I’m keeping the promise I made to Blogging on Bilingualism (or rather the blogger behind it) and I want to come back on the topic of non native parents raising bilingual children, or rather parents raising children bilingual in a language that is not their mother tongue.

All non native parents are not equal. Whether the minority language is the mothertongue of some family members, at least one, does make a big difference, in many ways.

Just to clarify, some parents, like myself, speak to their children in a language they master well but where not raised in, and no native speakers live with the family. Other parents, like Eve from Blogging on Bilingualism, speak to their children their partner’s mothertongue in order to raise them bilingual, often using the MLAH method.

Yes we are both using with our children a language that is not our native one, but there are strong differences among us.

1) Social acceptance. All parents of bilingual children happening to speak a minority language in public are occasionally, or often, frowned upon by opinionated and often monolingual neighbors, friends, colleagues, name it. If they will explain that that language is the language of part of the family they might get some understanding, or at least tolerance, but if this is not the case they are much more likely to encounter open criticism. In fact I often use this factor to buy some comprehension, my child’s

2) Inner motivation. Motivation is key in most situations, not last when raising a bilingual child, particularly when the child starts to answer you back in the majority language. If the minority language is the language of part of the child’s family you know very well why you’re doing this, you are doing something really important for the development of your child and the building of his identity. But if this is just a foreign language why should you go through all this pain? You learnt foreign languages the usual way and you are doing ok, sure enough your child will manage too, may be later in life, won’t he?

3) Language input. Languages are alive. They need to be nurtured, stimulated, cared for. Some people who live abroad with time have problems in speaking even their mothertongue, imagine what happens with foreign languages then… Sure there are many ways to keep a language fresh, things like books, TV, internet, family, friends, holidays even work can help tremendously. Still, a native speaker partner comes really handy…

However, I want to end this post with a positive note. So let me tell how I address these 3 issues.

1) Social acceptance. I don’t care, really. If people are genuinely interested and nice I might as well explain to them how English plays a key role in my life, has been my dominant language for about 10 years and is strongly associated to a whole part of me and of my life I just couldn’t express and transmit to my child in Italian. I might also add that English is my child’s father language. However, if the person is judgmental and opinionated I shrug and move on, people are entitled to their opinions and I can live without their approval.

2) Inner motivation. My motivation is extremely strong, else I just couldn’t carry on with this. I know very well I don’t want my child to grow into the typical spoiled italian boy, who knows and cares nothing about the rest of the world. In full honesty I shall also add that it helps, in terms of motivation, the fact that English is the language my child needs to communicate with his father, even if he’s not part of our daily lives.

3) Language input. I believe,  and this is my personal and unproved opinion, that there are 2 kinds of people. Those who learn languages fast and forget them just as easily and those that learn slowly (sometimes painfully) but then retain everything they have learned with no effort. I belong to the second group. That said, I also read plenty of stuff in English every day (blogs, news, books, newspapers) and have many opportunities to speak it with people.

Thoughts anybody?

Image by A Journey Round my Skull

Related posts:

1. 8 reasons why you don’t have to be a native speaker to teach your child a language
2. Bilingual children in non bilingual families
3. Summer vacation options for Italian-English bilingual children

Antonella Sorace is professor of Developmental Linguistics at the University of Edimburgh, and together with her team created Bilingualism Matters, whose objective is to bridge the gap between research and the community.

Federica asks:

Hi,

Thank you so much for this blog, it’s been really useful and is helping me finding my way in the complicated world of bilingualism… Myself and my husband are Italian, we have a daughter, who will be 4 in September and we both speak English.

Last year my husband moved to the US because of his job, and with my child we moved between countries spending about 4 months in the US. Initially she refused the idea that we would speak a different language with other people, but eventually came to terms with it, although she never tried to speak English herself. Things will change soon, we’ll join my husband in the US for good, so we’ll all be together. Once there I’ll start working too, so my child will go to childcare, which of course will be in English only. I’m worried this might be a shock for her and don’t know how to make things easier for her.

Also, I wonder how we should behave when other people are around, shall we keep speak Italian to her or switch to English?

