How to make a child bilingual?

[Lucilla Kossowska]

I am an ESL teacher, Polish, living in Poland and a mother of a 2 year old. I am trying to find an unobtrusive way to teach him English simultaneously to Polish, his mother tongue. We have tried together with my husband to switch to English but that works only when a native speaker is around, otherwise Tycjan gets angry and cries. I would appreciate any advice from parents and /or teachers in similar situation as well as any hints as to internet or other resources. Thanks a lot.
Lucilla

[dduck]

From what I understand, children 'absorb' new language rather than learn it - in the formal sense. When I lived in Germany, a English couple I knew had a young son. They spoke English at home, watched Sky TV - no German, and sent their son to an English speaking Kindergarten. Despite all this their son still managed to learn German from playing with the next door neighbour's kids. No lessons, no grammar, no exams.

So, if at all possible, find a English speaking couple with a kid or two and start socializing with them. Failing that, children love watching TV so you could buy/rent a children's programme in English. I'm guessing on Polish TV there are lots of childrens' programmes that have been dubbed into Polish. Perhaps, your son has a favourite programme, like this, that you can buy in the original language. You should be able to buy DVD's in Polish and English.

In Mexico, parents with money (and motivation) send their sons and daughters to private schools where they start learning English from day one. I've spoken to 16 year olds who are fluent and are almost as good as native speakers.

Iain

[Roger]

A child is, of course, under enormous peer pressure, and in a national context, this means he must communicate with his peers in their language.
In your household, you can probably only succeed if one of the two of you continually speak English to him. He may choose to respond in Polish, but he could at least get a grounding in English and understand it.
Eventually, he might use it with other English speakers.

Maria Montessori called this "the absorbent mind". The child picks up as long as there are stimuli and little or no coercion.

[dduck]

Roger's comments remind me of some south-Asian families in England. After a couple of generations the children sometimes refuse to speak their parents' mother-tongue, because they (and their peers) consider it unfashionable and backward. Although, these children are able to understand the language, they never really develop fluent speaking skills.

Lucilla, I suggest, if you want your son to learn and speak English fluently you should try to encourage him to think of it as 'cool' rather than 'work'.

Iain

[Paul]

I have three pre-schoolars. My wife is Japanese. I am an L1 Eng speaker. Before our kids were born, we discussed how we were going to bring up our kids linguistically. We decided that I was to always speak English at home to when communicating directly to the kids. My wife would be able to switch however she wanted. When someone who was monolongual arrived at our home - we would encourage our kids to respond in anyway they wanted. I would use Japanese in front of them with a monolingual Japanese speaker.

What we have found is that (oldest child being 5, 2nd - almost 4, 3rd - almost 3), is that as the two older (girls) hit 3.5-4 years of age, my wife and I needed to explain the mechanics and social niceties of each language. For example, when they were spoken to in Japanese, they should respond accordingly.

Also - and this is exceedingly important I believe - the children needed to understand that they would not be able to communicate with grandparents/ cousins etc of one wing of their extended family if they failed to become proficient in both languages: ie. Rationale

This is naturally quite an exciting experience to observe first-hand, and the experience has significantly affected my EFL teaching perspective.

I could waffle on endlessly here ... and work - and wife - is calling.

Later....

[dduck]

Paul, this is great stuff. Waffle away! I find your words riveting

Iain

[strider]

Lucilla, well done for trying to do something so useful for Tycjan!

Something to remember is that kids don't really understand the concept of 'language' until they are three or four years old, in other words, long after they start speaking. I have found with my kids that they relate more to individuals than to the words themselves. For example, with me the word is 'Yes' and at the playgroup, the word is 'Oui'. For this to work, the individuals concerned should be consistent. One thing that really confuses my daughter is people (for example visitors) who speak English but then switch to French (because they want to practise their French, or whatever).

I hope you succeed!

[jaime]

Hi everybody, nice to read some ideas on how to raise children bilanguagil.
I can not remeber how I learned all the languages I speak, my parents are Dutch and we lived in the States, Belgium, France and Germany.
All I know I speak fluent Dutch and English, a reasonable amount of German and I can understand French pretty well but speaking it is a bit difficult.
I think the trick was that my parents spoke Dutch to me at home and the rest I learned at school since my parents did not believe in sending me to International or American schools but to the local one near our house.

[possibilities]

I have been researching this subject the last few days. What I have found is that in order for a child to learn a language, they have to have at least one person that speaks exclusively to him/her in that language. In many cases, the whole immediate family spoke one language, and only switched to language of the country when other people were in the room. The children naturally learned when to use what language.

