6.3 Growing up with two or more languages Flashcards
give some good reasons for plurilingual families to raise their children with more than one language
. To improve children’s opportunities in later life.
. To share and pass on their cultural heritage to their children.
. To enable children to communicate with family members who speak
different languages.
. To encourage an open attitude to other cultures
What are the two main strategies to raise a bilingual child?
-The ‘one parent-one language’ approach
-The ‘home language-outside language”
What’s the main difference between how an adult learns a language and how a child does?
Children and adults learn languages in very different ways foranumber of
reasons. The fundamental difference is that children learning their mother
tongue are not only learning the language, they are also learning what language in general is all about, and even more importantly, they are learning about the world around them. Teaching a two-year-old to name colours and compare sizes requires the child to understand what colours and sizes are in the first place. Concepts and logical relations are being learned about at the same time as the child learns the language relating to these concepts and relations, and the brain is at its most receptive at this crucial phase of human development.
Adults learning languages are doing so under different circumstances and do not benefit from such levels of mental flexibility, opportunities for imitation, and relentless support from competent speakers inaway that is remotely comparable to first-language acquisition. What they bring to language learning is their knowledge and experience of the world, and a high level of
competence in at least one language. These are actually considerable advantages, but this does mean that the methods used for learning new languages as an adult need to make full use of the adult’s existing language knowledge. This is why a considerable amount of conscious study is generally used alongside other methods that try to simulate the kind of practice that children have when they learn their first language. Through the
explicit study of grammar and vocabulary, adults can form links between the new language and the knowledge that they already have gained from previous experience. Through prolonged exposure to the target language and regular
practice they can also acquire the automatic processing skills needed to use a language fluently. This, however, takes time: not only because the brain has already been trained to process a different language, but also because the
communication demands of an adult are far more complex than those of a child. After all, no two-year-old is expected to make a doctor’s appointment, write an essay or read the daily newspapers!
***Once you have the basic notions of a language you can begin to engage in simple conversations, such as those that take place in everyday transactions
Motherese
a form of speech used by adults when talking to toddlers and infants. Also known as ‘parentese’ or ‘child-directed speech’. Its most characteristic features include raised intonation and shortened words.
