In this section, you can find articles on how to motivate your child to speak a language.

One of the biggest challenges parents of bilingual children encounter is finding ways to motivate their children to speak the family’s minority language. Children are pragmatic, so they use the language they feel most comfortable with. When they realize that they can choose their language and still be understood, they often pick their strongest language if they know that the other person understands it. This is when parents should find ways to motivate children to use the family language, to make sure that the child maintains and develops his or her multilingual skills. For a child to choose to speak a language, the child must WANT and NEED to use it. The motivators differ depending on the age, personality, and fluency of the child. These motivators can and do occur naturally, but parents have the possibility to create or enhance these motivators for their children to encourage them to speak a family language

Top tips for motivating bilingual children to speak their languages

Top tips for motivating bilingual children to speak their languages

Choosing the topic for this month’s Raising Multilingual Children blogging carnival was actually very easy. “What do parents ask me most about?” I pondered and instantly I thought “How to motivate my child to speak the minority language?” My fellow bloggers – who all...

Receptive bilingualism – understanding but not speaking a language

Receptive bilingualism – understanding but not speaking a language

When discussing the language skills of children in multilingual families, you occasionally come across the situation where a child has learnt to understand a language, but is unable (or unwilling) to speak it. Quite often you will find this described as passive...