Speech development in bilingual kids
Naomi Pardue
and are growing up bilingual (Hebrew/English.)
It's been a while since I've had a toddler of my own, so it took me a while to
realize that, overall, their language development is a bit slower than typical
for their age. We have one English-speaking only 22 month old who is very
verbal with a large vocabulary (already knows some of his
colors/letters/shapes0. The bilingual (and in one instance, trilingual...) kids
of similar age have fairly good comprehension in both English and Hebrew, but
don't have more than a scant handful of words each. (Yes/No/Mommy/Daddy/Mine +
a few nouns of particular interest like doll/truck/etc. [Mostly in Hebrew]).
This isn't a problem. We get by.
My question is this: the slightly older bilungual kids (2 1/2-4) are all fully
fluent and speaking well in both languages. Is it typical among bilungual kids
to have a sudden explosion of language at around 2, as they catch up with their
mono-lingual peers? I've noticed that one of the toddlers is talking quite a
lot more now than she was even a week ago (still not much... she's gone from
virtually nil to maybe 10 words, but it's a start). When I come back in the
fall (preschool closes for the summer at the end of the month) will these kids
probably be talking well?
Naomi
CAPPA Certified Lactation Educator
(either remove spamblock or change address to npa...@indiana.edu to e-mail
reply.)
Hillary Israeli
Naomi Pardue <naomi...@aol.comNOSPAM> wrote:
*My question is this: the slightly older bilungual kids (2 1/2-4) are all fully
*fluent and speaking well in both languages. Is it typical among bilungual kids
*to have a sudden explosion of language at around 2, as they catch up with their
*mono-lingual peers? I've noticed that one of the toddlers is talking quite a
*lot more now than she was even a week ago (still not much... she's gone from
*virtually nil to maybe 10 words, but it's a start). When I come back in the
*fall (preschool closes for the summer at the end of the month) will these kids
*probably be talking well?
Funny you should ask. My husband was one of those kids. When he was two
and still not talking, his dad laid down the law - they would stop
speaking Hebrew at home. Within a week or two, my husband was speaking
perfect English sentences. Sadly, he never learned Hebrew, and he's still
moderately peeved that his folks didn't just wait a little longer so he'd
be fluent in both!
--
hillary israeli vmd http://www.hillary.net in...@hillary.net
"uber vaccae in quattuor partes divisum est."
not-so-newly minted veterinarian-at-large :)
Ericka Kammerer
> My question is this: the slightly older bilungual kids (2 1/2-4) are all fully
> fluent and speaking well in both languages. Is it typical among bilungual kids
> to have a sudden explosion of language at around 2, as they catch up with their
> mono-lingual peers? I've noticed that one of the toddlers is talking quite a
> lot more now than she was even a week ago (still not much... she's gone from
> virtually nil to maybe 10 words, but it's a start). When I come back in the
> fall (preschool closes for the summer at the end of the month) will these kids
> probably be talking well?
That's my understanding from what I've heard from other
bilingual families--language comes a bit later, but then catches
up rapidly.
Best wishes,
Ericka
Angel
was slower than usual but yes they did develop both languages very well by
grade one..So you should see a very big improvement.
Angel
"Naomi Pardue" <naomi...@aol.comNOSPAM> wrote in message
news:20030515084349...@mb-m21.aol.com...
Flavia Tarzwell (FayeC)
talking age.....
She'll be raised in a multilingual home (English, Portuguese and Sign
Language) so chances are she will be a little delayed ?
Looking forward to seeing the replies :)
FayeC
"Naomi Pardue" <naomi...@aol.comNOSPAM> wrote in message
news:20030515084349...@mb-m21.aol.com...
