According to most linguistic experts, the ideal model for bilingualism is a bicultural and bilingual family. If parents are consistent in sticking with the respective languages, this is the most favorable environment for becoming bilingual. It really breaks my heart when students come to me and say they are bad at languages,'' she said. Gibbs, who is fluent in several languages, was encouraged with language instruction in elementary school. Reinforcement is very hard to do,'' she said.
Parents can learn to sing songs.
The professor said there are many different ways to learn a language, but memorization accounts for 95 percent of the challenge. She herself is undertaking Hebrew. Parents should not feel guilty for not speaking the language their children are learning. Linguists refer to this as the ''assimilation phase'' of language learning, when the ear is sensitive to new sounds. This phenomenon allows the child to absorb the phonemes, vocabulary and melody of a language, as well as its grammatical structures.