This is probably the question I get asked the most here in France. "Do you speak in English with your children"? My answer? "Yes of course I do". The reply, "that's fantastic, they're so lucky, they'll be bilingual".
Now I know my children are lucky to be exposed to 2 languages from birth, they are already bilingual. I'm not bragging about it, it's just a fact. It happened naturally, and we didn't force anything, Francois speaks to them in French and I speak to them in English. (see old post here) But did you know not every bi-lingual family/dual-nationality family chooses to take advantage of the languages they have available? Some choose to only speak the language of one of the parents, most likely the one of the country where they are living. That to me seems crazy, why miss out on the opportunity? Language is really important in my house.
So much so, we jumped at the opportunity of joining the local Breton school (see here), where Laila is taught exclusively in Breton. The teacher was talking to me the other day about how amazed he is with her language skills. Bearing in mind she's only been there since September 2011, apparently she is now talking Breton a couple levels higher than she should be! One of the schools theories, and I believe (I haven't done that much research) it's the same theory among most linguists, is that the earlier a child is exposed to a language, the easier it will be for them to learn it. I can of course vouch for this, but also it appears that once that part of the brain, the part for learning languages, is activated, it's easier for the person to learn further languages. So when you hear about people being able to speak 11 languages at the age of 20 (see article), it's not that surprising. So is Laila learning Breton so fast because she is already bi-lingual?
Laila is not unique in being tri-lingual, in her school alone there are 5 other families I can think of whose children will be tri-lingual. There is another English/French family, there is Spanish/French, Russian/French, German/French and Dutch/French, each with 2 children at the school. These are the ones I know of, there might be more.
I teach English at the same school to the 8-11 year olds. They are all already bi-lingual (French/Breton), by the time they start English lessons at the age of 8. It amazes me how fast they are learning, I wish I could know if this is because they are all linguists, having been exposed to 2 languages since the age of 3 or 4 at school, because this is a perfect age to teach kids a new language, OR simply because I am an amazing teacher! Maybe it's a combination of the 3! These kids are amazing though and make me love my work.
Now Max is starting to speak in sentences it's very interesting to draw some comparisons. He started the same way as Laila, possibly a couple of months later than her, she was exceptionally early with speech. His first words were both in English and French, often choosing the one which is easier to say. As he got a bit older, around 16-18 months when you realise they can understand your questions and requests, we noticed we could ask him the same thing in English or French and he would understand equally as well. This was of course reassuring. Now as he approaches the age of 2 and is speaking in short sentences composed of 3 or 4 words, he is still using both languages, however I believe he still favours English. Is this because it's his maternal language or is it due to the level of exposure?
Max is not growing in the same surroundings as Laila did, he has been in France since he was 4 months old and in French childcare since 11 months old. He hears French wherever we go, however he is exposed to lots of English too. He's at home with me 4 days out of 7, Laila speaks to him in English, and a lot of the DVD's we watch and books we read are in English. But we do watch and read things in French too. He surprised us the other day when we counted to 3 with him, by carrying on up to 10! Then he did it in French too!! He even knows some Breton words which proves how much of an influence his big sister is. He knows "furlukin" which means "clown" and he can count to 3!
I, myself, plan to start Breton lessons as soon as I have the time, who knows when that will be, but I'm exposed to it so much now as I spend a lot of time at the school, that I feel ready to give it a go. I already understand certain things and am excited about learning a new language that I could use right here and not just on holiday!
As it evolves this topic is certainly to be continued....
1 comment:
My personal opinion is that it's because she already speaks two languages. I taught English in an école primaire for two years in Bretagne and the children who came from two-language homes definitely caught on faster (and had better accents) than those who came from French-only homes.
And how cool is that she's learning Breton?? I did one semester of it, but eventually stopped because it was a "false beginners" class, ie everyone else already had some Breton under their belt so the class moved too fast for me. But it was fun though! Did you know there are two different dialects of it? Ie the one Laila is learning in northern Bretagne is different from the one I was learning in southern Bretagne.
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