Prague Jen
naomi...@aol.comNOSPAM wrote on 15/5/03 14:43:
My kids are being raised bilingual Czech and English. I'm the native
English speaker; my husband and his family are the Czech speakers. (We live
in Prague - just to clarify.) My son, almost 6, was born here. We went
back to the US when he was 19 months old and stayed there for 2 years. He
received very little exposure to Czech while we were there. At one point,
my mother in law was getting so worried about Max never being able to speak
Czech that we advertised for a native Czech speaker to come and play with
Max and teach him Czech. We had a terrific young Czech woman come over
twice a week and spend 4-5 hours a day with him. 6 months after we started
this, we moved back to Prague. We enrolled him in Czech preschool - this
was extremely stressful for himm and spawned a couple of psychological
difficulties (frequent urination being the biggest one). He got over it,
and now, two years later, is more fluent in Czech than I am, and has
retained his English fluency. Another note: he was speaking well early on -
none of this "boys starting to speak later" for him.
Case two is my daughter, aged 22 months. She was also born here in Prague,
but we haven't dragged her off to live in America. She is a prolific
speaker - mainly in English, since she spends most of her time with me - but
she also knows many words in Czech, and is comfortable using them. She
knows that she should speak English to English speakers and Czech to Czech
speakers. She is a huge mimic and will repeat back any word, no matter what
language, and it wouldn't surprise me if she stored it away immediately for
future use. She understands most everything in Czech, even if she doesn't
speak as much as she speaks English. She knows her colors, shapes, most of
her letters, and she can count, all in English. We're not there yet in
Czech, but I don't have any doubt that it will come soon. She will be
attending an English language preschool this fall (only because Czech
preschool doesn't start til age 3) and she's more than ready for it NOW.
So in asnewr to your question - I haven't seen, at least in the case of my
daughter, who is a purer example of bilingualism, that she's had any delay
at all in speaking. It'll be interesting to see how she deals with Czech
preschool in September 2004.
You might try asking over at the Yahoo group Multilingual Munchkins
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/multilingualmunchkin/
Take care,
Prague Jen
Momma to Max, 6.97 and Emma, 6.01
Beth Kevles
According to the studies I've seen, bilingual babies often (but not
always) develop fluency in speaking slighly later than monolingual
children, but make up for it (and more!) well before they're of school
age.
However, they need academic language exposure to be able to keep up with
children schooled in a particular language. Hence children who come to
the US speaking Spanish and English fluently prior to school will NOT be
able to use Spanish effectively as literate adults if they've had an
English-only education.
So if your household is multi-lingual, make sure your child gets formal
schooling in all languages!
--Beth Kevles
bethk...@aol.com
http://web.mit.edu/kevles/www/nomilk.html -- a page for the milk-allergic
Disclaimer: Nothing in this message should be construed as medical
advice. Please consult with your own medical practicioner.
H Schinske
>Naomi Pardue <naomi...@aol.comNOSPAM> wrote:
>
>*My question is this: the slightly older bilungual kids (2 1/2-4) are all
>fully
>*fluent and speaking well in both languages. Is it typical among bilungual
>kids
>*to have a sudden explosion of language at around 2, as they catch up with
>their
>*mono-lingual peers?
I think it's probably typical of all kids who learn to talk later, for whatever
reason, assuming no underlying difficulties in hearing or speech processing.
Certainly my son had an explosion of vocabulary shortly after turning two, and
was reasonably communicative (though still a bit behind) at three.
--Helen
LisaBell
wrote:
>At the preschool where I work, most of the kids are in Hebrew speaking homes,
>and are growing up bilingual (Hebrew/English.)
>
>It's been a while since I've had a toddler of my own, so it took me a while to
>realize that, overall, their language development is a bit slower than typical
>for their age. We have one English-speaking only 22 month old who is very
>verbal with a large vocabulary (already knows some of his
>colors/letters/shapes0. The bilingual (and in one instance, trilingual...) kids
>of similar age have fairly good comprehension in both English and Hebrew, but
>don't have more than a scant handful of words each. (Yes/No/Mommy/Daddy/Mine +
>a few nouns of particular interest like doll/truck/etc. [Mostly in Hebrew]).
