Does anyone know what flash card method to use when teaching two languages?

Early Learning Teaching Your Child - Signing, Speaking, Languages
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I would like to clarify the use of method I described above. I do not use it myself. I just technically described using LR way for someone that has already decided to teach two languages this way - by showing two words in two languages with the picture at the same time. I do not do this.

I try to teach my daughter English along with her native language (Czech) but I always create two categories. One in English and one in Czech. Since LR does not offer an effective option yet how to translate categories into another language, I always import the category again with different naming and finish it with correct translations and sounds. I always teach English session and Czech session separately since I read a lot of articles about teaching two languages at the same time and they do not recommend mixing the languages. They recommend to separate using languages (the best option is - one language with one person, another worse one, but still a good option is to use one language during certain activities (for example special playtime during the day, special story time in the evening,…), under certain conditions (for example we play in English while wearing a special hat and we play with a puppet Teddy Bear that can speak only English). That is why I try not to mix languages and I teach both languages in separate teaching sessions.

On the other hand in Tweedlewink online course Pamela Hickens (The creator of RightBrainKids and its product Tweedlewink and Wink) admits that “this way of teaching two languages” (together both words with one picture) may be one of nice ways to teach two languages.

I do not do it myself. What I described above was only option how to use LR for those who has already decided to teach two languages by showing two words in two languages with the picture at the same time.

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Dear Pupisek & Everyone,

Thanks for the clarification. I still am happy that to discover that I am using LR the way you suggested. It means that I am learning and will ask you less questions. lol

I am going to post some information from a professional linguist/language acquisitions specialist that will be very informative for all of us here. I just have to get her permission, which I am almost certain she will give, and then organize the replies that went back and forth in the Yahoo Groups! so that they are easily read.

Stay tuned!
Ayesha :slight_smile:

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Pupisek,

What do you mean with “one language one person”? Does one person always talk to the baby in a specific language or just during certain activities?

When I’m by myself with my baby I speak to her in Spanish, but when my husband is around I talk to her in English so my husband knows what is going on. On the other side, my husband does speak a little bit of spanish and he loves talking to our daughter in spanish, so I’m not sure if that will contradict the “one language one person” method.

I appreciate your input.

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Hi Joha,

here is more information concerning your case:

It is also possible for you to use the second language somewhat inconsistently and still achieve good results, or even perfect bilingualism. You may, for instance, speak your second language most of the time, and use your first language occasionally.

  • If your effort is augmented by other people who speak your second language (the minority language) with the baby,
    if your spouse also speaks your second language with the kid from time to time,
    if you travel to the second language country when the baby is between 2-4 years old and stay a few weeks,

your child may develop into a perfect bilingual. Failing that, the child will become a passive bilingual: it will understand but not speak your second language. Still, sound foundation that you laid will make it possible for your kid to become an active bilingual later on if he/she puts some learning effort into it. It is definitely beneficial if more than one person speaks your second language with the baby.

If your child is completely surrounded by the majority language and you are the only person that talks to it in the minority language, you’ve got a problem. If the minority language is actually your second language, your problem is even bigger. You need help. You need all the help you can get. For starters, your accent is imperfect. Even if other people talk to the child in the second language, they may do it inconsistently. And the social pressure of the majority language is immense.

To help your baby learn the second language effortlessly, you should create a complete environment in the second language: films, books, even TV shows if possible. Your baby must encounter fairy tales that are typical for the minority language. It is not enough to provide fairy tales originally written in the majority language, even if professionally translated into the minority, „foreign“ language. Each language has a culture, a context, and fairy tales are part of that context.

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You can find more detailed description and other information about rearing a billingual baby here:
http://www.bilingualbaby.eu/

Here is a summary of available methods:

One Parent One Language
The easiest method for parents with different native tongues. Also great for intentional bilingualism. When parents have different native languages, and each parent speaks in his own language with the child, it will learn both languages equally well. This method, called One Parent One Language, requires no effort from the parents. They just act naturally.

