Getting Started / Introduction

Based on preliminary results from the BLINGuals survey, I’m guessing that the majority of the people checking out this write-up are raising a child away from their home country and perhaps extended family.  In today’s mobile society it’s common for adults to live thousands of miles away from their home country.  While this transition is typically made for practical reasons (better wages, education, marriage, social freedoms, etc. ), the arrival of children into the family often makes us reflect on the implications and consequences of such a transition. 

If you come to the conclusion that your children will completely assimilate into the local community, this write-up is probably not for you.  I’m guessing that the opposite is true; you want to expose your child to your culture, heritage and most importantly – language.  Further, I’m guessing that you would like your child to become quite proficient at your home language so that s/he would feel comfortable when visiting and interacting with your family.

The development of a bilingual child is a long process.  It will require patience, planning, effort and dedication.  It requires consistency.  And you’ll need to periodically adjust the course as your child develops and begins to interact with the outside community.

I’ll make the disclosure about myself right off the bat: I’m not a linguist or an educator.  I’m a Father who’s trying to make his son proficient in Hebrew.  Over the past few years, I read a lot on this topic and have been communicating with my son exclusively in Hebrew since birth (and probably a little earlier.)  Against all odds, and even though he’s surrounded by English all the time – it seems to be working!

The purpose of this write-up is to plant some ideas in your mind.  The purpose of BLINGuals.com and the BLINGuals facebook page is to provide support as you take on this quest.

Educate Yourself – Get a Book

Before Google, people used to go to the library or book store when they wanted to learn about something.  Checking out the top five hits on a Google search may work for some topics, however, subject matter experts don’t typically publish their life work for free. 

I’ve read quite a few books on the topic, and the most practical, informative, insightful and readable book that I’ve found is The Bilingual Edge by Kendall King and Alison Mackey.  No – I’m NOT affiliated with the authors.

Over time, I’ve checked it out multiple times from the library for free.  But since I kept on referring back to it, I finally gave in and shelled the $10 to purchase it from Amazon.

Let’s Get a Few Things Straight

First, based on numerous and exhaustive studies, there is no evidence that learning multiple languages slows down or confuses your child. 

Second, research also shows that there’s no downside for knowledge in multiple language.  Bilingual and monolingual children have the same majority language skills, same school attendance and disciplinary referrals.  On the other hand, bilingual children have a measurable edge when it comes to secondary language skills (obviously), math, academic grade point average and retention rate.

Third, later in life bilingual professionals tend to be more effective at what they do and as a byproduct, tend to earn more.

Forth, language DVDs or TV shows on their own are not effective learning aids.  The only way to make them valuable is to make TV watching an interactive experience

Fifth, research has shown that vocabulary acquisition is directly related to amount a parent reads to a child.  It’s not related to time spent in front of the TV, radio, or computer. 

Sixth, if a child is consistently exposed to a language for less than 20% of waking hours, s/he will end up being a “passive” bilingual.  S/he will understand the language, but won’t speak it proficiently.

Set Goals for Yourself, Dream for Your Child

As with any worthwhile objective, your actions today will determine the outcome tomorrow.

Carey Myles, author of “Raising Bilingual Children”, makes a great point: “Set goals for yourself, dream for your child.” Achieving proficiency in multiple languages for your child is dependent on your actions and goals that you set for yourself.  In other words – set a goal and act to achieve it, without damaging your child.

Take a moment and visualize your child in the future.  Will she be able speak a secondary language, or will she just understand it?  Will he have reading skills, or verbal proficiency only?  Will she have native-like accent and proficiency, or only basic competence?

Is your goal ambitious?  Do you have the right resources at your disposal?  It boils down to time, people and money:

• Time: Research shows it takes 2 ½ hours or more of exposure to a language per day to gain verbal proficiency in it.  With less than 2 ½ hours per day, your child will understand you, but will probably not speak your language.
• People: Your child will pick up a language from the people around her.  Aside from the immediate family, it could be extended family, daycare, nanny and neighbors.  If you’re the only one communicating a language of interest, you’ll have to work a little harder.
• Money: You don’t necessarily need a lot of money to advance your child’s language skills.  For example: if you have Chinese on your mind, but there’s no expertise in it within the family, and you’re planning on sending the child to daycare or hire a nanny – why not look into a Chinese immersion program, or a Chinese nanny.

Set your goals, make a plan, visualize the future outcome and start bending reality to your will today.

The Importance of Starting Early

Babies are born with the ability to distinguish and make sounds in any language.  This ability never goes away, but diminishes with age.  That’s the reason why adult immigrants who take up the community language will end up speaking it very well, but won’t be able to shake off their accent.

Older children and adults have to deal with higher expectations and more challenging social situations.  With a two year old child, you may repeat a word many times over the course of days/weeks and squeal in delight when your child repeats it in the correct context. 

