Bilingual child education
The first and most important factor in teaching a bilingual child is the age of exposure to two languages, and the second factor can be the amount and type of exposure to two languages.
The best age to learn a second language in children is under one to three years old, the child has a special ability to learn a second language. Children up to the age of three can learn both languages completely without any problems, for example, from one language to a second language Move and use both equally.
1. Growing a child with more than one language can confuse children.
Bilingual child Some parents think that if their child is exposed to learning two languages at the same time, the child will be confused and the difference between the two He will not understand the language. “Only a few days after a baby is born can they all understand the difference between many languages,” says Barbara Zorrer, author of Bilingual Child Development. “This is especially true when languages are completely intertwined. “They are different, for example, a difference like the difference between French and Arabic.
“As children, they still have difficulty saying words in two similar languages, such as English and Dutch, but by about 6 months of age, they will be able to do the same,” he says of teaching a bilingual child. The confusion in stories and legends may be due to the results of previous research, which has a poor view of studies and leads to the conclusion mentioned above that children learning two languages at the same time cause It confuses them.
This research shows the motivation of teachers and educators that immigrants should put aside their language heritage and put their children on the path to learning English professionally.
2. Raising a bilingual child delays children’s speech
Some children who raise a bilingual child need more time to start speaking than children who are monolingual. This delay is, of course, temporary. In any case, according to experts, this can not be a general rule.
Unfortunately, parents who are concerned about the delay in speaking to their bilingual children are told to care only about one language and to speak to their children in one language. This was recommended in the past because the use of two languages was considered the main culprit for the difficulty in learning and speaking.
“New research shows that children who learn two languages at the same time and have a delay in speaking gain the same things from the environment as children who are not monolingual and different from each other,” says Kaster.
3. Bilingual children eventually
mix two languages. Mixing two languages together is inevitable and harmless, but in some very strange and distant languages, it has been proven that children really can’t pronounce some words in the same language. Most bilingual children usually memorize parts of two languages and mix the two languages together when they want to use them. In addition, one of these two languages may have a stronger effect on the child. Children who have fewer vocabulary than a lesser-used and minority language may borrow words from the language they use most when they need the word from the original language.
Experts agree that mixing two languages is temporary. Eventually, one of the languages will be set aside. As the child’s vocabulary in the two languages increases, he will use one of the two languages more. In fact, bilinguals of all ages mix languages together. The best example is the use of Latin (a mixture of English and Spanish) with Latin in the United States. Sometimes people confuse language because they do not find and do not know the word they need in the language they speak. Sometimes people deliberately mix language because they know one language better than another.
As a result, children model what they see and hear, so your child lives in an environment where two languages are mixed, this is normal and you should not expect him or her to He should not do this because this expectation seems very unrealistic.
4. Is it too late to raise your child in two languages?
It is never too late – or too early – to introduce a second language to your child and teach a bilingual child.
Learning a second language is easier for children under 10, even learning under 5 is easier than 10; Now compare this to an attempt to learn a second language in adulthood. The best time, according to experts, appears from birth to 3 years old, just when the child learns the first words of his life and his mind is still empty and flexible.
The second best time to learn a second language is for children between the ages of 4 and 7, as they can still best process multilingualism in a parallel way. In other words, children between the ages of 4 and 7 can build their second language system alongside the first language and learn and speak a second language like natives.
If your children are older than 7 years and you are thinking about learning their second language, it is not too late. The third best time to learn a second language is from about age 8 until puberty. Studies show that after puberty, the new language is stored in a separate part of the brain, so children must translate or access the new language as a pathway to their native language.
5. Children are like sponges and they can become bilingual without any effort.
Although it is easier for young children to learn a second language as long as they are exposed to it sooner, it does not happen without preliminaries. This seems unrealistic if you expect your child to learn a second language just by watching an episode on TV without continuing to watch it.
You should not become a leader by learning a language. But introducing a second language to your child requires special preparations and instructions, and the most important thing is its continuity and continuity; Although through daily dialogue and formal instructions. It is best to expose children to a second language through interesting, meaningful, real-life ways.
Use strategies and methods for children to learn a second language that they like and learn better, such as funny, fun, music, and games.
See Also Since when does my child understand what I am saying?
