Raising Bilingual Kids When OPOL Doesn't Work

         
The one parent, one language approach is one of the most widely used language strategies for bilingual families. I have previously written about different bilingual language strategies and how it is best to speak to your child in the language you are most proficient in. This may not necessarily be your first language, or mother tongue. For example, you may have stopped speaking your first language once you started school and not picked it back up again. You may have moved to another country and started speaking a different language and now you feel more comfortable speaking, and are more proficient in, this new language. There may be other reasons for it too. You may be equally proficient in more than one language and, therefore, you can choose which language you would like to speak to your child. 



So, you decide on which language you wish to use and your partner chooses a different language to speak. The child will grow up speaking both languages, right? Well, not necessarily. So, what are the reasons the one parent one language (OPOL) strategy may not work? First, let's take a look at what is needed for successful language acquisition.

Quantity of language input

Learning a language depends on two main factors; quantity and quality of the language in the environment. Both of these factors are very important. Quantity is important because the more you hear a language, the more likely it is you will pick it up. If you hear Spanish all day every day, for example, how could you not pick it up? On the other hand, if you hear Spanish for one hour a week, it will be a lot more difficult for you to learn it. 

Quality of language input

Quality is also very important because the better the quality of the language you hear, the more likely you will pick up the language better. By that I mean you will have a wider vocabulary and perhaps better grammatical skills. Quality can be improved by reading books (though this will depend on the type of book), for example, as this will give you access to a wider vocabulary. But if these two factors, quantity and quality, are lacking, then you will experience difficulties in language acquisition. 

So now that we know about the importance of quantity and quality of the language in the environment we can start to understand why the OPOL strategy may not work in some cases. Let's look at some examples... 

Example 1: Reduced quantity

A family live in England, the mother is English and speaks English to the children and the father is French and speaks French to the children. The father is a business man and works very long hours so he doesn't spend much time at home. Therefore, the children do not hear French very often. They are with their mother or at school most of the day so they are mainly hearing and speaking English. They do not have any French-speaking friends nor do they have any French books or watch French television programs. The children do not speak much French at all.

Example 2: Reduced quality

A family live in England, the mother comes from a Kurdish family but was born and brought up in England. Her first language was Kurdish but once she started school, she stopped using Kurdish so often and now she is much more proficient in English. However, she would like her children to learn Kurdish so she speaks Kurdish to them most of the time. She does not know how to read books in Kurdish and does not know many other Kurdish-speaking families so the children mainly learn Kurdish from her. Although they can converse in Kurdish, the quality of the children's Kurdish is quite poor as they are not exposed to much variation in the language through speaking to other Kurdish speakers and they do not increase their language skills through reading. 

Example 3: Reduced quantity and quality

Now there may be cases where both quantity and quality are lacking, such as in this example:

A family live in England. The mother is English but learnt Spanish as an adult. The father is English. The mother would like the children to speak Spanish so she speaks Spanish to the children as much as she can. However, as she is not very proficient, she cannot speak in complex sentences nor express herself so well as she can in English. She tries to talk to her children in Spanish all the time but becuase she lacks the proficiency it means she talks less often or has to revert to English. The children can speak some basic Spanish but they are not fluent in it.

If you are in a situation similar to any of the above, here are some tips that you can use to help your children become more proficient in the minority language.

Tips for acquiring the minority language 

1) Purchase books in the minority language and start reading to your child. You may be able to get these books from the library if you live in a multicultural area.

2) Listen to audio books in the minority language.

3) Watch TV programmes in the minority language.

4) Sing songs in the minority language. Young children in particular respond very well to singing.

5) Spend time with other people who speak the minority language.

6) You may want to consider paying for someone who speaks the minority language to spend time with your children. If they are young and in childcare, look into getting an Au Pair or nanny who speaks the minority language.

7) Send the children to special classes in the minority language.

8) Consider learning the minority language yourself, or learn it together with your child.

For more tips on how to help your child learn the minority language, check out my article HERE.

Have you been in this situation? What did you do to help your child learn the minority language?

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