Raising a Bilingual Child is Easier Than You Think
I have to admit that it’s certainly easy for me to say that it’s easy to raise a bilingual child, because my husband and I are both native Spanish speakers and we naturally use it at home. My daughter has been exposed to the sounds of Spanish ever since she was in the womb. Yet, that doesn’t mean that we could just throw all caution to the wind and expect that by simply speaking to her in Spanish she would become completely bilingual. There is no guarantee she wouldn’t one day rebel against it, as most kids do at a certain age when they realize that English is all around them and that other language is pretty much just spoken by their not-so-cool-anymore parents.
Even with all the exposure my girl has gotten, she’s still very much a Spanglish baby in the sense that she mixes English and Spanish words in the same sentence all the time. She even makes up her own translations in the most obvious of ways, saying things like pushar, a combination of ‘push’ and ‘empujar;’ or pursera, for ‘purse’ and ‘cartera.’ Quite comical and scary at the same time because the goal is for true bilingualism and not a horrid barbarization of the language.
So what are you to do to guarantee your child learns a second language as early as possible?
First of all, you and your partner must have a plan, a method of sorts to decide which strategies work best for you.
3 Most Popular Methods to Raise a Bilingual Child
1. Minority Language at Home (mL@H)
This is when both parents speak the minority language (in the U.S. it would be anything but English) at home ALL the time. Even media and books are in the minority language as much as possible. Don’t worry about being monolingual at home; the child will learn English from friends, the environment, school, etc.
2. One Parent One Language (OPOL)
This is when one parent speaks one language and the other another language. This method seems complicated at first because it does require logistics and planning, however, it’s considered to be the most effective technique. The key is that both parents must be on board and very consistent.
3. Time & Place
This one, in which you schedule language usage, is a little less common and might not deliver the level of fluency and complete bilingualism you can achieve with the other two methods. A scenario might be of a family using one language for two weeks and then switching over to the other language for the next two weeks. Another option would be choosing days of the week when the language is spoken. It can also be the child is exposed to a second language at school in a dual immersion program.
So now that you have a plan, you need to find ways of fun and engaging ways to immerse your child in the minority language of choice.
6 Ways to Easily Immerse Your Child In a Second Language
1. Habla, habla, habla!
It is so important that your kid hears the second language at least 50 percent of his waking hours. That means that either one of the parents or a caregiver who speaks the language must spend a significant amount of time with him and do a lot of talking.
2. Read, read, read!
Find good books in Spanish, or whichever minority language you are choosing, and read to your child every single day as much as possible. Not only will it cultivate a love for literacy, but it will also add to the amount of exposure she’s getting to the language.
3. Watch movies and TV in Spanish!
Here’s a fun tip not everyone knows or thinks about: almost every single children’s movie on DVD comes with a Spanish-language option. Use it and your child will never know the difference! Many children’s channels, like Disney Junior, have a SAP option in Spanish as well. If your child enjoys movies and TV, then make that time another opportunity to learn Spanish. Yes, this option is more available to Spanish and French speakers than other languages, but check your channel listings — many cable services provide at least one channel in many other languages.
4. Playgroups!
These are so important for both parent and child. Language learning needs to feel fun and immersive for your child, and bilingual playgroups achieve just that. They also help create a village of like-minded parents that can meet to share resources, tips, frustrations, etc.
5. Travel
This option is certainly not available to all, but if you do have the means and an adventurous spirit, try to spend summers abroad as a family or visit any relatives living in your heritage country. This has been key for us, since we need to travel to either Mexico or El Salvador every year so our girl can reconnect with her family and the language they speak. It also gives her a perceived notion of the need to speak Spanish because that’s what her favorite cousins, abuelas, aunts, and uncles speak.
6. Immersion programs at school
If you have an option for any type of immersion program (dual or full) in preschool or above, then take it. Enrolling your child into a dual immersion program will pretty much guarantee you raise a bilingual and biliterate child.
Are you raising a bilingual or multilingual child or are thinking of raising one? If you are, please share any tips with us. If you’re thinking about it, feel free to leave a comment with any question, doubt, fear, hesitation you might have so we can all help you find the answer.
******
Read more from me at
Follow me on Facebook and Twitter for more conversation.
Check out the forthcoming book I co-authored, Bilingual is Better: Two Latina Moms on How the Bilingual Parenting Revolution is Changing the Face of America.
