bilingual children

[Annick.DeHouwer]

Dear Sneha,

In response to your query I can give you the following response, based on
my research experience with young bilingual children, my parental
experience as the mother of a bilingual child, and my familiarity with
bilingual families. Definitive answers, though, are not really possible, I
think, and ultimately people must decide for themselves - but it's our
duty/responsibility as 'experts' to offer information that might help
people to decide, I think.

First - the question "At what age do we expose two languages to the new
born?" assumes that there is a CHOICE possible. For parents who both
fluently speak two or more languages and are used to using all of these
languages on a pseudo-daily basis, there might indeed be a choice, in the
sense that they could opt for NOT using a particular language with their
child. If they feel that this is the most 'natural' for them, and will
cover their child's communicative needs for many years to come, both
inside and outside the family, then indeed they could restrict the number
of languages that their child hears from them. On the other hand, if it is
more natural for them to use more than one language in the home, then I
see no reason not to continue doing so after the birth of a baby. Although
there are to my knowledge no studies that investigate the effects of
bilingual exposure from birth versus second language exposure starting at
a later age (say age 2 or 3) on school success, there are quite a number
of reports on the many difficulties that children may go through when at
age 3 or 4 they have to learn a second language at school because it is
not the home language. It is a distinct advantage if the child knows
the school language before entering school. Thus, children raised
bilingually from birth where one of their languages is the future
school language have a better deal than children who are raised in
a language (or two languages) that is (are) not the school language.
This does not mean, of course, that some monolingual children may pick up
a second language at school very fast and do quite well, nor that there
are no children bilingual from birth who have problems at school!

But given the chance I would once again (as happened for my daughter)
raise my own children with two languages right from the start - from
birth.

Then there is the question of the age at which the one-parent/one-language
approach should be 'seriously considered'. My response to this is twofold:
first, there is no evidence to date that the one person/one language
approach is a fail-safe 'method' for raising children bilingually. Other
approaches where both parents address their child in two languages
(depending on perceptible situational and contextual factors) seem to work
fine as well. Many parents feel the one person, one language approach to
be quite unnatural, whereas others wouldn't be able to use other
approaches. As long as children have frequent, regular and continued
exposure in two languages they will learn both (given otherwise 'normal'
development of course).
Secondly, it is NOT wise to change approaches midstream with children
under age 6. Here I feel quite strongly that if parents make particular
choices they should stick to them. A bilingual situation makes quite clear
just how strongly language is tied up with emotion and identity, whether
self-perceived or ascribed, and for a young 3 year-old to have her mother
stop using a particular language and start using another could be quite a
traumatic experience and symbolize an emotional rejection, even if it's
not intended by the mother that way.

Bilingual families can get more information through the Bilingual Family
Newsletter published by Multilingual Matters in Clevedon, Avon, Great
Britain. There are also several books available. I refer to these in a
brief article written for a general audience that just appeared in AILA
NEWS, the newsletter of the Association for Applied Linguistics. I'd be
happy to send email copies of this article to anyone interested.

--Annick De Houwer


 On Tue, 8 Dec 1998, Sneha V Bharadwaj wrote:

>
> I have come across several bilingual families who have asked me
> following questions :  "At what age do we expose two languages to the NEW
> BORN?"  and "At what age do we seroiusly consider one-parent one-language
> approach"?
> 	Can we give parents any definitive answers? Thanks in advance
> to all your replies
> -Sneha Bharadwaj.
>
>
>