Raising Bilingual Children in a Monolingual Society
One thing you cannot get away from as an international in New York City is that despite its multi-cultural backdrop, children here mostly grow up speaking English. You may hear languages such as Spanish, Russian or Chinese spoken around you as you walk through the city, but it’s English that is taught in schools, is the language of all the street signs and public notices, and is the language you’re required speak for most jobs in the city. This can be a worry for international parents who want their children to grow up speaking their mother tongue as well as the language of their new country.Historically, immigrant families wanted their children to learn only English in an effort to embrace their new home fully and to truly become American. In fact, in the U.S. it’s been a studied trend that children in immigrant families not only adopt English as their main language quickly, but eventually lose their original language completely. This is often due to social pressures to adapt to the culture they are exposed to at school. [1]
As America has grown and changed however, the trend has moved more toward internationals moving to the U.S. wishing to preserve their original cultural customs in daily life. Language is so closely connected to culture that it can be one of the most important parts of instilling one’s home culture in children. Furthermore, linguistic studies reveal that being fluent in more than one language can be beneficial for children’s long-term brain development. [2] There’s also a large population of non-immigrant internationals living in New York City – families who are here for business, on time-specific work assignments, or on long-term but not permanent stays. These families often want their children to learn English, but not at the cost of their mother tongue.
Children learn so quickly, how can we keep up with it?
Linguistically, children learn much faster than adults and absorb the language they are immersed in with little effort. Linguists tend to agree that there is a “critical period” of language learning during which children can almost effortlessly acquire language; this tapers off somewhere between six years of age and puberty. After this period children and adults can still acquire language but it is a much more difficult and deliberate process. As many internationals can testify, learning another language once past your teen years is a difficult task.Young children acquire language at an astounding rate. By just a year and a half most children have a vocabulary of 50 words or more and by age three are speaking in basic sentences. In their next few years they will be picking up an average of ten new words a day. Young international children moving to the U.S. are likely to begin speaking the language of their friends and school very quickly. According to Professor of English Linguistics, Deborah D.K. Ruuskanen: “Children usually begin by speaking like their parents or caregivers, but once they start to mix with other children (especially from the age of about three years) they start to speak like friends their own age.” [3]With children learning so quickly from their peers and at school, keeping up with your native language will require deliberate action. Since children are so influenced by their surroundings they are not simply going to absorb your language the way you did as a child. Remember, they’re surrounded by English speakers in their daily life. To keep up with their learning of your mother tongue will require you to use language resources (books, movies, computer games, etc.), personal interaction, and after-school classes to help your child acquire it.
Common Fears
Anthea Fraser Gupta, Senior Lecturer at the School of English, University of Leeds says, “There are many kinds of multilingual settings: across the world it is probably more common for children to be raised in a bilingual family than in a monolingual one. Bringing up a bilingual child is ordinary, not unusual.” [4]
"I’m not trying hard enough."Many parents worry that their children will grow up speaking English fluently but the parents’ mother tongue only brokenly. Social pressure on the parents, especially from grandparents, to make sure the children speak their mother tongue can lead to parents being extra strict about their children learning the language and can put stress on the child. It’s very important to make language learning fun. Give your children an incentive to learn your native language and realize that they are not going to pick it up or learn it in exactly the same way you did.
"Their English will suffer if I focus on my native language with them."If your child is going to an English speaking school, you don’t need to worry that they won’t learn English. As discussed earlier, children gravitate toward speaking the language of their peers. If you are not fluent in English it is possible that your child might pick up some of the same mistakes you make in English, but if they continue in an English speaking environment, they will self-correct in time.
What can you do?
So, how can you go about making sure your child doesn't simply adopt English as his or her only language?Children need interaction and encouragement in order to acquire a language. Speaking to them in your native language is not enough; preserving your home language takes a lot of effort, but is definitely worth it. Professor Ruuskanen says, “Parents who want their children to learn their mother-tongue must realize that it will take work, beyond simply speaking their mother-tongue all the time to the child.”
At HomeSome of the most helpful things you can do at home to aid your child’s language learning include conversing with him or her in your native language, reading aloud to your child, teaching your child songs and nursery rhymes, and watching films. Listening to CDs with age appropriate stories and going to performances are other fun ways to keep your child engaged. Outside the HomeOnce your children are school age and you are serious about making them truly native in your mother tongue, afternoon and weekend school are necessary to pick up the grammar, reading, and writing proficiency. Some resources for language learning can be found in our article Where to Learn Languages in NYC.Sending your child to a bilingual summer camp or to your home country for all or part of summer vacation are invaluable toward improving your child’s language skills.Another great idea is to join organized play groups with other families who speak your native language, such as those provided by CityKinder; this way your child won’t just associate your native language with grown-ups. Meetup is also a great resource to find a playgroup in your language and area of the city. When it comes to learning a language, nothing rivals live interaction.While it takes a lot of work to raising kids bilingual it also is a lot of fun and becomes rewarding when you overhear your child switching from one language to the next with ease.
Rizzoli - 31 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019Offers books in Italian, French, Spanish, and German.Idlewild Books - 12 West 19th Street, New York, NY 10011Offers books in French and Spanish.China SproutAn online store based in New York offers literature, story books, and videos in Chinese.Kinokuniya - 1073 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10018Offers Japanese books, videos, and merchandise.Book Culture - 36 West 112th Street, New York, NY 10025-1601Offers weekly story times in English, French, German, and Spanish.Book Off - 49 West 45th Street, New York, NY 10036Offers used books, videos, and music in Japanese.Saint Petersburg Bookstore - 230 Brighton Beach Ave, Brooklyn, NYOffers books and media in Russian.Additionally, MultilingualLiving.com offers articles, resources and a discussion forum for parents raising their children bi- or multi-lingual.The main thing to remember is that raising a bilingual child in a largely English speaking society takes a conscious effort by you. You cannot rely on one method but must see what works best for your child and surround them with ample resources. Help your child to realize that speaking more than one language is a gift, not a chore. Good luck!
Fillmore, Lily Wong. "When Learning a Second Language Means Losing the First" Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 6, 323-346 (1991). Web. 12 Nov. 2012. Tel Aviv University. "Speaking More Than One Language May Slow The Aging Process In The Mind." ScienceDaily, 8 May 2008. Web. 12 Nov. 2012. Bilingual and Multilingual Children: Two Perspectives, The Linguist List, Web. 12 Nov. 2012.