ExpatWomen: Barbara, you are considered an expert in bilingualism and linguistics. What first motivated you to study bilingualism and what has kept you fascinated with the topic for more than twenty years?
Barbara: I first became bilingual as a university exchange student – dreaming, joking, studying and carrying out my daily life in French. Even the smallest routines felt completely new when I did them in French. When I started my studies to become a linguist, I was drawn immediately to child language, a fascinating field in itself, made more than doubly interesting and challenging when studying the use of two languages at once. It is a perfect field to sustain interest. Research uncovers something new about bilinguals every day, and each new fact opens up interesting new questions for us to try to answer. I was motivated to write this book so I could share some of the great things we have learned with people who can put the information to use.
ExpatWomen: Can you please share with us your twelve common myths and misconceptions about bilingual children?
Barbara:
1. Bilingual children start to speak later than monolinguals.
2. Bilinguals start out [at] school behind monolinguals and they never catch up.
3. Young children soak up language like sponges.
4. Bilinguals are just like two monolinguals in one person.
5. You have to be gifted in languages in order to learn two languages at once.
6. If bilinguals score lower on standardized language tests, it shows they have lower aptitude than the average monolingual child.
7. Latino immigrants in the U.S. resist learning English and want everyone to learn to speak Spanish.
8. Some languages are more primitive than others and are therefore easier to learn. The reason so many people can speak English is that English has less grammar than other languages.
9. Speaking a second language is its own reward.
10. Parents who do not speak a language perfectly will pass their errors and their accent on to their children.
11. If a bilingual child experiences any language problems in one or both languages, dropping one of the languages will fix the situation, and
12. There's only one right way to raise a bilingual child.
(I elaborate on these in my book. Summary of the 12 Myths taken from page 300.)
ExpatWomen:Is there a difference between being fluent in a second language and being bilingual?
Barbara: There is no doubt an overlap between being bilingual and being a second language learner. In my view, the difference is a matter of degree, not so much how fluent a person is, but where and how the individual uses the second language. I associate being a fluent second language speaker with formal situations, like schooling and classes, and I associate being bilingual with using the second language in real life. In classes, people say words and sentences of the other language for the purpose of learning. They don't have to mean what their words say. Bilingual people use the language for real, to accomplish relationships and communication in it. It is not just an exercise. I think you are bilingual when you mean what you say – in both of your languages.
ExpatWomen:You talk in your book about the importance of ‘motive and opportunity', in terms of children learning a second language. Is there a percentage of time that a child should be speaking their second language, in order to learn it effectively?
Barbara: I cannot give parents a number of hours per day or week the child needs, but we found in our lab that children who heard the second language less than about 20% of the time (roughly 16 or so hours a week) would understand and learn new words, but they did not start conversations or make sentences in it. This was especially true for a language that was not the one the children heard from their friends and in the popular culture. That looks like a minimum for the "opportunity." The "motive" part of your question is not about "how much" but "why" and "to whom." Children must develop their own reasons to want to use a second (or third) language, for example to interact in it with people they like or love. For everyone, the second language needs to feel real and useful, and for children, it also helps if it is a source of fun.
ExpatWomen:Do children ever really ‘lose' a language?
Barbara: Absolutely. Children are great language learners and also great language forgetters. I heard one diplomat, whose family had been posted all over the world, brag that his children had learned seven languages and forgotten six of them. Children's flexibility of mind brings them fresh to a new language, less encumbered than adults with the entrenched habits of thought of their old languages. But that means they are less entrenched in the new language as well. They will switch out of it if it i no longer useful to them. We find that reading and writing helps consolidate the child's knowledge of a second language. Once she or he has learned to read and write comfortably in a second language, that language is more likely to take permanent hold. It might get rusty, or even desert the child temporarily when it has not been used, but it does not go away.
Still, it appears that children who have been exposed early and then forget a language will later learn it more quickly than if they did not ever know it. Several research groups are studying this phenomenon, and so far, there seems to be support for the anecdotes one hears about it.
ExpatWomen: How can someone know what is ‘normal' in their child's language development, and what types of resources are available for families wanting advice and assistance in this area?
Barbara: There is a timeline in my book that parents can use for both first and second languages. The guidelines for typical development are very general, and there is a wide window for what is perfectly normal. Some children start making words or signs before a year and then have several hundred words by age two. Other very typical children are just getting started as they near age two. The average for two-word combinations (like "mommy shoe" or "Grover gone") is 18 months, but one should not start to worry until after age two if the child is not making combinations. Bilingual children are very often "age appropriate" in one language, but speak like a younger child in the other. So, it is understandable that new parents of bilinguals might have concerns about their children's developing speech. New parents can find good advice and reassurance from experienced parents who have seen their own children and their friends and relatives learn successfully in a variety of ways at different rates.
If you have concerns, though, it is important to seek professional advice – cautiously. Many professionals (paediatricians and educators included) do not hesitate to consider themselves experts on the basis of one or two cases. It is ideal if you find a speech therapist that has experience with bilingual children. The first thing to do is rule out a problem with the child's hearing. Then you work with the speech therapist to evaluate any language difficulties and the resources available to help remediate them. The old-fashioned advice to drop the second language often cuts the child off from sources of help. At the very least, one should seek more than one opinion. If there are no speech professionals for bilinguals in your community, these days the internet can help find bilingual services. (Some sources are listed in my book, but of course, the internet changes dynamically and one should always confirm them and track down new sources if necessary).
ExpatWomen:Thank you very much Barbara. We applaud your ongoing efforts in the study of bilingualism and we look forward to more tips from you in the future!
Barbara:Thank you for your interest. Keep up the good work! Readers with questions or comments can contact me through my website at: http://www.zurer.com/pearson/bilingualchild
