The Importance of a Social Context (think Playgroup) for Bilingual Children

Do parents or society shape children? A lot has been said on this, but I think most people would agree that it is a bit (or a lot) of both. Children take input from many sources and recognize the authority of different people (parents, teachers, older children, uncle, etc…), this way they build their own value system and choose their role models.

It is commonly accepted that monolingual children learn how to talk from many people: mum of course (that’s where MOTHERtongue comes from to start with…), but also teachers and children they see at school, TV (or rather videos), etc. Funny enough though, what is widely accepted for monolingual children is not really taken into consideration for bilingual children. But bilingual children learn to talk exactly in the same way, i.e. from multiple people and interactions, only they have a lot less opportunities to interact… If this is not factored in, it is very likely that the children will understand the minority language, but won’t speak it, as so many bilingual parents report. When this happens the children are missing out on a great opportunity (relatively speaking though, because let’s never underestimate passive bilingualism, which is already a big achievement!) and all too often the parents feels betrayed and frustrated, if not guilty of “not getting it right”. But the relevance of a social context for the development of a language can’t be overestimated, it is an essential component to motivate children and parents just have to come to terms with he limits of their own role, fundamental in shaping a child, but not sufficient.

Barbara Zurer in Raising a Bilingual Child (to be reviewed on this blog) rightly points out that parents must provide children with “opportunity” and “motivation” for the minority language. However a common mistake is to assume that if the parents is motivated, so will be the child. Unfortunately it is not so… The parents’ motivation is rooted into his/her experiences and projections. Much in the same way, a child’s motivation is rooted into his/her experiences, the language must have a purpose and a meaning according to his/her view of the world. Only in this way will motivation come from within, as opposed to doing something “to make mummy happy” (or daddy of course).That’s why it is important for the child to feel the urge of using the language in some contexts, with people and activities that are uniquely associated to the language.

Obviously there are many way to create and nurture a social context for the minority language, the extended family is a great resource in this direction (creating not only a social but also an emotional environment and bonds), friends can be of great help too, more difficult instead – at least in Italy- is to identify a child centered social context, what we mean by that is Playgroups, or other forms of children get-together.

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