Don’t miss the latest from Babble Voices – Like Us on Facebook!
I am raising 2 trilingual girls (Polish, German and Dutch) and I have a background in languages. We are using the OPOL method with Polish (me) and German (my husband)+ they have Dutch at daycare. This is an interesting and helpful article on bilingualism. One thing, though- what your chilren are doing (mixing languages) is totally normal and shouldn’t be considered “barbarisation” but instead it’s just what multilingual children do at a certain stage. Multilingual chidlren learn very quickly with whom they can and cannot mix languages- and the mixing is a very efficient way for your kids to communicate. Usually, multilnigual children should figure it out at some point.
Hola Ana. I have a question regarding this…I’m african-american and my fiancee is mexican, and we’re planning a family. She is fully bilingual and I have been trying to learn spanish for 2.5 years with extreme difficulty, having tried just about everything in the book. I’m 40 and she is 35. Despite my insistence that I’m too old to learn, she and a lot of others are pushing me. I’m really learning so that I can communicate with her family. My question is this…we want to raise our future children to be bilingual, and I’ve been reading the studies where one parent speaks in spanish and the other parent speaks in english. If our child picks up spanish more quicker than english, linguistically-speaking, is there a chance that I may not understand my child fully because I haven’t quite mastered spanish yet? This is all new to me so I would love some good advice.
Erik, I am so excited for your question because it really seems like you´re devoted to giving your child – and yourself!- the gift of bilingualism!
In regards to your question, you will have no problem communicating with your child at all. What happens with OPOL is that your child will quickly (as soon as she´s born!) be able to differentiate between the two languages and who´s speaking what to her/him. So, you can easily be the English-language provider and she will know English is only with Papá at home.
Another interesting that happens is that you´ll continue learning Spanish along with her. Children need so much repetition of words that you will also be exposed to that and you will be immersed. You can also practice your reading in Spanish to her, watch movies and TVs in Spanish, etc so the immersion experience is for both of you. What a lovely image!!
Honestly, the most important factor in raising a bilingual child is to have a strong desire for it. In that sense, you´ve already won.
Olga, what an interesting mix of languages you´ve got there!
Yes, you´re completely right about the mixing being normal at this age. I´m actually going to go deeper into that in another post. I´m aware that it´s ok for her to be mixing languages right now and it´s part of the process, that´s also why our blog is called SpanglishBaby, because we embrace this process. What we don´t want is for her to get stuck in that moment and continue to immerse her in Spanish so that she will be completely capable of separating both languages at any time
Thanks, Ana! You are right of course, bilingualism always involves some work- if you make it clear to your children that they can’t mix languages with you, they won’t but some mixing will be always there. But, bilingual children learn to differentiate the languages really well. Still, I am happy that Babble finally introduced someone to write on bilingualism- as a bilingual person myself, I really think that for more and more families, this becomes an important part of raising children.
I’ll be teaching English, Portuguese and Tamil to mine
Mine is getting a mix of these, I use ASL with her along with English at home and now at school she is getting Spanish. I am hopeful that even if she doesn’t become fluent in either Spanish or ASL right now, it is still sort of mapping out the pathways so that later if she chooses to learn another language, it will not be the struggle it was for me. She also gets a few random words of German thrown in for good measure. (5yrs of it at school, and I still can’t speak it in full sentences
)
According to research, the second language option of DVDs does NOT work. Kids need to see the face and hear the voice of a real person to make the connection.
Catch the TED Talk explaining it all here: http://www.dad-camp.com/2012/04/bilingual-kids-are-smarter-start-early/
Bilingual kids are smarter, and its easier when they start early.
Hello Ana!! At what age do you recommend we start applying the OPOL method with our children?? I have a 4 month-old, should I wait till she’s about one year old, and starts with her first words, or before?? Thanks!!
I grew up bilingual largely thanks to my grandma, my dad rarely spoke Spanish at home though my mom could speak it ok. My hubby speaks little Spanish but he knows enough to read books to our toddlers and I speak it with them half the time. They go to a Spanish speaking preschool cooperative and the three year old is pretty fluent, he speaks less Soanish baby talk than some kids his age that are only Spanish speaking. I love it!
