Question on bilingual language acquisition from non-native speaker

[Shanley Allen]

Dear Kristin,

Just FYI, I think you will find that there are many native speakers of  
English in Leipzig. One source is staff at the Max Planck Institutes  
who often are from English-speaking countries. There is also an  
English-speaking Anglican church in Leipzig: http://leipzig-english-church.de/ 
   So you may find more support for native English than you think.

Best,
Shanley Allen.


On 14 Dec 2008, at 05:28, Isenthia wrote:

>
> Dear All,
>
> thanks a lot for all your answers! Sorry I didn't react any earlier,
> but I've only had the opportunity to access the internet again today.
>
> Since you all showed so much interest, I'd like to give some more
> specific information so that maybe you'll find it easier to give your
> opinion on my particular situation.
>
> So here goes:
>
> I and my boyfriend are native speakers of German. We live in Leipzig,
> Germany. My boyfriend only has rudimentary knowledge of English;
> enough to follow basic conversations in holiday situations, since we
> spent our holidays the last three years in Scotland and England. I'm a
> very big fan of the English language, literature, culture and history.
> That's why my boyfriend also very often has to watch British films in
> the original only with subtitles, although we could in principle watch
> them dubbed ;) I asked him what he thought about the idea to bring up
> our child bilingually and generally he is ok with that.
>
> The two problems I see are the following: first, I'm not a native
> speaker of English, I do speak with an accent, although it's
> comparably slight. ALso, being able to talk to my child in English as
> I would do in German is going to require some effort on my part, as
> I'm aware that I'm lacking vocabulary typical in `child-directed'
> speech. But I'd be happy and eager to remedy that ;)
>
> Second problem: So far, I'd be the only person in the child's
> immediate environment that'd be using English to him. However, since
> my partner shares my liking for the UK & Ireland, it's likely that a
> lot of our holidays will continue to be spend there. Also, a very good
> friend of mine is English and lives in Glasgow. Then, I'd try to build
> up contact to native speakers of English living in Leipzig and I'd try
> to see to it that, when the time comes, our son'll go to a
> Kindergarten that offers some sort of English-German bilingual
> interaction. I'd also be looking forward to provide my child with
> English children's stories, music, rhymes etc. I'm aware that it's
> totally unclear whether this `enterprise' is going to be successful in
> the sense that my son will see anything useful or worthwhile in
> speaking/learning a language and about a culture that seems so
> unconnected to him and the parent speaking it to him. But I personally
> also think that, if my not being able to provide `native-speaking'
> input is not considered problematic, it might be worth a try!
>
> Again, thanks a lot for your comments and `reading' suggestions. I'll
> definitely have a look at those.
>
> Best Wishes
> Kristin
>
> On 11 Dez., 13:35, "Barbara Zurer Pearson"
> <bpear... at research.umass.edu> wrote:
>> Dear InfoChilds,
>>
>> This was frustrating for me yesterday to be on the road, aware of  
>> this
>> thread, but not able to join in--till now.
>> Here are my two-cents (and of course, a recommendation of my own  
>> book for
>> Kristin's friend).
>>
>> Raising a Bilingual Child (by Zurer Pearson :) came out this year  
>> from
>> Random House, and I think I can say, has been well-received both by  
>> parents
>> and the research community.  In addition to what I tried to make a  
>> balanced
>> review of the research, there's a section where I talk about why we  
>> don't
>> have the studies one might want to design to answer a question  
>> similar to
>> Kristin's. There are also several extended testimonials from non- 
>> native
>> parents with multilingual families. (Check out some background and  
>> reviews
>> about it atwww.zurer.com/pearson/bilingualchild(--and at Amazon).
>>
>> People seem to have strong opinions about whether non-native  
>> parents will do
>> children a disservice by speaking non-natively to them. The issue  
>> rarely
>> comes up, of course, if the language the parents are speaking non- 
>> natively
>> to children is the community language.  No one has thought to  
>> research it,
>> since children so clearly surpass their parents in the community  
>> language.
>> (The question is framed somewhat differently for immigrant and  
>> guest worker
>> communities, but I don't get the impression that this literature  
>> would be
>> relevant for Kristin's friend.)
>>
>> My own opinion is that a parent who *wants* to speak a non-native  
>> language
>> to a child should be encouraged to do so.  The child will lose much  
>> less
>> from the parent's disfluencies than she or he will gain from the  
>> extra
>> practice.   Practically speaking, it's not optimal to have *any*  
>> single
>> individual be the only source of input for a child.  Among the many  
>> parents
>> I spoke with for my book, non-native parents seemed to understand  
>> that
>> principle more readily than many international couples, and they  
>> took active
>> steps to involve native speakers somewhere in the child's routine-- 
>> through
>> schools, sitters, travel, media, etc.  I especially enjoyed one  
>> parent's
>> comment that he hesitated to speak only Yiddish with his child  
>> since he
>> didn't know if he knew it well enough to carry it off.  Ten years  
>> later, he
>> feels funny speaking a language other than Yiddish to any child,  
>> not just
>> his own.
>>
>> These days, parents can find a virtual community to help them out.  
>> Kristin's
>> friend might like one of the internet sites with discussion groups  
>> etc.www.biculturalfamily.org (with an on-line magazine one can  
>> subscribe to)www.multilingualchildren.org
>> humanities.byu.edu/bilingua  (especially for non-native parents,  
>> but it
>> doesn't look like it has changed much since I first looked at it)
>> (among others).
>>
>> Good luck to the friend--and others contemplating the same move.
>>
>> Barbara
>> *************************************************************
>> Barbara Zurer Pearson, Ph.D.
>> Research Associate,
>> Depts of Linguistics and Communication Disorders
>> 226 South College
>> University of Massachusetts
>> Amherst MA 01003
>>
>> Tel: 413-545-5023
>> Fax: 413-545-2792
>>
>> bpear... at research.umass.eduwww.umass.edu/aae/ 
>> bp_indexold.htmwww.zurer.com/pearson/bilingualchild
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Isenthia" <kristinborjes... at yahoo.de>
>> To: "Info-CHILDES" <info-childes at googlegroups.com>
>> Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2008 6:04 AM
>> Subject: Question on bilingual language acquisition from non-native  
>> speaker
>>
>>> Dear All,
>>
>>> I'm not entirely sure whether this is the right place to pose my
>>> question. However, a friend of mine suggested I'd try here to get  
>>> some
>>> information on the following issue.
>>
>>> I'd like to know whether there are any studies investigating the
>>> question of whether or not a non-native speaker of a language (with
>>> fairly high competency) should try and raise his child bilingually
>>> nevertheless. I'm simply interested in views on that question.
>>
>>> I'd be very happy if you could help me with suggestions or  
>>> references
>>> on this.
>>
>>> Thanks a lot.
>>
>>> Best,
>>> Kristin
> 
****************************************************************************
Shanley Allen, Associate Professor
Chair, Department of Literacy and
      Language, Counseling and Development
School of Education, Boston University
2 Sherborn Street, Boston, MA, 02215, USA

e-mail: shanley at bu.edu
phone: +1-617-358-0354
office: SED 332
web: http://efolio.bu.edu/portfolio/showPublicPortfolio.do?shareId=127
****************************************************************************





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