Multilingualism, bilingualism - great ism's!
The goal for this part of the website is that Moms and Dads, who want their children to speak & understand their own language, should be able to find tips & information about how to keep the home language alive in their families, not only in understanding but also in speaking and reading.
Hopefully the information here will help you with your enormous task!
We will, periodically, offer the online course ”Children’s Multilingualism” here at British Mums. The course started within the Swedish Mums network and has become a great success. Swedish Mums around the world has taken the course and we are happy to now be able to offer it to you!
For more information click here
Read some newly published articles on Multilingualism written by Michelle Cadeau. |
Let us start with a few reasons why raising your children to be multilingual is a great thing:
It is easier to learn another language from birth than it is during any other time in life -- baby simply has two first languages.
Your child will have a head start in school. In most countries, a foreign language is mandatory.
If your child wants to study more languages later in life, she will have a leg up. The differences in sounds, word order, stress, rhythm, intonation and grammatical structures will be easier to learn. For related languages, such as Spanish and French, the similar vocabulary will make learning especially fast.
Multilingualism has been proven to help your child develop superior reading and writing skills in any and all languages.
Multilingual children also tend to have over all better analytical, social, and academic skills than their monolingual peers.
Knowing more than one language helps your child feel at ease in different environments. It creates a natural flexibility and adaptability, and it increases her self-esteem and self confidence.
Your child will develop an appreciation for other cultures and an innate acceptance of cultural differences.
Career prospects are multiplied many times over for people who know more than one language. To quote a recent press article "as the world has gone global, it may benefit your child to speak that language".
If your native language is different from the community language, you probably will feel emotionally closer to your baby when speaking your native language to her.
Source http://www.multilingualchildren.org/
A child learns a laguage when it is spoken by someone he likes. A child learns a language that she needs. The child will get a richer language if it meets the language in many different situations. |
The ”mother tongue” has great impact on the child’s identity and self esteem. The “mother tongue” is the foundation & platform for the child’s ability to learn. The bilingual child learns other subjects easier. It is a great advantage for society that many people are multilingual. |
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An excellent way of encouraging your child when it comes to English is to arrange a ”show and tell” in school. On the member site you will find information & ideas for “show and tell” that you can use. |
Definitions
Bilingualism
A bilingual person is, in its broadest definition, anyone with communicative skills in two languages, be it active or passive. In a narrow definition, the term bilingual is often reserved for those speakers with native or native-like proficiency in two languages.
Multilingualism
A multilingual person is someone with a high degree of proficiency in several languages.
A few common phenomena:
A child mixes the languages – be cool! They all do!
You talk your language, but the child answers you in the majority language. This is NOT due to the fact that the child can’t master two languages, but (usually) because the people around the child unknowingly expect the child to be monolingual. Children learn very early what is expected from them!
The child refuses to speak one of the family’s languages. This is usually not because it is linguistically hard for the child but because of the child’s feelings. The child might feel ashamed or different. If the child says a language is ”hard,” take that as ”emotionally hard” as supposed to ”intellectually hard.”
Even though, when children get older they might not be willing to speak one language because they have limited knowledge of that language. The child might feel ashamed that he or she doesn’t master the language good enough. Children, as adults, are all different! What causes on child to be ashamed might not be a factor for its siblings.
We have to differentiate between ”conversation language” and ”school language.” The family’s conversation language is usually not enough when it comes to studies, especially not studies at a higher level. A crash course in academic language might then be needed.
If one uses one language in a limited situation (with just a few people, in limited areas) ones knowledge in that language will be limited. But it can always be built upon. If one has got the ”base” (pronunciation, grammar, fluent in speech) in a few languages one has a treasure! Then you can always learn more, if interested.
Just count on bad advice from people around you (even from so called experts) whom has no knowledge about multilingualism. Get your own knowledge - and that way you can refute their ignorance!
About learning languages… Gunilla Ladberg writes in her book ”Children with many languages”: ”It is ... not the language factor that makes it hard for a child to learn, or use, one language. The number of languages is never the problem … If a child has difficulties learning on language, it is usually not because it is too much of another language but, usually, because of the bad conditions for that language..” |
Did you know that? There is a big difference in the receptive & the active language ability. Which means, understanding & ones own speech is two different abilities all together. Understanding ( receptive language ability) is stored in the back, receptive part of the brain. Speech ( active language ability) comes from a center that is located in the front of the brain. |