From: lpc@dickens.com (Luis P Caamano)
Subject: Re: bilingual kids
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 22:38:47 GMT
Organization: Dickens Data Systems, Inc.

Well, we all, me, my wife, and my 3yo son came to the U.S. from
the Dominican Republic, where we speak spanish, about 1 and a half 
years ago.  I came to Georgia Tech some time before them where I
took an intensive advance english course.  Knowing that my son
was going to go to school here, I wanted to be sure that he could
speak/read/write both languages, and so I asked about it to the 
teachers in the language institute, who have master degrees in 
linguistics and some other special training.  

What they told me is pretty simple and interesting.  I won't
assure that everything I'm going to say is true and has been
proven, that I don't know, but I trusted my teachers and from
what I've seen with my son it looks pretty real.

They said that the child will always speak the language of the culture
where he is living, the language spoken in school, the park, the
grocery store, etc., no matter what we do.  In that case, Eddie
(my son) was going to speak english no matter what and we just
needed to ensure that he learned spanish.  

To ensure that he speaks spanish, we should address him in
spanish all the time, because if he notices that we address him
in english, the language of the culture, he would then do the
same.  It doesn't matter if I talk to somebody else in english
while he is listening, the important thing is that I'm not
addressing him in english.  

Third, the child will never mix neither words nor grammar from 
different languages, something that an adult might do.  

Fourth, the child has an incredible capacity for learning
languages, if I remember correctly, until around the age of 12,
and they are perfectly capable of handling 3 or four languages.
The father can speak to him in one language, the mother in
another, and speak a third one in school without any problem.

And fifth, when talking to somebody for the first time, the child 
labels the person with the language used that first time and will
talk in that same language the next time they talk.  Later on,
they associate appearance when they need to guess what language
to speak when initiating the conversation.

They told me about a Colombian couple that had a bilingual 4 yo
son.  The child had a nanny here in the U.S. who was black with
whom he talked in english.  Things turned pretty interesting when
they took a trip to Colombia.  The Colombian nanny kept saying
that she couldn't understand what he was telling her even though
she knew he spoke spanish.  It happened that she was black and
for the child all blacks spoke english and thus he was speaking
in english to her.  Pretty interesting.

So, knowing all that we decided to only speak to him in spanish
'cause we knew he'd learn english anyway.  He only spoke spanish
until he started school last September.  My teacher told me that
Eddie would learn english in 2 months as soon as he started going
to day care.  Well, today is november and is amazing to see him
talking in english to the other kids at school.  One day in the
middle of September, my wife was visiting some friends that only
spoke english and that had a 3 yo daughter named Michelle.  Eddie 
was playing with Michelle while my wife was talking to her 
friend, suddenly she interrupted my wife and told her that Eddie 
just said something in english, he just asked their daugther to 
go outside to play.  Since at that time we hadn't heard him
saying anything in english, my wife asked him "what did you say
to Michelle?" to what he replied with the answer but in spanish!
My wife said ok but what was it in english, and again he answered
in spanish.  It happens that he couldn't differentiate among
languages, he just knew how to talk to his mother and how to talk
to his friend. 


-- 
Luis P. Caamano                        |         lpc@dickens.com
Dickens Data Systems, Inc. Atlanta, GA |         uunet!dickens.com!lpc
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
If I think I know it all, I'll stop learning. -myself
The more I learn, the more I know I know nothing. -somebody else