North American Ed - Communicating and learning

2.2 Bilingualism and multilingualism

The home language is the first language learned in childhood. Children who are learning English, or another dominant language as an additional language, benefit when their first language is valued. In order to be able to determine a child’s capacity to learn, the child needs adequate opportunities to learn in a language that she or he can understand. Children who are learning two languages need to continue to learn vocabulary and conceptual skills in their home language because without this continued development in the home language, they will have greater difficulty developing skills in the second language.

Many children whose home language is not the dominant language are well-positioned to become bilingual. Research indicates children who learn a dominant language after their home language is established (around age three) are able to acquire full fluency in the dominant language during their preschool and early school years. The skill of bilingualism leads to long-term cognitive, social and economic advantages and also, especially in the case of endangered languages, contributes to cultural survival.

In many families in some parts of the world, parents come from different ethnic and language backgrounds. Six-month-old Viktor is growing up in Canada with a Japanese mother and a Canadian-born father. It is important to his parents that he learn Japanese although English will be dominant in his surroundings. His mother speaks only Japanese to her baby while his father speaks to him mostly in English. In the next video, watch as Viktor and his Mother play and read a book.

Viktor’s brain is being shaped by the two languages he is hearing; he will have a strong base in both of these languages by the time he enters formal schooling.

Learning a second or third language is easier in early childhood rather than later. It is particularly important to learn correct pronunciation as early as possible. For a long time, the idea of a critical period for language development was widely accepted. After all, it is obvious that very young children pick up languages more easily than older children and certainly more readily than adults. In the following clip, Dr. Janet Werker discusses research that indicates that the idea of a critical period for language development is complex and must be qualified.

Werker describes a study about Korean children who were adopted in France and how this contradicts some previous thinking about critical periods for language acquisition:

In the next videos, Werker responds to the question of whether bilingualism is advantageous for babies by explaining some research in this area.

In many countries and communities around the world, it is common for individuals to be multilingual. While this might be an intellectual and/or economic advantage, it also could be a disadvantage for young children when they take part in preschool and primary school programs that are offered in a language other than their home language. Research suggests that it is the child’s home language that is the essential foundation for their overall language development and academic achievement. Educators who value and promote children’s home languages actually enhance children’s ability to acquire second and third languages.

Watch the following video in which a preschool teacher in Mombasa, Kenya seamlessly integrates English and Kiswahili while reading a story.

Children benefit from bilingual early childhood programs that focus on introducing and adding the dominant language rather than replacing children’s home language. The following reading from the Hanen Centre includes facts, myths and benefits of bilingualism, the rates of bilingualism in Canada, the U.S. and worldwide, as well as an explanation of how children learn more than one language.

Try the next activity to see if you can distinguish between the myths and facts about bilingualism in young children that were identified in the Hanen article.

In Canada, English and French are both official languages. There are programs and services that support children to maintain their home language and to learn French or English as an additional language. As you learned in the previous read, “code mixing” is part of the natural process when children are becoming multilingual. In this next clip, observe Rowan using both French and English to communicate with peers and childcare staff. 

The next resource is from the Best Start Resource Centre and is geared to parents. It discusses the benefits of raising bilingual/multilingual children and provides some suggestions.

Abilio provides a synthesis of research on childhood bilingualism. Abilio is formerly known as the Centre of Excellence for Early Childhood Development (CEECD) and the Centre de Psycho-Éducation du Québec (CPEQ).