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Educating a child in two languages increases the risks of difficulties in their learning. 

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Educating a child in two languages increases the risks of difficulties in their learning. 

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WRONG. Bilingual children have no greater difficulty in learning than monolingual children. The only situation that could lead to a bilingual child having difficulty in their learning is if they have not sufficiently mastered any of the languages before starting school.

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Idées reçues - Version anglaise | Le Fil du bilingue

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Not true. We estimate that more than half the people on the planet are bilingual and 40% speak more than one language on a daily basis. Bilingualism is a phenomenon that exists throughout the world, on all continents and in the majority of countries.

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Bilinguals have equal and perfect knowledge of their languages. 

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Bilinguals have equal and perfect knowledge of their languages. 

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WRONG. This is a myth that has had a long life! In fact, bilinguals know their languages to the level that they need them. Some bilinguals are dominant in one language, others do not know how to read and write one of their languages, others have only passive knowledge of a language and, finally, a very small minority, have equal and perfect fluency in their languages. What is important to keep in mind is that bilinguals are very diverse, as are monolinguals.

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François Grosjean
University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland

A number of myths about bilingualism are discussed in my new book, Bilingual: Life and Reality (Harvard University Press, 2010). They are summarized here.

Bilingualism is a rare phenomenon. WRONG. It has been estimated that more than half the world's population is bilingual, that is lives with two or more languages. Bilingualism is found in all parts of the world, at all levels of society, in all age groups. Even in countries with many monolinguals, the percentage of bilinguals is high. For example, one can estimate that there are as many as 50 million bilinguals in the United States today.

Bilinguals acquire their two or more languages in childhood. WRONG. One can become bilingual in childhood, but also in adolescence and in adulthood. In fact, many adults become bilingual because they move from one country (or region) to another and have to acquire a second language. With time, they can become just as bilingual as children who acquire their languages in their early years (minus the native speaker accent). In general, people become bilingual because life requires the use of two or more languages. This can be due to immigration, education, intermarriage, contact with other linguistic groups within a country, and so on.

Bilinguals have equal and perfect knowledge of their languages. WRONG. This is a myth that has had a long life! In fact, bilinguals know their languages to the level that they need them. Some bilinguals are dominant in one language, others do not know how to read and write one of their languages, others have only passive knowledge of a language and, finally, a very small minority, have equal and perfect fluency in their languages. What is important to keep in mind is that bilinguals are very diverse, as are monolinguals.

Real bilinguals have no accent in their different languages. WRONG. Having an accent or not in a language does not make you more or less bilingual. It depends on when you acquired your languages. In fact, some extremely fluent and balanced bilinguals have an accent in the one, or the other, language; other, less fluent, bilinguals may have no accent at all.

Bilinguals are born translators. WRONG. Even though bilinguals can translate simple things from one language to another, they often have difficulties with more specialized domains. The reaction people have is almost always, "But I thought you were bilingual!". In fact, bilinguals use their languages in different situations, with different people, in different domains of life (this is called the complementarity principle). Unless they learned their languages formally (in school, for example), or have trained to be translators, they often do not have translations equivalents in the other language.

Mixing languages is a sign of laziness in bilinguals. WRONG. Mixing languages such as code-switching and borrowing is a very common behavior in bilinguals speaking to other bilinguals. It is a bit like having coffee with milk instead of just straight black. The two language repertoires are available in bilingual situations and can be used at will. Many expressions and words are better said in the one or the other language; mixing permits to use the right one without having recourse to translation which simply may not do justice to what one wants to express. This said, in other situations, bilinguals know that they cannot mix their languages (e.g. when speaking to monolinguals) and they then stick to just one language.

Bilinguals are also bicultural. WRONG. Even though many bilinguals are also bicultural (they interact with two cultures and they combine aspects of each), many others are monocultural (e.g. the inhabitants in the German speaking part of Switzerland who often acquire three or four languages during their youth). Thus one can be bilingual without being bicultural just as one can be monolingual and bicultural (e.g. the British who live in the USA).

