In honor of Marina and the Little Green Boy: In the City, the second title in the Marina and the Little Green Boy series, this Saturday February 6th at 6:30 pm we’ll be holding a bilingual storytime and craft session at an adorable new children’s bookshop in Madrid called El Hada Trabalenguas. If you’ve never been there before (click to see a map), Saturday would be a great time to check it out with your kids and pick up your copy of both Marina and the Little Green Boy books. This activity is free for children aged 5 through 8, and all you have to do is call Maísa from the bookshop at 91 578 38 08 to reserve a spot. See you there!

After a much needed holiday, the Little Green Boy is back for his next adventure! Today the second title in the Marina and the Little Green Boy series, In the City, is finally available both on our website and in bookshops throughout Spain. This time the Little Green Boy makes his way into the city to discover the many thrilling experiences urban life on planet Earth has to offer. Buses, motorcycles, street lights, Papa’s factory, swings…and even a policeman! There are so many surprises waiting for the Little Green Boy in the city!

Marina and the Little Green Boy: In the City is the second title in a bilingual series about two friends from different cultures who, believe it or not, have a lot to learn from one another.

For more information about Bilingual Readers, please visit us at bilingualreaders.com. If you like what you see, please tell a friend! You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter!

image credit: drawing with mummy, via flickr

I have a 27 month old son, who is currently doing a great job learning two languages. He learns Spanish from me and English from his mother (I am Spanish and she is British). I can see that he hasn’t had any problems with this arrangement to date. My wife and I have been wondering if it would be a good idea to teach our son a third language. Is that a possibility? Would this affect his first two languages or put too much pressure on him? Is he ready for this or should we wait? We look forward to your response, since we’ll be basing our decision on your professional opinion.

Eloy

Dear Eloy,

Of course it’s possible to teach your son a third language. If you can create enough exposure in that language, your child could even become trilingual. Unless your son has some sort of developmental problems (which doesn’t seem to be the case if he is already speaking Spanish and English at 27 months), he should have the necessary capacity for learning several languages at the same time as long as he is given enough learning opportunities in each language. There are many trilingual children in the world who are proof that trilingualism is possible.

Your fears about putting too much pressure on your son are the key to deciding whether or not to start teaching him a third language at this point. The best option would be for your son to learn his third language in the same way he has learned his first two, by having enough exposure to the language so that he’ll acquire it “naturally”. If he’ll be learning his third language in more of a classroom type setting, it may be best to wait a bit until your son’s first two languages are a bit more grounded. This would put less stress on your son, and you wouldn’t risk any interference with the development of his first two “mother tongues”.

Here’s an example, which might clear things up for you:

If you are able to expose your child to the third language during at least 20% of his waking hours (because one of you has a high enough level in the language or you plan to hire a nanny who speaks the language or are enrolling your son in a school which teaches in that language), then go ahead and start right away. But if you’re thinking about taking your son to classes once a week or watching television in the other language, without giving your son the opportunity to really speak with anyone in that language, it might be a good idea to wait. In this case we’re not talking about developing the third language like a native speaker would, so your son should be able to learn a third language in a classroom setting when he’s a bit older. Many of us have learned to speak a new language very well as older children or even adults, so it’s never too late.

Here are a few suggestions on how to start with the third language if one of the parents can speak and read the language well:

-Reading books in the new language are a great option. It can be useful to choose books for younger children with illustrations, tabs and other special features for you to discuss with your son. The parent who decides to read to the child in the new language should always read in that language, so that the child associates reading time with the new language. If you can find bilingual books in the new language and the language the other parent speaks, that would be a wonderful resource. For example, an English speaking father could read a book in German (the third language) and the mother would read the same book in Spanish. The child will first become familiar with the story in one of his native languages, and then he’ll enjoy the story in the third language.

-A new character or doll that only speaks the new language. This system will allow you not to break the “one parent, one language” rule because you can use the stuffed animal as a new voice. If possible, you might even try to find a doll based on one of the stories you’ve begun to read him (this may be possible with some well known characters). The doll “only knows how to speak” the thrid lanugage, so you could begin to play with your child using a separate voice for the doll in the new language.

-”Only in the new language”. Children have a great understanding of exceptions. If you have a no television during the week rule at home, you could make an exception for television or movies in the new language. You can also use dvds your son already loves and allow him to watch them with the audio track in the new language.

