047: How to raise a bilingual child

Do you have to start teaching a second language from birth?  Does it help to get a nanny who speaks a second language?  Is there any way your child will retain the language you speak even though you’re currently in a country where another language is dominant?  Does learning a second language lead to any developmental advantages beyond just the benefits of learning the language? Several listeners have actually written to me requesting an episode on this topic, and one has been particularly insistent (you know who you are!), so I was very glad to finally find an expert! Dr. Erica Hoff leads the Language Development Lab at Florida Atlantic University and studies language development and bilingualism in children.  She gives us the lowdown on the best ways to raise a bilingual child (and doesn’t mince words on how difficult it is) – and also answers my burning question: I’m not planning to teach my daughter a second language at the moment, so am I a terrible parent?   Dr. Erica Hoff's Book Language development - Affiliate link   References Bridges, K., & Hoff, E. (2014). Older sibling influences on the language environment and language development of toddlers in bilingual homes. Applied Psycholinguistics 35, 225-241. Core, C., Hoff, E., Rumiche, R., & Señor, M. (2013) Total and conceptual vocabulary in Spanish-English bilinguals from 22 to 30 months: Implications for assessment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 56, 1637-1649. Hammer, C.S., Hoff, E., Uchikoshi, Y., Gillanders, C., Castro, D.C., & Sandilos, L.E. (2014). The language and literacy development of young dual language learners: A critical review. Early Childhood Research Quarterly 29, 715-733. Hoff, E., Rumiche, R., Burridge, A., Ribot, K.M., & Welsh, S.N. (2014). Expressive vocabulary development in children from bilingual and monolingual homes: A longitudinal study from two to four years. Early Childhood Research Quarterly 29, 433-444. Hoff, E. & Core, C. (2013) Input and language development in bilingually developing children. Seminars in Speech and Language, 34, 215-226. McCabe, A., Tamis-LeMonda, C., Bornstein, M. H., Cates, C. B., Golinkoff, R., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Hoff, E., Kuchirko, Y., Melzi, G., Mendelsohn, A., Paez, M., Song, L. Wishard Guerra, A. (2013) Multilingual children: Beyond myths and towards best practices. SRCD Social Policy Report. vol 27, No. 4. Retrieved from: https://www.fcd-us.org/multilingual-children-beyond-myths-and-toward-best-practices/ Menjivar, J., & Akhtar, N. (2017). Language experience and preschoolers’ foreign word learning. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 20(3), 642-648. Ramirez, N.F., & Kuhl, P. (2017). Bilingual baby: Foreign language intervention in Madrid’s infant education centers. Mind, Brain, and Education (online first). DOI: 10.1111/mbe.12144 Ribot, K.M., & Hoff, E. (2014). “Como estas?” “I’m good.” Conversational code-switching is related to profiles of expressive and receptive proficiency in Spanish-English bilingual toddlers. International Journal of Behavioral Development 38(4), 333-341.   Read Full Transcript   Transcript Jen:    [00:37] Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. I’m very excited today to welcome my guest, Dr Erika Hoff, who is Professor and the head of the Language Development Lab at Florida Atlantic University. Several of my listeners have emailed over the last few months and I’ve asked questions about raising bilingual children, but I was having a hard time finding someone with expertise in this area. One listener has been particularly insistent with his questions on this topic; you know who you are. So when a friend of mine forwarded in New York Times article about raising bilingual children that quoted Dr. Hoff, I reached out that very same evening to ask her to be a guest on the show and I was delighted when she wrote back immediately and agreed to speak with us. Dr Hoff obtained her Ph.D from the University of Michigan on the topic of Developmental Psychology with a thesis that focused on the influence of maternal speech on children’s language development. Her Language Development Lab studies, the human abilities and experiences that contribute to language development. Jen:  [01:31] Our main focus is a longitudinal study of English monolingual and Spanish English bilingual children from two and a half to 10 years of age and she’s looking for evidence of factors in children’s early language experiences and early language development that predict successful oral language and literacy outcomes. Welcome Dr Hoff. Dr. Hoff:    [01:50] Thank you very much. Jen:    [01:51] So I guess let’s kind of start down in the weeds here a little bit. I want to ask it a bit of a methodological question because I know a lot of the research on dual language learners is on individuals who are perhaps the children of immigrants and who are learning English as a second language, maybe out of necessity as part of living in an English speaking country and I’m curious as to how much of the research is on those kinds of bilingual children and how much is on native English speakers who are interested in exposing their child to a second language that maybe is not quite necessary, not quite as necessary as learning English. Does the research transfer back and forth easily? Or are there some findings that are applicable to one of those populations and not the other? Dr. Hoff:  [02:31] Well, to answer that question, I have to tell you a little bit about the different populations who are bilingual and the different fields that study bilingualism. There is a big field of second language acquisition. Most of that looks at older children and adults and studies foreign language instruction, and you’re not talking about that. If you’re talking about young children acquiring a second language or even more to the point of your question, if you’re talking about babies becoming bilingual by being exposed to two languages, then really none of the systematic research is about the group that you’re talking about. It’s not about middle class children born in the United States whose parents try to organize a bilingual experience for them and the reason is that there is no common experience that these children have. There are books written by parents who have done this with their children. Dr. Hoff:     [03:44] There are books written about other people’s experience with this, but they are really a collection of anecdotes. The systematic research is either on immigrant populations because there are enough people in the same circumstance that you can do a study. There are also studies of bilingual development in more bilingual parts of the world. So in Wales where there are many Welsh-English bilinguals; in Spain where there are Spanish-Cataln bilinguals; in Canada where there are French-English bilinguals. So the research is not just about immigrant populations, but in the United States. The people who are bilingual are either immigrants, children of immigrants, or are these one off kinds of circumstances that don’t admit of systematic research very well. We just have stories of what’s possible and what works. But in terms of a study with large numbers of children, it simply doesn’t work. Jen:    [04:54] Yeah. Anecdata is my favorite kind of data. So then how can we extrapolate from the kind of research that you do on immigrant bilingual children and it, is it possible to extrapolate that to a middle class audience is looking to give their child a different experience? Dr. Hoff:   [05:11] Well, I think there are some findings that should inform the effort to raise a child that’s bilingual. So one of the findings from the children I study, and these are children who are exposed to two languages from the time they are born and some people might think and some people even say, well, if you’re exposed