Bilinguals have double or split personalities. WRONG. Bilinguals, like monolinguals, adapt their behavior to different situations and people. This often leads to a change of language in bilinguals (e.g. a Japanese-English bilingual speaking Japanese to her grandmother and English to her sister). This change of language has led to the idea that bilinguals are "different" when speaking the one, or the other, language. But like monolinguals, it is the situation or the person one is speaking to which induces slight changes in behavior, opinions, feelings, etc., not the fact that one is bilingual.

Bilinguals express their emotions in their first language. WRONG. Some bilinguals have grown up learning two languages simultaneously and hence have two first languages with which they will express their emotions. And for the majority of bilinguals who have acquired their languages successively-first one language and then, some years later, another-the pattern is not clear. Emotions and bilingualism produce a very complicated but also very personal reality that has no set rules. Some bilinguals prefer to use one language, some the other, and some use both of them to express their feelings and emotions.

Bilingualism will delay language acquisition in children. WRONG. This is a myth that was popular back in the middle of the 20th Century. Since then much research has shown that bilingual children are not delayed in their language acquisition. This said, one should keep in mind that bilingual children, because they have to deal with two or more languages, are different in some ways from monolingual children, but definitely not on rate of language acquisition. As for bilingual children with language challenges (e.g. dyslexia), they are not proportionally more numerous than monolingual children with the same challenges.

The language spoken in the home will have a negative effect on the acquisition of the school language, when the latter is different. WRONG. In fact, the home language can be used as a linguistic base for acquiring aspects of the other language. It also gives children a known language to communicate in (with parents, caretakers, and, perhaps, teachers) while acquiring the other.

If parents want their children to grow up bilingual, they should use the one person - one language approach. WRONG. There are many ways of making sure a child grows up bilingual: caretaker 1 speaks one language and caretaker 2 speaks the other; one language is used in the home and the other outside the home; the child acquires his/her second language at school, etc. The critical factor is NEED. The child must come to realize, most of the time unconsciously, that he/she needs two or more languages in everyday life. This is where the one person - one language approach often breaks down as the bilingual child quickly realizes that the weaker (often minority) language is not really needed (the caretakers or other family members often speak the other, stronger language, to one another, so why keep up the weaker language?). A better approach is that all family members use the weaker language at home, if at all possible, so as to increase the child's exposure to it and mark the language's "main" territory.

Children raised bilingual will always mix their languages. WRONG. If bilingual children interact in both bilingual and monolingual situations, then they learn to mix languages at certain times only. When they are with monolinguals (e.g. Grandma who doesn't speak any English), they quickly learn to speak just the one language (communication breaks down otherwise). It is important though that the situation be truly monolingual (and not a "pretend situation" in which a bilingual parent pretends not to know the other language); children will make an effort to speak only one language if they feel it is vital for communication. Thus, caretakers will want to create natural monolingual environments where children will need, and hence use, just one language.

For further reading click on the following links:

1. François Grosjean's new book Bilingual: Life and Reality (Harvard University Press, 2010)

2. A short text, "What parents want to know about bilingualism", by François Grosjean

3. An interview of François Grosjean on bilingualism

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Francois Grosjean - Le bilinguisme et ses mythes

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Francois Grosjean, François Grosjean, Grosjean, psycholinguistics, language processing, bilingualism, biculturalism, sign language, aphasia, applied linguistics, BIMOLA, language processing in aphasics, prosodic structures, second language grammar checking, Life with two languages, Bilingualism: Lan…

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How do we start teaching our children two languages?

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How do we start teaching our children two languages?

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The main thing to keep in mind is that parents don’t
really “teach” children to speak, any more than they
teach them to walk or smile. The most important
things in language development are exposure and
need.

