Workshops offer child language learning tips

Many parents in Switzerland face a dilemma over how to teach their children language skills in what is a multilingual environment.

Figures from the Swiss federal statistics department show that in 2008 more than half of married couples included at least one non-Swiss partner.

When so many parents have a different mother tongue, who should take the lead role in teaching a child to speak and how will he or she learn other languages effectively?

This is one of several questions author and linguist Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa is to address at two evening workshops next week on “raising multicultural children”.

The two-hour sessions - on Tuesday, November 25 at Lausanne’s Hotel Agora and on Wednesday, November 26 at the Gymboree learning centre in Geneva - will explore key factors that Tokuhama-Espinosa believes influence a child’s linguistic development.

These include the influence of siblings, motivation and how girls learn languages differently from boys.

Perhaps the most important first step for parents is to work out a language strategy for their children and then stick to it, said Tokuhama-Espinosa, who who is half Japanese-American, half Irish-American.

The internationally known writer, a former resident of Geneva who now lives in Ecuador, is visiting western Switzerland as part of a European tour that is taking her to several cities.

“Don’t let the kid determine the strategy,” she told Swisster in an interview.

Many parents just fall into a pattern with their child’s languages and haven’t thought about it, but it is important to establish a home language, she said.

“If you’re not giving time to the home language, it will not be maintained.”

While it is important for children to have one mother tongue, it is also possible to have two native languages in one household and for the child to learn both efficiently, Tokuhama-Espinosa said.

For instance, if the father is English and the mother French, it is possible for both parents to speak their native languages to their kids, without confusing them.

“The trick is consistency,” said Tokuhama-Espinosa, whose husband is from Ecuador. "Even if he or she talks to you in French, you must answer in your chosen language.”

If you think your kids aren’t understanding what you are saying, don’t translate, she advised, as this is just delaying the language-learning process.

Another no-no is mixing two or more languages in one sentence, she said, as the child ends up speaking in a way that no one can understand.

Tokuhama-Espinosa cites the example of a Colombian mother and German father who did not define a clear linguistic strategy for their children.

“In the end, the family spoke a mish-mash of Spanish, German English and French but once the children went to school they adopted German as their dominant language, which had not been the parents’ choice”.

The workshops will also attempt to dispel myths about children’s language-learning abilities.

One is that kids can be overwhelmed if they take on too many languages at once, which “neurologically speaking simply isn’t true,” according to Tokuhama.

She claimed a child can learn up to 12 languages and that they are all equally easy to learn.

At the end of the two-hour workshops, Tokuhama-Espinosa responds to specific questions from parents about the language development of their children.

“This helps many parents realise that others are in the same boat,” she said.

Tokuhama-Espinosa has written four books on multilingualism. She has three children, aged 12, 14 and 16, all of whom speak fluent English, Spanish, German and some French.

Tickets for the Lausanne workshop at the Hotel Agora, starting at 6.30 pm, cost 30 francs per person or 50 francs per couple, if reserved in advance via the Know-it-all passport website.

Otherwise admission is 35 francs per person and 60 francs per couple at the door. The session is limited to 100 people.

Tickets for the Geneva workshop the following day at Gymboree in Le Grand-Saconnex, starting at 7 pm. cost 50 francs per adult and 80 francs for couples and include a 20-minute break for a cold buffet and drinks. For tickets contact: www.gymboree.ch