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Languages for your Children | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| LorenzoGuapo Triglot Groupie United States Joined 6253 days ago 79 posts - 94 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: French | Message 1 of 10 14 January 2011 at 10:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I was just wondering what everyone plans to do with there children with regard to foreign languages? Many people on this forum know multiple languages so does that mean you are going to teach your children all of them, some of them or none? Is there a preference of which language you would teach them first? How would you go about teaching them? Enrolling them into a language school, having a nanny, a tutor or other ideas? What have some of you done already and how are the results?
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| polyglHot Pentaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 4875 days ago 173 posts - 229 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, German, Spanish, Indonesian Studies: Russian | Message 2 of 10 14 January 2011 at 11:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Of the ones I know I'd only teach them English from birth, Spanish from the age of 5 or
7 and Russian/or a IV language as teenagers. However it wouldn't force them, just encourage. Hypothetically of course! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| parasitius Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5807 days ago 220 posts - 323 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Cantonese, Polish, Spanish, French | Message 3 of 10 15 January 2011 at 4:36am | IP Logged | |||||
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My only realistic option is Mandarin, other languages need years or decades of work, and even with Mandarin ... I guess the mother better be a native speaker or I better massively solidify my level and vocabulary first.
There was a fellow in Australia, a linguist by trade, had learned German as an adult and spoke to his children exclusively in it -- documented the whole thing in a book. I would definitely reread the book once or twice more before trying the same with Mandarin. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 LauraM Pro Member United States Joined 5161 days ago 77 posts - 97 votes Studies: German Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 10 15 January 2011 at 10:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Parisitius, Do you recall the title of the book?
I also didn't learn German until I was 20-something, dropped it for 20 years and now at 44 picked it back up and am using it almost exclusively with my 2 yr old and he is an amazing translator already. I use it with my 7 yr old (who actually attends German immersion school) but his pronunciation is not as good since I started when he was 5 yrs old, whereas the 2 yr old has native-like pronunciation. My suggestion is always, the sooner the better for the main foreign language you want them to master... Edited by LauraM on 15 January 2011 at 10:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6468 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 5 of 10 16 January 2011 at 1:48am | IP Logged | |||||
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As far as my son was concerned, languages were just "Dad's hobby." On high school, he took Spanish. It was easy, it was practical, and he had friends who took it. He picked up some Polish from knowing a few Polish immigrants but never became truly fluent.
He took Japanese in college and ended up visiting Japan and having the time of his life. Later on, he decided to backpack through Europe for several weeks and asked which languages would come in handy for someone who wanted to go "everywhere," see "everything" and talk to "everybody." I suggested he pick up a smattering of French and German. He got as good as you could expect someone to get in two languages in a matter of months, and I like to tell myself that he enjoyed his trip more because of my advice. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| parasitius Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5807 days ago 220 posts - 323 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Cantonese, Polish, Spanish, French | Message 6 of 10 16 January 2011 at 6:54am | IP Logged | |||||
It is definitely by George Saunders and it might be the one entitled "Bilingual Children: Guidance for the Family". I misplaced my notes, but I found this title from a URL which gives a brief overview of what I was referring to. http://thelinguistblogger.wordpress.com/2008/08/2 6/tips-for-raising- bilingual-children/ (Tried to make it link, but this forum's software just corrupts the link) I always find it very peculiar when people talk about starting to "teach" their kids a language when they are 5, 7 ... 9. I'm contrasting having them 'learn' with helping them to 'acquire' here, and there doesn't seem much use in 'teaching' at age 7 or later -- if they are going to explicitly do it they might as well do it once they have their full adult capacity for learning. On the other hand, why not catch the opportunity for acquisition -- 'effortless' learning as they do with their strongest language. The thing is, as far as I know, for that, you have to start a lot earlier than 5 because you need to make it a regular pattern in their life (like one parent speaks one language exclusively to the kids, or one language is always spoken in the home, and another while in public)... otherwise they are just going to totally (especially by age 5, 7, etc.) reject it just like a lot of immigrant children who can understand their parents but can only respond to them in English or whatever the local language is. Please correct me if I'm wrong... but isn't 5 really late for any chance at acquisition FROM the parents? (I know if you introduce a new person in their life that is monolingual in a different language, that is a different story. Just I don't think they'll tolerate a parent or familiar person suddenly starting to speak a different tongue.) Edited by parasitius on 16 January 2011 at 6:56am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| LauraM Pro Member United States Joined 5161 days ago 77 posts - 97 votes Studies: German Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 10 16 January 2011 at 8:21am | IP Logged | |||||
That is so ironic, because I totally agree! I once asked my German professor if he raised his kids bilingual. He gave a sheepish/embarrassed smile and admitted that the "plan" was to start at three like the "experts" say (what experts, I don't know) but then said, "I didn't know that at three, you can't force a kid to do anything!" I thought, "force????" Really? I mean, how was he planning/trying to "teach" the child I wonder? I mean, even at three, I would think you just TALK to them as you would in English. You certainly aren't going to go over neuter and masculine, dative and accusative. I was/am honestly perplexed by his response.... 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6758 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 8 of 10 16 January 2011 at 4:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
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To be bilingual is one of the greatest wishes I have for my future children. To allow them to enjoy all the benefits and opportunities a second language offers, without the hard work and time I'm having to put in myself now, is a wonderful gift for a parent to give to her children, in my opinion.
