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Reflections on multilingual upbringing
Advantages of bilingual (mulitlingual) upbringing
Can multilingual upbringing be disadvantageous ?
Multilingual upbringing - how to go about it
Our own experiences of bilingual upbringing
Natalie (now 11 years old) Mulitilingual upbringing is not one of those new educational ideas, but indeed something very
natural as the majority of all children grow up bilingually.
In the western countries multilingual upbringing is not very common, though.
However, multilingual upbringing has many advantages and is by no means difficult. Especially in
families where one parent or grandparent comes from a different country, it would seem a pity
not to take the opportunity of raising the children bilingually.
Some parents opt for bilingual upbringing in the hope of equipping their children better
for their professional lives.
An important reason for raising children bilingually, is to help children of mixed nationality
find their roots and to converse with other relatives (even if only on holidays). Fluency in language
is crucial for properly understanding the culture of your country.
The only "snag" is, that parents of multilingual children have to accept that their offspring
might well be relatively late speakers who may initially mix their languages. At this stage it
is necessary to be patient and to persevere, to maybe ignore somebody´s "good advice".
This patience will pay out and in good time, even the proverbial show-offs amoungst parents will be happy.
There are two different recommended methods of bilingual upbringing :
The "main" language or the first language is referred to as L1, the second L2 etc.
Usually the language(s) not spoken in the country of residence is the one that needs the most
attention. Natalie was born in Poole/England in September 1991.
I, her German mother, had nobody locally to speak German with and having lived in England for
four years English came almost more natural to me than my own language. Additionally, I felt it would
not be very polite to speak German with my offspring in front of my English friends. Would they assume
I was talking about them, like in my childhood my deaf uncle who only being able to lippread, sometimes felt hurt,
when he did not understand a joke ? Would I constantly have to translate everything that was said ?
We collected information about bilingual upbringing featuring the two methods mentioned above, and
initially opted for the second : We both would only speak German on Saturdays. My husband Trevor
only knew a little German at the time, but then again, he would not have to talk about anything very complicated
to the baby.
However, we found we did not stick to our plan. We parents were simply not used to communicating in
German with each other. Any important or complicated issue was discussed in English. Furthermore we were not
sure anyway, in how far a baby before speaking age could profit from our conversations.
A baby´s first words like "mamam" are almost international anyway, words like "dada" almost
proper names which one does not translate.
We moved to Germany just before Natalie´s first birthday. We moved in with my mother, a nursery school
teacher, who spoke a lot with Natalie and after just a few days the child knew a few German words.
At this stage we also changed over to the person orientated method. Trevor was to speak English
to Natalie, my mother and I German. We were to make exceptions to this rule occasionally, when we
had non English speaking guests. Also we would always answer our child in the language we were spoken
to, even if it was the "wrong" one.
Additionally we decided to support Natalie´s knowledge of English, which she now only spoke when Trevor
wasn´t at work, by providing English children´s videos, tapes, and books. When choosing these
materials, we always preferred interresting or fun topics to the very educational ones. After all,
it sufficed to get her to strengthen her knowledge of English subconciously .
We had immediate success. Natalie learnt to speak in German as fast as the average German
child and simultaneously she learnt to speak in English (almost) as well as the average English
child. At all times she has been able to distinguish well between the two languages and never mixed them
up like a typical bilingual child would. At the supper table she would tell me and her grandmother something in German,
the turn to her father and repeat the whole thing in English. Sometimes even Daddy´s answers
were translated.
When Natalie went to kindergarten, most people did not have a clue that she was bilingual.
Occasionnally, friends and relatives would ask her : "Are you still learning English ?" This
has never been one of my favourite questions, as learning sounds like hard work, forceful drilling,
overambitious parents ...
Our first linguistic problems arrived when Natalie was about 6 1/2. Suddenly, Natalie
found it funny or cool to speak German to her daddy (whom incidentially she had renamed "Papa",
the common German term, even before kindergarten age. "Daddy" must have seemed too exotic).
Initially, Trevor would answer Natalie in German, when being addressed in German, but after
a few weeks of Natalie refusing to speak English, we agreed, Trevor should always speak English to
her in order that she would at least hear the language.
