Our son James (or Jamie, or Jae-min) is a bilingual speaker of English and Korean. But it's both more complicated and simpler than that... as I think a lot of issues in bilingualism tend to be.
Our son Jamie is due to celebrate his fifth birthday next month. Most of his first four years were spent in Korea, where he developed into a very capable speaker of both Korean and English (his mum's Korean, and I'm Australian) with what I might go so far as to describe as being a very balanced proficiency between the two languages.
We moved to Australia about a year ago, right when Jamie was about to turn four, and something pretty drastic happened. He very abruptly stopped speaking Korean. My wife and I put it down to the change in scene and the language he was hearing in public around him, and felt that if she continued to use Korean in the home, he would eventually get back into the swing of it.
But he didn't. Not for an entire year.
He didn't want to speak in Korean at all. He didn't even want us to speak it around the house, and was quite adamant that we stick to English at all times. This was strange for us, because my wife and I both use both languages on a regular basis around the house.
My wife and I began to get a little worried. Was he going to lose his Korean? Was the precious gift of bilingualism going to fade into a distant memory?
Common concerns for a lot of parents of bilingual children, no doubt. Even for parents (like us) who have a fairly "hands off" approach to our children's bilingualism (as in, we want it to develop as it will, naturally, without ever trying to overtly force anything), it's the sort of thing that constantly has you scratching your head.
But in Jamie's case, something changed again.
Abruptly, about a month ago, he started to speak Korean around the home again. It came in dribs and drabs the first couple of days, and his accent was rusty, but after a week it was like he had never left Korea. Although his English is far more advanced now (thanks, no doubt, to his time in an Australian kindergarten and spending lots of time with extended family who speak English), Jamie is back to being very much bilingual. Almost as if it was like flicking a switch on in his head.
I think there is a possibility that Jamie, adjusting to a new place and language setting, had made some sort of instinctive decision to stick to one of his two languages and draw on it to help him make sense of his world at the time. Eventually, as he began to feel settled and comfortable with the language and context most relevant to him in the here and now, it's possible he then felt there was "room" to use and play with his other language.
Who knows? Trying to venture into the young bilingual child's mind to find explanations that are logical (to us) is a pretty tall order.
In my mind, however, at least part of the explanation (for Jamie's very sudden comfort with his other language) is actually very simple.
You see, one month ago my wife started reading bedtime stories to Jamie in Korean. Every night. They began to talk about the stories, and of course it was just natural to do so using the same language the stories used. They also started watching Korean cartoons (the legendary Porroro!) on the Internet and discussing them, too.
Basically, my wife just did the exact same thing I had done with English in Korea. I read to him nightly and watched Disney Channel cartoons with him, and talked about and played games around what we were reading and seeing.
There's actually a video posted right here on this blog from early 2008, showing Jamie at the gorgeous age of 2 reading aloud from The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
It worked in Korea to help him develop strong English skills in a non-English speaking environment. Obviously, the same process with the other language is helping him to maintain and develop his bilingualism here in Australia, too.
Seriously, I don't think we can ever say enough about the value of reading and storytelling (plus story sharing and exploration) for language acquisition in children.
Do you have bilingual children, or come from a bilingual family? Care to share some of your thoughts and experiences?
:-)