>This isn't a problem. We get by.
My daughters (now 3 and 4.5 yo) are bilingual in English and Hebrew
and I think they were a little slow in beginning to speak, although I
can't tell whether this is directly related to the bilingualism. We
have the reverse situation to the kids in your school, with English
being the first (home) language, while Hebrew input is mostly, and
primarily, at preschool.
Neither of my daughters said a single word before 17 months of age,
and my eldest produced her first comprehensive word, in Hebrew,
shortly after I placed her in a small Hebrew speaking morning daycare.
In fact I think that for both of them the first couple of words came
out in Hebrew, then the next few were English. The eldest then had an
English language explosion and didn't really begin speaking Hebrew
till around 3yo, while the youngest developed most of her early
phrases in Hebrew, when she was just over 2, and only began to catch
up in English at closer to age 3.
I don't know for sure if my eldest is fully caught up now. I suppose
she is more or less average in Hebrew compared to her similar aged
friends at school, although her language tends to be a little more
formal and flowery than that of most kids since she's picked up a lot
of it from her teachers. I think she is now beginning to lag a bit in
English grammar, which is a lot harder than Hebrew, particularly as
she sometimes tries to form the grammatical equivalent of a Hebrew
sentence in English, when it doesn't quite work.
>My question is this: the slightly older bilungual kids (2 1/2-4) are all fully
>fluent and speaking well in both languages. Is it typical among bilungual kids
>to have a sudden explosion of language at around 2, as they catch up with their
>mono-lingual peers? I've noticed that one of the toddlers is talking quite a
>lot more now than she was even a week ago (still not much... she's gone from
>virtually nil to maybe 10 words, but it's a start). When I come back in the
>fall (preschool closes for the summer at the end of the month) will these kids
>probably be talking well?
I don't know that it is any different from monolingual kids, but yes,
I did find age two to age three was a huge language leap, where at age
two they used single words or isolated phrases when they needed to
communicate, but by age three they were chattering constantly in
sentences. I think that preschool is enormously helpful for bilingual
kids, so you may find their language development slows down a bit if
you have a long summer break (we have only 3 weeks off preschool). I
also found that the contribution of preschool to the kids language
development can be easily sabotaged by well-meaning teachers who try
to communicate with kids in their native language instead of
repeating stuff in the majority language till the kids catch on. Bear
in mind that bilinguals, just like pre-verbal kids, need lots of
consistent repetition to learn and you don't do them any favours in
the long term by substituting native words in place of teaching the
common language (sorry if that came out like a vent - it's one of my
pet peeves).
--Lisabell
LisaBell
Israeli) wrote:
>Funny you should ask. My husband was one of those kids. When he was two
>and still not talking, his dad laid down the law - they would stop
>speaking Hebrew at home. Within a week or two, my husband was speaking
>perfect English sentences. Sadly, he never learned Hebrew, and he's still
>moderately peeved that his folks didn't just wait a little longer so he'd
>be fluent in both!
My parents took it one step further. Having decided to raise me
monolingual in English (so that I wouldn't be delayed) and found that
I spoke very fluently well before age two, they travelled to Ethiopia
when I was three and immersed me in a Hebrew speaking preschool, where
I apparently became completely fluent in Hebrew as well within the 6
months that I was there. Then we moved back to the UK and they
completely dropped the Hebrew, with the result that I had to learn it
all over again in my late teens.
--Lisabell
chiam margalit
> My question is this: the slightly older bilungual kids (2 1/2-4) are all fully
> fluent and speaking well in both languages. Is it typical among bilungual kids
> to have a sudden explosion of language at around 2, as they catch up with their
> mono-lingual peers? I've noticed that one of the toddlers is talking quite a
> lot more now than she was even a week ago (still not much... she's gone from
> virtually nil to maybe 10 words, but it's a start). When I come back in the
> fall (preschool closes for the summer at the end of the month) will these kids
> probably be talking well?
