Growing up with Three Languages: Birth to Eleven (Parents' and Teachers' Guides)

Growing up with Three Languages

PARENTS’ AND TEACHERS’ GUIDES Series Editors: Colin Baker, Bangor University, UK This series provides immediate advice and practical help on topics where parents and teachers frequently seek answers. Each book is written by one or more experts in a style that is highly readable, nontechnical and comprehensive. No prior knowledge is assumed: a thorough understanding of a topic is promised after reading the appropriate book. Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found on http://www. multilingual-matters.com, or by writing to Multilingual Matters, St. Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol, BS1 2AW, UK.

PARENTS’ AND TEACHERS’ GUIDES

Series Editors: Colin Baker, Bangor University, UK

Growing up with Three Languages Birth to Eleven

Xiao-lei Wang

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Bristol • Buffalo • Toronto

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Wang, Xiao-Lei, 1959Growing up with Three Languages: Birth to eleven Xiao-lei Wang. Parents’ and Teachers’ Guides; no. 11 Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Language acquisition–Parent participation. 2. Multilingualism in children. I. Title. P118.5.W36 2008 401’.93–dc22 2008026646 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-84769-107-1 (hbk) ISBN-13: 978-1-84769-106-4 (pbk) Multilingual Matters UK: St. Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol, BS1 2AW, UK. USA: UTP, 2250 Military Road, Tonawanda, NY 14150, USA. Canada: UTP, 5201 Dufferin Street, North York, Ontario M3H 5T8, Canada. Copyright © 2008 Xiao-lei Wang All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned. Typeset by Datapage International Ltd. Printed and bound in Great Britain by the MPG Books Ltd.

Dedication To my children, Thank you for keeping my Chinese alive. I am grateful that I can speak it with you everyday! Thank you for showing me, with vivid examples, the possibilities of acquiring and developing three languages simultaneously. To my husband, Thank you for joining me on this challenging and meaningful journey of passing our heritage languages and cultures to our children.

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Prologue ‘Life is like a box of chocolates’, as the main character in the movie Forrest Gump puts it, ‘You never know what you’re gonna get’. Nobody can foresee their future and no one knows what will happen in their life. For me, it all began as a chance meeting in the kitchen of a communal dorm on the campus of the University of Chicago. While I, a graduate student from the People’s Republic of China, was having dinner, there came the kitchen manager who labored to utter French to a young man apparently more interested in conversing with him in English. A few minutes later, this young man abandoned the manager and approached me; we began to converse. He was an exchange student from the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and that was his first day in the USA. The conversation of that day has since continued . . . Three years later, the young man became my husband, six years later he became the father of our first child, and eight years later, he was holding our second child in the delivery room. The story thus unfolds . . .

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Contents Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reasons for Writing This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The impact of globalization on family composition and family language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lack of successful examples of multilingual childrearing practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Content of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Unique Features of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Encouraging reflective parenting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Focusing on the process of acquiring three languages simultaneously . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Describing trilingual developmental characteristics in the everyday context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Treating language acquisition and development from a holistic perspective. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Valuing parental observation and small sample in heritage language acquisition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Including children’s own voices about their multilingual development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Author’s Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Profile of the Main Characters of the Book. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Le´andre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dominique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Style of This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Overview of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Notes and References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 1 The Complexity of Trilingualism . . . . . . . . . . . . . Who is Trilingual? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Why are Equal Competence and Performance in Three Languages Unlikely? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Differences in parental childrearing beliefs and language socialization practices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Language differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

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Growing up with Three Languages

The ‘second-hand’ language acquisition phenomenon . . . . . . . . Changing linguistic environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Why is Language Purity an Illusion? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Distinguishing one language use from another . . . . . . . . . . . Describing things that do not have equivalents in another language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Filling a vocabulary gap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Achieving communication effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Revealing one’s cultural and social identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Why are Trilinguals Neither the Same as Monolinguals Nor the Same as Bilinguals?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trilinguals cannot be judged using the criteria of monolinguals Trilinguals are not the same as bilinguals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Notes and References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Chapter 2 In the Beginning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Our Plan and Discussion about Raising Trilingual Children. . . . . . . . . The number of heritage languages to pass on and the time to start . Family communication system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Our motives for raising trilingual children. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Preservation of cultural heritages, identity and family ties . . . . . . . . . Benefits of multilingualism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Brain potential . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Interests in languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Our suitability for raising trilingual children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Heritage language competence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Attitudes toward our heritage languages and cultures . . . . . . . . . . . . Personality traits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Weighing potential support for raising trilingual children . . . . . . . . Heritage family support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Community support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Traveling possibilities to heritage countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Childcare plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Our goals and expectations for our children’s trilingual proficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The sacrifice and challenge of raising trilingual children . . . . . . . . . Naming the children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Deciding the children’s citizenship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Announcing our plan to extended families and others. . . . . . . . . . . Preparing home-language materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Suggestions for Parents Who Plan to Raise Multilingual Children . . . . Making decisions that are suitable to your own situation . . . . . . . .

