Child Issues

In other words….

Aneesh, who is born and growing in Australia, is bilingual. I think there are two main factors in successfully raising a multilingual or bilingual child; consistency and perseverance. The thought of bilingual topic stood before me because of the child is developing speech delay. Most of the community services say it may because of multi or bilingual background.

For me, my strategy for raising multilingual children at tender stage would be to converse with him in one language. It doesn’t necessarily be your mother tongue. It could be English too. The main emphasis should be language perfection. Teaching small phrases would also do a great job as they can grasp some of the broken sentences and at least they would know what to convey. Whatever input we put in this progress should be ‘are they clearly able to convey what they want’.

Constant interaction in the minority language exposes children to a wide range of vocabulary and grammatical structures relating to everyday life.

My three year old is still learning both languages, but moves easily between the two. When I am tired I can get sloppy and use an English word if that’s easier. But I know that if I expect my child to learn, I have to put in the effort.