For me personally, I intend to aim for full bilingualism, because it's important for me that my children be able to move seamlessly between cultures (as much as this is possible) so they can enjoy the full benefits of being members of two worlds. After quite a bit of research on the matter (mostly anecdotal), here's some of the conclusions I've come to regarding how to go about this: 1. Consistency is key. A language should ideally be linked with a certain person(s) who always uses the language with him or a certain place/situation where the language is always used. If there are not some kind of clear borders that are consistently upheld, there's a possibility the child might mix languages or pick and choose which language to speak (for example, if a Spanish-speaking parent in an English-speaking community speaks to her child sometimes in Spanish and sometimes in English, or allows the child to respond in English without correcting him, he's not likely to feel it necessary to speak Spanish in the long run.) For me, as a native monolingual English speaker (and assuming that my children's father will be my current boyfriend, a native monolingual Japanese speaker), this means that I would consistently speak in English to my child, and my hypothetical husband would consistently speak in Japanese, even though we both speak the other language well. If my child were to address me in Japanese, I might pretend I don't understand, or ask him gently to say that in English, or rephrase it in English for him - or, if I'm feeling tired and lazy, I might just let it slide and respond in English, but (ideally) never in Japanese. This would especially be important if we were living in Japan and I'm his greatest connection to English (and might not be so strictly enforced with regard to the father speaking in English, at least after the child is old enough not to mix up the two languages). This need for consistency also means that I've personally decided not to teach my child a language which is not my native tongue, because I want my child to have a 100% native mastery of English, which is a big enough task in a foreign country without dividing myself between two languages. Even if we were living in the US, just think it's unrealistic to demand myself to speak constantly to my own child in a language that isn't my mother tongue, so I would rather entrust the task to someone else (a nanny, playgroup, neighbor, close family friend, immersion school, or something like that). 2. The language of the community will always have the upper hand after the child starts attending school. After this happens, there's a possibility that the child will start resisting, feeling uncomfortable with, and/or losing his ability in the non-community language, even if it was his strongest language up until that point. Even if this is not the case, the non-school language will very likely suffer from a dearth of vocabulary: the child can talk about things in a domestic situation very easily, but can't enjoy literature or talk about complex subjects in the language. This is another argument for the non-community-language-speaking parent to be consistent and not cave in when the child uses the community language. I also plan to keep this tendency in mind and introduce my child to a wide range of native materials, instead of relying solely on everyday conversation as the end-all-be-all of my child's language immersion. I also want to encourage my child to make friends and enjoy age-appropriate native music, TV shows, toys, etc. so that he feels that English and Japanese are both cool, that they are living languages, that they open worlds for him - not that (for example) English is just spoken by Mom. And finally, I think frequent trips to the target language's country are necessary. I've met an American professor of English who is raising two bilingual daughters in Japan (they're in high school and college now). Feeling the same ardent desire to raise bilingual children that I do, she never spoke Japanese to them, she kept them in close contact with their relatives back home, she made sure they had access to English media... basically, all the things I'm promoting here, and she also spent all summer, every summer with them at her family's home in the U.S. She related that despite all her good efforts, the girls' English would start to become unnatural every year right around the time they were to leave for their trip, so she considered the timing perfect. Hearing this made me feel pretty discouraged, since that's not an easy practice to imitate, but for such a worthy cause I intend to do this for my kids as much as our family's work schedule and budget will allow. By the way, I also would very much like to introduce my child to a third language via one of the methods listed above (i.e. nanny, play groups, etc.) after he has become able to separate Japanese and English, but before he has started school. However, it's not important (or perhaps even reasonable to expect) that he will become a native speaker of this third language. I just view it as an extra opportunity which may or may not provide benefits down the road, in the same vein as taking my kid to piano lessons or tae kwon do practice. And of course I will abandon this endeavor if it seems for some reason to be causing my child any sort of emotional stress. Edited by Lucky Charms on 16 January 2011 at 4:52pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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