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Contents

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Asking yourself many ‘whys’ before you start your journey Evaluating your reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Evaluating yourself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Evaluating your support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Deciding early on the family communication system . . . . . . Setting up your goals and expectations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Becoming well-informed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Announcing your intention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Naming your children is not a trivial matter . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Notes and References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 3 The Home Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Strategies for the Home Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Establishing the trilingual environment . . . . . . . Maximizing the home-language input. . . . . . . . . Establishing a communication system. . . . . . . . . Maximizing the chances to become trilingual. . . Reading routines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Personal story telling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dictating children’s stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Establishing a print-rich environment. . . . . . . . . Listening and singing children’s songs . . . . . . . . Challenging Issues and Ways to Deal with Them. . Alone on the linguistic planet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Declining native language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Coining words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Language ‘policing’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Feeling left out in family conversations . . . . . . . The gendered-language input issue . . . . . . . . . . The audibility and visibility issue . . . . . . . . . . . Highlights of Early Language Development. . . . . . Speech sounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cooing and babbling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tone in Chinese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Simplifying and altering pronunciation in French Gesture substitution in Chinese . . . . . . . . . . . . . Accent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Word comprehension and production . . . . . . . . . Word spurt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Word mixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Growing up with Three Languages

Grammar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Language complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . French feminine adjectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Personal pronouns in French . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . French irregular verbs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chinese classifiers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Language use. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conversation styles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Language use in context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Language awareness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Naming the language they are speaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Curiosity about different languages including the writing systems. . . . . Sensitive about non-native speakers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Comparing languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Making jokes with languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Noticeable Aspects of Identity Development During the Home Years . . Biracial identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Feelings toward their home languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Secret language and gossip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Social relations with others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Suggestions for Supporting Trilingual Children During the Early Years . The importance of starting early and being consistent . . . . . . . . . . . . The importance of monitoring heritage-language input . . . . . . . . . . . Monitoring the quantity and quality of trilingual input . . . . . . . . . . . . Know which mistakes to correct and not . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Teaching language in context. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The importance of providing multiple sources of input . . . . . . . . . . . Early literacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Using pretend play to teach language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The relationship among language, thought and experience . . . . . . . . The relationship between language and gesture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The importance of family communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The importance of supporting children’s identity development . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Notes and References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 4 Transition from Home to Preschool and Kindergarten . . Strategies for Coping with the New Linguistic Environment . . . . . . Gently ‘insisting’ on using home languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Helping children form the habit of asking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Helping children describe school experience in home languages . Matching the school language with the home languages . . . . . . .

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Matching school literacy skills with home-language literacy skills . . Asking questions to facilitate decontextualized language . . . . . . . . . . . Increasing children’s print knowledge in home languages . . . . . . . . . . Introducing Chinese handwriting knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Motivating children through interesting reading materials . . . . . . . . . Taking advantage of media technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Monitoring the children’s English development through conversations with others. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . New Challenges and Ways to Deal with Them . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The temptation to speak English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Learning heritage languages in non-heritage cultural contexts . . . . . Ignorance about trilingualism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Language bias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sibling influence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Speaking home languages in the presence of others. . . . . . . . . . . . . Difficulty in finding families that share the same language practice. Highlights of Language Development from Home to School . . . . . . . . Speech sound. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tones in Chinese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Liaison in French . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Word . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Word mixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Discrepancy between knowing a word and using it correctly . . . . . . . . Grammar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . French verb agreement in relative clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . French tenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Language use. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . American colloquial style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Language awareness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Playing with language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Creativity in language use. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Noticeable Aspects of Identity Development During the Transition from Home to School. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Adjusting to the new environment with ease . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Attachments to heritage cultures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Different representations of self in different languages. . . . . . . . . . . Suggestions for Supporting Trilingual Children During the Transition from Home to School. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Working together with teachers and childcare professionals . . . . . . Communicating with teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Working with childcare professionals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Boosting children’s self confidence in using the home languages. . . Free drawing can help children express themselves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Growing up with Three Languages

Responding to language mixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Encouraging language experimentation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The benefits of reading to children in your native language Taking advantage of media technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Engaging inter-racial children in conversations about inter-racial self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Notes and References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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131 131 132 132

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Chapter 5 The Elementary School Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Strategies for Home-Language Literacy and Maintenance . . . . . Building essential skills in home-language literacy . . . . . . . . Should children acquire home-language literacy skills at home or in school? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . When is the best time to start the formal literacy process? . . . . What are the realistic expectations for children’s home-language literacy skills? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Effective strategies for building home-language reading skills . . Effective strategies for building home-language writing skills . . Teaching culture and language conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conventional cultural gestures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cultural customs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Foul language exposure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Teaching idioms in home languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Monitoring home-language use by both parents . . . . . . . . . . Challenging Issues in Elementary School Years and Ways to Deal with Them . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What languages to use when helping children with their homework? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fending off different bias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Literature and media bias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Judging a culture through isolated events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Racial bias. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Struggling with Chinese reading and writing. . . . . . . . . . . . . Peer judgment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Highlights of Language Development During the Elementary School Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Speech sound. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Difficulty with the Chinese dipping tone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......... Benefits and interference of Chinese pı¯n yı¯n// Word and grammar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Word mixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . )......... Errors in Chinese homophones (cuo` bie´ zı`//

. . . . . . . 136 . . . . . . . 136 . . . . . . . 136 . . . . . . . 137 . . . . . . . 138 . . . . . . . . .