Thanks and best wishes.

Professor Sorace answers:

All too often in similar circumstances parents project on the children their own fears and doubts, while they actually don’t have any. In this specific case the best thing parents can do is to keep speaking Italian at home. The child will hear and learn English at school, so it will be important to provide lot’s of input in Italian too for her to grow bilingual. She will certainly learn English in no time, there’s no need to “prepare” her in advance, quite the contrary it could well be the case that she’ll end up talking English at home too (in this case it will be even more important that parents speak italian to her).

In my personal and professional experience I’ve seen that children don’t have any linguistc trauma when they move to another country, although they have face some difficulties in adapting to the new environment. If parents are relaxed and don’t transfer anxiety to her, if they provide a bilingual environment (like Italian at home and English outside) the child won’t have any problem.

 A mom adds:

I’m really happy we got Prof. Sorace’s view, I think in Federica’s shoes I would have worried a bit too, while her words are really reassuring.

I have seen something similar happen in my child’s day nursery, a german little girl arrived without speaking a word of italian. The first couple of weeks were hard for her, she cried a bit, but it was soon over and she’s the happiest child now. So I would say you might see few tears, but don’t worry about it; as Prof. says, if you are at ease, she’ll be too.

As for your question about what to speak in public, different families take different approaches, some stick to the minoritày language also outside, unless other people are present, some switch language the  moment the walk through the door. This really is for you to decide, my advice, if you have time and wish to, is to read a book, like Raising a Bilingual Child by Zurer, it’s easy to read and has many practical examples. It might help you making up your mind.

 Please let us know how it goes!

Did you like this post? You can receive free email updates from Bilingual For Fun, you’ll find it very helpful!

Related posts:

1. Linda and her international, and multilingual, family
2. Lisa's recipe for trilingualism
3. Summer vacation options for Italian-English bilingual children

My husband and I are Americans and we have been living in Rome for 10 years. Although all three of our daughters were born here, we have always spoken to them in English. With our oldest child, when she started school at 3 years old – we decided on an international English speaking school. Although we are here long term in Italy, we wanted to be very involved in her education and the environment where she went to school. It was important for us to be able to have a close relationship with the school and in being able to help her with her studies. Although we are fluent enough in Italian (my husband is much more fluent than myself), at that time when we made the decision 5 years ago, I was not that confident that I would feel comfortable with my child going to Italian school.
Now 5 years later – both of our older daughters have been going to this English speaking school (although our middle child is being home educated by us this year). Our youngest who will be 3 years old in March has had a Romanian nanny since she was 6 months old and who only speaks to her in Italian. However, although my daughter’s initial words were in Italian, she now only speaks in English. She recently started at an Italian nido as we thought it would be a good idea and in the few short weeks we have already started to hear her speaking a few words in Italian although her predominant language still remains English.
My husband, daughters and I are now moving to Bali for one year starting in August and so our children will be attending another international English speaking school, but that also teaches the local language Bahasa Indonesia. Once we return, we are not sure how our children’s education will continue as my daughters are extremely resistant to going to an Italian school, but realistically and financially speaking – we cannot continue for all three of our daughters to go to this private school for the rest of their schooling as it is very expensive. So we have some hard decisions to make before we return to Rome in August 2010.
My family background is Puertorican so at some point I would like the children to learn Spanish and my husband is Jewish and would like to spend some time in Israel and have the children learn Hebrew. So our daughters’ multilingualism has just begun!
We do not anticipate ever living in the US again – our daughters have never lived there and are not interested in it. They are, however, interested in living in the UK so that may be a possibility. Who knows what the future will bring. I must say, I am very happy that they are living a more international life than many of my friend’s children in the US and that they are seeing different parts of the world – I think this is important in so many ways. They are used to being friends with and around bilingual/multilingual children as almost every child at their school speaks more than one language.

Related posts:

1. Lisa's recipe for trilingualism
2. The expert answers: The family is moving abroad, will this result in trauma or bilingualism for the child?
3. Summer vacation options for Italian-English bilingual children