After some four months of Natalie speaking no English, we went to England on our annual holiday.
Natalie knew she would have to speak English to her English Granny and to her friend, and she did.
In the beginning, her English sounded really "wobbly", but I was glad of each sentence.
Natalie has always been a keen reader and soon I was able to buy her some English books for young readers.
However, I became aware, that she would cast aside an English book if she had a German book there.
This called for a clever plan ! I had to lay my hands on some of this overpriced "literature",
featuring some popular TV characters, the kind one simply has to read, even if it´s in
the language that´s harder to read.
When Natalie heard at school that all the other kids in her class have to go to a weekly English lesson whilst she may come home early,
she was a little proud, I think.
In summer 2002, just before Natalie started grammar school, where she was to have her first English lessons, she took to reading more English books. These were appropriate books for her age, though mainly thin paper backs.
When Natalie was enrolled at this school, the teacher in charge played down the significance of her bilingual upbringing. In his experience bilingual children are soon caught up by their class mates.(Even her British nationality was not recorded in the school papers). Now she has been at this school for two months and her English teacher has never commented on her knowledge of English.
Born in November 1996 in Nürnberg/Germany into a family which was at that time predominantly
German speaking. The German grandmother died when he was 11 months old, his big sister only ever
speaks German to him.
Lukas is a "typical" boy, a physically talented kid, who walked early, climbs well, ... but
is a late speaker. Furthermore, it is said to be easier for a second child to get by with
gestures and facial expressions during the toddler years. His parents understand what he wants, he
does not have to speak to "phrase his demands".
As a parent I had become more patient. We knew from many little clues in Lukas´ behaviour that he
was bright. Therefore I was confident he would tackle speach when the time came.
That was not how some friends and relatives saw it "Let the child learn German first, he can
still learn English later, at school, at the very latest." we were told despite Natalie´s
excellent linguistic skills, in German she has a huge vocabulary for her age.
We let them talk. Trevor continued to speak English to Lukas. Eventually, Lukas answered, but in
German. Still, we could deduce that he was able to understand English.
All of a sudden the first English words started pouring into his German sentences, first a few
single ones, then more and more, especially when talking to Trevor.
Through his mixed sentences Lukas gets more attention from outsiders for his bilingualism, than his
sister ever did, she was too perfect.
Whilst Natalie always asked for translation of a word she did not know in the language she was about
to use, before building it into a sentence, Lukas seems to work on the principle "the point of speaking
is to be understood" and sneaks a German prefix or ending onto an English word.
At four years of age he spoke average German for his age, disregarding the odd English word
in his sentences. His English was also starting to sound promising.
After a three week holiday in England at 4 3/4 years of age a breakthrough: Lukas can speak English. Only occasionally a German word gets mixed into an English sentence. During our holiday I continued to speak to him in German so as not to confuse him, but that somehow seemed odd to him. Often he told me off for not saying words like "thank you" in English.
Now at 6 years of age, Lukas speaks English pretty well, he can understand almost everything , but his vocabulary is more limited than in German.
These will be easiest to appreciate for English speakers with a knowledge of German.
Nuremberg, March 2001 Karin Dykes mail: ktdykes@nexgo.de Latest update in November 2002Raising our kids bilingually
Reflections on multilingual upbringing
Advantages of bilingual (mulitlingual) upbringing
Learning a language is never again as natural and easy as learning your own mother toungue as a
toddler. When a child has two "mother toungues", he can naturally learn both right away.
Can multilingual upbringing be disadvantageous ?
The author of this article is not aware of any disadvantages of multilingual upbringing, with the
exception perhaps of some comments from jealous people. Multilingual upbringing is an all together
natural thing.
Multilingual upbringing - how to go about it
Our own experiences of bilingual upbringing
Especially because Natalie learnt her two languages so quickly, I do not think we particularily went
wrong with Lukas´ bilingual upbringing. Not everyone is as linguistically talented as his sister.
However, in my opinion any healthy child, given time, can easily learn two languages.
Natalie
Lukas
Pre-school quotes
www.ktdykes.de