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139 140 144 145 145 146 149 152 152

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153 154 154 155 156 156 157

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157 157 157 158 158 158 159

Contents

Anglicizing French . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Language use and awareness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sensitive to other languages and accents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Accuracy in word use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Monitoring home-language use by self-correcting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Noticeable Aspects of Identity Development During the Elementary School Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The attachment to heritage countries through heritage languages Home languages as private languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Clear self-assessment about their language abilities . . . . . . . . . . . Avoiding attention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Suggestions for Supporting Trilingual Children During the Elementary School Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Different paths to heritage-language literacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cultural context in heritage-language reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Parents as examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Providing choices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Creating opportunities to talk with children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Preparing children for peer pressure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Balancing heritage-language learning and other activities . . . . . . Perseverance and patience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Notes and References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

xiii

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159 160 160 160 161

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161 161 162 162 163

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164 164 165 165 166 166 167 167 168 168 169

Chapter 6 Identity and Personality Development: Children’s Voices. . An Identity Revealed Through Narratives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Linguistic identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cultural and nationality identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ethnic-racial identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Distinct Personality Formed Through Unique Experience . . . . . . . . Constant use of linguistic and cultural resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thinking of different possibilities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Exceptionally observant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Different representations of selves in different languages. . . . . . . . . Overly critical of the ways that others speak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Having a sense of knowing more than their peers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Suggestions for Fostering a Healthy Identity and Personality Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Successful experiences in heritage-language learning are important. Parents play a key role in children’s identity and personality development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Teachers, professional childcare providers and peers influence children’s identity formation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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171 171 172 175 179 181 181 183 183 184 185 186

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Growing up with Three Languages

Children’s role in their trilingual identity formation Identity development is an ongoing process . . . . . . Some issues to watch out for about the one-parent-one-language method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Notes and References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Chapter 7 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Current State of Trilingual First Language Acquisition Research . Complexity of Trilingual First Language Acquisition . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nature versus nurture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Input versus output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Language similarities versus language differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . Take-Home Messages for Parents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . There are potential advantages to know more than one language . Children’s well-being should always come first . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Attending to children’s emotional needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Attending to children’s developmental and individual needs . . . . . . . Balancing play and leisure with heritage-language learning activities. Negotiating parenting differences and conflicts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reducing parental frustration and attending to your own needs . . Finding the source of your anxiety, frustration or anger . . . . . . . . . . Childrearing is a learning process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Motivating children may reduce your frustration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Giving yourself a break . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Communication should be the top priority in home-language learning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Language learning occurs in context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Language and cultural heritage go hand-in-hand. . . . . . . . . . . . . . It’s never too late to start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Children are active learners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Language learning is a life-long process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Be a public advocate for multilingual children. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Notes and References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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194 194 195 195 196 197 198 198 198 199 200 200 200 200 201 201 202 202

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202 203 203 203 203 204 204 205 205

Epilogue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 Appendix: Useful Websites for Parents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

Acknowledgements Even though space limits do not allow me to thank every single person who contributed to this book, I do want to mention a few who have played a major role in its completion. I would like to thank Professor Colin Baker (editor of Parents’ and Teachers’ Guides series) for his encouraging comments on the potential of this book when I submitted my proposal to the publisher and for his continued guidance in the writing process. I admire Colin’s insight and work ethic. I am in great debt to him for his advice. I am grateful to Marjukka Grover (of Multilingual Matters) for suggesting that I write for parents rather than academics, which has turned out to be a brilliant recommendation. I also want to thank Dr Jean-Marc Dewaele (Reader in French and Applied Linguistics at Birkbeck College, University of London) for providing supportive and constructive comments when reviewing the final version of the book. Several of my graduate assistants provided great help with this book. I want to thank Jill Rembar for her active role in the writing process. Jill diligently proofread the drafts and provided valuable comments from a parent’s perspective. My gratitude also goes to Xiao-lan Rong, Veronica Sullivan and Cathy Saraniero for their hard work in data transcription and literature research. I wish to acknowledge the Pace University Kenan Faculty Scholarship Committee for providing me with a research grant and release time for the completion of the book. I also appreciate the generous help from Sheila Hu of the Pace University Mortola Library for locating and obtaining the many books and articles I needed for my research. In addition, I am indebted to many immigrant parents, friends, colleagues and our extended family members for their encouragement, support and informal interviews. Finally, I would like to express my thanks to the authors who preceded me in writing about raising children with more than one language. Their work confirmed my dedication to raise my children as trilinguals and made this book possible.

xv

Introduction .

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Are there advantages in knowing more than two languages? If so, can a child acquire them simultaneously from birth? Is it possible to raise trilingual children successfully when parents are the main source of the heritage-language input? How can a racially and culturally mixed family negotiate its differences in the process of raising children in their heritage cultures and languages? How does the heritage language-learning experience influence a child’s intellectual, personality and identity development?

These are some of the questions frequently asked by parents who are considering raising multilingual children1 and who are from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. If you are reading this book, it is likely that you too are interested in finding answers to these questions. This book will help you explore these issues. This introductory chapter gives the reasons for writing the book and acquaints the reader with its content, unique features and writing style. It also introduces the author’s background and the book’s main characters, and provides an overview.

