| Posted by alanc On Thursday 28 June 2007 Quote |
I have only just really joined this forum, but already just some words of comfort are enough to let me know that others are out there and what I feel as a non-resident single parent is perfectly normal in terms of guilt and the feeling of wanting to do more. I struggle to communicate with the mother of my son at the best of times and I wanted to post a thread here with the hope of some help. Well, whilst I don't have a particularly great command of the English language myself, I would not want my son to be disadvantaged when it comes to languages, more importantly and my main concern is that he has a Belgian mother and myself as the English dad and so, as I cannot seem to get any sensible answers/ideas from my sons mother on how we should handle the whole Bi-Lingual thing I thought I'd ask for some help and ideas here. Does anyone have any experience or ideas on how I should approach this. He is almost 3 and since he lives with his mum his first language is Flemish. I am told that children that have different language speaking parents generally develop in their language skills slower than single lamguage kids, but then reach a point where they catch up and surpass their single language friends. Can someone help please. Alan. |
| Posted by jennyshelley On Tuesday 3 July 2007 Quote |
I was hoping someone else would answer, rather than just me again. You are quite right. Bilingual kids are slower to speak but easily catch up in both languages and then they are set up for life with two languages on the tip of their tongues. There is nothing but positive about it so your son is very lucky. It's great that you see him so regularly because you can develop his English. I've just found this website - www.multilingualchildren.org - which might be helpful. |
| Posted by lynn1505 On Saturday 14 July 2007 Quote |
Hi, I'm not an expert on this by any stretch of the imagination, but I do know that the brains of young children are particularly tuned to pick up languages. In my work I meet children with English as a second language, and whilst they do not appear very confident and are often reluctant to speak when they first start school, very soon they catch up and to be fluent in two or more languages is valuable in today's multi-cultural society. Lynn |
