The death and rebirth of Bilingualism

Being an educationist, I have come across kids in the system, who struggle to learn the mainstream language, because the exposure to the language spoken at home is stronger. But once they learn the mainstream language, many kids forget their earlier fluency in the language spoken at home. Many a time this creates an unbridgeable gulf between within families, like when gradparents and grandkids have no common language to communicate.

"f035" by John Tobe is licensed under CC BY 2.0

In many households learning the mainstream language is emphasized as it helps in the quicker assimilation into the mainstream culture. Communication is a necessity and this is correct from a family's point of view. But the fact of the matter is this: kids can pick up multiple languages without realizing that they are doing so. From childhood to puberty kids have a knack or a natural ability to learn languages. Once the critical period is over, people find it difficult to pick up languages.

In certain European and Asian countries, the language spoken at home and on the street are different. If parents speak different languages, the kids can speak the language on the streets and the two languages at home. They do it effortlessly: papa speaks this, mama speaks that and the shopkeeper speaks yet another!

In a country like Singapore, train announcements are in four languages - English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil - for the country has four official languages. In Europe, people in many countries routinely speak 3-4 languages.

When America was being built, the immigrants who poured in brought their language, ways and food. Speaking languages other than the mainstream English, became unfashionable. Schools encouraged a single language to emphasize cohesive education. It was believed that speaking the same language both at home and at school helped the kid pick up the language quicker. It was correct and was the norm then.

Now over time, scientists have realized the amazing capacity kids have in picking up languages. Noam Chomsky, a professor of linguistics at MIT, speaks of cases where for children from bimodal homes(one parents speaks a language and the other uses sign language) pick up both languages just like they would pick up say two spoken languages.

With all this information pouring out, bilingual teaching has picked up. Kids picture books are bilingual. E.g. a page will have the text in English and Spanish. Even the forever-a-favorite Very Hungry Caterpillar is now sold in the English+Spanish bilingual format. 

In such bilingual teaching, parents who know the non-mainstream language can also participate. A report by UNESCO highlights how a Mother Tongue is the key to learning. Here in America with our immigrant population, multiple languages can be heard, especially in a city like New York. This does make handling kids in a classroom difficult for a teacher comfortable in just English, but the idea is to be broadminded enough to make room for a child to speak more than one language.

With apps being created in the hundreds, it is heartening to see that many are non-English. I guess it's getting cool to be bilingual!