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 Why Your Bilingual Child Does Not Respond Back in Minority Language.

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 Why Your Bilingual Child Does Not Respond Back in Minority Language.

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It is been asked by so many parents of different languages, family circumstances and kids’ ages. But the core of the question remains the same: Why my bilingual child does not respond back in minority language. It certainly could be frustrating: you were always speaking […]

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Bilingual Kids Rock Podcast: Raising Multilingual Children, Multicultural Living, Growing Up With Multiple Languages.

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Listen to Bilingual Kids Rock Podcast: Raising Multilingual Children, Multicultural Living, Growing Up With Multiple Languages. episodes free, on demand. Bilingual Kids Rock Podcast is your place to connect with multilingual families, language experts, and passionate authors from around the world. We share actionable tips and motivational stories.

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- Learning is an increase of the range of meanings that are available to an individual.
- Learning a language is not the same thing as learning about a language.
- Learning is the product of ‘motivation+opportunity’.
- Language is a social phenomenon and language learning is therefore a
social activity.

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UNESCO has  an  essential  role  to  play  in  providing  international  frameworks for education policy and practice on key and complex issues. 

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UNESCO has  an  essential  role  to  play  in  providing  international  frameworks for education policy and practice on key and complex issues. 

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UNESCO supports bilingual and/or multilingual education
at all levels of education as a means of promoting both social and gender equality and as a key element of linguis-
tically diverse societies.

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Do you really mean that if our children are exposed to two languages from birth they will learn both, just like that?

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Do you really mean that if our children are exposed to two languages from birth they will learn both, just like that?

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No, but children can do this with no difficulty, and it doesn’t do them any harm. The hard part is making sure they have enough natural exposure to both languages. Most of the time, one of the two languages you want them to learn will be “more important” somehow, and the trick is to provide enough opportunities for them to use the “less important” one in a way that isn’t forced or artificial. The best way, if you can manage it, is to put children in situations where only the “less important” language is used so that there is no temptation to mix languages or revert to the “more important” language.

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The information below first appeared in the pamphlet 'Raising Bilingual Children' written by Antonella Sorace and in May 2004 and was published by 'The Linguistic Society of America'. It has been reproduced here in its entirety with the Society's permission.

For further details you can email the 'The Linguistic Society of America' on lsa@lsadc.org or visit their website at www.linguisticsociety.org.

Sorace, A. and Ladd, D.R. 2004. Raising bilingual children. Series: Frequently Asked Questions, Linguistic Society of America.

Why want bilingual children?

There are many reasons, but the two most common are:

The parents speak different languages (say, an American woman and a Turkish man).

The parents speak the same language, but live in a community where most people speak something else (say, a Korean couple living in the UK).

In the first case, both the mother and father may want to be able to use their own language when talking to their children. This is the bilingual home situation. In the second, the parents may want to be able to use their own language at home even though their children also need to function in the world outside the front door. This is the bilingual setting situation. Our own situation is an Italian/English bilingual home in an English-speaking setting, and some of what we say here is based directly on our experience bringing up bilingual children.

Don't children get confused when they hear two languages spoken around them?

The short answer is no. Children are incredibly sensitive to the different ways people speak. Even when they only hear one language, they learn very quickly about differences between the way men and women talk, the difference between polite and impolite ways of talking, and so on. For children, the bilingual situation is just a matter of another difference between people!

Fifty years ago educators throughout North America used to tell immigrant parents that it was better for their children's schooling if they spoke English at home. Some researchers thought that early exposure to two languages put children at a disadvantage. Newer research tells us that this is not so, and there may be advantages to being bilingual (in addition to knowing more than one language), such as more flexible thinking. The disadvantages that earlier research found were generally economic disadvantages, linked to the hardships of immigrants' lives.

