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How to raise Bilingual Children? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Emilia Newbie Italy Joined 6141 days ago 26 posts - 27 votes Speaks: Italian* | Message 41 of 69 10 February 2009 at 10:26am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
Now read carefully my post and note that this is EXACTLY is what I am speaking about all the time.
On the contrary. Which is, again, exactly what I am talking about - that is "natural" way of being raised bilingual/polyglot, in naturally such environment (different heritage and community languages, for example).
Again, I am speaking about that being normal and understandable as well. What would *not* be, by my criteria, would be parents speaking Spanish to the child (a language they learned, they speaking to the child, with the sole purpose of child growing up polyglot). Very different thing if you purposely speak foreign language to your child and if you expose child to some foreign language in different context - which I am perfectly okay with.
Don't skim - read. :-) We actually agree all the time, as I basically spoke of something entirely different than the stuff you mention here. Edited by Emilia on 10 February 2009 at 10:28am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 42 of 69 10 February 2009 at 10:59am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
And this is why we are confused. You can't be a polyglot if you only speak Spanish -- that's a monoglot. We're talking about diglots/bilinguals.
And I'll throw that one back at you. You came into a thread in which people were discussing bringing children up bilingually and started disagreeing with them. You are the one who failed to read properly, and you are the one who is speaking about something "entirely different" from the subject under discussion. Edited by Cainntear on 10 February 2009 at 11:09am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Emilia Newbie Italy Joined 6141 days ago 26 posts - 27 votes Speaks: Italian* | Message 43 of 69 10 February 2009 at 3:40pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
I agree, but that's still not my point. I assume bilingualism/multilingualism of parents in the question. What I am talking about is the situation in which those (bi/multilingual) parents decide to bring up their children using *foreign* language as the only one or ONE OF languages with their children. Those children will by default have bilingual (at least) upbringing, since two languages will be in question. The problematic aspect for me is if their "home" language is the one they are not culturally associated with and/or which is a foreign language also for their parents. That is where I see the problem and culturocide - and trust me that I have seen examples of parents doing that to their children out of fad. What I am talking about here is about raising your child in your own cultural-linguistic context. That does not mean that child will not learn foreign languages, be exposed to diversity, maybe even have a foreign nanny or attend an international school - but in their home environment, he/she will grow up within his/her cultural and linguistic circle, which I believe to be the only "natural" and good way to do it. IF that cultural circle implies two languages (e.g. mixed marriages), even in a third country, I still have no problem with it. Precisely what I have problem with is speaking a foreign language to your child (a language you are in no way culturally connected with and learned it yourself as a foreign one) and thus bringing up your child in a foreign cultural context.
No, I did not. Go back to the first post. It is about giving children priviledge the OP did not have - bilingual upbringing. Some of the posts explicitly deal with passing FOREIGN languages onto your children (and OP mentions that as well). I am VERY on topic here, unfortunately, and know very well from experience the phenomenon I am talking about. It is not any more a few isolated cases, I have seen dozens of examples of that and it saddens me, because I see around me (IRL) academically educated people giving up their culture and language only to give some vague "priviledge" to their children or, even worse, out of simple fad. So I know, for example, a fully Italian teenager who spent all her life living in Italy, but attending international schools and speaking English and French to her fully Italian parents who have not even lived for extended period of time in any anglophone or francophone country. Not that the kid does not speak Italian - she does, of course - but she does not feel it as her language, her culture, nor does she feel her society fully "her" since she grew up in international schools and circles which go alongside those schools. All of that because her parents wanted her to "profit" from being multilingual from birth - she could have become polyglot in so many ways, that was totally unnecessary. I have also met and been a guest of some fully Croatian families who spoke very mediocre "learned" Italian to their children rather than perfect Croatian (and no, it was not the case of dialect!) and sent them to Italian schools in Croatia out of fad, even though culturally or linguistically they had nothing to do with Italian or Italy. I also know a couple raising their child (still a preschooler, I think) in US in Italian alongside English, even though they both learned it as foreign language (I know, I remember when they were still on the level "ciao, che bel giorno"), they never lived in Italy and, to top it off, they only *think* that their Italian is very good. The problematic thing here is also that the child in question does not have much exposure to authentic Italian, he will pick up his parents' mistakes I am afraid. And so on, I could talk to you about examples upon examples I have seen. Usually I say nothing when I see such situations, since concrete situations are not my issue and it is, of course, a matter of personal choice. But as this is a language-oriented forum, and appropriate thread, I see nothing wrong with expressing my general disliking for that (not as rare as we might think) practice, even if some people on here might decide to do the same. What exactly is the problem? Edited by Emilia on 10 February 2009 at 4:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6440 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 44 of 69 10 February 2009 at 4:07pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
Here's the misunderstanding in a nutshell. People on this forum fairly universally condemn not teaching children the primary (usually native) language of at least one of their parents. No one in this thread is suggesting this.
