Get your child speaking the minority language more actively right now!
Quick quiz! What is the one all-important and universal thing when it comes to successfully raising a bilingual child? (In fact, this is probably the only thing that’s actually universal for families worldwide and, without it, there’s no chance of success at all!)
Adam Beck, bestselling author of the books Maximize Your Child’s Bilingual Ability and Bilingual Success Stories Around the World, shares the simple, playful—and surprisingly powerful—strategy that can produce an exciting breakthrough for the greater success and joy of your family’s bilingual or multilingual journey
I’m happy to report that a new and very positive review has just been published about my book Bilingual Success Stories Around the World! In fact, it’s three reviews in one because they appear on the Kletsheads podcast, where three reviewers with expertise in child bilingualism discuss the book
In case you missed it, here’s the video of my recent appearance at Raising Multilinguals Live where I share the “inside story” of my work supporting bilingual and multilingual families over the past 30 years
This year my daughter, now 18, has taken two English proficiency tests. (English is her minority language; Japanese is her majority language.) The first was the highest level of the EIKEN seven-level test, which is widely used in Japan and is essentially a pass-or-fail sort of exam. And the second test, because she’s now applying to university programs in Japan that emphasize English, was the TOEFL
The bilingual journey of this Spanish family is an encouraging example, in a number of ways, of non-native parents nurturing early success. It shows that, despite being non-native speakers of the target language who acknowledge shortcomings in their own language skills, Cristina and Pedro have nevertheless been able to generate significant progress in their children’s bilingual ability through their attitude and actions. And even when faced with difficulties along the way
I recently shared Marta Garcia’s encouraging guest post Our Successful Playgroup for Minority Language Families and thought I would now follow up by offering the full story of her rewarding experience raising three bilingual children. Her family’s story, along with the inspiring, in-depth stories of 25 other families, is featured in Bilingual Success Stories Around the World: Parents Raising Multilingual Kids Share Their Experiences and Encouragement.
I’ve always believed that language has a very important social component and I wanted my children to feel that Spanish was a language that allowed them to communicate not only with their mother and their family in Spain, but also with other children and families around them here in Germany. So, in the summer of 2010, when my eldest was about a year and a half
I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Dolores Guiñazú, the executive director of Lift Value, a company that provides a range of helpful language services to clients worldwide. Dolores also offers a very thoughtful podcast called Attitudeable and I was honored to join her to share my personal perspective on raising bilingual children.
Another book that I highly recommend for parents is The Toolbox for Multilingual Families, by Ute Limacher-Riebold and Ana Elisa Miranda, which provides a wide range of practical and productive activities that can help nurture a child’s development in any target language. The book covers both communicative ability and literacy skills and
Over the years I’ve advocated the idea of regularly pursuing creative projects with your kids in the minority language. Such short-term activities not only can add to the amount of language exposure and engagement your children already receive through daily habits and routines, they can be very productive fun. In fact, projects like this can potentially foster glowing memories and impact people far beyond
