{"id":1017,"date":"2017-03-13T13:07:49","date_gmt":"2017-03-13T11:07:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bettyandcat.com\/?p=1017"},"modified":"2017-03-13T13:07:49","modified_gmt":"2017-03-13T11:07:49","slug":"the-bilingual-debate-where-do-you-stand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bettyandcat.com\/fr\/2017\/03\/13\/the-bilingual-debate-where-do-you-stand\/","title":{"rendered":"The bilingual debate \u2013 where do you stand?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The debate continues: \u00a0are you doing your kids a favour by encouraging them to be bilingual \u2013 or even trilingual &#8211; or are you risking what Victorians used to call *brain fever* (I think you can see where my sympathies lie!)<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bettyandcat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Screen-Shot-2016-09-04-at-20.53.22.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-754 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bettyandcat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Screen-Shot-2016-09-04-at-20.53.22-253x300.png\" alt=\"screen-shot-2016-09-04-at-20-53-22\" width=\"253\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bettyandcat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Screen-Shot-2016-09-04-at-20.53.22-253x300.png 253w, https:\/\/www.bettyandcat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Screen-Shot-2016-09-04-at-20.53.22.png 385w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 253px) 100vw, 253px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Of course, all kids are different, and respond to the idea of bilingualism in different ways.\u00a0 I often hear people say that their child picks and chooses when to speak the target language.\u00a0 Often the child will only in the right context.<\/p>\n<p>For instance, a child who knows that her Dad speaks her native language may ignore the bilingual experiment with him.\u00a0 But change the context, and off she goes, nattering like a native: maybe in the <strong>other<\/strong> country, maybe with a grandparent or other relative, or maybe even with a doll she associates with the other country.<\/p>\n<p>Other kids are born communicators from the first <em>oo<\/em> and <em>ah<\/em>.\u00a0 I know a boy whose parents immigrated from France to Australia.\u00a0 At four years old he came back to France for a visit.\u00a0 Somehow he knew we\u2019re native English speakers (although he\u2019d always spoken French with us), and asked in English for a glass of water. He was thirsty.\u00a0 I told him in English that he knew where the glasses were, and to help himself.\u00a0 Only thing was, the cupboard was too high for him to reach.\u00a0 So, instead of saying \u201cI can\u2019t reach\u201d, or grunting on tiptoe, he said, \u201cI can\u2019t <em>actually<\/em> reach them.\u201d Not a phrase he would have picked up from his parents. From where, then? This child loves language, loves communicating, and instinctively made the target language his own \u2013 from day one. I love it!<\/p>\n<p>What to do?\u00a0 You don\u2019t want to push too hard, you don\u2019t want your child left behind, and you don\u2019t want your partner or your parents or in-laws left behind either. Any thoughts?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The debate continues: \u00a0are you doing your kids a favour by encouraging them to be bilingual \u2013 or even trilingual &#8211; or are you risking what Victorians used to call *brain fever* (I think you can see where my sympathies &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bettyandcat.com\/fr\/2017\/03\/13\/the-bilingual-debate-where-do-you-stand\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nieuws"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"fr","enabled_languages":["en","nl","fr","es"],"languages":{"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"nl":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"fr":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"es":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bettyandcat.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bettyandcat.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bettyandcat.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettyandcat.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettyandcat.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1017"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettyandcat.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1019,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettyandcat.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017\/revisions\/1019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bettyandcat.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettyandcat.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettyandcat.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}