Learning the Lingo
Geneva Today, June 2002

In her new book, Raising Multilingual Children, Geneva-based writer and educationalist Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa looks at how kids learn foreign languages and how parents can open up a window of opportunity.
The first time I met Natalie she was helping a friend from the German school keep up with a ballet lesson that was being given in French and English. The chit-chat amongst the kids was in English, the teacher (from Israel) was explaining the steps in French and Nathalie was translating into German as fast as she could. Struggling to keep up? This little girl was seven years old and in her element.

Children don’t have the same mental block over languages that we grown-ups have. They see them simply as tools for communication; learn the sounds and you can strike up a game. It’s just not the same when you’re mortified by the idea of making embarrassing grammatical errors.

So teach ‘em young, or as an educationalist might say – put them in a position where they can absorb and practice. Natalie’s mother, Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa believes in doing just that. An American with a Japanese grandfather and Hawaiian roots, she is married to an Ecuadorian and lives in Switzerland. Their three young children speak English and Spanish at home, are learning French and attend the German school in Geneva.

"For me languages are really about creating options. Children have all the words, all the vocabulary that they need for their culture – but if they have more languages they are open to other cultures. There are more doors open to them, mentally and physically," said Tracey when I spoke to her recently.

"Learning new languages shows children that there is more than one way to look at something. What we value in our culture is intelligence, but in another culture the values, or the definitions of those values, may be different. Languages give you the opportunity to learn from different cultures and to take from them what is new and interesting,” she continued.
“If you simply look at the way different school systems approach mathematics, for example, it soon becomes apparent that the mental tract can be completely different.”

Third Culture Kids
Tracey’s book, Raising Multilingual Children, owes its existence to her background as an international school teacher and educationalist. She has studied psychology, linguistics and neurology – but perhaps her most important research has been in “living” the experience. She is raising three children with two languages at home in a third culture environment and with two more languages in regular use.

“I saw coming to Switzerland as a real linguistic opportunity. I knew we would be living in the French speaking region but that there would be the opportunity to learn German. It is quite an exceptional country in that many people here are multilingual and it’s not considered out of the ordinary. Children accept what is commonplace and do not put up barriers just because others perceive it to be ‘difficult’,” she said.

I must admit to a certain scepticism when I started Tracey’s book. The sub-title is Foreign Language Acquisition and Children. My family’s rate of foreign language acquisition is painfully slow. Is Tracey confusing encouragement with the pushy Mom syndrome? How far do you persevere when the child is obviously suffering from loneliness, confusion or even intimidation? In other words, what’s the pain for gain ratio?

But Tracey was ready for me. Her book is disarmingly honest. She doesn’t paint a rosy picture of her A-grade children devouring each new language with a beaming smile. They suffered, she suffered, the family suffered, then they hesitated, they persevered, they worried and compromised. The situation they have now is not perfect but the children are happy, they are immersed in four languages and are doing well at school. This is not an A – Z Guide of perfect parenting, it’s Tracey sharing her professional advice and personal experiences. Her conclusions are guidelines based on painstaking research : pointing to the tools and resources that parents may need.

“There was no way that I was going to sit down and write a book telling parents what to do. Every personal and family situation is unique and there is no one way to approach multilingualism. What I hoped to do was to better enable families to evaluate all the issues involved and to encourage them to develop a language learning environment for their children,” said Tracey.

She also manages to avoid psycho-babble. The book is an easy to read analysis of the latest studies in psychology, neurology and linguistics, mingled with family anecdotes. At the end of the day it’s the story of one family’s adventure in the world of language, which is what really brings the prose to life. Tracey describes how she’s had to bite her lip with teachers, encourage her daughter through lonely times at a new school and joy of joys, watch her gregarious chatty four year old stay gregarious and chatty even when confronted with a completely new language.

Speaking in Tongues
Tracey took her Master’s of Education at Harvard and has taught in international schools in Japan, Ecuador and France. She has also found herself traveling extensively with her husband, who is with the Ecuadorian Mission, and three young children . While others might throw their hands up in horror at the nightmares of packing up and resettling, Californian-born Tracey sees it as an opportunity to enjoy different cultures. She has spent her time in Geneva researching, writing and giving family workshops. The book was a natural progression from this.

Dull educationist theories are thin on the ground and her own experiences are not embellished. It has been difficult arriving in French-speaking Switzerland with three children under eight who speak and understand English and Spanish. She was wracked with guilt when Natalie seemed unhappy at the German school and even set an end of term deadline for a sign of improvement. It came. Now Natalie has been joined by her two younger brothers, Gabriel and Mateo, who seem relaxed about taking on board a fourth language at six and four respectively...

Talking to Tracy it’s easy to see why her children are on the path to multilingualism. Tracy is an animated and absorbing talker – she listens too. She speaks English, Japanese, Spanish and French. Oh yes, and she’s learning German. Her husband Cristian, who speaks Spanish, English, French, German and Japanese, went to a German school in Ecuador and to the Sorbonne in Paris. This family don’t just talk about multilingualism, they live it.

Tracey saw coming to Geneva as a fantastic opportunity for her children. All three go to the German school, play with friends in French and English and speak Spanish at home. But it’s not all been plain sailing, admits Tracey, although the children are happy now and seem to be laying down the foundations of several languages.

“It is very important that children have a positive, emotional link with the language they are learning. They will not be happy with it unless there are other contacts – some kind of positive motivation for example. If a child is only exposed to a particular language at school, and that’s it, then he will have very little motivation to learn it. But if he’s at home and wants to play with the kid next door, then he is motivated to communicate,” she continued.

Again children will pick up the vibes too if you are not fully committed to the foreign language. Perhaps the family is only here temporarily? Perhaps you don’t really value the learning of that language? Tracey signed up for German lessons so she could help her children with their homework and to boost their interest in the language.

For my part the most important question that Tracey raises is this one: Do multilingual children have a “greater” world view because they have more words to describe their surroundings? Is the way we see the world shaped by the language we use to interpret it? We may never fully know the answer, but it’s got to be worth a shot. And Tracey’s curiosity is both infectious and informative. This book might just help you stay one step ahead of the kids…

Raising Multilingual Children is by Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa and published by Bergin and Garvey, Westport, Conn. In Geneva it is available from Elm Books in rue Versonnex.

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