Bilingualism

My son is 3 years old. He is half English and half Argentinian with relatives in Britain, Spain and South America.Every attempt is being made to bring him up bilingaul in both English and Spanish. But in an almost exclusively English speaking country this is hard.Personally I am linguistically useless (I have enough trouble with English) but my other half is a translator by trade and obviously well placed for this sort of thing. At least in an academic sense.Does anyone have any experience, advice or insights into bilingualism? Extending the topic - Are there any notable psychological or educational advantages or disadvantages to bilingualism for children?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Hmm, being trilingual myself (Dutch, English and German), I'd say there are many benefits to this. Not in the least being able to understand other people when they think you can't .Other then that, my country being small and all, it's nice to be able to communicate with your neighbours and a significant part of the world in an economic sense of course.I wouldn't know any disadvantage anyway. I'm hard pressed how knowing MORE is a bad thing.

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I hunt for the truth

In principle I agree. But I fear (perhaps irrationally) that in learning two languages in a country where, frankly, this is quite unusual he might be considered to be "behind" in English.I fear (again - perhaps irrationally) that when he starts school although he will be advantaged in many ways by having Spanish as well as English that in the "system" this will count for little. In fact if his English is not at the same level as everyone else who only has one language to learn I fear (perhaps irrationally) that he will be considered "behind" and treated as such.I never truly knew what irrational fear was until I became a parent so I am quite willing to admit this may all be part of that. But irrational or not I do worry. Even though I think he ultimately has an advantage that is phenomenolly worth having.Do you get what I am saying (even if you think I am wrong to worry).....?

Cognitive gains in 7-month-old bilingual infants

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Children exposed to bilingual input typically learn 2 languages without obvious difficulties. However, it is unclear how preverbal infants cope with the inconsistent input and how bilingualism affects early development. In 3 eye-tracking studies we show that 7-month-old infants, raised with 2 languages from birth, display improved cognitive control abilities compared with matched monolinguals. Whereas both monolinguals and bilinguals learned to respond to a speech or visual cue to anticipate a reward on one side of a screen, only bilinguals succeeded in redirecting their anticipatory looks when the cue began signaling the reward on the opposite side. Bilingual infants rapidly suppressed their looks to the first location and learned the new response. These findings show that processing representations from 2 languages leads to a domain-general enhancement of the cognitive control system well before the onset of speech.

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blog commentary

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Flexible Learning of Multiple Speech Structures in Bilingual Infants

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Children acquire their native language according to a well-defined time frame. Surprisingly, although children raised in bilingual environments have to learn roughly twice as much about language as their monolingual peers, the speed of acquisition is comparable in monolinguals and bilinguals. Here, we show that preverbal 12-month-old bilingual infants have become more flexible at learning speech structures than monolinguals. When given the opportunity to simultaneously learn two different regularities, bilingual infants learned both, whereas monolinguals learned only one of them. Hence, bilinguals may acquire two languages in the time in which monolinguals acquire one because they quickly become more flexible learners.

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blog discussion

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Spatial negative priming in bilingualism

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Balanced bilinguals have been shown to have an enhanced ability to inhibit distracting information. In this study, we investigated the hypothesis that the bilinguals' efficiency in inhibitory control can be advantageous in some conditions, but disadvantageous in others”for example, negative priming conditions, in which previously irrelevant information becomes relevant. Data collected in a target-stimulus locating task from 29 early bilingual adults and 29 age-matched monolinguals showed that the bilinguals' greater inhibition of irrelevant spatial information (i.e., the position of a distractor stimulus) resulted in a smaller effect of the distractor presence (i.e., a smaller difference in error rates in trials with and without distractors) and a larger negative priming effect (i.e., a larger difference between the error rates shown in trials wherein the target position corresponded to the position of the previous-trial distractor and trials wherein the target was presented in a previously vacant position). These findings support the hypothesis of specific nonlinguistic cognitive effects of bilingualism on inhibitory control functions, which are not necessarily reflected in cognitive advantages.

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blog discussion

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What did Simon say? Revisiting the bilingual advantage

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Bilingual children often outperform monolingual children in tasks of cognitive control. This advantage may be a consequence of the fact that bilinguals have more practice controlling attention due to an ongoing need to manage two languages. However, existing evidence is limited because possible differences in ethnicity and socioeconomic status have not been properly controlled. To address this issue, we administered the Simon task to bilingual and monolingual children of identical ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. Bilingual and monolingual children performed identically, whereas children from higher SES families were advantaged relative to children from lower SES families. Controlling differences in SES and ethnicity may attenuate the bilingual advantage in cognitive control.

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Yep. It isn't irrational, just hyperfocused worry. That's not always a bad thing.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any decent sources to back up what I'm about to say, but I'll continue looking. I would like to say that I do remember a conversation I had with a friend studying psychology who said they'd read a study that suggested bilingualism may have a detrimental effect on the literacy level of children, however, I think the study may have been done on exclusively children who speak only spanish in the home and are only taught in english. So, I'm not sure that would really apply to your situation. Furthermore, though this is purely anecdotal, I've found that people who have learned more than one language early in life tend to be able to pick up other languages later in life much easier than monolingual people. Personally, as someone who became basically fluent in spanish after living in spain for awhile and having since lost that fluency, I really regret the lack of people who speak languages other than english in my current place of residence. Language significantly influences the way we think, and I think being able to interpret the world from the different perspectives language gives us is a wonderful asset to have.