Reasons for Writing This Book The impact of globalization on family composition and family language In our globalized world, it is not surprising to see a German working in China, an Indian living in France or a South African residing in the USA. According to the most recent US Census Bureau’s community survey, 27.2% of residents in California and 21.6% in New York are foreign-born.2 Similarly, the last official statistics in the United Kingdom show that 50
60% of its urban population is of non-European origin.3 The same trend can be observed in many urban centers around the world. As a result, the traditional family compositions, which used to be locally based, have been undergoing changes. Nowadays, a family including parents from different ethnic-racial and cultural backgrounds is no longer unusual, and numbers of such families are on the rise.4 My own family is a good example: my husband is Caucasian, originally from Switzerland, and I am Asian, originally from the People’s Republic of China. We are raising two biracial children in the USA. The changing face of family compositions today has inevitably brought along multilanguage use in many of the culturally and racially mixed households. In our family, for instance, English, French and Chinese are used daily. Below is a sample of our family conversation, in which three languages are spoken:

1

Growing up with Three Languages

2

Example 0.1 My younger son Dominique was asking the family whether we wanted to go with him to his school fair on Saturday. Dominique: Father: Mother: Dominique: Le´andre:

Mother:

[To Father] Tu veux aller a` la feˆte de l’e´cole samedi? (Do you want to go with me to the school fair this Saturday?) [To Mother] Do you want to go? [To Father] Not really. I have many things to finish this weekend. [To his older brother Le´andre] Et toi Le´andre, tu veux y aller? (How about you, Le´andre? You’re going?) Oui, bien suˆr! (Yes, certainly!) Eh Dominique! Je viens de t’envoyer un poke´mon sur le Wii. (Oh, Dominique I just sent you a Poke´mon on the Wii.) [To Le´andre] Nı` geˇi Nı` keˇ fa¯ le she´n me?

Mother:

(What did you send to Dominique?) Woˇ geˇi Nı` Keˇ fa¯ le Poke´mon8 Poke´mon8 (I sent Dominique the Poke´mon.) Le´andre, si tu veux que je t’aide a` faire ton devoir de maths, c’est maintenant et pas apre`s le film! D’accord? (Le´andre, if you want me to help you with your math, this is the time, not after the film, ok?) D’accord. [Went to fetch his math book.] (Okay.) [To Le´andre] Lıˇ a´ng, zhe` ge xı¯ng qı¯ liu` nıˇ ya`o da`o Nı` keˇ de xue´ xia`o qu`?

Le´andre:

(You will go to Dominique’s school this Saturday?) Duı`. Nıˇ bu´ qu`?

Mother:

(Yes. You don’t go?) Ra`ng woˇ xiaˇng xiaˇng ka`n8

Dominique:

(Let me think about it.) Ma¯ma nıˇ yı´ dı`ng ya`o qu`8

Le´andre:

Father:

Le´andre:

(Mother, you must go.)

Introduction

3

In many families around the world, shifting between languages in family conversation is typical of their everyday life. Although no accurate statistics are available, some scholars have estimated that worldwide there are probably as many children growing up with more than one language as there are monolingual children.5 Some scholars go further to suggest that a majority of people in the world know more than one language.6 Even in the USA, a seemingly English-only country, one out of five households speaks a language other than English,7 and more than 150 languages are used daily.8 In addition, there actually exists a trilingual community on its northern plains.9 As the global mobilization continues, there will be more and more families with parents from different racial, cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Oftentimes these families live in a country other than the parents’ native countries, and thus they must construct their own unique family identities, and make their unique childrearing decisions, including language decisions. With rising political and cultural consciousness regarding maintenance of heritage languages and cultural identities, and with a growing body of research literature reporting the advantages of maintaining heritage languages,10 many parents in culturally, linguistically and racially-mixed families now feel strongly about passing their heritage language(s) and cultures to their offspring. Lack of successful examples of multilingual childrearing practices Although the desire to maintain heritage languages on the part of parents is strong, the reality is not always encouraging. I have identified four areas that may have discouraged some parents from successfully bringing up their children with their heritage languages. First, research suggests that direct governmental involvement can make a difference in language maintenance.11 However, so far there has been no real political, economic or educational commitment on the part of governments in most developed countries to support families (particularly immigrant families) in the maintenance of heritage languages.12 Despite the often-heard and fashionable slogan about promoting multiculturalism and multilingualism, few developed countries have specified a budget designated for the education of heritage languages. Few developed countries have put ‘heritage language maintenance’ on their education agenda or have provided effective support services for immigrant parents to help their children maintain their heritage languages. Without a serious commitment and support at the governmental/federal level, it is difficult for parents to realize multiculturalism and multilingualism in an unsupportive society. Second, there is little longitudinal (long term) research that provides parents with reliable information on the developmental characteristics and needs of the children who simultaneously acquire three or more languages. Moreover, there is little research that offers information for parents on children’s identity and personality

