When my brother and I were kids, our parents would sit us down for some evening conversation with a little girl named Hélène. Hélène was French; she lived with her apron-skirted mother, tassel-shoed father, and a brother name Pierre. On our 12-record box set of language lessons, Hélène would do things like oversleep, causing her family to break into song: “Bonjour Hélène, bonjour Hélène/ C’est le matin, c’est le matin!’’
Comments
what a wonderful article! I am a linguist with five kids. Our kids hear Spanish, Arabic and English at home. My first child speaks five languages and my second speaks four. Other three kids have various degrees of fluency, it has gotten harder since their grandparents have died. The best thing for any language learner is to be immersed in the target language. This is ideal. After that,at least one parent must model the target language and speak/respond only in that language. Otherwise, the kids will resort to English (the dominant lang.) Language is a wonderful tool and creative component to anyone's life. Not to mention how useful it is to be able to switch languages when one needs privacy or when you want to correct a child's behavior.