As those of you who follow us on Facebook and Twitter may be aware, this week was One Parent One Language week at a great bilingual parenting blog called Spanglish Baby. Bloggers Ana and Roxana dedicated the entire week to talking about this popular bilingual parenting method, which involves each parent speaking to a child in his or her native language. This method is often the logical choice for dual language couples who want their children to be bilingual but, as in most things in life, raising a child using the OPOL method does present many challenges. What if one parent doesn’t understand the other’s language? Should parents stick to the method in social situations outside the home even when it may seem offensive to others? Can speaking to a child in a foreign language in public make the child feel self-conscious?

Spanglish Baby consulted with a group of experts to find the answers to some of these questions. Some of the OPOL week posts include real life stories about the ins and outs of daily life in a OPOL home and expert advice on how to encourage kids to speak in the minority language. There’s also a great article by Dr. Naomi Steiner, author of 7 Steps to Raising a Bilingual Child, on why the OPOL method is so effective in bilingual homes. Here’s her list of FIVE REASONS WHY OPOL IS THE WAY TO GO to get you started. The advice is obviously geared toward Spanish as the minority language, but the advice could certainly be applied to any language combination:

1. It supports consistency: what I mean here is that this is the easiest way for you to be speaking with your child Spanish consistently because you are doing it all the time. Period. I also recommend speaking to your child in Spanish when in public. But I know that a lot of parents switch to English. Each family has to make this personal decision for themselves.
2. It is simple: that’s because you are speaking Spanish, and that’s it. There is not room for “oh we are taking a bath so let’s switch languages now. Simple parenting strategies are important in our busy lives. A certain amount of steps just become automatic. For instance, if you are at the library you look for the Spanish book section.
3. It is effortless: you don’t need to be handling and dealing with your child that “now is Spanish time,” because it is always Spanish time with you. And if you child does tell you at one point “no more Spanish,” then you sit down with your child and explain why Spanish is important to you and your family and that this is part of you that you are giving to him.
4. It naturally encourages your child to respond to you in Spanish: as a young infant, your child will literally automatically answer you back in your language. And will continue to do so as long as it remains your house rule.
5. It enables a child to receive a maximum language input in two different languages: This is very important. So for instance if you are speaking Spanish and your child is hearing English at day care, your child will also be learning to speak Spanish fluently because when you are with her you are always speaking in Spanish. If you speak to your child half the time in English, that decreases the exposure to Spanish in half, which in turn will slow down your child’s pace of learning Spanish.

Whether you choose OPOL or any of the other bilingual parenting methods to raise your bilingual family, we at Bilingual Readers will be here to give you ideas and advice on how to use reading as an effective language learning tool. Remember that you can also find useful resources on bilingualism, early literacy, language acquistion and more on our Resources page, which is constantly being updated with new and interesting articles and websites.