingual friends.

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Wendy Iturrizaga wrote at 05:36:49 PM on Jul 03, 2008

Hi Joy,
It is very interested India having such a "multilanguage" environment and finding from your experience that children learn without much trouble several languages and the early the better.

I am not sure what do you mean by language biases. Do you mean that children prefer one language over another, or do you mean that socially one language is perceived as better or more useful than another one?

Thanks for your comment and I hope you can return to answer my question.

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Fiona Stolze wrote at 08:22:21 PM on Jul 29, 2008

Hi

I just wanted to share that I lived in Germany for 18 years and in that time gave birth to my 3 children who were then raised bi-lingually. I already spoke very fluent German, however decided to go for the one parent, one language approach. The children spent most of the time with me in the early stages and so naturally they were picking up the English faster than the German. Their Dad spoke German to them whenever he conversed with them. Then they began to attend playgroups and they were exposed to more German and slowly but surely German became the language of their home when they weren't talking to me. Whenever we all sat around the table. one child would talk to me in English, I would reply in English, Dad would chip something in in German, I would reply in English, the child would address Dad in German - all in all very easy and very fluent. It was a delight. Any outsiders thought it was hilarious. The boys grew up bilingually in this way.

When we decided to move to England, things changed. Their Dad took the decision to speak only English. At the beginning I would listen to my 2 eldest sons chatting in their rooms. It was all in German. Then gradually, the language changed. A few months down the line I could hear them conversing in English all the time. However, they retained their German language. Both of them presented for their GCSE's at 14 and got an A*. They can just snap into German at the drop of a hat. Our eldest son helped his German teachers as a friend and helpfully corrected things for them in his Irish senior secondary. Our youngest son didn't speak until he was very old and so was really struggling with English until quite late. He only speaks English although his passive German is probably much better than we think.

So the total separation of the languages worked a treat for us.The kids now see many great applications for these language skills.

Love

Fiona

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