Language Strategies for Bilingual Families

Suzanne Barron-Hauwaert

Description

Lots of new parents these days have the opportunity to bring up their child with two or more languages because of increasing job mobility and the global community. The benefits of bilingualism and biculturalism such as higher cognitive skills, an awareness of language and sensitivity to other cultures, are being increasingly recognised. However many parents don’t know how to start, what methods to use or where to seek help when facing problems.

Now Suzanne Barron-Hauwaert, a mother of three trilingual children, teacher and linguist who has lived and worked all over the world, has written a book which provides an inspiring approach to passing on two or more languages to your children. In Language Strategies for Bilingual Families she considers several methods of bilingualism and focuses on the one-person one-language approach, in which each parent speaks his or her native language and is responsible for passing on his or her culture.

Suzanne questioned over a hundred bilingual families about their experiences and she interviewed thirty families in depth. The results of her study are linked to current academic research, but the book is both readable and relevant to non-academics and provides fascinating insights into being a multilingual family. It will prove an exciting and stimulating read for potential and current mixed-language families.

Introduction

1 The One-Parent-One-Language Approach. What is it?

2 The First Three Years and Establishing the One-Parent-One-Language Approach

3 Starting School and Becoming Bicultural – One-Culture-One-Person?

4 Interaction Between Family Members and the One-Person-One-Language Approach

5 One-Parent-One-Language Families – Expectations and the Reality

6 Living With Three or More Languages . . . One-Parent-Two-Languages (or More)

7 Seven Strategies for Language Use Within the Family

8 The One-Parent-One-Language Approach in the Twenty-First Century

Appendixes

Sources of Information for Bilingual Families

Glossary

References

Index

Sujets

• Disciplines
• Language Arts
• Linguistics
• Multilingualism
• General officer
• General

Informations

• Publié par: Multilingual Matters
• Date de parution: 27 mai 2004
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781853597169
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Language Strategies for Bilingual Families

PARENTS’ and TEACHERS’ GUIDES Series Editor:Professor Colin Baker,University of Wales, Bangor, Wales, Great Britain

The Care and Education of a Deaf Child: A Book for Parents Pamela Knight and Ruth Swanwick Dyslexia: A Parents’ and Teachers’ Guide Trevor Payne and Elizabeth Turner Guía para padres y maestros de niños bilingües Alma Flor Ada and Colin Baker Making Sense in Sign: A Lifeline for a Deaf Child Jenny Froude A Parents’ and Teachers’ Guide to Bilingualism Colin Baker Second Language Students in Mainstream Classrooms Coreen Sears

Other Books of Interest The Care and Education of Young Bilinguals: An Introduction to Professionals Colin Baker Encyclopedia of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education Colin Baker and Sylvia Prys Jones Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood Paddy Ladd

Please contact us for the latest book information: Multilingual Matters, Frankfurt Lodge, Clevedon Hall, Victoria Road, Clevedon, BS21 7HH, England http://www.multilingualmatters.com

PARENTS’ AND TEACHERS’ GUIDES 7 Series Editor: Colin Baker

Language Strategies for Bilingual Families

The One-Parent-One-Language Approach

Suzanne Barron-Hauwaert

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS LTD Clevedon • Buffalo • Toronto

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data BarronHauwaert, Suzanne. Language Strategies for Bilingual Families: The OneParentOneLanguage Approach Suzanne BarronHauwaert, 1st ed. Parents' and Teachers' Guides No. 7 Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Bilingualism in children. 2. Family–Language. I. Title. II. Series. P115.2.B37 2004 306.44'6–dc22 2003017736

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 1853597155 (hbk) ISBN 1853597147 (pbk)

Multilingual Matters Ltd UK: Frankfurt Lodge, Clevedon Hall, Victoria Road, Clevedon BS21 7HH. USA: UTP, 2250 Military Road, Tonawanda, NY 14150, USA. Canada: UTP, 5201 Dufferin Street, North York, Ontario M3H 5T8, Canada.

Copyright © 2004 Suzanne BarronHauwaert.

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.

Typeset by Florence Production Ltd. Printed and bound in Great Britain by the Cromwell Press Ltd.

