WFBG exists since 2003 and has over 50 families as members. We have discussed issues, concerns and advice given by others on many, many occasions. From these discussions we have extracted some very basic tips which every bilingual family starting out will find useful to read. Thanks to all members who have shared with us their expenriences.

Every family is different
What is Bilingualism
Advantages of Bilingualism
Key tips
Common concerns

Every family is different. There is no solution that will suit everyone. Don’t slavishly copy any system recommended by anyone – including us! Every rule can be broken. Think about what you are comfortable with and how your family works, what opportunities you have, and how you can work around those you don’t have. This doesn’t mean you have to accept things as they are, and not try to change things within your family, but if you are struggling to bring about a change in order to follow someone else’s rules, you may well not come across as convincing or wholehearted, you may be using up energy better invested elsewhere and you may achieve better results by focusing on something else. Children are also very quick to notice when people are sincere and when they are pretending, when they really mean something and when they don’t.

What is Bilingualism: Bilingual’ is a deceptively simple term which means many things to many people. There are many different definitions of bilingualism and much debate over what degree of proficiency and / or fluency in two languages a person requires in order to be considered bilingual. However, for our purposes, we would define bilingualism simply as using two languages on a regular basis.

Advantages of being bilingual/multilingual

There are many advantages in becoming bilingual. They can be summarised as follows:

Communication advantages

• Communication within the family may be improved. Being able to communicate with each parent in the parent’s preferred language may contribute to making the parent-child relationship closer and enables parents to pass on part of their own heritage to their child. Bilingualism is also valuable in enabling children to communicate with extended family.
• Wider communication –international links. Bilinguals may also be bridge builders between different language communities.
• Biliteracy – gives knowledge of different world views and values

Cultural advantages

• Bilinguals have the opportunity to experience two cultures, complete with behaviour systems, traditions, stories, greetings….In short, they have two windows on the world.
• Greater tolerance and less racism. It seems likely that bilinguals would be more tolerant of difference and diversity and less likely to be racist but this is yet to be scientifically tested.

Cognitive advantages

• In tests that measure creative thinking or divergent thinking (e.g. imagine you have a brick/tin can/cardboard box – how many ways could you use it?) bilinguals regularly score higher i.e. they think of more uses than monolinguals. (Most tests do not measure this i.e. IQ measures convergent thinking when there is only one right answer). Bilinguals seem to think more freely, more elaborately and more creatively.

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