Tag: languages

Blogs as resources

Blogs:

The world of the internet offers a great variety of blogs and websites related to Bilingualism, although I have to say that one needs to be quite selective and critical when finding information:

Adam from Bilingual Monkeys
– Japanese, English

Ana from PreK12Plaza
– Spanish, Italian, English

Annabelle from The Piri-Piri Lexicon
– French, Portuguese, English, German

Audrey from Españolita…¡Sobre la Marcha!
– Spanish, English

Eowyn from On Raising Bilingual Children
– French, English, Dutch

Esther from Third Culture Mama
– French, English, (Mandarin Chinese)

 Galina from Raising a Trilingual Child

– Russian, English, Italian

Ilze from Let the Journey Begin
– German, Latvian, English

Jonathan from Dad’s The Way I Like It
– Welsh, English

Leanna from All Done Monkey
– Spanish, English

Maria from Trilingual Mama
– Spanish, French, English

Marianna from Bilingual Avenue
– Spanish, English, German

Olga from The European Mama
– Polish, German, Dutch

and Rita, from Multilingual Parenting
– Swedish, Punjabi, Finnish, English

 

Why it’s okay for bilingual children to mix languages

https://theconversation.com/why-its-okay-for-bilingual-children-to-mix-languages-97448

by 

Lecturer in Japanese and Linguistics, York St John University

Few would consider mastering more than one language a bad idea. In fact, research points to a number of cognitive, economic and academic advantages in being bilingual.

Parents who speak different languages understand the family home is an important setting to learn both, and seek various ways to help their children thrive bilingually. One of the best-known approaches is the “one-parent-one-language” strategy (OPOL). Each parent uses one language when communicating with their child, so their offspring learn both languages simultaneously.

OPOL emphasises consistency – sticking to one language each – as key to its approach. But this creates the myth that mixing languages should always be avoided. My recent study, part of a new wave of multilingualism studies, would suggest this received wisdom is just that: a myth.

My research looked at Japanese-British families living in the UK with pre and early school-age children who were following a more-or-less strict OPOL language policy. I was particularly interested in examining the impact of OPOL in the family home – how does this unique language environment affect the way children use languages?

Most of the Japanese mothers who participated in my research were fluent in Japanese and English, while the fathers possessed an elementary grasp of Japanese. This made English the primary language of communication between the parents and outside the home. For this reason, the mothers were careful to carve out additional space for more sustained Japanese language learning with their children. In other words, this dedicated space for communicating in Japanese (the minority language) was time children would spend exclusively with their mother. This seemed to create a connection between “Japanese language” and “motherhood” in the children’s perception.

The benefits of a bilingual brain – Mia Nacamulli

It’s obvious that knowing more than one language can make certain things easier — like travelling or watching movies without subtitles. But are there other advantages to having a bilingual (or multilingual) brain? Mia Nacamulli details the three types of bilingual brains and shows how knowing more than one language keeps your brain healthy, complex and actively engaged. Lesson by Mia Nacamulli, animation by TED-Ed.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMmOLN5zBLY