For many immigrant families and foreign-related marriage families, bilingualism is a necessity in real life. For more families, bilingualism is an option. With the trend of globalization, more and more people have to live and work in two or more languages, and bilingualism has increasingly become a part of our lives. It can be a natural and happy thing for children to grow up in two languages.
How old is the best bilingual baby?
When you want your child to be a bilingual baby, the first question is, when did you start to expose your child to a second language? Some parents want their children to master their mother tongue before learning a second language, while others want to wait until their children go to primary school. Actually, it's a little late. It is best to cultivate bilingual babies from the age of zero.
Psycholinguistic research shows that infants are equally sensitive to all sounds before 1 year old. After 1 year old, the distinction between those sounds that are not in the mother tongue gradually weakens. Children have formed a pair of "mother tongue ears" before they can speak their mother tongue fluently. Once the ears of the mother tongue are formed, children will often be influenced by the mother tongue when they learn another language, and their pronunciation will easily take on the accent of the mother tongue. When we speak a language other than our mother tongue, we often have an accent. This situation is not only because our tongues are not trained, but also because our ears can't clearly hear the difference between the two sounds.
If children can be exposed to two languages from the age of zero, children will form a "bilingual ear", which is easy to accept the communication between the two languages and speak them in an authentic way.
Practical strategy:
From the birth of the baby, talk to the baby in the second language, sing songs, read nursery rhymes, play games with the baby, and expose the baby to books and audio-visual products in the second language (it is best not to watch TV screens for more than half an hour every day).
If you can't start from the age of zero ... if you can't start from the age of zero, parents don't have to worry. The human brain is flexible and has the ability to learn new languages for life, but the smaller the ability, the stronger it is.
According to the different acquisition time, "bilingualism" can be divided into four types: infant bilingualism (being exposed to two languages from infancy, with "bilingualism" as the mother tongue), child bilingualism (being exposed to a second language in childhood), adolescent bilingualism and adult bilingualism.
It is found that infant bilinguals and child bilinguals often reach the level of their mother tongue in both languages, with pure pronunciation and no accent. But young bilinguals and adult bilinguals will have second language accents. Therefore, it doesn't matter if you miss the age of zero, as long as your child enters a second language environment before puberty.
Is the IQ of bilingual children high or low?
Another question that parents are concerned about is: What effect does bilingualism have on children's intellectual and psychological development? Did you just learn a language skill, or did it have a deeper meaning?
Early studies often get unfavorable results, arguing that bilingual children have low IQ and are prone to learning disabilities, which will lead to identity crisis because of two cultural backgrounds. But in recent years, researchers have increasingly discovered the benefits of bilingualism.
In many immigrant families, parents are worried that their children can't learn a second language well because they use their mother tongue too much, so they give up speaking their mother tongue with their children. As a result, children often learn a new language quickly, but forget their mother tongue and get rid of the culture behind them. However, a large-scale survey of immigrant families found that children who keep their mother tongue learn a second language better than those who choose to give up. Researchers believe that this phenomenon is due to the similarity of different languages, and the two languages will not only fight against each other, but also promote each other.
A survey of French-English bilingual children in French-speaking Canada was conducted from 65438 to 0962, and it was found that bilingual children had better academic performance than monolingual children. The latest research shows that bilingual children are more likely to grasp the essence of tasks and are less likely to be misled by interference information when completing tasks.
The study of English-French bilingual teenagers in Canada also found that bilinguals identify with the two cultures behind the language, instead of identifying with one and rejecting the other, and there is no legendary "identity crisis". Some case studies show that bilingual children often become "bicultural" and can live freely in both cultures.
It seems that biculturalism is the highest level of bilingualism.
Practical strategy:
What's the best attitude for bilingual babies?
For bilingualism, parents' attitude is much more important than language skills.
Parents should not ridicule or criticize their children's language performance, especially their language weakness, and try to avoid correcting their children's language mistakes and language mixing.
Parents should not let their children have to speak a certain language to show off on some occasions, so as not to embarrass their children.
Parents should not deliberately emphasize the importance of bilingualism and put too much pressure on their children.
Parents should not force their children to reach the same level in two languages. It is normal for children to form dominant and weak languages. Due to the change of environment, the transformation between advantages and disadvantages will naturally occur.
Parents should put their children's own happiness and interests first when considering their children's language problems. This includes not only the children's recent living conditions, but also their future living and working environment.
It is better to say that biculturalism is the premise of bilingualism than that the highest state of bilingualism is biculturalism. If we not only have enough recognition of biculturalism in family daily life, but also experience biculturalism through family daily activities every day, then bilingualism is not only useful knowledge, but also a basic life need in children's understanding of the world. Advanced training courses, super teachers and super teaching methods are just the tip of the iceberg for bi-culture.