From: bkb@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (brian.bebeau)
Subject: Re: how to raise a bilingual kid
Organization: AT&T
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 18:45:58 GMT

In article <243@trident.datasys.swri.edu> nina@trident.datasys.swri.edu (Nina Rosson) writes:
>
>I very rarely have the opportunity to speak any Swedish, my husband doesn't
>speak/understand the language at all - and in addition to it being hard to
>carry on a monologue with a small baby, I feel funny speaking to her in a
>language that my husband doesn't understand at all.

Don't let it bother you. My wife speaks to our children (all three of them
including the six month old) in French. I don't speak French.

>  -  A friend of mine
>suggested recently that I could say everything in English, and then right
>after repeat it in Swedish.  Any opinions on this?  (It may actually have
>a nice side benefit of my husband learning it at the same time!)
>
NO!NO!NO! This is NOT the way to do it. My wife, the French immersion
teacher, would feel like slapping your hand for even suggesting it.
This is bilingual teaching, immersion is much better. Why should the 
child even bother to listen to the Swedish if he/she knows it will be
said in English? 

When my wife is speaking directly to our kids, she speaks French.
When she speaks to me, she speaks English. If she speaks French to the 
kids and I don't understand what she said, I ask for a translation,
and she provides it (taking care to speak directly to me even though
what she said was to the kids). The key is consistency. If you speak
to them in Swedish, *always* do it. Let Dad be the English teacher.
Don't expect them to talk back in Sewdish too soon either. After all,
you're probably the only one doing it, and *everyone* else is talking
English. Our kids always reply to my wife in English, but they do 
understand well enough that could function in a French speaking country.
They also take delight in being able to understand (and sing along with)
the occasional French song on their Raffi tapes. The oldest is starting
to use French more, but that's after being in my wife's school, where
all her instruction is in French, and she's expected to use it more.

And yes, your husband will probably pick up a bit too. I don't speak
French (never had any courses in it), but after seven years of listening
to my wife speak to our children I have a fairly large passive vocabulary.
I know a lot of nouns, but can't conjugate enough verbs to actually
put together a sentence.

It's worth it. You know how people always promote learning computers 
by saying those who can do their job with computers will have an edge
over those who can't? Well, the world is getting smaller all the time,
and people who are multi-lingual will have an edge too. And studies 
have shown that once you know a second language, the third, fourth, etc.
ones will be even easier to learn. Childhood is the time to learn it
before all the bad habits are learned.

-- 
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Brian Bebeau			Interactive Systems at AT&T-Columbus
brian@cblph.att.com   or   bkb@cbnewsl.att.com
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Newsgroups: misc.kids