4

Growing up with Three Languages

development as a consequence of growing up with multiple languages and cultures. Occasionally, when researchers do generate studies on these topics, the findings are often kept within the academic community. Third, making a language choice on behalf of their children is an important and difficult decision for many parents. Parents, and immigrant parents in particular, often rely on teachers and childcare professionals for guidance and support.13 Unfortunately, many teachers and childcare professionals are not well-informed in multilingual development and related matters. Thus, parents are often poorly advised about the options they have in their language choices. Many parents frequently walk away with the impression that they must speak and read the language of their country of residence to their children to ensure their children’s academic success. We have been the recipients of such ill advice from more than one of our children’s teachers. For example, in one early elementary teacher
parent conference, a teacher discreetly suggested that we speak and read English to our older son (after she found out that he was trilingual) despite the fact that he read above grade level in English, had high scores in standardized language arts and aptitude tests, and had no apparent ‘issues’ in spoken or written English. Our experience is not isolated, and I have heard stories like this over and over again from other parents. A mother who emigrated from Mexico told me that she was called to the school by her children’s teachers about speaking and reading English to her children at home, notwithstanding the fact that she could barely get by in English herself. A Chinese immigrant parent told me that her daughter’s pediatrician advised her to speak English to her daughter instead of Chinese, because otherwise, the child would lag behind in English and future academic performance. Finally, unlike a typical first language learning environment in which children acquire a language by receiving multiple language inputs from many people (such as parents, grandparents, other adults, teachers, peers and the media), the language learning environment for children who acquire heritage languages as their first languages often contains input from fewer sources, frequently a single source (one language from one parent and a different language from the other parent). Such a language-learning condition poses serious challenges for both children and parents. Thus, some parents become discouraged by the difficulties and lose the opportunity to raise their children in their heritage languages. Given the growing numbers of racially, culturally and linguistically mixed families worldwide, there is an urgent need for a book that considers the needs of these families and shares effective strategies that can facilitate heritage-language acquisition and development in this challenging environment. As Mitsuyo Sakamoto indicates in her study of the Japanese immigrant parents in Canada, successful stories of raising children with heritage language(s) have to be told because they can support and validate what parents are doing now and demonstrate what can be done in the future.14

Introduction

5

As a parent in a racially, culturally and linguistically mixed family, and a parent who has successfully brought up two trilingual children, I am enthusiastic about sharing my experience with other parents to empower them to make the right language decisions for their children. As a researcher, I feel the urgent need to inform parents of the research information on multilingualism and related issues. As a teacher-educator and a university professor, I regard it as my professional duty to communicate to teachers about the characteristics and needs of multilingual children and their families. As a world citizen, I wish to voice my opinions and concerns on our society’s lack of support for multilingual education. This is why I decided to write this book.

Content of the Book This book is based on an 11-year observation of two children who were simultaneously exposed to three languages from birth. It tells a story of how two parents from different cultural, linguistic and ethnic-racial backgrounds joined to raise two children with their heritage languages outside their native countries. It also tells a story about how the children negotiated three cultures and languages and developed a trilingual identity. It sheds light on how parental scaffolding (support) can contribute to children’s simultaneous acquisition of three languages in an environment where the main input of the two heritage languages came respectively from only the father and the mother. It addresses challenges and unique language developmental characteristics of two children during their trilingual acquisition process. The overarching goal of the book is to help parents see the possibilities for raising children with three languages when parents are the major source of the heritagelanguage input, and make efforts to preserve their heritage language(s) starting at the family level.15

Unique Features of the Book Encouraging reflective parenting Traditionally, parental advice books tend to treat parents as passive information receivers rather than active reflective thinkers. In my interactions with parents from different social, economic and educational backgrounds, I find that many of them do not need a book that tells them how to raise their children, but rather a book that helps them to reflect on their own childrearing practices through comparison. Thus, this book invites parents who are raising or intend to raise children with more than one language to observe how we (as parents) have helped our children acquire our respective languages in addition to the dominant language. By learning about the successes, failures, frustrations and challenges in our childrearing process and comparing them to their own, other parents may be able to reflect on their own strategies and find the best ways, given their particular circumstances, to raise their children with more than one language.

6

Growing up with Three Languages

Focusing on the process of acquiring three languages simultaneously This book documents the process of how my two sons acquired French (their father tongue), Chinese (their mother tongue), and English (their country tongue) simultaneously16 in the first 11 years of their lives.17 It shows how our children balanced two heritage languages with their country language. It also shows how similar linguistic systems (French and English) and different linguistic systems (Chinese versus French or English) bring about variations in speed and proficiency of the children’s trilingual acquisition and how effective strategies can close the proficiency gap that exists due to language differences.

Describing trilingual developmental characteristics in the everyday context The children were observed carefully on a daily basis in their interactions with parents, each other, peers and other people from birth to the end of the elementary school years (the eleventh year of their lives). They were videotaped once a week in naturalistic settings from birth to five years old, and then once a month from five to eleven years old. Additional videotaping was made for special occasions, such as birthdays, special family get-togethers, trips and school events. The length of each videotaping session lasted from 10 minutes to two hours. Moreover, the children’s language use and related behaviors were recorded on audiotapes and on-the-spot notes taken in situations where no video camera was available (e.g. in the car or during trips). Such systematic and longitudinal observations in everyday contexts can help parents see the trilingual developmental path the children went through and the specific support they need at different ages.