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Contents

Introduction About the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix The Organisation of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi The Study and Parents’ Contribution to this Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xii My Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiv Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv

1 The One-Parent-One-Language Approach. What is it? Part One: The Origins of the OPOL Approach – Maurice Grammont and his Advice to Ronjat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 From Grammont to OPOL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Research Done on Child Bilingualism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 What the Parents Think About OPOL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Part Two: Mixing and Code-Switching Within the OPOL Approach . . . . 10 Mixing and Code-Switching and Parental Acceptance . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Parental Language Use With Their Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 What Do The Parents Think About Mixing . . .? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

2 The First Three Years and Establishing the One-Parent-One-Language Approach Part One: Very Young Children and Language Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Bonding and Talking to a New Baby in Two Languages – Motherese and Fatherese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Consistent Language Use at Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Getting Advice and Increasing Exposure to One Language . . . . . . . . . 28 Part Two: Stages of Development and the Emerging Bilingual . . . . . . . . 30 Language Differentiation – ‘Mummy says Milk,Papa dit lait31’ . . . . . . . Language Refusal and Reluctance to Talk in Young Children . . . . . . . 33 The False Monolingual Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

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Contents

3 Starting School and Becoming Bicultural – One-Culture-One-Person? Part One: The Parent’s Choice of School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Monolingual School Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Parental Involvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Homework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Foreign Language Classes in a Parental Language or a Third Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Gender Differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 The Effect of the Peer Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Part Two: The Cultural Heritage of the Parents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Importance of Culture for the Parents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Bicultural Identity and Anomie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 How Our Children Reacted to Growing Up with Two (or More) Cultures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

4 Interaction Between Family Members and the One-Person-One-Language Approach Part One: Conversations With Both Parents and the Children . . . . . . . . 77 Linguistic Ability of the Parents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Part Two: Grandparents and their Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Grandparents and their Linguistic Role . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 What Parents Said About Their Extended Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Part Three: Studies on Siblings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Siblings and Their Use of Language Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 Effect on Language Proficiency by Having a Sibling . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Cousins and Same-Age Friends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 Part Four: Communication With the Outside World and Visitors . . . . . . 99 What the Parents Said About Group Language Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

5 One-Parent-One-Language Families – Expectations and the Reality Part One: An Ideal World vs the Reality of the OPOL Family . . . . . . . 109 The Parents Beliefs About Bilingualism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Advantages and Disadvantages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Differences Between Mothers and Fathers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 The Prestige Value of One Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 Part Two: Testing Times for the Bilingual Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 Feeling Isolated and Excluded Within the Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 One-Parent Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 Speech Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

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Contents

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6 Living With Three or More Languages . . . One-Parent-Two-Languages (or More) Part One: Defining Trilingualism and Multilingualism . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 Trilingual Family Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Autobiographical Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 Parent’s Viewpoints of Being Part of a Multilingual Family . . . . . . . 145 What Do the Parents Think About Trilingualism? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 Part Two: 1999 Survey – Issues Surrounding Multilingual Families . . . . 149 (a) Dominant Languages Within the Family: Country-Language vs Family-Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 (b) Language Use Within the Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 (c) Education of the Trilingual Child . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 (d) Living With Three Cultures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 Conclusions: One-Parent-Two-Languages (or More . . .) . . . . . . . . . . 155 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

7 Seven Strategies for Language Use Within the Family Part One: The Parents’ Options Within the Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 (1) OPOL – ML (Majority-Language Strongest) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 (2) OPOL – mL (Minority-Language Supported By the Other Parent) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 (3) Minority-Language at Home (mL@H) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 (4) Trilingual Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 (5) Mixed Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 (6) Time and Place Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 (7) The ‘Artificial’ or ‘Non-Native’ Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 Part Two: Changing Strategies To Suit the Circumstances . . . . . . . . . . 178 The Parent’s Choice of Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 The Parent’s Comments Regarding Changing Strategies . . . . . . . . . . 182 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

8 The One-Parent-One-Language Approach in the Twenty-First Century From Grammont and OPOL – 100 Years On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 Allow Some Mixing at Young Age and Encourage Later Code-Switching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 Consistent OPOL in the Early Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 The Possible Effects of School and Peer Pressure on Language Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 Extended Family Involvement and Gaining Their Support . . . . . . . . . . 194 Trilingual and Multilingual Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194 Parents as Role Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194 Choose a Strategy to Support the Minority-Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 OPOL for the Twenty-First Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