Of course it will be extremely confusing to a child to hear a parent that has always spoken to him in Polish (and he has understood, since he is two) now speak to him in English. So in order for this to work, you would have to switch entirely to English and refuse to answer him in Polish, even if he asks something in Polish. But this might be too hard, since he is two. In this case, perhaps hiring a nanny who can speak to him exclusively in English for maybe 20 hours a week (or more), coupled with an extensive supply of videos, books, stories, etc in English.

I suggest you get started right away, though. Otherwise, you'll miss out on this important language-learning time in your child's life. If you do choose to teach him yourself, sit down with your husband and decide on a specific plan of approach. If you just wing it, you will continuously be tempted to switch back, and you will quickly lose sight of your goals. And, most importantly, don't mix English and Polish. If you decide to speak to the child only some of the time in English, make sure there is a specific time set aside. For instance, you and he speak exclusively in English, but when others are in the room, you all speak Polish. Or, on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays you speak in English. It will be very confusing at first for your son, but eventually he will pick it up. Little kids are like sponges. Or, consider the nanny idea.

[wrkoutgrl1]

I speak english, as does everyone else in my household. My husband is half Puerto-Rican, but never learned the language. We now have 2 small sons (ages 2 and 3 now) and it is very important to us that they learn spanish. I have been trying to teach myself spanish over the last few years by reading, listening to music, etc. We have amassed a rather decent 'baby library' of tapes, dvd's, cd's and books for the babies, many nursery rhymes, etc. We have been very consistent about teaching them many of the simple words and phrases in english and spanish... when we go down steps, we count "one , two, three...", when we go up we count "uno, dos, tres..."... as they were learning words we were sure to say them in both english and spanish ("do you want down? quieres abajo?"), small things like that throughout the day, every day. I dont believe we have confused them by switching back and forth, they understand everything we have taught them so far. We are learning to speak spanish more and more as well, because we are basically learning with them. We dance in an afro-peruvian dance group, so during the summer especially, we are around many spanish speaking people from different countries, and we are learning to adjust to different dialects.

[FangWB]

I am Chinese and my husband is American. We have three children who are all fluent in both English and Chinese. Our youngest child is getting to be trilingual (Spanish). I speak Chinese and my husband speaks English with them all the time. I have to admit it's not easy to say everything in three languages all day long. But it's worth it.

[clio.gr]

When I was 2 I was speaking Greek fluently so our pediatrician told my mother to employ a British nanny instead of a Greek one.

I could understand my nanny and although at first I was responding in Greek, by seeing that she couldn't understand me, I started using English little by little. Eventually, I could translate for her and help her communicate with the Greeks. So whenever she had a doctor's appointment or she went to the market I was to go with her too. I had bocome her official interpreter (as she didn't speak, or so she was telling me, a word in Greek).

My parents were fluent speakers of English but they chose me to play the role of my nanny's interpreter.

At the age of 6 I went to a British-Greek elementary school and later to an American-Greek high school.

So I think that exposing your child to Eglish (as you are an ESL teacher you may know rhymes and songs that help their memory) or even better hiring a native speaker as a nanny will do the trick.

I think English story books for toddlers could be useful too (I remember going to sleep with 'Hop On Pop'. Oh I loved this book!!!!)

My 7.5 month niece enjoys 'Old Mc Donald'. She doesn't understand a thing (she can't even speak Greek yet except 'baba'=daddy) but she gets used to the sound of English.

I told her dad, who is doing his PHD in California, to buy her a toy that listens and responds to English commands so that it can be handy when she grows up.

He is coming back to Greece in March and he will try to speak to her only in English (difficult for a native Greek who has learned to express himself primary in Greek). So I think too that the best solution is the nanny.

A child must be convinced that English is useful, cool and fun according to his interests (don't tell him that he can find a job easily when he grows up!)

[shang_quanmei]

I am an English teacher in a high school in China. Nowadays, English is so popular that almost every Chinese starts learning it, from young kids to elderly people. In big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, kindergartens which declear that they can educate kids bilingually are very hard to enroll in, not to mention those that have one or two native speakers as staff. But some also argue that bilingual children are reported to be slow in some sujects because their logical thinking may be slowed down compared with others. So it depends.

[mesomorph]

shout

[SorchaNiAogain]

Hi I'm doing a thesis on similar topics and would appreciate if people could take 5mins to fill out questioneer
Thanks

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HZ5VWDC

Gonna be looking at effect of bilingual education particularly in Wales and Ireland but pulling in info from everywhere, if anyone has any stats or knows useful sites would be much appreciated