Bilingual development sometimes results in slightly slower language development than for some monolingual children. Our older child was still saying things like 'Where you are?' instead of 'Where are you?' in English at four and a half. This is a normal developmental stage for monolingual English children, but they usually figure out that they have to say 'Where are you?' by the time they're three or four. Our older child just took a little longer.

Don't bilingual children ever mix their languages up?

Like adult bilinguals, bilingual children often use words from one language when speaking the other. (This is called code-switching.) But this doesn't mean they are confused about which language they are speaking. In our Italian-English bilingual home, a lot of our food vocabulary is Italian, and we use this even when we're speaking English (and when English words are available). So we'll talk about pollo instead of chicken and sugo instead of sauce. Yet in speaking to monolinguals, bilingual children are careful to use only the relevant language.

So how do we start teaching our children two languages?

The main thing to keep in mind is that parents don't really 'teach' children to speak, any more than they teach them to walk or smile. The most important things in language development are exposure and need. If children are exposed to a language in a variety of circumstances with many different people from the time they are born, and if they feel they need the language to interact with the world around them, they will learn it. If they are exposed to two languages in varied circumstances with different people from the moment they are born, and if they need both languages to communicate with the people around them, they will learn both.

Do you really mean that if our children are exposed to two languages from birth they will learn both, just like that?

No, but children can do this with no difficulty, and it doesn't do them any harm. The hard part is making sure they have enough natural exposure to both languages. Most of the time, one of the two languages you want them to learn will be "more important" somehow, and the trick is to provide enough opportunities for them to use the "less important" one in a way that isn't forced or artificial. The best way, if you can manage it, is to put children in situations where only the "less important" language is used so that there is no temptation to mix languages or revert to the "more important" language.

What do you mean by saying that one language is "more important"?

One language is likely to seem more important to children when that language is needed more frequently than the other. For example, suppose the American woman and Turkish man in the bilingual home speak English with each other. The children will notice that English is used in cases where Turkish isn't and think that English is "more important". But if the same family moves to Turkey, the children will notice that Turkish is used in lots of cases where English isn't, and may decide Turkish is "more important". Some children are very sensitive to these differences and may be reluctant to use the "less important" language-especially if other children don't use it. Others don't seem to mind.

When we talk about one language being "more important" here, we're only talking about the children's point of view! Nonetheless, many adult bilinguals are "dominant" in one of their languages. Even if the differences between their two languages are subtle, most bilinguals feel slightly more at home in one language than the other in certain settings or for talking about certain topics.

Would it be better to start teaching the second language after children have a good start on the first?

No, definitely not, especially in the bilingual home situation where the second language is likely to seem "less important" to the children anyway. Introducing the second language later is just about guaranteed to make them think it's less important and not worth the effort.

On the other hand, in the bilingual setting situation (say, the Korean couple living in the United States), there isn't any harm in letting children's exposure to English begin naturally and gradually. As long as the family stays in the US and the children go to American schools, there is no risk that they will fail to learn English. Actually, the more common problem with the bilingual setting situation is that the children sometimes reject their home language in favor of the outside language.

My partner and I speak different languages. Should we only speak to our children in our own language if we want them to be bilingual?

Many experts recommend the "one-parent-one-language" method for a bilingual home. The idea is that Mommy (or Mamma, or Mutti) always speaks her own language with the children, and Daddy (or Papa, or Vati) always speaks his own language with them. This is a good basis for a successful bilingual home, but it's not the only one, and even one-parent-one-language can go wrong.

What are some of the problems with one-parent-one-language?

One problem can be balance. Children need to hear both languages often and in a variety of circumstances. If they never hear the 'less important' language except from one parent, they may not get enough exposure for that language to develop naturally. It is especially true that when both parents understand the 'more important' language, the children don't feel they need the 'less important' one.

