I’m not sure about speech delay, but this is how I look at it.
In terms of what language we use with our child, firstly, by speaking more of Language A, we will tend to speak less of Language B, or Language C. It’s a trade-off most of the time. Secondly, I think it must be true that the more we speak a certain language, the faster our child will learn that language.
By that logic, wouldn’t this mean that if you want to MAXIMIZE your child’s language ability in Language A, then you would speak in Language A to your child 100% of the time?? I think maybe this is the reason that some people think there may be a speech delay problem if we introduce too many languages at the same time - ie., because of the “trade-off”.
On this, I will make 2 points:
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Whether that statement is true or not, even if we just speak in 1 language 100% of the time, this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t expose our children to as many languages as possible. Eg., it is a very good thing if someone else in the family speaks a different language. And I think it’s of great benefit that we play our children foreign language CDs, etc. For me, whenever I do allow Felicity to watch TV (which we generally try not to do, at least not for extended periods), I would switch it to a foreign language channel, cos at least that time is spent being exposed to a different language. And if we are sending our kids to nurseries, playschools, etc, I would highly recommend choosing some with a totally different language environment. It is in these environments that it is very clear a different language is spoken (and only that language), and it will encourage them to speak in that language because they will realize that otherwise they will not be understood. This similar to having a foreign-language-speaking grandparent around.
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In terms of what language we speak to our children, I think it’s not necessary to just focus on one language in order to maximize the child’s language abilities in that language. I think that especially if a child is progressing normally with the main language, I would recommend using some time (maybe even a lot of time) to speak to the child in one or more different languages from time to time, and doing this would not significantly slow down the progress of the first language. However, I would still recommend NOT mixing languages when you are speaking, eg., using different languages in the same sentence. The child may have a tendency to mix languages in a sentence, but that doesn’t mean we should do that.
The only difficulty in speaking different languages to our child is that we tend to slack and take the easy way out and just use the mother language to communicate since it’d be easier to get our child to understand what we are trying to tell them. To get around this, like I mentioned in an earlier post, I would first say something in Language B, then repeat in Language A (to explain what I just said), and then repeat the words in Language B again. After a while, you can drop Language A and the child will understand what you are saying in Language B.
But then again, this needs a lot of discipline!
:rolleyes: :dry:
But let’s say we can discipline ourselves to use Language A most of the time and Language B sometimes, what about introducing Language C (if we know so many languages)? Or even Language D? All I can say is that for me, I feel that Language B is already not spoken enough (since I lack discipline!!), so I do not carve out time to speak in Language C, because I feel that would impact upon my child’s acquisition of Language B. Therefore I try to make up for this by exposing her to as many different languages as possible (Languages A, B, C, D etc.) through other means.
In any event, I certainly do believe that a child can pick up many many languages at the same time, and it is definitely advisable to expose children to many different languages!
My 2 cents’ worth!
I would love to hear others’ experiences on the topic, as I find this sooo interesting! 