Episode 37 - Raising a bilingual child

Adam Beck, blogger and author of, "Maximize Your Child's Bilingual Ability" discusses strategies for successfully raising a bilingual child.

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Raising a Bilingual Child

Episode 37

​Benefits of Raising a Child Bilingual

• Spend time bonding with child
• Can communicate with extended family 
• Future professional opportunity
• Social opportunities
• Can pass the language abilities to future generations

Common Challenges

• Parents can underestimate what the challenges are
• Need to provide sufficient language exposure
• When child grows they will hear a lot more of the majority language
• Can be hard to find time to give them adequate language exposure

Different Approaches

• Research study found following results for success rates using different approaches:
• 1) Both parents used only minority language at home had success rate of 96.92
• 2) One parent uses minority language and other parent uses both languages success rate 93.4%
• 3) Both parents use both language 79.18 percent
• 4) One parent uses majority language and other uses minority language 74.2%
• 5) One parent uses both languages and the other uses just majority language 35.70%
• One parent one language can have lower success rate if the minority language parent does not spend enough time with the child speaking the language
• Lack of success acquiring a second language usually result from lack of exposure and lack of need to use the language
• Have to match circumstances to aims

Habits and Routines to Develop Language Skills

• Read to child
• Play games
• Online conversations with websites like italkie
• Can have homestay guests who speak target language
• Au-Pair can live with family
• Older playmates and tutors can engage with child in language weekly
• Find playgroups in target language
• Play music in target languages
• Find wordless picture books - can narrate stories, explore pictures, will work with any language
• Need steady stream of quality resources in target language
• Cooperative Board Games are great for developing language

Supporting Children at School

• Children will learn majority language through exposure and grow quickly
• While they are acquiring the language can receive additional support such as tutor they visit, having time at home when they read in the language they are acquiring
• Giving teachers a list of words in the language they speak at home to help the child in the classroom communicate basic needs

Maximize Your Child's Bilingual Ability
Bilingual Monkeys: Ideas and inspiration for raising bilingual kids (without going bananas)
The Bilingual Zoo: A lively online community for parents of bilingual & multilingual kids
Cooperative Games

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