We can find many suggestions about how to support our children to become bilinguals* when they are toddlers, in preschool or primary school. But what happens when they are teenagers and young adults? Can we still support them with their family languages or other languages they’re learning along the way?

If culture was a house,

then language was the key to the front door,

to all the rooms inside

(Khaled Housseini)

Being bilingual and a teenager can be challenging, for both parents and children. Adolescence is a very intense period of physical and mental change, and all seems to revolve around finding an identity and fitting in with a group of friends.

How do teenagers juggle speaking two (or more) languages and belonging to two nationalities or cultures?

In my personal experience, talking two or more languages is not a problem per se during those years. Discovering literature in all the other languages I learned during my childhood and being able to really immerse into the cultures and the mindset of these cultures during holidays was (and still is!) very fascinating and enriching.

If we want our teenagers to stay  bilingual,

they need to know about the cultures

(Ute’s International Lounge)

What I found more challenging was the expectation locals would have. People would expect me to know what peers in that other culture and country would rave about.

My parents made sure that we would visit Germany once or twice per year for an extended period. They wanted to make sure that we could meet peers. Even if only for a few days we had the great opportunity to get to know the culture through peers’ eyes.

I recall that despite very easy beginnings – after all, we all spoke the same language! – we would soon discover that we have different expectations. Locals would expect us to understand their slang, jokes and to know what they were talking about (TV shows, what is “in” etc.).

I quickly realised that I didn’t share the same taste in food, music, literature. I wouldn’t know about the latest movies, spots, sport idols. I wouldn’t know the newest gossips and soon feel alienated and “different”. Knowing that I didn’t have to stay for a long time, made me yet enjoy those moments and appreciate the short but intense friendships.

Nowadays, thanks to internet etc., being in touch with cultures around the world is much easier. – We can all access informations in no time and get a virtual impression of the “other” culture.

Today, I encourage my children to watch news from the different countries we want them to be more familiar with. They know about the idols, they understand the (most of the) jokes and, up to now, do not feel alienated when they spend some days with peers in Germany or Switzerland twice per year. Even if my children are not teenagers yet, I know that peer pressure is very high and being the one who talks German (and Italian) to them, who explains the other culture to them is not going to suffice.

Some tips for parents who want to support their teens bilingualism and biculturalism:

• bear in mind that teenagers rate peers higher than parents!
• foster social networking: chatting via webcams is a great way to keep the other language alive. It is a great alternative to Saturday schools or parents teaching these languages at home!
• be open minded when it comes to slang (and swearwords!). While growing up abroad, bilinguals will use the language in an “artificial context”. Allowing your child to use the slang their monolingual peers use, will help them fit in easier once you visit the country.
• help them find resources to have access to the local slang.
• make sure they know about the habits and values of peers in the other culture.
• travel as often as you can to different places of your family languages and offer them opportunities to meet peers (by enrolling them in some local activities they like).
• if you can’t travel that often and provide full language immersion, look out to other families that speak the same language where you live.
• find penpals for your children – using social media may also be an option, but if you would like your children to improve their written skills in the other language(s), writing in the “old fashioned way” is advisable.

I wrote this post for our International Mother Language Day Campain on Facebook (cfr. #IMLD), where we published links about several topics related to raising the awareness of “mother (and father) languages” since January the 21rst.

(* I use the term of bilingual also for multilinguals.)

1) What I can recommend is to first of all try to like the new language you want to learn to speak. Try to become familiar with the sounds of it. If you already know a language that sounds familiar  the phonetical part will be easier. It’s very important to decide why you want to learn a particular language. Maybe you want to learn it because it’s the language of a person you love and you want to share this knowledge. Or you just like the sound or the aesthetics of this language or you’re fascinated by the culture and history associated with the language. Or you want to travel freely in the country (or countries) the language is spoken.

2) Copy the sounds. Try to repeat whatever you hear on the radio or on TV. After a while you will feel more comfortable about talking. I tried to copy the phonetics and to memorize entire sentences. I also learned some standard sentences by heart like “Could you please tell me where I can find…”, “Can you (please) repeat it slowly” etc.

3)  Read out loud. In the beginning it doesn’t matter what you read. Simple sentences like in nursery rhymes, children’s books or short articles on newspapers (maybe choose a light subject) are good to help develop your narrative skills. Seeing the language in print helps to understand sentence structure. In addition to reading literature, also read grammar books and visit online grammar sites. If you’re not sure how to pronounce a word, some online dictionaries offer user recordings for the word (like www.dict.cc).

4) I always felt more comfortable to learn languages in a social context. Whether doing sports or pursuing some hobbies, this helped me to have first contacts with native speakers. Obviously, team-sports are better than just the gym where you probably don’t speak that much with others. I got pregnant a few months after we moved to the Netherlands and I signed up for a prenatal class. It was a great help for me to get to know all the vocabulary and to become familiar with the health care system. I also met my first dutch friends there. – Try to get out as much as you can: restaurants, musea, even theater, cinema etc.

5) Be passionate and try to invest as much time as possible in your language learning project. Passion is above all the most important factor in learning any language (or anything else in life…).

Do you have any tips about how to learn a new language as an adult?

Related articles

• Still learning languages – New project! (polyglotmae.wordpress.com)
• when you have to choose.. (mynameisyuyu.wordpress.com)
• Language learning tip of the day (learnlanguagesonlinefree.wordpress.com)
• Learn a New Language – Free (katherineiorio.wordpress.com)
• 3 States of language self-learning (informallanguage.wordpress.com)

In articles about bilingualism and OPOL we usually find two different labels: “one parent – one language” or “one person – one language” which, in my opinion, is a bit misleading.

The term of OPOL was first introduced by the french linguist Maurice Grammont in 1902. In Observations sur le langage des enfants (Observations on Children’s Language), he introduced the idea of une personne, une langue. Literally translated from the French as one person, one language.

He theorized that by separating the languages from the beginning, parents could prevent confusion and code-mixing in their bilingual children. Therefore if each parent speaks only one of the two languages to the child, the chances that the child will mix the languages are reduced. By using his or her own language each parent gives an example of adult language use.

Many studies followed like the one of Jules Ronjat, Le Développement du langage: observé chez un enfant bilingue (The Development of Language: Observations of a Bilingual Child). Observing his son, Louis, Ronjat came to the conclusion that the consistent use of two languages at home from birth on, is a major factor in achieving bilingualism. He noted that Louis had acquired and mastered two languages in a similar phonological order to that of the average monolingual child.

In linguistic circles the term of OPOL is very common and is frequently used in books and articles since the 1980s as a way to describe a child being brought up as a simultaneous bilingual. In these studies we find the word parent alternate with person (cfr. B. Bain and A. Yu, Cognitive consequences of raising children bilingually: One parent, one language, Canadian Journal of Psychology, vol.34(4), Dec. 1980, 304-313). This leads to confusion as the use of parent instead of person implies that the parents are the only linguistic role models for a child.

In my opinion, Grammont’s label one person one language is much more appropriate in our society. It includes also bilingual mum-mum or dad-dad families and families where one parent is absent and another person takes the caregiver-role. Moreover, it does include also other persons in our children’s life like sibilings, extended family, daycarers, nannys, babysitters  etc..