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Contents

Appendixes Appendix 1: Studies on Bilingual Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 2: The 2001 OPOL Questionaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 3: Parent’s Nationalities and Country of Residence . . . . . . . . Appendix 4: Case Study Families List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

198 201 205 207

Sources of Information for Bilingual Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

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Introduction

About the Book This book is a result of six years of being part of a bilingual family and a researcher into trilingualism and bilingualism. I first heard about the one-person-one-language approach from friends with bilingual children and from the children whom I taught English as a second language to. It was promoted as the ‘best’ parental strategy and was already lodged in my mind when our first child was born in 1997. I had seen it put into practice and truly believed that theonlyway to raise a child was with two languages. We quickly put it into practice, with a combination of natural language use and strict arrangement of language exposure, but as I watched our children develop I realised there were many unanswered questions. This book, therefore, aims to look in depth at the issues surrounding the almost mythological approach and see if it really works. It is often claimed that the one- person-one-language or OPOL approach is a rather elitist strategy, chosen mainly by parents in a high socio-economic group. Often the parents both speak the majority-language of the community where they live. They are often well inte- grated in that community too, choosing a local school and encouraging friendships with local children. Therefore contact with the other language or minority-language is restricted, and needs extra effort to help the child acquire and maintain it. Over the last century parents have been confused by negative attitudes in society towards bilingualism and it’s potential damaging effects. Even just a generation ago a person marrying and moving to his or her partner’s country would be strongly encour- aging to ‘drop’ their language for the children’s benefit. Now we appear to have reached a more realistic appraisal – accepting there are some areas like mixing, language-delay and being at home in both cultures, which may take time to resolve. The benefits easily outweigh these, such as higher cognitive skills, an awareness of language and it’s structure and sensitivity to other people’s speech and culture. I wanted to find out if one-person-one-language or any other specific language strategy is as important and relevant as the books and guidance for parents suggest. I researched previous studies done on families using the OPOL approach. I partic- ularly wanted to discover whether any factors affect the success of the approach. The ten questions, which I decided to investigate more, were:

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Language Strategies for Bilingual Families

(1) Should the family follow a strict OPOL strategy or mix languages when talking to the child? (2) Can the parents’ linguistic ability affect the child’s language use? (3) Is the language of the country where the family live strongest for the child? (4) Do siblings change language use within the family? (5) Does it matter what language the parents speak together? (6) What kind of school do parents choose for their bilingual children? (7) Are the parent’s attitudes to the other language and culture an important factor? (8) What role does the extended family play in helping the child become bilin- gual? (9) What kind of resources and language teaching should parents do to ensure a balanced input and active use of both languages? (10) Is there a difference between very young bilinguals and older school-age children?

What kind of bilingual family am I referring to? A bilingual family is something we can never really pin down to a definition. It is a mixture of at least two languages or dialects and two or more cultures. The parents may be from widely differing backgrounds or have a lot in common. They may have from one to six children, with varying degrees of sibling success and failure in becoming bilingual. Their circumstances, country of residence and choice of school can change from year to year and some lead nomadic lives or are expatriates. In nearly all the families one parent is away from their home country and culture. Important decisions on language policy and the strategy within the family are usually made along the way, with changes brought in when one language appears under-used or age-related issues may force a rethinking of how the languages are shared and valued. Children from bilingual families usually appear to be very adaptable, accepting and open to change. Contrary to many (mainly monocultural) opinions, they can live quite happily with two or more languages and benefit from this. They can also cope with two cultures and enjoy seeing two sides to life. They can manage bilingual schooling and are usually able to learn to become both artic- ulate and literate in both languages. Most importantly children learn to have an emotional link with each language, which gives them the impetus to use that language and inspires them to learn and use each language as much as possible. I believe that OPOL does have an important role to play in the bilingual family. However, several factors have to be taken into account before assuming that it will guarantee bilingual children. OPOL is not the only way to bring up children bilin- gually and it should be adapted to suit each family. It deserves closer examination and analysis of how it can be appropriate for each individual family. Throughout

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