One Parent One Language in Intentional Bilingual Education
There are many families where one parent (or both parents) speaks a second language. Either this parent is bilingual himself, or he speaks his second, “foreign” language very well. Such parent can use his second language with his child. If he uses the second language consistently, at all times, the child will learn both languages equally well. If he uses it somewhat inconsistently but there are other forms of support for the second language, the child may also learn both languages equally well. This situation is called intentional bilingualism, or artificial bilingualism.

Minority language at home
Great method to raise a child in two languages. Both parents speak the minority language at home, i.e. to the child and to each other. Minority language at home means that the minority language is the only language used within the nuclear family. In other words, both parents speak the minority language at home, to the child and to each other. The child learns the majority language from its surrounding environment, such as friends, grandparents and all other people.
Full application of this method requires that parents speak to each other in the minority language. Partial application means that parents speak the majority language to each other and minority language to their child/children. Both methods have proved to work and provide excellent results, provided the chosen method is applied consistently and without exceptions.

Minority Language at Home in Intentional Bilingual Education
In intentional (artificial) bilingual education, one or both parents is not a native speaker of the minority language. Yet only the minority language is used at home with this method. Example: a child in United States, with both parents native North Americans, who have good command of French, but there are no French in the neighbourhood. In this example, French is the minority language, and English is the majority language.
This approach is more demanding than One Parent One Language method, and it can seem even arduous. Parents usually do not know the minority language lullabies and nursery rhymes. They must spend time to learn them.

Other methods of bilingual education:

Phased languages
With this method , both parents speak one language to the child until it reaches about three years. By that time, the first language basics will have developed strongly. One parent will then start to use a second language. This second language is usually his/her native one. Typically, parents have different native languages. One parent has a good command of the other parent’s native language. Instead of using the OPOL method, they use this common language exclusively. At the age of three, when the language acquisition system is still flexible, the other native language is introduced. Or if this desired, target language is not a native language of either parent, a nanny/babysitter who is a native speaker of the target language may be hired. The first language should be the minority language. By using it exclusively during the early years of the child’s life, it is able to gain reliable foothold.

Language immersion
Language immersion, specifically French immersion is a form of bilingual education in Canada in which a child who has not spoken French as his or her first language studies in French. Canada is officially bilingual since 1867, and the French minority strives hard to hold back the onslaught of the English language

No rules method
It is also possible that parents agree on bringing the child in both languages, but do not want to follow any strict rules. Languages are then used according to theme and environment.
What occurs in such situation is called receptive bilingualism: ability to understand a language, but not to speak it. Receptive bilingualism can occur when a child realizes that they are dominant in a community language over the native language of their parents, and choose to speak to their parents only in the community language. These kids can rapidly achieve oral fluency when placed in situations where they are required to speak the subordinate language.

Other methods
One language is used by both parents on weekdays, the other one during the weekend.
One language in the morning, another in the afternoon
These methods impose unnatural strict rules, and are prone to failure, as the child or the parents or both may get tired of these schemes and cease to use them after a few months.

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Pupisek,

Wow! Thank you so much for all this information. I’ll review it with my husband tonight to see what we want to do.

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Yes, thankyou for that very clear and exhaustive rundown of the various methods of trying to teach bilingualism. I guess we are “ruleless”, in that I do speak English as my dominant native language at home, but we live in Quebec, and so we have books, videos in French, I speak french fairly fluently most especially in public: the general culture and neighborhood are francophone and my son goes to francophone daycare. He DOES understand French quite well (passive) and now mixes some french words in to his English (play amie! look, pompier! dolly assis ici!) but usually responds in English when I speak to him in French. The Chinese, he sees me studying, and he listens to dvds, we have books with cds etc, and only just this past week or two (he is 3 and a half now) he has started to clearly say some Chinese words to the chinese teacher we have come in to play with him (and teach me). I understand a lot of people do quite organised use of flashcards, but mostly I let my son play with them, shuffling them about, saying what they are, I ask him which is the butterfly in French etc… he seems to like that more than if I flash them in an ordered manner. And I usually say the word alternating back and forth between two or three languages: Bird! Niao! Bird! or Bird, Oiseau! Niao! and he seems to make the connection to the one image very well.

