Raising bilingual children: which method?

See star, mosaic, 6 years

Spontaneous reflections on the interview to Antonella Sorace

Antonella Sorace’s interview has given us several insights. In particular, which method to use in order to raise our children bilingual.

I've never hidden my personal preference for the method OPOL that, from my point of view, well suited to our family situation and is producing excellent results.

However, there are some considerations to be taken into account. Situations can vary greatly from one another and thus require an adaptation of the method to be followed.

1. Bi-national family living in a third country (that is of neither parent)

 This is the situation that I personally experience and that is widespread in Luxembourg. In this case, the child will be educated in one of the two languages ​​of the parents or even a third language.

The huge advantage of the social environment in Luxembourg is that a child growing up multilingual is the norm here, therefore no one will feel the discomfort of feeling different. Everyone has hisown  language spectrum that reflects his family history.  The refusal of the minority language by the child will probably be rarer then.

       2. Bi-national family living in one of the parents’ country.

This situation is generally more widespread than the previous one.

A child growing up bilingual will have a dominant language, the community language, and a minority language, the one of the guest parent in that country. The child will usually attend school in the dominant language. In this case, it may be helpful to speak the minority language at home, as suggested by François Grosjean (2010).

The child can also attend school in the minority language, thus receiving more input in this language.

       3. Mono-national family living abroad.

The child may suffer because of his diversity, being bilingual surrounded by monolinguals. It's important to keep speaking the origin language at home and look for other reference persons and situations where the child would feel the need to speak the minority language.

      4. Mono-national family living in their home country, but one parent speaks another language to the child.

This is a situation that presents different complexities. First of all, the accent of the parent if he/she is not native speaker in the language 2. Furthermore, being surrounded by monolinguals can trigger a refusal by the child. In this case, more than ever, it is necessary to have contacts with people in the minority language, unless the child attends school in this language.

The scarcity of contacts and situations where the child can express him/herself in a minority language may affect the activation of his/her bilingualism, remaining at the level of passive bilingualism.

 This is only a limited list of possible situations and language combinations. Antonella Sorace emphasizes the particular importance of the fact that the family feels at ease and that there is sufficient exposure to both languages.