In these cases it is essential to find other sources of exposure and other ways of creating the sense of need. Monolingual grandparents can be especially helpful! Can you enlist a cousin or grandmother or a paid babysitter who speaks the other language to look after the children? Is there a daycare or playgroup where they can hear the other language? Can you get videos and story tapes in the other language? All of these can make a big difference; especially exposure that involves interaction with other people, not just watching TV. When our children were small, we did things like this to reinforce Italian in a largely English-speaking setting.

Another problem is keeping the situation natural. If children feel that they are being forced to do something weird or embarrassing, they will probably resist it. Explicit rules say, speaking one language on some days and the other on others can be very hard to enforce and can help create a negative attitude.

Still another problem is exclusion. If one of the parents doesn't speak the other's language (in our example, suppose the American woman doesn't speak Turkish), the children will know that every time they say something in Turkish to their father they are excluding their mother from the conversation. This may make children reluctant to speak one of the parents' languages when both parents are present. In our experience, a bilingual home is more likely to succeed if both parents at least understand both languages. That way, nobody is ever excluded from a family conversation.

What about siblings?

The arrival of a second child can upset the language balance in a bilingual home, and it's common for a second child to be less fully bilingual than the first. Usually the first child speaks to the second in the 'more important' language, increasing the exposure the second child gets to that language and decreasing the sense of need for the 'less important' one. Think about what you want to do about this in advance. Come up with a strategy that fits your own situation, but it's probably worthwhile to try to enlist the older child or children to promote the 'less important' language in your home situation.

My children used to speak our home language just fine, but now that they're going to school, they mix it up with English all the time. What can I do?

Relax. Language mixing is normal where everyone speaks both languages. It doesn't mean that the children will forget one language, and it doesn't mean that they can't tell the difference any more between two languages. If you scold them for speaking English it may create a negative attitude about the home language and actually make things worse. Instead, create natural situations where the children really need the home language: like calling on those monolingual grandparents again!

You can understand this kind of language mixing if you keep in mind that simple exposure is an important ingredient of children's language development. When your children were small, they were probably more exposed to your home language - say Korean - than they were to English. Now that they are going to school, they are exposed only to English for hours a day, and they are learning all kinds of new words and new ways of using language, but only in English. They probably don't know the Korean word for 'notebook' or 'social studies' or 'principal'. When they use an English word in a Korean sentence, tell them what it's called in Korean rather than worrying that they're losing their home language. Remember, even if they end up with English as their dominant language, they can still be perfectly competent Korean speakers as well.

Further reading

Baker, Colin. 1995. A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism. Multilingual Matters.

Grosjean, François. 1982. Life with Two Languages. Harvard University Press.

Harding-Esch, Edith, and Philip Riley. 2003. The Bilingual Family: A Handbook for Parents. 2nd edition. Cambridge University Press.

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A list of frequently asked questions from bilingual parents.

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The Languages you Speak to Your Bilingual Child
Parental language input and childhood bilingualism

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The Languages you Speak to Your Bilingual Child
Parental language input and childhood bilingualism

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Lauren is a little Dutch-English bilingual girl whom Belgian psycholinguist Annick De Houwer tells us about in one of her recent publications. Her father spoke English to her and her mother Dutch. But because her father worked hard, and saw her rarely–mainly on weekends–Lauren only heard English about three hours a week. When she was three years old, she could only say "yes" and "no" and this upset her father no end. He thought she was rejecting him.

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Post written by François Grosjean.

Lauren is a little Dutch-English bilingual girl whom Belgian psycholinguist Annick De Houwer tells us about in one of her recent publications. Her father spoke English to her and her mother Dutch. But because her father worked hard, and saw her rarely-mainly on weekends-Lauren only heard English about three hours a week. When she was three years old, she could only say "yes" and "no" and this upset her father no end. He thought she was rejecting him.

Situations such as this one can be avoided in part if parents take the time to consider a number of questions when bringing up their child bilingual such as when should the languages be acquired, which bilingual strategy should be used, will the child have a real need for each language, what support can parents count on, etc. (see here). A question of primary importance concerns the type and amount of language input the child will receive, mainly from his/her parents but also from other sources.

