Sto crescendo il mio bambino bilingue, o no?
All bilingual families from time to time should try to find the time to stop and think, to check how they are doing and whether the method they are following is the right one. All families raising bilingual children have a technique, irrespective of whether it is an explicit one supported by rules, or an implicit one left to the family’s natural dynamics. Either way though it is often the case that we are not doing what we think we are doing… It is often the case that what appear to be occasional exceptions or inconsistencies create patterns we are not even aware of.
An example. Let’s take a fictional family where Amy, 1 and half year old, speaks Italian with mom and English with dad, i.e. the OPOL method. In theory… May be though analyzing the number of hours Amy speaks and listens to each language per day, we’d realize that in the morning dad is around for just about 30 minutes, then he has to rush to work, rightly. In the evening dad comes back and speaks English with Amy for about one hour, if none rings him for some important issues that is, then Amy goes to bed. During the weekend dad spends a lot more time with Amy, let’s say that on Saturday they speak English for about 3 hours, and the same on Sunday, unless Amy’s cousin doesn’t come to play and they have to speak Italian. End of the story, OPOL doesn’t mean 50% one language, 50% the other…
Amy hears English for about 8 to 10 hours a week, against more than 40 hours of Italian…
Another example. Mom speaks Franch with Pierre, and dad speaks italian. Mom works and pierre goes to the kindergarten, in italian, of course… Grandparents pick Pierre up at 4.0, then mom arrives at 5.30 and from then on she speaks French with him. Sometimes though they stop for dinner at granparents’, and they have to speak Italian there. During the weekend though it’s a full immersion, also because dad speaks French too. Pierre happens to listen a lot more French than Amy listens to English, yet Italian is always predominant.
Ok, so what? What could Amy’s and Pierre’s parents possibly do? Amy’ and Pierre’s parents, like all parents raising bilingual children, are already doing a lot. But may be they hadn’t realised themselves that their child was getting so much Italian each day. Once realised that, may be they could simply pay more attention, try to exploit every possible occasion to use the minority language, be firm on speaking that language even in presence of people who don’t understand it, find one hour per day to spend with Amy or Pierre when no interruption is allowed, try to see more often little friends who are also bilingual, go to a Playgroup…
Any family can find many small tricks, the important thing is to understand what one is really doing in practice, which is always a bit different from theory… So this is our tip. Mom and dad, when you’ll have the luxury of a nice chat without having to rush to the supermarket, clean the house or go to work, try to think of a typical day of your child, weekdays and weekend, and make an estimate of how many hours s/he gets in each language. And don’t forget naps! Two hours of native speaker baby sitter spent sleeping don’t count for much, unfortunately…
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