Globalization has caused many families to be multilingual today. Parents often want to educate their children in their mother tongue, but also add another language to give them better chances in the future. In this context, bilingual education is becoming increasingly important. But how is language development in children with two languages? This article provides an overview of current facts for bilingual education.
What is bilingual upbringing?
Bilingual upbringing means that a child is brought up in two languages from the start. There are various ways to do this. One possibility is that every parent speaks to the child in his own language. Another option is that one language is spoken at home and the other at school or in kindergarten. Language development can also promote bilingualism in the family and in the social environment.
How is language development?
Many think that children who grow up bilingual often speak later as monolingual children. This is a myth, because later language development cannot be used to reject bilinguality.
However, this delay does not mean that the respective toddlers have a language development disorder. On the contrary, bilingual children usually develop both languages at the same time and can often distinguish them better than monolingual children.
Children who grow up in an environment in which several languages are spoken can be able to switch between different languages faster than children growing up in a monolingual environment. There is also no evidence that one language affects the other if both languages are used regularly.
Another advantage of bilingual education is that it promotes social integration. Children who speak several languages are easier to communicate with people from different cultures and often have greater openness to other cultures and perspectives.
Challenges and recommendations
Of course there are also challenges in bilingual education. A study from 2020 took a close look at the challenges. The results of this research suggest that the upbringing of bilingual children requires consistent family cooperation, especially if the parents are not native speakers in the target language. At least one parent must necessarily give a considerable time and effort to create a linguistic -friendly environment.
Conclusion
Bilingual education has many advantages for the language development of children and also promotes its cognitive development and their social integration. However, it is important that parents are patient and give their children time to learn both languages. A strong voice environment in both languages and the promotion of language diversity can help to achieve balanced bilingualism.
Sources
- https://timtimtom.com/the-truth-about-speech-delays-in-bilingual-children/
- https://www.hanen.org/helpful-info/articles/bilingualism-in-young-children--separating-fact-fr.aspx
- https://colegioyork.com/bilingual-kids-do-not-get-confused-speaking-two-languages/
- https://crystalcleartranslation.com/the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-raising-a-child-as-bilingual-or-multilingual/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8866745/
- https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/desc.12865
- https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12564-022-09772-7