My kids are both bilingual Hebrew English speakers. I speak both
languages to them. At home, we mostly scream in English :-), outside
in stores or in other public places, we only speak Hebrew. They spoke
Hebrew in school in a full immersion program through 3rd grade when I
pulled them out to homeschool.
English came easier to one, and Hebrew to the other. One read in
English but had to learn how to read Hebrew phonetically, while the
other picked up Hebrew reading but struggles to read English.
In both cases though, the language explosion, when it came, came so
fast and furious it was almost scary. Around the house, they
understood Hebrew but didn't speak it much until they were in the
immersion program. Within 6 months, they were speaking so rapidly I
had to tell them constantly to slow down. My Hebrew is good, but I
don't think in it, so it's slow.
My guess is, they'll be talking a lot better in the fall, and once the
lightbulb comes on, it's very hard to turn it back off. I'm still
looking for the on/off switch on my kids.
Marjorie
Marijke
"Hillary Israeli" <hil...@hillary.net> wrote in message
news:slrnbc73kk....@manx.misty.com...
> In <20030515084349...@mb-m21.aol.com>,
> Naomi Pardue <naomi...@aol.comNOSPAM> wrote:
>
> *My question is this: the slightly older bilungual kids (2 1/2-4) are all
fully
> *fluent and speaking well in both languages. Is it typical among
bilungual kids
> *to have a sudden explosion of language at around 2, as they catch up with
their
> *mono-lingual peers? I've noticed that one of the toddlers is talking
quite a
> *lot more now than she was even a week ago (still not much... she's gone
from
> *virtually nil to maybe 10 words, but it's a start). When I come back in
the
> *fall (preschool closes for the summer at the end of the month) will these
kids
> *probably be talking well?
>
> Funny you should ask. My husband was one of those kids. When he was two
> and still not talking, his dad laid down the law - they would stop
> speaking Hebrew at home. Within a week or two, my husband was speaking
> perfect English sentences. Sadly, he never learned Hebrew, and he's still
> moderately peeved that his folks didn't just wait a little longer so he'd
> be fluent in both!
>
>
That's what happened to me. My parents were speaking Dutch, I went to a
French daycare and my family's friends and my occasional sitters all spoke
English. Not a word out of me until I was 2 and my parents brought me to the
dr. He said to cut out the two least important languages and I was speaking
full 2 yr-old sentences, in English, within a week.
OTOH, living in Quebec, I know many, many children being raised in English
and French, at the same time, who follow the usual speech speed and have no
lag at all.
Marijke, in Montreal
laura
I've have heard this theory a lot, but my personal experience was that
it was much more dependent on the individual child: ds was very slow
to crawl (started at 10 months) and walk (started at 15 months) but
was very verbal in both English and German by the time he was 2 years
old(he was speaking full sentences at that age). He didn't slow down
a bit when we started him in Swiss-German daycare (his home German is
Austrian-German, very different from Swiss-German) around age 2, but
within a few months became very fluent in the third language. Dd was
a super early crawler and walker (around 8 months), but was much more
delayed in her language skills. She didn't start putting together 2
word sentences until she was nearly 2.5 years old. She also had
Austrian-German and English at home, but started Swedish daycare when
she was about 2.5 years old. Funny enough, rather than slow down her
language development, the addition of the third language seemed to
cause a huge language explosion for her...within a couple of months
she was putting together complex sentences in English and German at
home (she never speaks Swedish at home). Her spoken Swedish did take
a full year to get fluent, but her comprehension was very quick.
I know of other bi- and tri- lingual children who were very fluent
early on as well, but some are also delayed. I think that if a child
is slightly on the slower end of the spectrum and is known to have
more than one language, there is a tendency to blame the multiple
languages for the delay, whereas that child might have been slightly
slower regardless of how many language he/she was hearing.
Laura