We are in the peculiar situation that my older (6), who spoke English and Portuguese for her first couple of years became resistant and we stopped fighting once she started nursery school. She understands Portuguese now, but refuses to speak, whereas her little sister (3) is completely bilingual. I so regret not being more consistent the first time around, and hope is not too late. I’ve witnessed the little one translating for her big sister a few times. We are trying to transition back to OPOL, but it is SO hard. Also, Portuguese is not nearly as prevalent as Spanish here in the US, which makes it trickier to insert into everyday life. Thank goodness for youtube!
Mommar — how exciting your child is learning 3 languages and that she can immerse in it in Spanish.
You are totally right that you are at the very least giving her all the brain benefits by teaching her the languages at this early age.
If she´s attending a dual immersion program and you keep speaking to her in Spanish, you should expect a fluent bilingual child almost guaranteed.
So happy for you!
DadCamp, yes, you are right that it doesn´t work as the one option to immerse your kids in a second language. We are well aware of that.
BUT, if you are trying to immerse your child in a minority language you need to use an arsenal of tools. That´s why we promote that IF your kids watch tv, movies, apps, etc to have those be in Spanish to reinforce the language and their love/need for it. It´s just one more tool, it should not be the only one
Anabelle, the sooner you start, the better!
It is recommended that you start in-utero because the baby is already starting to capture the sounds he is the most familiar with.
At 4-months, your baby can already recognize your voice from her dad´s and is starting to sort out all the sounds she hears around her.
My recommendation is that you don´t wait and start ASAP.
Good luck!!!!!
Kat, thanks for sharing that with us! You´re so lucky that your children can attend a Spanish immersion program at such early age. They are sure to reap the benefits!
Melissa, you are so right…it IS hard, but so worth it.
Do have any family in Brazil or Portugal that you could visit with your 6 year old? It sounds like she just needs to get a perceived notion of the importance of speaking Portuguese in her life and travel/visit with family is the best for that.
For your little one, I´d suggest either finding or starting a Portuguese playgroup with kids in her age range. You can look or start one via meetup.com
So excited to have found your blog and website and see what you recommend! I was raised bilingual English/Spanish and am trying really hard to teach my children Spanish (my husband understands and speaks passable Spanish but struggles in conversation). I speak to my kids (4, 16 mo) almost exclusively in Spanish if we are at home and try to read to them as well. While the kids understand me perfectly, my 4 yr old at times refuses to acknowledge the second language and at other times is very proud/excited to speak another language. We also use some sign language to bridge the communication gap and it works great.
I am American, raising children in Norway. They pretty much only speak Norwegian although they understand English, and the oldest can speak English quite well if she chooses to (most of the time she refuses). I did not realize before I became a mom how much work/how tiring it would be to speak English all the time when they (and my husband) always speak Norwegian. I only buy English books and movies for them and they go to the USA about once a year, but I wish they would use English more actively.
Thanks for the great synopsis. I would add that in addition to traveling, spending some time living abroad with your kids really seals the deal in terms of learning a language. It also offers a world view which will allow them to become global citizens forever.
Dear Ana:
My son is one year old now and he is learning four languages (english, spanish, cantonese and mandarin). I am chinese and my husband is Ecuadorian. My parents are taking care of our son when I work so my dad speaks to him in Mandarin while my mom and I speak to him in cantonese. My in laws speak only spanish so they can only speak to him in spanish. My husband is afraid that he won’t speak english correctly so he only speaks to him in english. But I told him that I am absolutely not worried about English because once he gets into school we are going to wish he spoke the other three languages lol. So it’s going to be real interesting to see what happens, I hope he keeps the knowledge and are fluent with all the languages as it’ll be a great asset for him in the future. : )
Thanks for the great tips Anna! We r planning on raising our daughter to be multilingual, English, Arabic and Russian. The plan is to speak both English and Arabic at home and hope that she picks up Russian from her environment (we live in Moscow), however my concern is that when she starts preschool she will be at a serious disadvantage because her Russian will probably not be on the same level as other kids in her class. Any advice?
Thank you
Thank you. This is really good.
Very interesting info!Perfect just what I was searching for!
Greeting from across the ocean. excellent post I must return for more.
I don’t even understand how I stopped up here, however I thought this publish used to be good. I do not understand who you are but definitely you are going to a famous blogger in the event you aren’t already. Cheers!