I live in a country where there is diverse range of cultures, languages and nationalities. People from all over the world reside here. As a result, our children here have a wider exposure in terms of language and social development. Along side with this exposure that our children benefit from, it also brings in greater concerns for parents, educators, childcare providers and so on. Most frequently the first concern that would surface from this kind of a social setup is – how do we successfully bring up a bilingual/multilingual child?
I have a lot parents come to me with the concern of delayed speech, if the child is brought up as a bilingual child! I also have had some concerns pertaining to social behaviour of a child due to the diversity in cultures here. A lot of preschoolers retreat a few steps when they are brought in a diverse milieu than their own.
A lot of problems occur owing to the myths that follow with bringing up bilingual children. Some of which include:
1. Delayed speech development
2. Developing Language problem.
3. Refrain from talking, so on and so forth.
These are just few myths that people carry with them. But I personally do not agree with any of these as such. From the little expertise that I have in dealing with children and their psyche, I feel they have tremendous potential to learn. The sensitive period as described by Dr. Maria Montessori, is the most crucial time for the child’s holistic development. During this time (typically from 0 to 6 years) a child’s capacity to grasp and learn is absolutely monstrous. Under any circumstance this capacity of a child should not be misjudged. As this misjudgement of yours would cause more harm to your child’s development than any other external factor.
Characteristically, the developmental milestones of a bilingual child are achieved at the same time a monolingual child hits them. In contrast to a monolingual child, a bilingual child has more advantages than his mono-peers. In 1997 a research that was conducted in the York University concluded that bilingual children understand written language faster than their monolingual counterparts. According to me, a bilingual child attains more freedom of speech with a wide-range of vocabulary at a very early age. They become more expressive than their counterparts, for the simple reason being they have a better and developed sense of language. With the benefits though one always has risks attached to it. The child could take a while to grasp the concept of dealing with two separate systems of language. But the better you are equipped with the knowledge and expertise of how to handle these situations the better language control your child will gain. However, there are many more benefits to bilingualism: ( Excerpts taken from http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/talktoyourbaby/Bilingual.html)
1. Meta-linguistic awareness (bilingualism builds a natural awareness of how language works)
2. Cognitive flexibility (choosing between languages can develop a flexibility of thinking that can be applied to other problem solving areas)
3. Social sensitivity (sensitivity to others from a young age)
Research by Goldsmith also shows multilingual children can outperform monolingual children in secondary school, if their first language is acknowledged and supported alongside English.
With the importance of this in mind the article states a number of ways a child’s first language can be supported in an early years environment, including:
1. Making sure the correct pronunciation of children’s names is known
2. Ensuring dual language books are widely available
3. Reassuring parents about the use of the child’s first language and remind them of Goldsmith’s research stated above
The article also gives a number of useful terms for understanding bilingualism:
1. Simultaneous bilingualism – two or more languages are acquired before the age of three
2. Successive of sequential bilingualism – one language is established, a second is learned later
3. Additive bilingualism – the first language and culture associated with it continue to be developed and valued
4. Subtractive bilingualism – the second language is added at the expense of the first
I personally trained my child by making him hear a lot of different sounds and languages. Because I wanted him to be able to speak his native language (gujarati) and the national language (Hindi) with equal ease as he would speak English alongside Arabic and French, I adopt a wide variety of techniques to teach him these languages. Today, at the end 4yrs of incessant work he is able to speak all the 3 languages with equal ease and understands a little bit of the other two languages too. However, he being at a stage of continual learning process; he does end up with mixed sentences and words. Typically, according to experts it’s normal for bilingual children to make such errors. They overcome this problem with more experience and support from adults providing the correct vocabulary. For example, we had a few guests at our place. One of the ladies had a bellybutton piercing done. My son looked at it and said “mom look she has a petring” (he had managed to create a word mixing Gujarati and English, where pet = stomach and ring of course one would understand). It was hilarious. But the point here is that when children are bilingual their creativity increases. He did manage to come up with a word that made sense to him.
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