I was at the park the other day and there was this little boy playing. His mum who was sitting next to me on the bench, called him. She started to talk to him in a language I didn’t know. The little boy went back to play with his friends and was speaking perfect English. I Had to ask his mum because I was too curious, she told me that her son (6 years old) was trilingual as soon as he started to talk. They were speaking 2 different languages at home and he had english for outside home…We spoke for a while about how they did it and what were the challenges of raising a trilingual child.
I was amazed…so as you already guessed, I did my own research.
I wondered what happens to a baby raised in a bilingual family? Many studies have been done to help researchers have a better understanding of the mechanism of language acquisition. Baby’s brains are like sponges, they can learn 2 or more languages really quickly and thoroughly and won’t even be confused between them.
So if you have the chance to speak 2 different languages at home you could give your child a real advantage in life. Many studies proved that real bilinguals people will have a better focus. Because they have to control 2 languages constantly, studies results suggest that they “develop a more efficient executive functioning system” and this is a lot more noticeable with kids than adult.
They are also better at multitasking, such as driving and talking on the phone (of course this is not recommended, it was just for the case study). But you have to start to speak 2 languages early in life to experience advantages like that.
Something that really surprised me was that it can also bring health benefits. Ellen Bialystok is a Researcher for York University in Toronto (http://www.yorku.ca/). Her work showed that speaking 2 languages can have a real positive health impacts on Alzeihmer’s patients. 2 different studies and many articles showed that people who have spent their lives speaking two languages are better able to cope with the pathology of Alzheimer's," "They show symptoms of the disease up to four years later than monolinguals. Once the disease starts to destroy areas of the brain, bilinguals are able to keep functioning." Not too bad, hey?
On the other hand, studies demonstrated that "Bilingual children have on average a smaller vocabulary in each of their languages than monolingual children," says Ellen Bialystok. "There is a smaller vocabulary in each language, but they probably know more words altogether."…“But having improved executive functioning, she argues, is more important than small differences in vocabulary or millisecond lags in word retrieval”
The idea of teaching your baby to be bilingual is quite good, but hang on a minute, there is a big step from the concept to the practical . I found some tips that could help you and your baby.
To start, let’s talk practicality. How does is work? An easy way to do it is to have both parents speaking their own language at all times. Therefore, your baby will refer to each parents with each language.
Make a family agreement where everybody will feel comfortable to speak 2 languages at home. It should be beneficial for everybody, your baby, both parents and other siblings. Be careful… if one of the parents are not speaking the “secret language”, they could feel left on the side.
Get in touch with other families speaking the same language. Playing and speaking a language with other kids is the best way for your child to learn a different language. Practice by playing! You can as well use beautiful books and games to help learning in a fun way.
Remember, Be patient. It is already challenging to learn 1 language, imagine 2 or more! And stick to it, you may have doubts sometimes but persistence beats resistance and you will see the results of your commitment, what a reward!
And finally, be realistic. It is easy to be carried away with your child's ability to learn and want to teach them more languages while they are young. Usually, the number of language spoken in the household is enough even though you can introduce up to 4 languages simultaneously.
And what if I would like my baby to be bilingual but our family is monolingual? You can still do it but it might be a bit more challenging.
When you learn a language, the best thing to help you is to practice everyday, so to be immersed in it everyday. There is always ways when this is not possible in your home. If you were thinking of a nanny, an overseas au-pair can be a great idea! Books, cd, dvd, etc can really help as well. Check out the mothers group and playground activities, you could find some that speak the language of your choice. Your baby could play with kids that are speaking this language! This is the best way to learn.
To my opinion, teaching your baby to speak another language right from the beginning is giving them the chance to open their minds and their horizon. It is giving them the chance to learn another culture right from the beginning, you or your partner's culture in fact. It is another bond that you will create with them, something different that you will share. And if you teach your partner at the same time, even more amazing… it could become a beautiful family project!
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