Not so with grown children and adults.  A first formal language class will list 50-100 new words, which you’ll be expected to unceremoniously learn for the next day’s class.

Another benefit of starting early, is that there are many chances for one on one interaction.  It enables the parent to maintain an effective and intense learning experience, without the pressure and distractions of high expectations.

Measure Your Child's Language Exposure

If you're exposing your child to multiple language and suspect one of them is getting shortchanged, you may want to audit your child's exposure to different languages.  The BLINGuals Daily Planner is a neat and free tool for parents who would like to be a bit more methodical when allocating language hours for children.

Click to download the BLINGuals Daily Planner Excel spreadsheet.  You'll need Excel installed on your PC.  If prompted, be sure to enable the macros in Excel (the macro is responsible for automatically updating the graphical charts based on your input.)

 The BLINGuals Daily Planner Excel worksheet is based on several concepts outlined in the Bilingual Edge, by Kendall King and Alison Mackey.  The worksheet carves the workdays and weekend days into ½ hour segments, where you can track what kind of activity, language and interactivity level, your child engages in.  Then, check out the findings charts and start tweaking the schedule.

• Your child understands a language, but won’t speak it?  Try increasing the daily exposure time.
• Exposing your child to three or more languages?  Ensure that s/he’s getting equal exposure to each language.
• Considering hiring a nanny or an au-pair?  How might that affect your child’s development?
• Your child doesn’t respond to a designated language?  Perhaps set aside some more weekend time with your extended family.
• Your child doesn’t seem to pick up a language just by watching DVDs (passive activity)?  Replace TV time with book time (interactive activity.)

• Language exercised (up to four may be tracked.)
• Activity (up to eight may be tracked.)
• Interactivity level: Interactive (100% engaged), passive (50% engaged) and sleep (0% engaged.)
• Different schedules depending on type of day.  For example, work day vs. weekend day.

Get Connected with Other People with Similar Interests

Why do people on TV’s The Biggest Loser manage to lose so much weight?  Because it’s easier to accomplish goals when you have a great support network!

Participating in an online forum is good.  But organizing or joining a real life language group is much better!  Play groups are free, interactive, fun and occur with regular frequency – these are critical ingredients for effective and informal learning.

How do you find language play groups in your area?  Here are a few ideas.

• Type “Playgroup” in the community search box on craigslist.com.  If you get too many hits, try adding your preferred language.
• Enter your zip code at playgroupsusa.com (please let me know if there are other int’l sites.)
• Ask the director at a local preschool, your child’s pediatrician, your librarian, etc.
• Hook up with the local chapter of the Moms Club at http://www.momsclub.org/links.html
• Finally, if there’s really nothing in your area, consider forming your own group.  Post a notice in the public library’s community board and set up a date.  

Responding to Child Who Won’t Speak a Designated Language

There are a variety of reasons why a child won’t speak your desired minority language.  Perhaps it’s peer pressure at school or from siblings, or it could be that someone poked fun of his/her accent.  Regardless of the reason (which is important to uncover) the ball is now in your court!  How do you respond to this behavior?

Your response typically falls into one of these four categories:

1. Pretend not to understand and ask your child to repeat in the desired language.
2. Repeat your child’s communication in the appropriate language and ask if that’s what they meant.
3. Ignore the fact that your child communicated in a different language.  Respond to your child in the appropriate language and maintain conversation in two different languages.
4. Respond to your child using the same language s/he began the conversation with to avoid further confusion.

All these options are valid, but keep in mind that over the long term, a consistent response will affect your child’s language proficiency.

Research shows that the first option, while most difficult to enforce yields the best results.  Children who are encouraged to practice a language will ultimately become conversant in it.  They may not have the best accent, the best vocabulary, or the best grammar, but they’ll be able to effectively communicate in that language.

The second option, provide the child an easy “out”.  However, you’re still making it an interactive experience and along the way ensuring that the appropriate translation sinks in.  When asking your child to repeat after you, be sure to have fun with it and not make it a tedious back-and-forth banter.

The third option is great for families whose goal it is to have passive bilingual children.  In other words, your child will understand everything you say, but will communicate back in a different language.  The situation will likely remain this way until a lifestyle change occurs (such as the family moving or visiting the home country.)

If used consistently, the fourth option, for obvious reasons won’t produce a bilingual child.

If you feel like you’re child language proficiency is slipping, take a renewed look at yourself and note how you communicate with your child.  Minor adjustments in behavior will yield dramatic improvements in your child language proficiency.  If you’re slipping into a “option 4” pattern, it won’t take a lot of effort to upgrade your communication level with your child to “option 3” and so on.

Please note: this document is a work in progress.