In my last blog, I mentioned some beliefs and myths that some people have about becoming bilingual. It can be difficult for parents to know what is truth and what is myth. One family shared an experience with me that took place at their pediatrician's office. The mother took her two year old son for a check up. Her son has been exposed primarily to Polish so she was speaking to him in Polish during the visit. The pediatrician spoke English to the child while examining him. The pediatrician advised her to stop speaking only Polish to her son and to switch over to English. The reasoning behind this was that this would prevent her child from being confused when he entered preschool. I italicized the word "pediatrician" because this is a person that we listen to, confide in, and accept advice from. I decided to do some research in finding a short but knowledgeable video that I could send to parents who have questions about some of these myths.
Myths about dual language learning
Your child will become confused
More than half of the world population is bilinguals. In many parts of the world, people are trilingual. No one is confused learning multiple languages there. Circumstances it which multiple languages are learned may be confusing. Teaching multiple languages should be done in a structured, systematic and consistent way.
All children have the ability to differentiate between languages. Each language has a different sound and even 6 month old infants are able to distinguish between the switching of these sounds. Bilingual children are at an advantage because they have metalinguistic awareness.
Your child will be delayed
There is no evidence to suggest that this is true. Bilingual and monolingual children gain language at the same rate. Bilingual children use code switching in order to interchange between languages. This process challenges their brains and therefore overcome any kind of language learning delays that they may have.
Bilinguals are less intelligent than monolinguals
Bilinguals may have a smaller bank of vocabulary words, making it hard for them to express themselves, explain, or describe something. After hearing a story in English, a bilingual child would be able to retell it in detail using his or her native language.
Reducing to one language will increase your child's success
This may actually have a negative impact. It would cause a disruption when people would stop speaking the language that has been taken away when the child walked into the room. The child would feel that he can't fit in or associate himself with the culture of the family. It would negatively impact the child socially and emotionally.
The link below will take you to an 9 minute video interview that dispells myths about bilingualism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVYhpCprtzQ&feature=youtu.be
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