Early Bi-Lingual Exposure

DenaMarie I am a Director of a day care center/ preschool. We have 125 children enrolled, about 1/4 of them come from homes where spanish is the only language spoken. My experience in the Early Childhood Field has been that it is best for the children to hear both languages from the start, if possible. I have 18 full time employees. Only 2 of them speak spanish so when a spanish speaking parent enrolls a child it is not likely that they will be in a classroom with a teacher/caregiver who can speak spanish. So the children hear english spoken all day long and then spanish when they return home. I have found that the younger the child when they start, the better they pick up the 2 languages. Our parents who speak spanish only are amazed at how fast their child picks up the english language. As they grow they learn to understand and speak both! The woman who is the 2-3 year old preschool teacher at our center has a son who has been in our center since she returned to work when he was 6 weeks old. They speak only spanish at home. From the beginning he has heard both languages. He is now 2 and knows many, many words in both languages. Sometimes he will even forget that his teacher can only speak english. He will say something in spanish and she will ask him to repeat it in english, and he will! All that said, It sounds like you are doing a great job with your child. It is wonderful to be able to speak more than 1 language. God Bless Judilyn

I am not a parent as yet, but I have a master's degree in linguistics. I would definitely raise my child multi-lingual. It does NOT confuse them; it helps IMMEASURABLY. I'm so pleased that I'll be raising my child in New Mexico, where there's a good chance my child will be exposed to Spanish at an early age (I don't speak Spanish very well myself). As for me, I intend to learn Hebrew so I can raise the child in English and in Hebrew. And I listen to a lot of Edith Piaf and a lot of Hindi songs, so perhaps the child will pick up some not-very-useful French and Hindi words. Noi (speaks English, French, German, Hindi, Korean, basic Thai, basic Spanish, Romani (Arli dialect); reads Old Irish, Sanskrit; learning Amharic, Navajo, Welsh)

Hi, I have three daughters, all of them are in a multi-lingual environment: my twelve year old grew up learning Swiss/ German & English, she has now been in an Italian school for a year and learnt Italian in leaps and bounds and is doing brilliantly. We moved from Switzerland to Italy last August. the two little ones *and a half and two speak a mixture of all three(Swiss Italian and Englsih. We have never put any demands on them to have to learn anything by a certain stage or age: while each show preferences to respond in a language or in the case of the toddler's an 'interlanguage'- they understand each one and have no problem communicating with us or one another. What is noticable is that they are all extremely musical children. Linguistic precision is not the objective - expression and fearlessness inlearning is: we never focus on what they cannot do yet or criticise when the grammar is incorrect: gentle correcting and coaxing is way and beyond enough. I have noticed a larger capacity to concentrate in the toddlers, when I compare them to kids whose parents are uni-lingual. They seem to listen more intently and reproduce sounds with a speed and accuracy that is amazing. I recommend it highly: in today's world it is more than just doing them a favour. It provides a very sound basis for learning in general.

We run a foreign language immersion center for children called Kultural Kids, [URL="http://www.kulturalkids.com"]http://www.kulturalkids.com[/URL]. We currently have about 125 students and they all are doing great! We encourage parents to enroll their children as soon as they turn one. The earlier a child is exposed to a second or third language the easier it will be for them to become fluent with a native-quality accent. Any parent thinking about raising a child in a multilingual environment should definitely go for it! Check out our site! We are looking for educators and parents with experience in this topic to write articles for our resource section. visit[URL="http://www.kulturalkids.com/?q=writeforus"]http://www.kulturalkids.com/?q=writeforus[/URL] if interested!

I live in Quebec, where every single child learns both French and English starting in Kindergarten. It is such a gift to know more than one language and every study done shows that it helps brain development. Young children are like sponges and they will soak up whatever you expose them to. I can't think of a single disadvantage to raising a child bi- or multi-lingual. Kelly

[FONT="Comic Sans MS"]Our daughter is almost 6 months old. I speak Spanish and English to her since I had her at 5 days old. My husband is in charge of the Tagalog (Philipino). I can't wait to see how her language skills develop.

Susan[/FONT]

this is great news to me! i studied spanish in college and high school and i lived in mexico and spain as an adult. i speak spanish almost fluently (albeit with a really weird accent) and plan to speak strictly spanish while i'm at home with my children (even though they're almost guaranteed to develop said weird accent). since we're looking to adopt from ethiopia, i'd also like to integrate them into the small ethiopian community in our city with hopes that they'd learn (if adopted as infants) or retain (if adopted as toddlers) amharic. even though i've always heard that it's much easier for small children to learn other languages, i've been worried that i would overwhelm them. you all have set my mind at ease, though. thanks!

I've had a french aupair since my DD was 3 mos. old (she's now 1) and she only speaks to her in french. I've just re-signed the contract to extend her stay another year. I'm really hoping that my DD becomes fluent in french. When I initially chose an aupair for childcare I wanted a spanish speaking person, but did not find a spanish speaking aupair that would be a good fit for my household... but I did find one who was from France... so french it is... it's a beautiful language, so no complaints. I'm a single mom, so live-in childcare has been a godsend. I've made a commitment to myself and to DD to always keep a french influence in her life. When she gets older I plan to make additional trips to France.

We are currantly all learning conversational Romanian as part of our home school. It's challenging, but the boys like it. The oldest feels like he's getting something back that he lost. [url=http://www.afformula.com/]AF Formula™ Asian Flush Cure. Treatment for Alcohol Flush Reaction[/url]