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Bilingual Babies!

Teaching Your Child a Foreign Language

By Katherine Bontrager

Bloom and her husband waited until their son was almost 5 and fluent in English before they asked their nanny to start integrating Spanish into conversations. At first self-conscious because she had worked so hard on speaking English, the sitter soon learned to incorporate her native language in everyday life. "In between kindergarten and first grade, we asked to make it part of his day," she says. "We bought flashcards and workbooks to help her, and she turned out to be a wonderful teacher."

Story time implements basic vocabulary, and the sitter has created matching games with words and pictures. Despite some initial resistance, Bloom's son has come to understand questions in Spanish and has started to incorporate the language into his routine with the help of some fun nightly prompting from his father. His knowledge of Spanish has become an incentive of sorts for watching a favorite TV show. "As a new mother I was worried that he was not going to learn English, that he might be confused," Bloom says. "Now looking at it, if I had to do it again, I may have been a little more aggressive about it and started around the age of 2."

 

Bloom's fear that Spanish would only serve to confuse her son's understanding of English is a common worry. However, DeBroff says the lessons learned in another language may help youngsters to grasp the first. "Parents may wonder whether learning a second language before your child has yet to fully master English will detract from his learning ability," she says. "To the contrary, learning the roots and structure of a second language typically enhances your child's English. As long as children hear these languages methodically and regularly, they can learn more than one simultaneously."

Learning a second language can help children grow and develop in cognitive, language and social development, DeBroff says. The more language learning there is, the more cognitive development there is. "The more languages a child is learning in the early years, the longer it will take him to speak, but once he starts speaking, he will speak in all the languages he knows," she says. "The receptive learning part of the language development process takes longer because the understanding process of two or more languages takes longer. Socially the child is enhanced, because he will be able to relate to people from different cultures. He will acquire more experience with different kinds of people ... It is important to understand how truly beneficial it will be for their child to speak and understand easily and comfortably in more than one language."

Want to see more?

• Books, Babies and Brains: A Few More Good Reasons to Read to Your Baby
• Baby's First Words: Speech Milestones and Tips for Parents
• Brain Builders: Stimulating Activities for Your 3-Month-Old Baby
• Talk about it!

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