The Power of Language

Numerous studies point to the positive impacts and benefits of raising a bilingual child. In fact, a record number of children in the United States are now proficient in two or more languages. Today's post highlights the story of one Wallowa County mother and her journey as she exposes her daughter to both English and her native language, French.

Eve-line's Story

As a bilingual and native French speaker I always grew up with the idea that my children would also be bilingual. I actually only learned French until the age of five when English was introduced to be in little doses at first and more as I became more proficient.

As soon as I learned that I was pregnant, I started to research the best ways to teach French to my child. I had the fear at the time that if I introduced two languages to my daughter at a too young age, I might confuse her and affect her ability to communicate. I wanted to find the best way of teaching her French while English would be her first language. To my amazement I found all the encouragement that I needed on the internet to start the process much earlier than expected. Most of the articles that I read encourage parents to talk to their kids in both languages from birth. Their little brains are perfectly able to learn and distinguish between the two languages and they are able to learn them right away.
In fact, from ages 0-9 months, babies have the abilities to hear and absorb all of the languages known to man. After 9 months their brains start to focus and specialize on the sounds that surround them and they focus and specialize on the languages of their close ones.

It is thus important to stay consistent and expose the baby to the second language as much as possible. Research shows that bilingual kids have some interesting advantages. senior researcher Diane Poulin-Dubois, a psychology professor at Concordia University and associate director of the Centre for Research in Human Development found that bilingual toddlers had a better ability to stay focused at a task even when intentionally distracted. She states:"Exposing toddlers to a second language early in their development provides a bilingual advantage that enhances attention control." Other advantages include the ability to learn new words easily, use information in new ways, enhanced ability to come up with solutions to problems, good listening skills and enhanced ability to connect with others (American speech-Language-hearing Association)

So although sometimes I struggle because it can be tiring to constantly switch from one language to another and although my daughter tends to speak more English than French, I try my best to keep communicating with her in another language hoping that latter on, she will thank me for it.

Here are some great resources for raising a bilingual child.

http://www.asha.org/about/news/tipsheets/bilingual.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110119120409.htm