Treating language acquisition and development from a holistic perspective In the past, parental advice books on language acquisition, including bilingual and multilingual acquisition, tended to address language acquisition and development as an independent area. They rarely paid attention to other factors that can impact the multilanguage acquisition process (such as parental childrearing beliefs and practices) or aspects that develop in parallel with language(s) (such as culture knowledge). This book provides a holistic perspective of heritage language acquisition by including many aspects that either influence the language acquisition process or coexist with it. Furthermore, this book treats raising children with more than one language not just as a language matter; instead it treats language acquisition as a matter of raising healthy and happy children first. It draws attention to how the process of growing up with more than one language and culture can affect a child’s personality and identity development.

Introduction

7

Valuing parental observation and small sample in heritage language acquisition Few people will argue against the idea that parents know their children best. However, some may question the validity of observations by parents of their own children. Parents may have an unavoidable bias about their own children; their observations, however, are valuable if they are systematic and robust. Linguist Dan Slobin once wrote, ‘It is only by detailed examination of patterns of children’s verbal interaction with others that we can form a picture of the child’s activity in constructing language’.18 Parents are in the best position to provide this detailed information about their children simply because they live with them and know the context. Similarly, linguist Eve Clark commented, ‘The nonlinguistic setting as well as the linguistic context both have to be taken into account. This is because the child’s productions need to be matched as far as possible with what he intended to communicate on each occasion’.19 Thus, it is reasonable for language researcher Carol Berman to suggest that the linguist-parent has an advantage over outsiders (researchers), in that the parent has opportunities to observe spontaneous speech behavior, which are often lacking when outsiders are present.20 The following is a brief conversation between my younger son Dominique and me, which is a good illustration of how parental observation is valuable and accurate: Example 0.2 Dominique:

Qıˇng geˇi woˇ yı¯ zha¯ng zhuo¯ zi8

Mother:

(Please give me a table.) [He actually meant the little stool which looks like a table]. O, nıˇ xiaˇng ya`o na` zha¯ng de`ng zi8 (Oh, you want that stool.)

If an outsider, a researcher for example, looks at this interaction without understanding the context of this situation (which contains information only Dominique and I know, that is, he often makes jokes by calling that specific stool ’ a table ‘zhuo¯ zi/ ’), Dominique would be regarded as misusing ‘de`ng zi/ for the word zhuo¯ zi/ . As a matter of fact, a the Chinese word de`ng zi/ research assistant who helped me transcribe and code this tape initially marked Dominique as utilizing a wrong Chinese word. It is precisely examples (contexts) like this that make parental observations important in studying children’s language development. Some people may also have concerns about the small sample of children included in this book. However, the value of observing language development among small

8

Growing up with Three Languages

groups of children was highlighted by linguist Michael Halliday. He commented that it is even worthwhile to study a single child.21 In the case of children acquiring more than one language, small samples appear to be even more important. It is because of the small-sample observations made by pioneer parents/researchers such as Jules Ronjat and Werner Leopold that we began to understand bilingual children’s language development characteristics.22 Researcher Fred Genesee and his colleagues pointed out that children who learn more than one language ‘are difficult to place in large groups for research because they are not homogenous as a population; each child can have different degrees and contexts of exposure to each language, and this can affect their rate of development in each language. Thus, the case studies and small group studies might not tell what does happen. . . but they do tell us what can happen’.23 Including children’s own voices about their multilingual development Parenting advice books seldom consider the children’s own perspectives on growing up with more than one language and culture. This book presents children’s own voices on their experiences of growing up with three languages through their everyday narratives. By listening to what children have to say, readers can glean how children navigate their complex yet interesting trilingual lives and construct their trilingual identity in the process.

The Author’s Background My professional training, education and experience overlap several disciplines: cross-cultural developmental psychology, language acquisition (including second language and multilingual acquisition), linguistics, nonverbal communication, educational psychology and education (including early childhood education). In various professional capacities, I have conducted research, taught and worked with children and parents, including immigrant and multilingual families. Over the years, I have been able to make important observations while conducting research in different cultural communities such as Chinese, American, Huttterite, Native American and Latino groups, and published my research findings in academic journals. I was born and grew up in the People’s Republic of China and came to the USA at the age of 26 on a graduate scholarship awarded by the United Nations. I received my Master’s degree from the Erikson Institute in Chicago and my Doctoral degree from the University of Chicago. I am currently a tenured, full professor in the School of Education at Pace University in New York. I have traveled in many parts of the world and studied languages such as English, French, Russian and Japanese. In addition, I speak several Chinese dialects in addition to Putonghua /puˇ to¯ng hua`) or ‘standard’ Chinese, which is the official modern Chinese ( spoken language used by the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan (it is called in Taiwan), and is one of the four official languages of Singapore. guo´ yuˇ/

Introduction

9

My background as a university professor, educator, researcher, immigrant, parent raising trilingual children in a racially, culturally and linguistically-mixed family, and world traveler has prepared me to look at heritage-language acquisition and development from a unique perspective.

