When Not to Speak Your Second Language to Your Children

[anna7602]

The article below is generating a lot of debate in my Facebook newsfeed (because I have a lot of friends who care about things like this, yay!). Any thoughts? 

mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/parenting/2014/04/14/when-not-to-speak-your-second-language-to-your-children/

By JIM KLING

April 14, 2014

I never thought of myself as having much in common with Spanish-speaking immigrants to the United States. I was born in Iowa, to parents of Western European ancestry, and I am a classic example of the monolingual American whose only exposure to another language came from a brief high school foreign-language class.



That is, until I met my current wife, who is from the Philippines and bilingual in Tagalog and English. Since then, I’ve been trying to learn Tagalog with very modest success.



When my wife became pregnant, I thought it would be a great opportunity to improve my new language skills. After all, our daughter would learn Tagalog (pronounced Ta-GAH-lug) beginning with the simplest words and phrases, and I could learn along with her as my wife spoke it to her. I would never master it as well as our daughter would, but it seemed like a great way to learn.



So as I changed my daughter, fed her and rocked her, I practiced my Tagalog, using the words and phrases that my wife used and that I was learning myself. I spoke English, too, but I’d guess as much as half of what I spoke was Tagalog.



A few weeks ago, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which I attended as a science writer, I sat in on a session about early language development. Our daughter, now 14 months old, is just beginning to learn words, so the topic was of obvious interest to me.



When Erika Hoff, a professor of psychology at Florida Atlantic University, spoke about her studies of Spanish-speaking immigrants who spoke English to their children in hopes of better preparing them for school, one of her conclusions took me aback. She found that children whose native Spanish-speaking parents spoke primarily English benefited very little from this input. They picked up most of their English proficiency from native English speakers whom they encountered outside the family. On the other hand, when native Spanish-speaking parents spoke predominantly Spanish, the children received a big boost in their proficiency at Spanish.



In other words, to learn a language well, a child needs to hear a native speaker. Someone who struggles with a language isn’t much of a model. That’s a poignant finding when it comes to immigrant families, especially because parents are often told to speak English to their children in hopes of putting them in the best position to succeed when school begins. But it seems to be of little benefit, and those same children, if they never gain proficiency in Spanish, can lose the ability to speak comfortably with extended family, and even their own parents.



And it resonated with me. I realized that in speaking Tagalog to our daughter, I was doing her a disservice. I had been relying on others to supplement my relatively sparse example – her babysitter and daycare providers, but as her father, I realized that I have a responsibility to provide the best example that I can, so she can grow up with two strong languages.



When I returned home from the conference and discussed this with my wife, she told me she’d also had some concerns. My broken Tagalog wouldn’t just blunt her English, it could sow some confusion. My wife put it bluntly: “When she’s 3 years old, we don’t want her asking, ‘Why does Papa talk funny?’”



From now on, I’ll try to restrict my Tagalog practice to conversations with my wife and in-laws. And when she is well on her way to mastering English, I can start again with my daughter.

[anna7602]

My own thoughts: I think this may have some merit in the early years, but DH and I have totally thrown the whole OPOL thing out the window in recent years. Once DD started school in NY and was surrounded by English all the time, DH made more of an effort to speak more Spanish at home, even though it's not his native language. We found that DD spoke more Spanish at home if we both spoke it with each other v. it only being one parent speaking it directly to her. We had to break her out of the habit of immediately defaulting to speaking English whenever she thought DH was listening.

And then the whole France experience caused me to start speaking to her in French sometimes, depending on the situation, even though it's not my native language. She has been around enough native speakers that I think it's okay and I'd rather just do whatever I can to keep up her French (even though I speak to her in Spanish about 80-90% of the time and only use French occasionally).

[origami]

If this guy lives in America I think he missed the point of the seminar. His child IS regularly exposed to native Tagalog speakers, and if they live in the US she's also surrounded by native English speakers. I don't think it will matter much if he speaks crappy Tagalog or fluent English. If they live abroad then sure speak English so that your child grows up with 2 parents speaking their native languages fluently.

