We have answered more than two hundred questions on the topic of raising bilingual children, and the worry that gets mentioned most frequently is whether kids growing up to learn more than one language can get confused by the languages in their family and environment. Again and again we emphasize that this is a […]

I am delighted to introduce you to today’s guest blogger, Dr. Mary-Pat O’Malley-Keighran. She is a lecturer, author, researcher, speech and language therapist, and lover of all things to do with speech, language, and communication. She has over 20 years’ experience of working with families and 14 years of teaching speech and language students. In her […]

In my series on different strategies for raising a bilingual child, I will today introduce an approach, which you may not have heard about: two parents, two languages (2P2L). Previously in this series, I have written about one parent/person, one language (OPOL), minority language at home (mL@H) and time and place (T&P). With the 2P2L […]

This is the third post in my four-part A-B-C for parents in families with more than one language. M is for Myths There are so many myths about bilingual children and how to raise them that I don’t know where to start. In my opinion, the most damaging ones are: 1. that you confuse your […]

Today I would like to draw your attention to an interesting blog by Professor François Grosjean: Life as a Bilingual. I have thoroughly enjoyed his insightful comments on what it means to be bilingual, what advantages you gain and what challenges you can expect along wit many more interesting topics. Professor Grosjean has a great […]

This is the second post in a series of three about the things that can go wrong when raising a bilingual child. This week’s topics mainly deal with your confidence as a parent and your ability to pass your language on. Read part one of the series here, part three is coming up soon. Thinking […]

What to do if a teacher tells you that your daughter’s progress at school is hampered by the use of the minority language at home? How to react if the school thinks that you are making her learning more difficult by insisting on her becoming bilingual? Hearing comments like this is worrying – you do […]

How many of us parents of bilingual children haven’t heard that comment? It might put doubts in your mind – are you actually doing more harm than good to your child’s development? The simple answer is: no, you are not disadvantaging your children by bringing them up to be bilingual. On the contrary, you are […]