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Articles
Getting started and staying motivated with raising bilingual/multilingual children
Getting started and staying motivated with raising children in several
languages begins with the parent's own passion and enthusiasm for the
task. If the parents are not devoted to the process, the results will
show in the language level of the child. Where does this passion come
from? Often a parent wants to be sure her child can communicate with relatives
in another country. Sometimes a parent wants to guarantee cultural links
to his family. Yet other parents are interested in the child's ability
to adapt socially. There are a myriad of reasons to be passionate about
one's languages, and all contribute to the enthusiasm parents have for
choosing and staying consistent with a strategy for raising their children
mutilingually.
The key to staying motivated is in finding little gems of success along
the path to fluency; a new word here or there, an idiomatic expression
or a joke in the target language, the first thank you note written in
the second language.... Every little bit of progress can and should be
celebrated (imagine if it was you learning the new language, wouldn't
each of these steps be cause for joy?)
Siblings can be a wonderful contributing factor to this process as well. The applause from a big sister can work wonders towards encouraging her younger brother to experiment even more with new sounds, words, and eventually sentences and complex ideas.
Finally, motivation can also come from the face-paced globalized world which now prizes linguistic ability in a way never seen before in history. The marketability, social aptitude, cultural sensitivity, and increased mental flexibility of multilinguals are motivation enough for many, independent of internal, home factors.
Whether the initial motivation starts with parents, sibling or society, all contribute to the eventual passion children can development for the role of languages in their lives, and each should be exploited to its maximum potential to keep the enthusiasm high.”
What you can do!
1. Explicitly tell your child how important his/her
languages are (e.g. “Won’t it be great to be able to visit
with Grandma and tell her how much you enjoyed the birthday gift she sent?”
“Won’t it be fun to play with your cousins next summer [in
English]?” “When you know enough Turkish we can read that
story together.”).
2. Implicitly hint at the value of knowing more than
one language (“Wouldn't’t it be great to play with Alfred
next door [who speaks Spanish]?” “Did you know that when you
can speak more than one language, more people want to offer you jobs?
“Isn’t it funny that when you know more languages, they say
you might live longer because your brain is more active?”).
3. Celebrate every small success your child demonstrates
with language (e.g. each new word, each correct sentence, each attempt
at a new structure or joke, etc.)
4. Involve all the players. Get siblings, grandparents
and friends involved in the language-learning goal.
Explicitly ask for collaboration (e.g. “Please only speak to John
in French” “When we visit, would you mind only speaking in
English, even though I know you speak perfectly in Japanese as well?”)
5. Language is a full-time job: Children are very acute
at perceiving inconsistencies in strategies. If you have decided that
mom will speak English and dad Spanish, then your child’s language
acquisition will be stunted by inconsistencies; stick to your guns and
stay true to your strategy.