Profile of the Main Characters of the Book The two major characters of the book are my children Le´andre and Dominique.24 Their profiles are introduced below: ´ andre Le Le´andre is our older son. He was born in the USA. Le´andre has been acquiring French, Chinese and English as his first languages from birth. He is now studying Spanish in school, and picking up Swiss
German from his Swiss grandmother and Shanghai dialects from his Chinese grandparents during vacations and telephone conversations. He is attending a public school in Westchester County in New York. Le´andre is a healthy, happy-go-lucky and intelligent child. He has consistently done very well in all his academic subject areas and is currently in advanced math and English classes. In addition, he has received high scores on all the New York State standardized tests and the InView test.25 Le´andre’s hobbies include reading, Ma¨rklin trains, Wii and Nintendo DS games, swimming, biking and world traveling. He dislikes playing the piano, but loves playing the bass, which he plays in the school orchestra. His current dream is to become a ‘mad’ scientist (in his definition, a scientist who conducts experiments not done by ‘normal’ scientists). His past career dreams include becoming a truck driver and a train conductor. Dominique Dominique is our younger son. Also born in the USA, Dominique has been acquiring and developing French, Chinese and English from birth. He is in the same public school district as his brother. Dominique is a ‘born linguist’. He has an exceptional talent for imitating accents and languages. It is hilarious to hear him imitating famous politicians and actors from different countries. Dominique is doing very well in all his subject areas and has scored high on all the New York State standardized tests and the InView test. He has been enrolled in the gifted and talented program at his school since first grade. Dominique is a very creative child who will do amazing things using any materials at hand. For example, he might transform the pencils he is using into all kinds of interesting persons, animals and objects. He is very sensitive to what others say about him; many comments that for Le´andre are like water off a duck’s back would make Dominique cry. Dominique’s hobbies include playing soccer, watching television, drawing, swimming, biking and world traveling. He is also a talented athlete, a member of the local American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO) and on

10

Growing up with Three Languages

both the regular team and the travel team. Like his brother, he hates playing the piano. Dominique reluctantly plays the violin in order to satisfy a school music-class requirement. When asked recently what he wanted to become when he grew up, Dominique made an interesting comment. He said, ‘I really want to become a professional soccer player. If it does not work out, I may consider being a runner. If that does not work out, I will become a garbage collector. If nothing works out, I will become a professor!’ His past career dreams include becoming an actor and President of the USA.

The Style of This Book The style of this book is different from an academic book, though its content is much informed by the research literature. To make this book more accessible to parents and those who are interested in multilingual matters, I tried to write it in a reader-friendly manner by adding personal stories and anecdotes, and avoiding technical jargon. Occasionally, when I use some technical terms, I make them as understandable as possible. At the end of each chapter, I include notes or references for those who wish to explore further the issues under discussion.

Overview of the Book This book includes seven chapters. Chapter 1 prepares the conceptual ground for understanding the trilingual phenomenon. By looking at different trilingual cases, readers will see the complexity and intricacies that are involved in the process of becoming trilingual and form realistic expectations about trilingual competency. Chapter 2 discusses the importance of the planning process in considering raising children with more than one language. Through reading about our experience, readers can get an idea of what important matters and issues need to be considered in the planning phase. It also provides practical suggestions for parents or prospective parents. Chapters 3, 4 and 5 are organized chronologically according to the children’s specific developmental stages. Chapter 3 focuses on the period before the children went to school, Chapter 4 on the nursery and kindergarten period, and Chapter 5 on the elementary school period. Each chapter is broken down into five parts: (1) effective strategies we used to support the children in their trilingual and identity development. (2) Major challenges and the ways we responded to them. (3) Highlights of the children’s trilingual development characteristics. (4) Noticeable aspects of the children’s identity development as a consequence of their trilingual experience. (5) Thoughts and suggestions on how to facilitate children’s trilingual and identity development. Chapter 6 presents the two children’s own voices on their identity as trilingual, tricultural, biracial and binational individuals. By listening to the children’s

Introduction

11

personal accounts, readers can glean how they navigated and negotiated their complex and interesting lives, and how they actively constructed their identity. Thoughts and suggestions on how to help children develop a healthy identity and personality are presented for parents to consider. Chapter 7 provides a brief assessment of the current state of the study on trilingual first language acquisition and highlights its complexity in the light of my findings. It concludes with 10 take-home messages regarding raising multilingual children. Notes and References 1. Some scholars at times prefer to use the term ‘multilingualism’ rather than ‘bilingualism’ or ‘trilingualism’ to describe people who know more than one language in order to distinguish clearly the macrolinguistic level (bilingual or trilingual) from the microlinguistic level (monolingual). For example, see Hoffmann, C. (2001) Towards the description of trilingual competence. International Journal of Bilingualism 5 (1), 1
17. 2. US Census Bureau (2006) http://www.census.gov/acs/www/. 3. Lawson, S. and Sachdev, I. (2004) Identity, language use, and attitudes: Some SylhetiBangladeshi data from London, UK. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 23 (1), 49
69. 4. Brunsma, D.L. (2005) Interracial families and the racial identification of mixed-race children: Evidence from the early childhood longitudinal study. Social Forces 84 (2), 1131
1153. McDowell, T., Ingoglia, L., Serizawa, T., Holland, C., Dashiell, J.W. and Stevens, C. (2005) Raising multiracial awareness in family therapy through critical conservation. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy 31 (4), 399
411. 5. Tucker, G.R. (1998) A global perspective on multilingualism and multilingual education. In J. Cenoz and F. Genesee (eds) Beyond Bilingualism: Multilingualism and Multilingual Education (pp. 3
15). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 6. Grosjean, F. (1982) Life with Two Languages: An Introduction to Bilingualism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Romaine, S. (1995) Bilingualism. New York: Blackwell. 7. US Census Bureau (2006) http://www.census.gov/acs/www/. 8. Brecht, R.D. and Ingold, C.W. (1998) Tapping a National Resource: Heritage Language in the United States. ERIC Digest. Washington, DC: ERIC Clearinghouse on Language and Linguistics. 9. The Hutterites are a group of communally living Anabaptists of German ancestry. They distinguish themselves from the rest of the world with their religious beliefs, customs, dress code and language. Persecuted for their differences, particularly their religious conviction, the Hutterites migrated to the North American continent in the 1870s. To avoid the influence of the outside world, they founded their colonies on isolated farmlands of eastern South Dakota and Western Canada. Today, there are about 40,000 Hutterites living in many self-contained colonies in the USA and Canada. The Hutterites are trilingual in Hutterish, German and English. The author spent five years researching this group. 10. Cho, G. (2000) The role of heritage language in social interaction and relationship: Reflection from a language minority group. Bilingual Research Journal 24 (4), 369
384. 11. Wei, L. and Milroy, L. (2003) Markets, hierarchies and networks in language maintenance and language shift. In J.M. Dewaele, A. Housen and L. Wei (eds) Bilingualism: Beyond

