Can my child become bilingual?

Yes, of course your child can become bilingual. Everyday demand or need to use different languages usually will push children toward bilingualism. That’s the easy answer.  The more complicated answer has to do with how to create an environment at home in which children CAN become bilingual.

There are a number of blogs and books on bilingualism. Some examples are listed here:

• multilingualchildren.org
• Center for Applied Linguistics
• Omniglot
• babybilingual

I recently read a very interesting article by De Houwer that informs this topic. She studied about 1800 families and their patterns of language use.  These families lived in Flanders (Belgium) where Dutch is the majority language. The families represented in this survey spoke 73 different languages. This first result is similar to areas in the U.S. where many different languages are spoken. In Los Angeles, CA there are about 224 different languages spoken, and the school district lists 92 different languages represented by the children enrolled in schools.

De Houwer asked what language(s) parents spoke and what language(s) children spoke. Then she looked at the patterns of parents and children with respect to use of the home and host language (in this case Dutch).  Among these families 75% of the children spoke both the home language and Dutch. The other 25% of the children spoke only Dutch. So, why do some children learn two languages and others learn only the majority language? I think the patterns of usage shed light on this question.

De Houwer looked carefully at whether one or both parents spoke the home language and/or the host language. This analysis allowed different configurations:

• both parents monolingual in home language
• both parents bilingual in home and host language
• one parent monolingual in home language one parent bilingual in home and host language
• one parent bilingual in home and host language and one parent monolingual in host language
• one parent bilingual in home and host language and one parent monolingual in host language
• one parent only used the host language and one parent only used the home language
• single parent used only host language
• single parent used both home and host language

Looking at only the families with two parents when both parents spoke only the home language, children were very likely (97%) to speak the home language. Children were also likely (93%) to speak the home language if one parent used both Dutch and the home language and the other used only the home language. But, there’s a drop-off when both languages are used by both and even a larger drop in child use of the home language when only one parent uses the home language.  When one parent used both the home and host language and the other used Dutch only 35% of the children learned the home language.

 

What does this mean for raising children bilingually? The best chances of helping children to learn the home language is to consistently and almost exclusively use the home language at home. When both parents used both or one parent used the home language and the other used the host language the success rate of learning the home language was 74 to 79%. So this model can work as well. If only one parent speaks the home language it needs to be used very consistently with the child. I think this is where sometimes you can see “slippage.” If the parent using the home language is actually bilingual it’s easy to start using both. This usage however pushes the balance between the two languages to favor the host or majority language and with all the societal and school demands for the host language exposure and demand for the home language drops further resulting in fewer children learning the home language.

So, yes your child can become bilingual. Home patterns of language use will be highly influential in learning two languages.