It is difficult for three-year-olds to learn English in the UK. Young children are acquiring and absorbing vocabulary from multiple languages before they start primary school.
Around 6 million people with non-British nationality live in the UK, with nearly 10 million people born outside of Britain. The term "superdiversity" was created by the German anthropologist Professor Steven Vertovec and is used in the social sciences. Around 20% of our school children speak English as an additional language. There are hundreds of different languages spoken in London schools.
Bart, a three-year-old who lives in London, happily juggles Italian, Dutch, and English in his household with the help of his nursery carers. His dad is from Italy and his mother is from the Netherlands. They are able to switch between languages with ease. Attanasio says that they have a busy life. You speak whatever language gets the job done when toys are thrown around.
We didn't have a plan as such, but we knew we wanted to raise him trilingual. My dad wanted my siblings and I to learn Italian so we could communicate with his family in Italy. I enjoy Italian culture a lot. I would like Bart to have that as well.
Bart likes the word ‘stout’, which means naughty or silly in Dutch, so we all use it
Bart will mostly reply in English if I speak to him only in Dutch. He understands me but he doesn't speak English very well. Bart woke up from his nap and asked for a biscuit in the doorway. The man cradles him while he arrives.
Many of the instructions for Bart and Maurice are in Dutch. The word stout means naughty or silly in Dutch, so we all use it. Attanasio says that he will get directness from you. He will have a romantic and artistic side. His obsession with food. His parents are fascinated by his language acquisition. The other night, I was doing numbers with him at the nursery and he was doing them in Spanish. It was cute, but I thought it was amazing what you can do.
The benefits of keeping language fluid are obvious to Bart and his family. The "one-language-one-parent" approach suggests each parent should only speak their first language to their children, while the "minority-language-at- home" approach suggests parents speak.
plurilingualism is a new approach to language learning that advocates for a more democratic approach to language learning. The approach suggests that parents use different languages in ways that make sense to them instead of following a set of rules.
The concept of plurilingual parenting is being developed by a PhD student at the Institute of Education. The use of languages in different contexts is more important than the native speaker's ability to speak a language. The approach focuses on the interconnectedness of culture and language. plurilingualism is more about how the languages are spoken than how many are spoken.
A more fluid approach to language can be used by some families. The couple married in 2004. They were both working in an Iranian cafe while he was studying for a masters degree. I was a cook in the kitchen. He says that he was offered help learning more English. She said thatHmm. Some people are debating about this. He might have asked me.
He smiled. Maybe I said that I need help. In 18 years, the couple have moved to Lincolnshire and raised their two children in English and Farsi. She says it felt natural to speak them in both languages. It was important that Siavash kept that part of his identity and that the children embraced it as well.
Niloufar and Saam's mother has learned enough to "get by" despite the fact that their father has always spoken Persian with them. They all started to say what they call "Finglish". Some words sound better in Farsi. Gooz is a Persian word for fart. She says that they have shared it with their friends. Both of them laugh. He says it was funny to learn the word gooseberry.
Tension may be created by certain beliefs around language learning. The idea that two or more languages spoken to a child might affect their academic ability is sticky. The mental processes that enable us to focus attention, plan, remember and juggle multiple tasks have been shown to be better in bilingual children.
The cognitive benefits of learning different languages begin in childhood and persist throughout our lives. Studies show that long-term use of two or more languages can change the brain in a number of ways. A University of Edinburgh study of 600 stroke victims found that people who were multilingual had normal mental functions after the stroke. It is possible to reduce the risk of dementia by speaking more than one language. Children learn to see things differently than they do their own.
I’m blown away by how early they’re distinguishing which language to speak to who
It seems like a no-brainer for native English-speaking parents to encourage their children to learn a foreign language in the home. The problem is that there are still myths surrounding language learning. What's the reason?
According to Dr Max Antony-Newman, diversity was a problem that needed to be managed. His research focuses on minority groups. He says science has caught up, but it takes forever for that to translate into education, because all these so-called 'delays' aren't there. The media and political discussion around immigration can be a challenge.
According to Anthony-Newman, the history of immigration in the West after World War Two explains why attitudes around language- learning within immigrant families move at a fast pace. He says that immigrants were stigmatized because of their low-paid jobs. The majority of immigrants in the US are from Europe. The teachers would tell the students not to speak Italian in school. Your children won't get along well. They won't be good enough for work if they speak with an accent and use the wronggrammatical.
Antonio d'Amato agrees with this idea. He was bilingual when he was a child in Germany. He says that his mother didn't speak Italian with them in the house because her German was broken after 50 years. D'Amato and his Brazilian husband, Bruno De Jongh, are raising their twin girls in multiple languages. Opol is doing a great job for them. D'Amato only speaks German with them. The nanny is speaking English.
It feels like a big gift to raise the girls in three languages. Being a parent is all about nurturing and passing knowledge on. I knew I wanted to do that with language. He said he joined multilingual Facebook groups to research. Bruno is laughing because he is a member of so many groups. We decided to do that because I continued to come across OPOL. The thing is working well. They are distinguishing which language to use to speak to who.
It is important that their children are able to communicate with their families. How do they communicate if they don't speak Portuguese and go to Brazil? Do you have a question for De Jongh? Most of Antonio's family don't speak English I am trying to get by but I want the girls to communicate well. There are times when they are pretty consistent in their languages. When I talk to the girls, I will use English words to make them understand what I'm saying.
Children use their languages to their advantage. They will say the same thing to me in German when they don't get what they want when they speak Portuguese to Bruno. When you teach a language, you teach culture. Isn't that what diversity is about?
People move based on their culture. Parents raising their children in different languages give them a connection to their heritage and keep some of their own. Multilingualism has huge social and economic advantages to the UK, but it needs to be recognised outside of family homes and schools. 4.2 million people in the UK speak a language other than English and our approach to language education doesn't reflect that. The way languages are taught can vary from school to school. Many language experts argue that a plurilingual approach in primary schools improves psychological wellbeing and helps children learn English faster.
Dr Wing Yin Chow is a psychologist based in University College London. When immigrant children come to the UK, they can experience emotional challenges. The best way to motivate children to learn English is to visit a lot of schools. The majority of the children at the school are learning English as a second language.
A plurilingual approach is used by the school. She says that it is difficult to teach a diverse group of children. The teachers are able to accept different languages and cultures. Children are encouraged to write compositions in their first language and share them with their classmates. There are after-school language clubs where parents teach different languages to their children, and the mixing of groups there is surprising. It makes a big difference. New pupils were able to write in English after the teachers showed them some work. It is wonderful to see.
Encouraging language diversity could mean that future generations have healthier brains
Professor Xiao Lan Curdt-Christiansen, who is currently working at Bath University, says that children are not encouraged to speak their heritage languages in most schools. Children are asked not to speak heritage language with other children at school even during lunch hours. Some parents say that the reason teachers give is that they can't speak Chinese because other kids don't understand them.
This shows consideration for others. There is a murkier reality. It's a long-term issue. According to Curdt- Christiansen, languages other than English are not valued.
Encouraging language diversity could mean a healthier brain and more professional opportunities for future generations. To be seen and heard is something that human beings are capable of.
The importance of his children being able to understand and speak Farsi is obvious to me. Love is what it is for me. I wouldn't be able to give them my full affection otherwise. The man starts to cry. His wife asked if he could be 100% himself in English. Sometimes it is like you are wearing a different hat.
If language diversity is celebrated, people can be more themselves. This is something to aim for in global Britain.
There are changes to some names.
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