Speaking of Translation   /     Raising bilingual children

In this episode, Eve, Corinne, and special guest Jennifer Bikkál Horne discuss strategies for raising your children bilingually–a topic that, while not directly related to translation, is of interest to lots of us in the language professions. Eve (mother of two tween/teen boys) and Jen (mother of two girls, ages 1 and 3) offer tips from their experiences as English-French bilingual moms, but these strategies are applicable to any language. Listen in to learn:

• How they decided to raise their children bilingually
• How they incorporate French into their kids’ lives in the US
• How their kids have responded to the bilingual environment
• How they find resources such as books, movies, music, TV shows, etc. to use with their kids
• Their thoughts on raising bilingual children in your non-native language

Jen has some excellent insights on the early childhood end of the spectrum–how to expose babies and young children to another language and encourage them to speak, how to find resources that are appropriate for young children–while Eve has the perspective of 15+ years of bilingual parenting–the various phases of bilingual life as kids get older, and how her kids use French as their “secret weapon.” If you’re raising–or thinking about raising–your kids bilingually, we think this episode will be a great source of information.

Links mentioned in the episode:

The NERCh strategies that Jen uses with her daughters–especially applicable for babies and young children:

Blogs:

Bilingual Monkeys

Bilingual Kids Rock

Spanglish Baby

Multilingual Living

Baby Bilingual

Facebook:

French-speaking parents in the US

For other languages, use the Facebook search field to look for “bilingual kids” and ” bilingual children.”

Books:

Maintaining Your Second Language– Eve Bodeux

Maximize Your Child’s Bilingual Ability: Ideas and inspiration for even greater success and joy raising bilingual kids – Adam Beck

Bilingual – François Grosjean

The Bilingual Edge – Kendall King

Be Bilingual – Practical Ideas for Multilingual Families – Annika Bourgogne

Podcast:

Bilingual Avenue

Click the audio player link to listen online
http://traffic.libsyn.com/speakingoftranslation/SoT_bilingual_final.mp3
Right-click the link below to download the MP3.
Chrome/Firefox: Choose “Save Link As”
Internet Explorer: Choose “Save target as”
Safari: Choose “Download Linked File”
Raising bilingual children