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How to raise Bilingual Children? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| SlickAs Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5882 days ago 185 posts - 287 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Swedish Studies: Thai, Vietnamese | Message 57 of 69 20 March 2009 at 1:53pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Emilia, as much as I respect what you have to say, I cant stop thinking that this is a matter of conforming to the dominant culture. And this is something I understand.
The dominant culture in Australia is one where you learn to swim and play in the surf, play Australian rules football as a kid, meet a sweet heart, get married and buy a house. Seriously, buying a house is the Australian dream beyond "going to university". If you can buy a house without university, it is equivelent. If you deform from the straight line, even outside wearing the uniform (for a man) of a T-shirt, jeans and thongs (flip-flops) you are an outcast ... a "wanker". "Look at the guy wearing cowboy boots. What a wanker!" I can say this authoritively because I have lived in Sweden, Argentina, French Canada and the USA, and in none of these cultures is the pressure to conform as high. It might seem strange since Australia markets itself as the "laid back place'. And it is laid back, as long as you dont try to be anything different. Now if Italy is as judgemental as Australia, I understand you railing against the bi-lingual thing. North-America is not like that, and certainly not Quebec (French Canada). So what I mean to say is that I understand completely the community pressure. In Australia (if I did not have a foreign wife), to bring up my child in a foreign language would bring scorn. But at the end of it, we need to work out what the objection is. Is it: 1) That society will judge you as parents. 2) That it will confuse the child. 3) That the child will not know which nationality he / she is. I guess that is it. I tried thinking of more reasons, and could not. Now keep in mind that I have lived 7 years in Quebec, and know hundreds of children brought up bi-lingually ... hell, I know hundreds in Australia of Greek / Italian / Vietnamese, etc descent. None of them are confused. So therefore the only possible problem is number 1. That you, the parent will be judged. And I understand that. Australia is a conformist society where Canada is not. People from Canada will never understand how it is to live in Australia (without moving here and trying to fit in). Maybe no-one here understands the pressure to do what your society wants you to do. But inventing stories about bi-lingual children will never work when speaking to people from Montreal, Switzerland, Miami, the Basque region, Catalans, Indians, etc. We dont buy it. But I know that the pressure from society can be hard. Edited by SlickAs on 20 March 2009 at 2:05pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6444 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 58 of 69 20 March 2009 at 2:03pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
SlickAs, in this case, I'd have to say that this is a matter of you forcing what you read to match your experiences and expectations. Emilia does not rail against raising children bilingually, as long as the parents have deep ties to the cultures in question; it's clearly not a matter of conformity or being judged. I'd recommend re-reading what she actually said. Edit: also, coming up with a non-exhaustive list, then ruling out all the options but one and claiming the result needs to be what is left is a logical fallacy. Edited by Volte on 20 March 2009 at 2:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| SlickAs Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5882 days ago 185 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Swedish Studies: Thai, Vietnamese | Message 59 of 69 20 March 2009 at 2:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
OK, I accept that. I also accept that I filter things through my own life experiences. As far as bringing up a child with a language that is neither of the parents background ... I was talking about this with my fiancee (wife to be in 1 month) ... Children make all sorts of farting sounds with their mouths when they are infants. They delete the unimportant sounds as they encounter their environment. For example, we have a very good friend in Montreal who is American, speaks excellent French, but his "r" is American. "Je prends du beuRRe, s'il te plait .." that swallowed r sound no French child has a problem with. It is deleted since it is not useful in [given language]. So we talk about putting on Spanish cartoons (which we both speak, in addition to the French and English that is native to us). Is it going to hurt the kid? If the answer is "no" it is not going to hurt the kid, then the only reason you are not doing it is because you are worried about how society will judge you. So I dont think this is unfair: 1) It will hurt the kid 2) It will not hurt the kid If the answer is that 1) it will hurt the kid then stop If the answer is 2) it will not hurt the kid then there is no reason to stop. Sorry for getting logical. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6444 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 60 of 69 20 March 2009 at 3:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
You're still not being logical; you're coming to conclusions that are not supported to the premises (in this case, that there's no reason to stop if it doesn't hurt the kid - or the mutually exclusive option, which you also assert, that the reason has to be due to societal judgment). Fairness/unfairness is an entirely different dimension as well. For what it's worth, I actually agree with almost everything you're saying this time around, these minor nits aside. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| andee Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 7082 days ago 681 posts - 724 votes 3 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Korean, French | Message 61 of 69 20 March 2009 at 5:44pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
I mean that if you are culturally proficient then the language isn't hollow. Language has more meaning than the literal, as you're no doubt aware. So if you know through your cultural understanding what register to use or how to behave in certain situations, then you're not noticeably different to people from that culture. Basically, if you can act like a local and pass for a local, you understand the culture 100%. I know I can pass for English and Australian on these grounds. Skin colour and language issues aside, I get told quite early in any Korean relationship with someone that they forget I'm a foreigner, so I think I understand that culture - but I know I still have things to learn.
English from me, Korean from my wife, and we are trying to stick to using Korean as the family language between us, but using English when non-Korean speakers are around. Plus community language - which will likely be Japanese in a couple of years time; but outside of TV or reading stories, we won't directly engage our kids in this unless in a 100% Japanese environment. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6016 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 62 of 69 20 March 2009 at 9:05pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
I agree with this... on a picky semantic level. She should have been brought up in Italian, but that doesn't mean she shouldn't have been brought up with English and/or French. I still don't see how or why introducing additional foreign/non-native languages is a problem, and you haven't said how or why you think it is. The example you gave is irrelevant to that question.
No they are not. The normal way to acquire a language is in an ongoing (ie not just summers or isolated years abroad) social (ie not classroom) environment. What you propose as "normal measures" are just not as effective as real natural methods, and they miss that critical period in infancy where phonetic awareness is easiest to develop. If you replace "should have paid for private lessons" with "should have paid for a foreign nanny", well that's OK -- that provides a natural, ongoing, social environment.
Agreed. But as I keep saying, there's no reason that I can see that this means only Italian at home and school... well, no reason other than...
...xenophobia? Why does knowing and appreciating your culture have to mean "knowing what is foreign"? Isn't that a bit insular and restrictive? Aren't we all citizens of the world?
Someone needs to speak foreign languages to your child. If not the parents, then who? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5961 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 63 of 69 21 March 2009 at 12:23am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Much of the discussion in this thread relates to one possible approach (division between the parents or caregivers of languages spoken to a child), but to broaden the reply to the original poster's inquiry as to how to foster the development of bilingualism, how about immersion school environments?
I am not sure how prevalent such opportunties might be in other countries, including the OP's own country (the States), but my own observation from others who have gone through K-12 immersion (French immersion in an Anglophone community from kindergarten through completion of high school) is that this is highly effective, regardless of the presence or absence of bilingualism in the child's home environment. Edited by Spanky on 21 March 2009 at 12:27am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5961 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 64 of 69 21 March 2009 at 12:25am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Count yourself lucky when they are just using their mouths to make those sounds. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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