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We have many intuitions in our life and the point is that many of these intuitions are wrong. The question is, are we going to test those intuitions?
-Dan Ariely

Cheers Mod. I feel better already But I still have that silly itch where I can see the day that he comes back from a 6 week summer in Argentina and starts back at school in Brixton and has forgotten his English completely thus invoking the ridicule of his peers.My wife thinks I am a worrisome fool... I should probably just listen to her. She is invariably right.

I think we all broadly agree on that. But are there disadvantages to being brought up in a bilingual environemnt in a predominantly monolingual culture? Is there a danger of "being left behind" in the primary tongue? Or am I just a monolingual dad with too much time to worry on his hands?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

My experience (and far more significantly my bilingual schoolteacher wife's experience) is that kids - and they're nearly all Hispanic kids - that are bilingual have only advantages. Bilinguality from an early age doesn't seem to hinder their English at all. I get so jealous of both wife and of several of my Hispanic friends that I can scarcely stand it. They can hop back and forth seamlessly between the languages. I read Spanish just fine, but just cannot keep up in a conversation, particularly in TexMex as opposed to my wife's Costa Rican Spanish.And I'm betting that being bilingual from toddlerhood actually helps brain development.

My daughter came back to New Orleans from London after her junior year in college there and asked some folks in a bank, "Are y'all in queue?"That's the worst that can happen.

"y'all". "queue".How bizzarrely Americanly British!! Cool.

Hi, Straggler.I don't think there is anything wrong with teaching a kid to be bilingual. I've tried to teach my son a little bit of Chinese, but I haven't been consistent enough to make it stick.Still, I've always felt rather uncomfortable about this kind of thing: it reminds me too much of parents who try to influence their children's career and lifestyle choices by inundating them with things that will nudge them in that direction.All the same, I'd still like to be able to speak Chinese with my son.Oh well.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

This is my experience. My ex is Mexican. The eldest child, she grew up in Chicago speaking Spanish in the home and learning English when she started school. When her brother was born, her parents had them speak Spanish with them and English with each other. By the time her younger sisters came along, she and her brother had already worn out their parents and so those kids got by a lot more easily. They later moved to Southern California, where we met and live. When our sons were little, my in-laws provided day care entirely in Spanish, so our sons learned to understand Spanish though they were reluctant to try speaking it -- our older son did take Spanish in school and now uses Spanish all the time as a cop; he's been told that he doesn't have an accent.Since my ex and I were both foreign-language students (German for me, French for her; we met in the university language lab), we observed how they learned. One thing we noticed with them and with their cousins was that young kids very quickly learn which language to use with each person they know. When my father, who had grown up in Texas, started using some Spanish, our son got very upset with him and told him sternly that he's not supposed to speak in Spanish.I noticed an interesting thing that might have a bearing on your situation. I tried speaking German with my son in order for him to learn. No interest at all. But when he heard two people speaking Spanish, he listened intently. My interpretation of what was happening is that the key is for the child to see the language being used by others. If they see it being used, then they recognize it as a language and as something they need to learn. If only one person is using it, then that person is just making funny noises again.

In our case he is going to have to learn both to some extent. Me and my side of his family are monolingually English speaking all the way.Her (with her as the obvious exception) side of the family are equally monolingually Spanish speaking. So to communicate with both sides of his family he will need to speak both. In fact he is almost certainly going to be called upon to translate between the different sides of his family at some point!!So far the signs are good. He has already started talking to his mum in Spanish and then coming to tell me in English what it is she wants me to do

That is sooooooo true!!!When my mum (his gran - obviously) starts trying to use Spanish words he gets deeply annoyed with her "No Spanish for you grandma!! For me and my mummy. That's not nice. Stop it please"Maybe I should be worrying more about his levels of bossiness instead of any difficulties learning two languages might result in...

Bluejay writes Holy Chrysler! You can speak Chinese (Mandarin I presume)? Fluently? That language has more native speakers than any other. Cool.I traveled across China this past Spring. An ex-pat tried explaining to me the basics to their writing system. I can't conceive a more complicated system.In my travels I try to at least pick up the minimal native words and phrases needed. I remember how impressed Cambodian villagers were when I unsuccessfully TRIED to order a food meal in a remote village. They seemed overly impressed that a "white person" (foreigner) would even bother. It left an impression on me as well. Unfortunately, I was even less successful speaking Chinese words. With several varying inflections for each word, it was catastraphic for me to learn anything beyond "hello." A pity.Anyway, I am into all things Chinese at the moment. Would you mind telling me how you learnt Chinese?STRAGGLER, I think it ONLY a generous/lucky gift that your son could learn two languages. My siblings "curse" my father for NOT teaching us "world-famous Bulgarian". [As my father's father erroneously taught him, using/learning another language would impede your assimilation into the American system.]cheerioEdited by dronester, : clarity