Sun, May 20, 2012
Evaluates the most recent research in linguistics, neurology, education, and psychology and reinterprets the findings in an easy-to-follow format. Case studies illustrate the many ways families combine ten key factors in order to successfully raise multilingual children. The book encourages parents and teachers to reflect on their personal situations and helps them to foster multilingual skills in the children around them. Available to borrow at the Limes.
Comments
On the plus side, it contains lots of examples of very successful multilingual children. There are as many, if not more, examples of children speaking 3 or 4 languages than speaking 2, so for those in this situation looking for inspiration, this could be a good read. Another plus point is that it is not written by an academic, Tracey is a mother in a bilingual family who could find so few resources for parents that she decided to research and write one. This means that it is written in an accessible style – although at times for me it borders on the patronising.
Now for the downsides. There are, in my experience, really two kinds of book about bilingualism; books by academics that stick to what can be scientifically proven and books by parents recounting their personal experience of bilingualism in the family but not generalising from their experience to all parents. This book is an attempt to bridge the two – Tracey refers to a lot of the scientific literature to back her theory but, in many cases, I feel that what she writes is largely based on her personal experiences. For example, she assumes switching and mixing languages is always a very very dangerous and irresponsible thing to do. It may be, but she doesn’t cite any evidence (apart from one very extreme example within her own family) and we know from our Li Wei talk that there is evidence that suggests the opposite, so it is her making the assumption that bothers me. She basically says that if you start from birth, have a clear strategy and you stick to it and don’t change it, your children will end up bilingual. Personally, my family has done that, (and I know of others) and we still have children (aged 4 and a quarter) who understand but don’t speak the minority language. So I feel that to read this book and follow her advice slavishly may not be the best strategy, if you want to read lots of books to get a range of ideas that you are prepared to sift through, take on some and reject others, then it is worth the read.
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