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...
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...
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...
“What if I don’t understand what my child is saying?” is one of the bigger concerns a parent of a budding bilingual child can have. It can be a worry especially for parents in families who follow the one parent, one language (OPOL) strategy. Parents who do not...
So you want to pass on your language to your children, but feel that they are not getting enough exposure to it – a familiar scenario for many minority language parents. You have made a quick calculation and noticed that you are not reaching the recommended thirty...
Most advice for parents raising bilingual children is based on the presumption that there are two parents actively involved in the upbringing. What if you are a single parent and don’t have the support of a partner – can it still be done? This is a question that has...
In the past few weeks several minority language parents have been in contact with me and their common concern has been: “How do I improve my own language skills, so I can pass on my language to my child?” Typically these parents are second or third generation...
Motivation is the key to any language learning, never more so than for a bilingual child keeping up with the minority language. 1 - Habit If you consistently stick to speaking the minority language with your children, they are less likely to want to switch to the...
This post is also available in the following languages (click on the picture to read the post). More translations to follow: [mlp_include id=4168] 1 - It doesn’t happen by magic Children do not become bilingual “by magic”. There is a persistent myth claiming that...
This is the last post in my four-part A-B-C for parents in families with more than one language. T is for Talk Interaction is the key to learning a language. Talk a lot to your children. Ideally start before they are born – this way you get used to speaking your...