[travelingturtle]

Let me take my situation. We're in Germany and we're both English speakers. Our son goes to German school. There's no reason for us to speak German to him as he gets it everywhere else. What he doesn't get is good English. I prefer, especially now that his German is a lot better, that the preschool doesn't speak English to him at all, and I prefer that we don't speak German to him at all.

When we move to the US, we'll be surrounded by English and then try to speak more German with him. But, until then, this makes the most sense to me.

In this guy's situation, though, I think it makes sense. He's not a fluent speaker and shouldn't be practicing with his daughter.

[potatopie]

I saw this and it rubbed me the wrong way. like others are saying, he's comparing himself to Spanish immigrants whose children are surrounded by English speakers.

DH and I have been trying to adhere to OPOL, but I'm sick of it. I like your attitude, anna7602. If we continue as we are, DS will never use his Italian like he should. And I can't put all that responsibility onto DH. I would love if we, as a family, could switch seamlessly whenever we needed.


Yay, this is an empowering moment for me all of a sudden. Why adhere to the latest ideas of how to parent when you know it will change in the future?

[Deleted]

Since we are in France, we will probably try to speak English more at home. If we lived in the US, I would undoubtedly speak more French to DD because she wouldn't be exposed enough otherwise. But unlike the guy with Tagalog, my French is at a decent level, so it wouldn't be like I'd be butchering the language as I try to teach it to DD

[Shreddingbetty]

I don't think there is anything wrong with this guy speaking some Tagalog with his kid but it would make more sense for him to mostly speak English as she has so much regular Tagalog exposure with mom and babysitters. I doubt if he speaks some with her that it will somehow really screw up her Tagalog. I also think that he wouldn't last much longer probably anyway as she will quickly pass him (at least not where he would speak mostly to her inTagalog). Last year when my sister was here visiting (shortly before DDs 3rd birthday) she commented on how DD had surpassed her English and she is a pretty decent English speaker. DD is certainly at the higher end of speech development but it still struck me as interesting that a toddler speaks better than an adult'sdecent English (or whatever language).
I am teaching DD French and have done so since she was a baby. I'm not fluent but I manage pretty well and Word reference had been great to look things up on the go to help refresh my French. My accent is fairly good and my grammar (especially for every day kid stuff) is fairly good. I may initially say something wrong but then correct myself. There have been a few things I was saying wrong for a while and once I corrected myself she picked up on it quickly as well. I speak both French and English to her (usually regarded as a big no no). When I'm with just her I try to speak as much French as possible (and switch to English if I just don't know something) but when anyone else is around I speak English. We listen to only French music/books on CD and read only in French (a lot so she gets a lot of good sentence structure and grammar from that) and she only watches French shows. So far she is doing really well. Not quite at a normal French kids level but not too far off (as commented by Native French speakers ). And her speech is very clear in both English and French. She certainly doesn't seem to be confused by this mixing of languages. So maybe not the optimal situation but in my mind better than nothing at all.
I know she will more than likely not be fluent (unless immersed) but I'm hoping to be able to keep it up at some level (which will be a challenge probably once she starts school full time). At least she will have the base. I know a lot of people say that if you don't speak fluently don't even bother but I guess I have to disagree. There is no harm in teaching a kid a langauge you're  not fluent in as long as your expectations are not that they will be perfectly fluent. If they have a continued interest in the language they can work on becoming fluent by study abroad. I feel like it is better to know some of a langauge than none at all. At least they would be able to make the sounds of a particular language if they were exposed to it early.
One of the ladies in my French playgroup is a French teacher but has a pretty bad American accent. She only speaks to her daughters in French and so as a result they are learning the language with a bad accent. Maybe not optimal but at least they will be able to speak it.

[Shreddingbetty]

So now that i think about it I realize that i am speaking my 2nd language to DD as i am speaking English to her and not Dutch. I've been in the US since I was 17 and never speak Dutch here. As a result i feel much more comfortable speaking English and can express myself much better in English. It probably has a lot to do with the fact I did all my adult growing up in the US. I know some people say they feel like they could  express themselves best in  their native tongue. I would think it also has a lot to do with how old you were when you started using your second language and how immersed you were/are. Once I came here for college I never spoke Dutch since my family was not here