Annick De Houwer has spent many years researching this precise point. Using a questionnaire approach, she examined the language behavior of close to 2,000 families in Dutch-speaking Flanders, Belgium, where at least one parent spoke a language other than Dutch in the home. The first thing she found was that despite the presence of both Dutch and another language in the lives of these families, nearly one-quarter of the families had no children who spoke the other language. This only confirms that factors such as those mentioned above are crucial when fostering a child's bilingualism.

But what is perhaps even more interesting is that different parental input patterns had different effects on whether the children became bilingual or not. For example, when both parents only used the other language in the home, its transmission rate was quasi perfect (97%). The success rate only decreased by three percentage points when one of the two parents also spoke Dutch in the home. As for the "one person, one language" strategy, and contrary to general belief, it only produced a 74% success rate. In other words, a quarter of the children to whom the father spoke one language and the mother the other, simply did not become bilingual. It is interesting to note that both parents speaking both languages to their children obtained a score that is not significantly different (79%). As for the situation where one parent spoke both Dutch and the other language, and the other parent only spoke Dutch, then only 36% of the children spoke the other language.

Studies are still trying to isolate the reasons that underlie results such as these but what seems clear is that when the minority language is used exclusively, or at least extensively, in the home, it will be acquired by the child. Not only is there more parental input of that language but the home environment is conducive to using it. Thus there is every chance that the child will grow up speaking it. As for the majority language, it will be picked up very quickly, but mainly outside the home.

To better understand what is taking place in bilingual homes, researchers are turning more and more towards large databases of natural conversations in bilingual families. One of these was obtained by Canadian psycholinguist Shanley Allen in five families who, at home, speak both English and Inuktitut, one of the main Inuit languages in Canada. Annick de Houwer used it to examine the amount of dual language input the children received and the outcome of this on their bilingual language production. What she found was that caregivers who spoke more English had children who also spoke more English and, conversely, those who spoke more Inuktitut had children who used that language more. This simply substantiates the fact that the length of time a language is heard and used is a crucial factor in its acquisition by children.

In another study, Annick De Houwer examined trilingual families in Flanders. They used two minority languages in the home and some also used Dutch whereas others did not. In the latter case, Dutch was picked up outside the home, primarily at school. Once again, she found that despite this trilingual input, not all children actually spoke the three languages - two fifths were trilingual, more than a third were bilingual and more than a fifth spoke only one language. Thus trilingual input is no guarantee to actually developing three languages.

Two factors played an important role in accounting for these results. The first is that when no Dutch was spoken in the family, and only the two minority languages were used, then the probability of becoming trilingual was higher. Three quarters of the families in that case had children who were actively trilingual. The other factor was that when both parents (and not just one parent) used both minority languages with their children, then the chance of having trilingual children was higher.

In sum, children being brought up with two or more languages will need as much language input as they can from each of their languages, but primarily the minority language(s). The majority language is in less danger and will get its input in varying ways, outside and inside the home.

To end, let's go back to the example given at the beginning of this post. Little Lauren's lack of English was not a sign that she was rejecting her father. She simply had not received enough English input from him in the very restricted amount of time she spent interacting with him in their common language!

Photo of a young family from Shutterstock.

References

De Houwer, Annick (2007). Parental language input patterns and children's bilingual use. Applied Psycholinguistics, 28, 411-424.

De Houwer, Annick (2009). Bilingual First Language Acquisition. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Allen, Shanley (2007). The future of Inuktitut in the face of majority languages: Bilingualism or language shift? Applied Psycholinguistics, 28 (3), 515-536.

"Life as a bilingual" posts by content area.

François Grosjean's website.

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The Languages you Speak to Your Bilingual Child

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Children who are being brought up with two or more languages need as much input as they can from each language. Parents can play a major role in this by choosing which language(s) they speak to them in the home.