Q&A: How to motivate a school-aged child to speak the family’s minority language?

Q&A: How to motivate a school-aged child to speak the family’s minority language?

  Question Hi, I have an 8-year-old son who had speech problems when he was little. He did not really start talking until maybe two. I was forced to choose a language for his speech therapy classes, I chose English. My problem now is that he understands Spanish...

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...