Again, this seems fairly close to a consensus view, except for one detail: whether or not it's "wrong" to include a non-native language in the mix, when all of the stronger languages of the parents are also being taught to the children. I honestly don't see how being taught 2 languages is fine if they're both native languages of the parents, but not fine if one of the two languages isn't yet at least one parent speaks it well (perhaps s/he moved to a country speaking the language at 5, or did a PhD about the literature of the language, with a thesis written in the language, in a university which primarily uses that language). If people try to pass on a foreign language they don't speak well, that's another kettle of fish.
It's unclear about whether you are making extremely strong assumptions about the cultural links native vs non-native speakers have to a language, or are only objecting to the teaching of languages neither parent has cultural ties to. I also find what you mean by 'foreign cultural context' unclear, given the rest of your posts.
You're bringing together several very different ideas (teaching a children only a foreign language and none of your culture, teaching children the language(s) of where they live and which the parents grew up with (regardless of how many that is), and teaching both native and foreign languages to children). The first is off-topic; other threads have discussed it (and roundly condemned it, sometimes in terms similar to the ones you have used in this thread), and it's not what the original poster proposed to do. The second and third are more on-topic, but they are not the same thing. Mix in the first idea, and the result is how this thread has been derailed, as people pick out one point or another and chaos results when the replies to the replies deal with an entirely different part of the post. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Emilia Newbie Italy Joined 6141 days ago 26 posts - 27 votes Speaks: Italian* | Message 45 of 69 10 February 2009 at 4:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
The only thing I'm talking about is that I think (and that *I think* I put in dozen of times to be sure I make it absolutely clear I am expressing only my opinion and that I am aware of it being only one's opinion - I thought it to be a guarantee from attack, obviously I was wrong) that it's wrong to include a language which is both not native and not in the cultural context. Of course that somebody who spent extended periods of time in another country might have cultural connections with it, let alone people who moved to some country as children and even though its language is technically not their native one, it is almost as if it were. Of course that there are people who learned foreign languages to very high degree, but if they intentionally raise a child in that *foreign* language, outside of the cultural context of that language (e.g. the country/community it is spoken it and parents belonging to it), I also see that as problematic, regardless of the level of knowledge parents might have - and here we come to the cultural aspect of the whole story and why some people act as if theirs was insufficient so they choose "foreign" for their children.
Absolutely, but I tend to view it as an extra problem rather than *the* problem.
The second one. As I said earlier, of course that somebody who moved at some country at the age of 6-7 and is technically not a native can be perfectly native-like and culturally "adapt" (in the lack of better expression).
That would require a pretty long elaboration, which I doubt would be appreciated given the direction we are going to, and would most definitely be off-topic.
Maybe. Probably we simply don't have the same set of associations regarding specific problem so have difficulties following each other's track of thought. I have re-read some of my posts, though, they definitely do sound a bit rude. So sorry for that, everyone. But I still stick to my opinion. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| SlickAs Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5878 days ago 185 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Swedish Studies: Thai, Vietnamese | Message 46 of 69 10 February 2009 at 4:36pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Look, I understand that if you and your husband are Italian, live in Italy, and have neither really spent any significant time abroad you would come under enormous community pressure to not do the bi-lingual thing with your kid. Like from your parents, friends, etc. Judgmentalism.
