What’s the best method to raise a multilingual child

This is probably the question most parents ask themselves, and yet there is no concrete answer. The best method depends on your family situation, and what is working for you. It is highly personal and individual

There are clearly some approaches that allow the child to develop the consciousness of two language systems more quickly than others. For example, the most often cited is the "one parent one language" approach. Although certainly not the only method, it is probably the method that helps your child's ability to discern the two languages and make the necessary separations faster and more efficiently. The method reduces confusion over who uses which language.

Another approach is the, Community vs. family language. This might suit your family if you only speak one language at home and a majority language outside. This way your child learns and practices the community language at school while the parent's native language is learnt at home. This system allows maximal exposure for the community language. However, in time, the community language might become the dominant language. That is, the child starts out fluent on his parent's language but as he gets older and interacts with other children, the child might prefer to communicate using the majorities' language. For example, if the child speaks only Spanish at home but lives in France and communicates in French with everybody else, he might start losing fluency on Spanish as the use of Spanish is limited only to his home.

To avoid losing a language you need to make your child understand the relevance of the minority language spoken at home. You can go on holidays to a country where the minority language is spoken. You can invite close relatives to your home and organize activities using the minority language. The more relevance and fun your child sees the minority language has, the more intrinsic motivation this gives him to keep it.

Remember that if you manage to have fun using the minority language, there is more chance to learn the language and remember it after a long time.

If learning a second language becomes boring and is perceived as a useless task, the child can end up rebelling against learning it or using it.

Teachers can also help children retain and develop their mother tongues by communicating to them strong affirmative messages about the value of knowing additional languages and the fact that bilingualism is an important linguistic and intellectual accomplishment.

Foufou Savitzky wrote a booklet Bilingual Children: a guide for parents and carers. There you can find some tips on how to help your child learn your home language in an English speaking country. You can get a copy from the booklet emailing avantiord@aol.com

Some tips from the booklet are:

• Always talk a lot to your child in your language. Speak to them correctly even if they are only babies and do not understand yet what you are saying. This will help your baby to get used to the sounds of your language.

• Teach your child nursery rhymes and songs in your own language.

• Tell your child stories in your language and encourage him to join in with the story telling.

• When you talk to your children in your language and if they answer back to you in English you can repeat what they have said using your language.

• Don't be frightened to use your language in public. If some people don't like it, it is their problem not yours.

• Make sure that your child knows the names of the different languages he speaks. Initially each language will be identified with a person but as language literacy increases, your child should know the name of the language and the contexts where they can be used.

• Take your child to activities where they will hear people using your language.

• Try to make sure your children play with children who speak the same home language as they do. Talking to other children will be easier and more motivating for them than talking to adults.

• Find out if there is a community language school in your area where your language is taught. Your child might benefit from attending classes there.

• Make your child feel proud of your language. Talk to him about the importance of speaking your language, show him in a map which countries speak your language.

• Don't laugh or tease your child because of her accent or if she makes mistakes.

Decide as early as possible how you want to organize the multiple languages in your home, and be as firm as you can about sticking to your ideas. As long as you remain consistent, the multilingualism will come and more than likely once your child has mastered a second language, any third or fourth language will just come easy and naturally to him.

This book by by Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa on foreign Language Acquisition and Children elucidates how children learn foreign languages and when they can do so with the best results. The most recent studies in linguistics, neurology, education, and psychology are evaluated and the findings are presented in a "recipe" format. Parents and teachers are encouraged to "bake their own" and evaluate the multilingual children in their lives with the use of tools which include a family language profile and family language goals worksheet.

If you would like your children to experience the benefits of becoming bilingual, but you aren't sure how to teach them a second language, then Raising a Bilingual Child is the perfect step-by-step guide for you.

Raising a Bilingual Child provides parents with information, encouragement, and practical advice for creating a positive bilingual environment. It offers both an overview of why parents should raise their children to speak more than one language and detailed steps parents can take to integrate two languages into their child's daily routine.

Raising a Bilingual Child also includes inspirational first-hand accounts from parents. It dispels the myth that bilingualism may hinder a child's academic performance and explains that learning languages at a young age can actually enhance a child's overall intellectual development.(Amazon Product Description)