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I have a question about teaching a second language, I was just wondering about labelling the house in two languages and teaching a 2nd language that way? As I do not speak a 2nd language.

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I’m not sure if it works or not, but I think it would not hurt. I’m actually today working on labels in english and spanish to put around the house. I’m going to do english in red and spanish in black to create certain association. I do speak both languages though. I’m not sure which languages you want to teach your baby, but if it is spanish I’ll be more than happy to share the labels with you.

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http://yayacard.com makes Chinese talking cards to label the house etc with. Though apparently their adhesive stickers aren’t easy to remove! So I haven’t stuck any down. My son does like them because when you push them they say the word out loud three times.

I only have the furniture set, and got them when they were on special for $10 instead of $25. Other problem: the pinyin is on the back, so if you stick them down, you can’t read the pinyin anymore. And the pinyin doesn’t have tones written on. But they are cool as they talk (helpful when you don’t know the language yourself, or are learning like me) , and are attractive to kids.

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I agree with Pupisek… i would not mix the languages coz it might be confusing to the baby…unless the languages use different characters (Like english and Arabic for example), then they would look different and it might be not as confusing… my main aim with separating them is that the child doesn’t learn to mix the languages while he/she speaks in the future :wink:

Same with the labels around the house… I’d pick just one language and label everything with that…

My favorite method to date is having language days , so one day everything is in arabic (talking, LR, books, everything), the next day is in english…etc… especially if your spouse doesn’t speak another language and you are doing all the work :wink:

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Hmmm,
apparently all bilingual people tend to mix languages if they can (ie if the other person will understand them)… though they can speak one language or the other if needed. Lots of words don’t have equivalencies. There really isn’t an english equivalent of dépanneur.

And apparently bilingual children will also mix languages, even if you do separate the days or situations… they’ll use the word they know (ie if they have learned “pompier” in French but not “fireman” in english… if they are speaking english, they might say, “Look mama, a pompier!”

Personally, I would find it impossible to do one language a day. I am not going to go around my French neighborhood speaking English… it would be quite socially unacceptable (big political issues in Quebec!) as well as difficult with playdates with French children that day, going to francophone barber, shops etc.

And I don’t have a “baby " vocab in French” I learned it in college and could more easily discuss politics than the names of flowers. If we happen upon daffodils, marigolds and irises that day, should I just say “fleurs” because it is a French day and deprive him of the opportunity to get excellent specific English vocab?

As for Chinese, I am just learning it myself. I could never do a day in Chinese. Though I can integrate Chinese into all sorts of things. I sing songs while walking the dog with the stroller: I will sing a French song, six English songs, two Chinese songs, another French song, six more English songs. When I learn a new song, I add it. At supper, I might speak English, but then ask “zhe she shen me?” (what is this?" about various food items on his plate, or “zhe she shem ne yan se?” (what color is this?") and point out colors of what we can see while we’re eating. This enforces my and his new Chinese languages skills.

I am very curious how people with rules go about it… How does dad only speak French if the babysitter that day is English, how do you relabel all your furniture every day? What happens if Dad is supposed to speak only French and Mom only English… do they have a conversation where a child never hears the question and answer in the same language? Please if people can give me concrete examples.

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Talking about mixing up languages… :rolleyes: :rolleyes: you may input as many languages to your child…I don’t think children will get mix up at all.

At home, my husband & I speak English to my son. Then my mother (grandma) would speak Mandarin, then my maid speaks Bahasa Melayu to him. At the end of the day, he can master 3 languages and of course his English language is the best… when he speaks English he speaks proper English…no other words from Mandarin nor B. Melayu.

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Ayesha, I don’t have LR. The arabic programs you created, are they only for LR? Do you have powerpoints? I want to teach arabic but I don’t think I pronounce the letters correctly…I have a pakistani accent which I DON’T want to transfer…