For example, I am completely anglo-Australian with all 4 of my grand-parents anglo-Australians. If I were to have a child with an Australian girl who was mono-lingual Australian, but insisted on speaking say Spanish to my child, then the community would lable me a "wanker". "Look at Steve, here he is with his fluent Spanish he is all proud of, and is now swanning around showing it off and speaking it to his kid. What a wanker!" But there are alternatives to this. For example, a cousin of my girl-friend is a single mother in Montreal. Completely Francophone, although bi-lingual. The community language is French, the family friends, etc (except me) are Francophones. You go over to her place and you notice that when she turns on the television to entertain her kids, she goes straight for the English language Bugs Bunny cartoons, etc. She has 2 kids, 3 and 7 or so. It seems she has a policy of English only on TV. She may even have deleted the French TV channels from her remote control. When she is in public, she speaks French to her kids. I have no idea what she does with her kids behind closed doors, but get the idea that at home she speaks mostly French, but I notice all her childrens story books are in English. When I go over there, she asked me discretely to speak only English to her kids, not French. Her kids are learning English without any 'big statement to society'. It is really not a big deal. As far as family language, this is not really that hard either. For example, one of my best friends in Montreal is Polish. I have had dinner with his family. He is the oldest son. He has a younger sister and a younger brother. The language situation seems complicated at first. Mother speaks only Polish. Father speaks Polish and broken English. There are 3 kids, and they speak all 3 although the younger son has bad English. The father obviously spoke his broken English to his kids while they were growing up to ensure they learned English (the language of opportunity in North America), despite the fact that under law, the children of immigrants must go to primary and secondary school in French. So here is how a dinner table looks: the mother speaks to everyone in Polish and they all reply in Polish. The father speaks to all 3 children in English, and the oldest (my friend), and his sister reply in English, but the younger one replies in Polish. The oldest speaks to his sister in English, she replies to him in French. He speaks to his younger brother in French and he replies in French. The sister speaks to with her younger brother in French. But the languages change by the minute and everyone at the table at least understands all three languages. Now it might sound weird at first, but the family is entirely warm and close. It has been functioning like this for years. Welcome to the world of Montreal Allophones! So 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| SlickAs Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5878 days ago 185 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Swedish Studies: Thai, Vietnamese | Message 47 of 69 11 February 2009 at 7:15am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Sorry to finish one post and follow it up with another, but ...
What is your fear Emilia? Are you scared for your child? (that he / she may become confused?) Do you fear for what your parents (and society) think? Are you scared your kid will not be "entirely Italian" if he / she speaks another language as well as Italian, and that therefore they will forget they are Italian? There is obviously some thing that you feel is fragile, and will be broken if you teach your child another language. What is that thing? Clearly you have no problems if that new language comes from a nanny. Is it the mother-child relationship that you feel would be endangered if you spoke something other than Italian? Or father-child? Is he uni-lingual? Would it be different if you had a bi-lingual partner? I will not judge. You don't have to respond if you don't want. Edited by SlickAs on 11 February 2009 at 7:31am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 48 of 69 12 February 2009 at 8:18am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
But you have done so without giving a genuine reason why. What negative effects do you believe the child will suffer? Right now, you are making judgements on the vague grounds of "culture". If a child is given one or more home/community/native languages, they will understand that culture. What I don't understand is how introducing a single "foreign" language into the mix will have any detrimental effect. I was brought up a monoglot, but I fully intend to bring my children up bilingually -- possibly even trilingually, depending on the mother's background. I will be quite firm, though, that the primary language of mother-child interaction will be my wife's native tongue, whatever that may be. I believe that this is the main criterion for the linguistic development of the child: that the primary caregiver (aka "mother figure") uses (one of) her native language(s). That leaves two languages: the main language of father(me)-child interaction and the family language. One of these will be English (my mother tongue). The other depends on various circumstances. For example, if I marry a native Basque, mother-child will be Basque, father-child will probably be English, and family-language will be French or Spanish (depending on which side of the border she's from). If I marry a Gael, mother-child will be Gaelic, family-language will be English and father-child will most likely be Spanish. If I marry an Italian, mother-child will be Italian, family-language English (probably) and father-child Gaelic. Any of those examples give the children two native models and one non-native. As it stands, I've never heard an argument against an upbringing of this sort. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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