Sometimes it can be difficult to get a child to see a new language as something natural, so creating situations for your son to interact with monolingual people in the new language is one of the most useful things you can do (during family vacations, with a native speaker nanny or an exchange student at home…) The best of luck!

Dr. Orlanda Varela is a Child Psychiatrist and the Coordinator of the educational project for Bilingual Families at SINEWS Multilingual Therapy Institute in Madrid. SINEWS organizes bilingualism workshops for parents in Madrid, as well as personalized speech therapy sessions to bilingual families with specific language development problems. For more information, please visit sinews.es.

image credit: progressive bedtime story party, via flickr

An Ohio State University study which was recently published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry shows just how important environment can be when it comes to developing early literacy skills. The study, which followed the development of reading skills in 135 identical twins and 179 same-sex fraternal twins over the course of two years, showed that “environment is almost completely responsible for the growth of reading skills that are taught, such as words and letters, and 80% responsible for growth in awareness of sounds in reading.” According to researcher Stephen Petrill, “Regardless of where children start as far as reading skills, and the impact that genetics and environment had on their initial skills, we found that their environment had an impact on how fast or how slowly those reading skills developed.”

These results of this study may not come as a surprise, but many parents are left asking themselves what they can do to create the healthiest environment possible for their children’s budding reading skills. This can be an especially daunting question in bilingual homes, where parents are already making the extra effort to help their children learn two or more languages at the same time. How can a busy parent in today’s hectic society make sure their child is getting the early literacy skills he needs?

At Bilingual Readers we believe one of the most important things you can do to create the kind of healthy environment that promotes early literacy skills is to read to and with your children on a daily basis. A 2007 study on shared parent-infant book reading by the Infant Toddler Specialists of Indiana showed that early parent-child book reading actually supports later language learning. Language development and early literacy skills go hand in hand, so by reading aloud to your children in both their languages you’ll not only be giving them the tools they’ll need to learn to read in the future, you’ll also be expanding their vocabulary and knowledge of the languages they’re learning right now. Just 15 to 20 minutes a day of reading time is all it takes to develop these skills and, more importantly, a love of reading that will last a lifetime.

image credit: fairground endpapers, via flickr

Today we’re proud to host January’s Blogging on Bilingualism Carnival. This is a great opportunity for readers to discover great articles on raising bilingual children from all over the world. We’ve received lots of fun and interesting submissions, so let the carnival begin!!!

Andrea from Mother Tongue Books is a woman after our own hearts, since she owns and operates an on-line bookshop which sells bilingual books. She has also recently started a blog to chronicle her own family’s adventures. In her first post, Money Where Your Mouth Is, Andrea candidly explains why she and her children are finally buckling down and learning Hungarian.

From our friends at Intrepidly Bilingual we received a great and aptly titled post called Sneaky Little Punks on how bilingual kids can use language to play parents against one another. Very funny stuff.

Maria at Fab Mums wrote a piece called Making Giant Leaps Toward Bilingualism about the importance of helping bilingual children get to know other bilingual children so that they don’t feel different or singled out. She also has several other great suggestions for reinforcing the minority language.

Our good friends at Spanglish Baby submitted an excellent article about the age old question: Is There Such a Thing as the Critical Period for Language Learning? Bilingualism expert Barbara Zurer Pearson weighs in on this subject with some encouraging words and straight forward advice for all those who are raising bilingual children.

In her post entitled Encouraging Multilingualism, Dominique talks about the importance of learning multiple languages in today’s global society and how she is taking steps to introduce a FOURTH language with her already trilingual children.

Lauren at Hobomama sent us a very interesting post called Monolingual Raising a Bilingual Baby, in which she opens up about why and how she and her husband made the decision to teach their children German even though neither parent is a native speaker of the language. She also wrote a great review of Naomi Steiner’s book, 7 Steps to Raising a Bilingual Child, which could be a great help to parents who are looking for answers.

Jan from Babelkid wrote an interesting post called A New Hybrid Language is Born about the phenomenon of bilingual children mixing their languages to form new hybrids.

In her post, Out of the Mouth of Cubling, Steffi from Mummy do that! talks about the funny things that come out of her daughter’s mouth both in German and English. She also talks about how remarkable her daughter’s language awareness is at just 32 months. Kids really are language learning machines!

So that’s it for this month’s carnival! We hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as we have, and we look forward to seeing you again either here at Bilingual Readers or at next month’s carnival, which will be hosted by SpanglishBaby.

