Question I am an Arabic speaking mom of a 2 year old. I left my country a year ago (when my son was 1) and moved to Turkey. Because I had to work I had to send my son to a daycare (all the staff was Turkish-speaking) and he spent about nine hours there. My son hasn't...
7 worries parents of bilingual children have
You have decided to bring up your children to become bilingual so they can reap all the benefits of knowing more than one language. Exciting! You speak to your family and friends about your decision and ask other parents about their experiences. Others may not be as...
How to pass on a minority language to a child in a bilingual family
The number of parents who raise their children in a multilingual environment is increasing. More and more individuals and whole families move from one country to another due to work, studies or other reasons. Couples with different native languages meet and start a...
Q&A: How can I make my sons answer me in Catalan?
Question I have 5 years old twin boys. I have spoken only Catalan to them since birth, my husband only English. We live in the USA. Their nanny has spoken to them in Spanish since birth and still when she babysits. I work full time as a Spanish teacher. They spoke...
3 ways teachers can support parents of bilingual children
There was a time when teachers and even speech therapists were during their training told to recommend to parents in multilingual and migrant families to stick only to the majority language and stop using their native family language at home. Today we know that this...
Q&A: I am not a native speaker, can I teach my daughter French and help her become bilingual?
Question My husband and I are both native English, but we're trying to bring up our daughter bilingual (French). I speak French (BA Honours degree), although my French is by no means perfect. She's now 16 months old, and I've spoken French to her since she was born....
Holidays – time to boost your bilingual child’s language skills
Summer holidays = time to relax and spend quality time with your family, but not “only” that – they are an excellent opportunity to give your bilingual children’s language skills a significant boost. Having discussed holidays with other multilingual families, one...
Q&A: Which language should I speak to our bilingual son?
Question We want our son to be at least bilingual Spanish/English and hopefully have a good command of French too. I look after my son full time since my wife works during the day. So I am desperately trying to work out the best way to approach making sure our son...
Q&A: Should we change our OPOL strategy when moving to another country?
Question I'm American, my husband is Italian and we have been living in Italy. My husband and I speak each others' language and our conversations flow between Italian and English. We have used the one parent, one language approach to help our three-year-old son become...
10 things bilingual children do really well
Every child is good at something and as parents we love seeing our children do well. Bilingual children have an added advantage in different situations in their lives – and they often get really good, and – depending on their personality – sometimes cheeky with their...





