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Showing posts with the label third culture children

One day - One language

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How to increase a minority language exposure It is inevitable that in any multi-lingual family setting one or more languages get more time and focus than the others. Naturally one of the parents or any other adult speaking minority language just gets to spend more time with the kids. Whether a stay at home parent, caregiver or maybe the one that spends a long morning commute with the child. Or there is more relatives around speaking the language. Or simply the adult responsible for passing on the minority language is just not as comfortable with it, gets limited time, cannot naturally hold conversation with a young child or simply gets frustrated to be in it alone.  As the time progresses and LingoPapa works hard away from home to support us, he gets limited time to speak and actively teach children Urdu. It a language that needs more attention in our household. Not only we get the least exposure to it but it also needs more attention due to its Persian script and ba...
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Be a proud oddball! The biggest and most common block to multilingual upbringing

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I already wrote about the "killer language" and the need to get the right ammunition to fight it. However, before we start speaking the "ammo and conquest", there is a really important aspect of multilingual parenting/upbringing that needs to be discussed. Hand on heart, I can say that this aspect has been coming up time and time again when I have met other people attempting the whole multilingual family business. So I feel this needs to be highlighted. Most of the time the parents and carers who plan or already do try to bring up the kids with another language(s) admit that they are: a) not confident, b) shy, or c) feeling that they stick out/draw attention to themselves, or d) ashamed  ...to speak to the child in minority language in public. Well, let me tell you, if you feel any of the emotions listed above when speaking in public in your language (most of the time minority one), YOU do have a problem.  This is because, your child will fee...
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Majority Language Trap

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In the context of  multilingual setting the "majority language" is usually the language spoken by great majority of people around us. Sometimes such language can be described as a "dominant language" .  Having worked with LittleLingo for past 4 years and MiniLingo for 2 years, I can understand why a majority language is also referred to as the "killer language" . I can confirm that even if you put a maximum effort into speaking to a child from birth in non-majority language, the killer one will creep in. Especially, if you live a well adjusted life in the majority language community such as visiting playgroups, children activities, sports clubs, watch TV and interact with other majority language speakers. In our case, what is even worse is the fact that  PapaLingo and I speak "the killer" to each other at home. But not to worry, there are tried and tested ways to beat the "killer"! ************************************************...
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The "WHY" volume II. - Teaching kids a foreign language that is not your mother tongue

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In the previous post I spoke about passing on a mother tongue. But what about teaching another foreign language to a child? I say: ""Why not"? 💪. From own experience I can say that  children are very receptive if they are spoken to by an adult ( be it a parent, educator ...) in a foreign language and make a remarkable progress. I can give an example - our son has been treated by a Chinese doctor who has limited command of English. Once LittleLingo learnt how to greet the doctor in Chinese and saw the positive reaction, he was hooked. LittleLingo anf MiniLingo really enjoy a good foreign language read :)  As per the reasons why parents should consider teaching a foreign language to a child, here are some of ours: 1) Developing passion for languages That is a good thing, right? Show them how it works, make it natural for them. 2) Passing on a life skill Can you speak a conversational Spanish? Do you treasure such skill? Why don't you pass it on ...
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The "WHY" volume I. Our reasons to teach our kids our mother tongues

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This post is purely focusing on reasons why we decided to pass our mother tongues ( yes plural because husband and I have entirely different mother tongue) to our children. Czech countryside  Many people may have many other reason why to do so. In no particular order of importance, here are our answers to the "WHY": 1) Authenticity of communication with our off springs To us we will never speak our second or third language as well as our mother tongue, even though we are pretty good. Also all those little expressions and jokes...right? 2) Passing on the cultural heritage Lots of the culture we grew up in is locked in language. Some things you just cannot translate. LingoPapa uses many Urdu proverbs to illustrate a point for example. 3) Passing on a skill for life Being able to use another language and think in it is an invaluable skill and asset. Even if you think your language is too small or not wide spoken. 4) Brain development It is proven th...
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