[lg policy] Raising a truly bilingual child

Harold Schiffman hfsclpp at gmail.com
Sat Jul 22 15:06:59 UTC 2017 

Raising a Truly Bilingual Child
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The Checkup

By PERRI KLASS, M.D. JULY 10, 2017
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Photo
First graders in a dual-language program at Dos Puentes Elementary School
in Upper Manhattan. Credit Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

True bilingualism is a relatively rare and a beautiful thing, and by
“true,” I mean speaking two languages with the proficiency of a native —
something most of us will only dream of as we struggle with learning
languages in school and beyond.

Highly competent bilingualism is probably more common in other countries,
since many children growing up in the United States aren’t exposed to other
languages. But the steps along the road toward bilingualism can help a
child’s overall facility with language. And early exposure to more than one
language can confer certain advantages, especially in terms of facility
with forming the sounds in that language.

But parents should not assume that young children’s natural language
abilities will lead to true grown-up language skills without a good deal of
effort. Erika Hoff, a developmental psychologist who is a professor at
Florida Atlantic University and the lead author of a 2015 review article on
bilingual development, said: “For everybody trying to raise a bilingual
child, whatever your background and reason, it’s very important to realize
that acquiring a language requires massive exposure to that language.”

Pediatricians routinely advise parents to talk as much as possible to their
young children, to read to them and sing to them. Part of the point is to
increase their language exposure, a major concern even for children growing
up with only one language. And in order to foster language development, the
exposure has to be person-to-person; screen time doesn’t count for learning
language in young children — even one language — though kids can learn
content and vocabulary from educational screen time later on. “For
bilingual development, the child will need exposure to both languages,” Dr.
Hoff said, “and that’s really difficult in a monolingual environment, which
is what the U.S. is.”

Pediatricians advise non-English-speaking parents to read aloud and sing
and tell stories and speak with their children in their native languages,
so the children get that rich and complex language exposure, along with
sophisticated content and information, rather than the more limited
exposure you get from someone speaking a language in which the speaker is
not entirely comfortable.
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I was raised in a bilingual home in Czechoslovakia, where my Austrian
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Parents come up with all kinds of strategies to try to promote this kind of
exposure. Some families decide that each parent will speak a different
language to the child. But the child will be able to sort out the two
languages even if both parents speak them both, Dr. Hoff said. “There is
certainly no research to suggest that children need to have languages lined
up with speakers or they get confused.” On the other hand, that rule could
be a way of making sure that the non-English language is used.

If a child grows up with caretakers who speak a foreign language — perhaps
a Chinese au pair or a French nanny — the child may see some benefits down
the road in studying that language. But if a child grows up speaking that
second language — Korean, say — with cousins and grandparents, attending a
“Saturday School” that emphasizes the language and the culture, listening
to music and even reading books in that language, and visits Korea along
the way, that child will end up with a much stronger sense of the language.

It does take longer to acquire two languages than one, Dr. Hoff said, and
that, again, comes back to the exposure.

“A child who is learning two languages will have a smaller vocabulary in
each than a child who is only learning one; there are only so many hours in
the day, and you’re either hearing English or Spanish,” Dr. Hoff said. The
children will be fine, though, she said. They may mix the languages, but
that doesn’t indicate confusion. “Adult bilinguals mix their languages all
the time; it’s a sign of language ability,” she said.
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Dr. Hoff works in South Florida, where there is a very educated and
affluent population raising children in Spanish and English. “The children
start out as baby bilinguals, but the older they get, the more English
overtakes Spanish,” she said. “The ones who are successful bilinguals as
adults are still much better in English than they are in Spanish — they
didn’t go to school in Spanish, they don’t read books in Spanish, and when
you actually measure the size of their vocabularies, or the grammar they
understand, or the coherence of the narrative they produce, they are not as
proficient as they are in English.”

Gigliana Melzi, a developmental psychologist and associate professor of
applied psychology at New York University who studies language in Spanish-
and English-speaking Latino families, agreed. “Parents will need to be
mindful about introducing the child to literacy in that language,” she
said. “They will need to be thoughtful about ways they will encourage the
child to maintain the language.”

It’s also important, she said, to watch the individual child and make sure
the child is not overloaded with demands because of parental expectations
and ambitions; maybe three languages on top of a musical instrument and a
serious sport is just too much.

The languages you learn as a child are important, but so are the languages
you learn later in life. “We all know people who make great contributions
and do great science in English and are not native speakers,” Dr. Hoff
said. “The human brain is amazing, and the human capacity to acquire
language is amazing.”

So what should parents do if they want to give their children a bilingual
boost? “Find a native speaker and have that native speaker have fun,
interesting conversations with your child, and your child will learn
something,” Dr. Hoff said. “Don’t expect it will turn your child into a
perfect balanced bilingual, but that’s O.K.” Whatever you do is an
advantage.

Dr. Melzi said that often, a child who has been fluent in two languages in
the preschool years goes to school where English is spoken, and starts
using English to describe what happens there.

“There is a push worldwide where English becomes like the lingua franca, so
it’s important that the child be exposed to the other language early, and
the younger you are, the more nativelike you’re going to sound,” she said.
On the other hand, older children may learn more easily: “The younger you
are, the more head start you have,” she said. “The older you are, the more
efficient learner you are, you have a first language you can use as a
bootstrap.”

So true bilingualism may be rare, but parents shouldn’t be discouraged on
that account, since all the skills that children acquire along the way are
very valuable, Dr. Melzi said. “It’s worth it, but it’s a lot of work.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/10/well/family/raising-a-truly-bilingual-child.html?contentCollection=smarter-living&hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=thumb&module=smarterLiving-promo-region&region=smarterLiving-promo-region&WT.nav=smarterLiving-promo-region&_r=0

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