Update:
We just noticed an unread message on twitter, so we’ve decided to include just one more last-minute post.

Eve at Blogging on Bilingualism wrote a great piece on how cultural celebrations do a great job of making the minority language relevant for bilingual children.

Just a short reminder that Bilingual Readers will be hosting January’s Blogging on Bilingualism Carnival, so please be sure to send your submissions to deanna@bilingualreaders.com today! Then you can tune in to our blog on Wednesday January 20th for a great collection of  posts from bloggers around the world on their experiences, concerns, words of wisdom or hilarious anecdotes about raising bilingual children. See you there!

image credit: trilingual crayons, via flickr

How much exposure to a language does a 20 month old toddler need in order for a new language to really sink in? My daughter is learning German (from my husband + we live in Austria) and English (from me, I’m American) and we would like to teach her an additional language, Spanish so that she can communicate with some of our family members. Both my husband and I speak Spanish but not well enough to teach it to her, I feel. However, we have hired a caretaker from Paraguay that will spend about 15 hours a week with her. I would like her to speak with my daughter only in Spanish in the hopes that she will pick something up along the way. Is this a realistic expectation? Any thoughts you can offer would be greatly appreciated!

Many thanks,
Diana Robleto-Sattler

Dear Diana,

Your question is an excellent one because it deals with two important factors: the amount of time necessary for a a child to learn a third language and how to guarantee that a child will retain a language and not somehow forget everything he has learned.

With regard to the first aspect, many experts believe that children should hear a language for at least 20% of their waking hours. So if your child has 12 “communicative hours” a day, she would need to hear her third language at least 2.4 hours a day. If you want your child to become truly bilingual or trilingual, you will need to give her enough linguistic input in all of her languages for her to be able to communicate, study and work in these languages. We’re not just talking about learning a bit of another language, but rather learning enough of a language so that your daughter won’t have problems using the language on many different levels (speaking, reading, comprehension, writing…)

Of course, this magic number is really just an estimation since many children pick up languages with less exposure and quite effortlessly achieve a native-like level in two or three languages. This will depend not only on the amount of linguistic input received but also on the quality of this input, age of the child and her motivation, linguistic capacities and interest in learning. If you think about it though, it may not be necessary for your child to have as strong a level in her third language as she does with her first two. In order to communicate with family, at least for the first few years, it may be enough for her to feel comfortable with basic dialogue and she may not need to completely master the language.

At your daughter’s age a Spanish speaking nanny is a great idea because this sort of relationship will stimulate interaction and communication in the language. And, believe it or not, you can also be a big help to your daughter’s language development. You can help her learn children’s songs (which are especially useful when they involve hand movements), and you can also read bilingual books with her on a regular basis. Once she is familiar with the story and illustrations in one language, you, your husband or the nanny can introduce the second or third language. It’s not necessary for your daughter to have mastered her languages for her to enjoy either of these activities, since you can read stories and listen to the music as a means of teaching her. Of course, you can also expose her to cartoons and children’s programming in Spanish, which are easy to find on the internet. Spanish speaking family members can also help you out by visiting your home or recommending popular Spanish language resources.

With regard to the second aspect, making sure your daughter doesn’t “forget” or lose her languages, the only real solution is persistence. There have been cases of children who seem to have “forgotten” a language they learned during their early years of development (0-4 years). For example, many children who are adopted in a foreign country have shown a loss in basic productive capabilities and can no longer speak a word of their native language after spending time in their new home. However, not much research has been done on the passive competence of these children (comprehension), since it would probably be much easier for them to “relearn” their mother tongue than it would be for someone who had never been exposed to the language. In any case, after the age of 3 or 4 most children who receive enough exposure to a language do retain what they’ve learned.

You ask whether or not your expectations are realistic, and I honestly think they are. You may just need to incorporate a few other activities in addition to your daughter’s time with her nanny, so that she’ll receive a bit more exposure to Spanish. Lot’s of luck, and please keep us posted!

Dr. Orlanda Varela

Dr. Orlanda Varela is a Child Psychiatrist and the Coordinator of the educational project for Bilingual Families at SINEWS Multilingual Therapy Institute in Madrid. SINEWS organizes bilingualism workshops for parents in Madrid, as well as personalized speech therapy sessions to bilingual families with specific language development problems. For more information, please visit sinews.es.