12

12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

23. 24. 25.

Growing up with Three Languages Basic Principles: Festschrift in Honour of Hugo Baetens Beardsmore (pp. 128
140). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (2000) Linguistic Genocide in Education
or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights? Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Sakamoto, M. (2000) Raising bilingual and trilingual children: Japanese immigrant parents’ child-rearing experiences. Doctoral dissertation, University of Toronto. Sakamoto, M. (2000) Raising bilingual and trilingual children: Japanese immigrant parents’ child-rearing experiences (p. 132). Doctoral dissertation, University of Toronto. Baker, C. (2003) Language planning: A grounded approach. In J.M. Dewaele, A. Housen and L. Wei (eds) Bilingualism: Beyond Basic Principles: Festschrift in Honour of Hugo Baetens Beardsmore (p. 93). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Some researchers such as Anick De Houwer suggested that the word simultaneous should be avoided when describing children who acquire two languages because the word has been used with different meanings. These researchers prefer to use the phrase ‘bilingual first language acquisition’ (BFLA). See De Houwer, A. (1991) The Acquisition of Two Languages from Birth: A Case Study (p. 3). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. As a result of such a suggestion, other researchers such as Jean-Marc Dewaele began to use ‘trilingual first language acquisition’ to describe children who acquire three languages from birth. See Dewaele, J.M. (2000) Trilingual first language acquisition: Exploration of a linguistic ‘miracle’. La Chouette 31, 41
46. In this book, I chose to use the word simultaneous because I believe that it reflects the language acquisition process of my two children. I am continuing to document my children’s trilingual development. A sequel to this book is planned to reveal the two children’s trilingual development and related areas in their adolescent years. Slobin, D.I. (1985) Crosslinguistic evidence for the language-making capacity. In D.I. Slobin (ed.) The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition Vol. 2: Theoretical Issues (pp. 1157
1249). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Clark, E.V. (1985) The acquisition of Romance, with special reference to French. In D.I. Slobin (ed.) The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition Vol. 1: The Data (pp. 687
782). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Berman, C.R. (1976) Interference vs. independent development in infant bilingualism. In G.D. Keller, R.V. Teschner and S. Viera (eds) Bilingualism in the Bicentennial and Beyond. Jamaica (p. 86). New York: Bilingual Press. Clyne, M. (1987) ‘Don’t you get bored speaking only English?’: Expressions of metalinguistic awareness in a bilingual child. In R. Steele and T. Threadgold (eds) Language Topics: Essays in Honor of Michael Holiday (p. 86). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Ronjat, J. (1913) Le de´veloppement du langage observe´ chez un enfant bilingue. Paris: Champion. Leopold, W.F. (1939) Speech Development of a Bilingual Child: A Linguist’s Record. Evanston, IL: The Northwestern University Press. Genesee, F., Paradis, J. and Crago, M.B. (2004) Dual Language Development and Disorders: A Hhandbook on Bilingualism and Second Language Learning (p. 78). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes. Both my husband and my children gave me permission to use their real first names in the book. InView, or the CTB/McGraw-Hill InView test, is used as part of a process for screening gifted and talented children in some public schools in the USA.

Chapter 1

The Complexity of Trilingualism One day, my family and I were dining in a restaurant on a trip to Chicago. A middle-aged couple at a table near ours kept eavesdropping on our conversation. Before they left the restaurant, the woman came to us and asked, ‘How many languages do your kids speak?’ We answered, ‘Three’. ‘Oh boy, oh boy!’ she cried out, ‘Three languages, just like that! My goodness, these kids are so smart . . .’. She mumbled her way out of the restaurant, saying, ‘It’s really a miracle that these kids can switch from one language to the other . . .’. Another time, when my family was shopping in a jade store in Beijing, several shop assistants dropped what they were doing and gathered around us just to compliment me about my children’s ability to speak such good Chinese in addition to other languages (though they had no clue what the other languages were). Still another time, at a New Year’s Eve party given by my in-laws in Neuchaˆtel, my husband’s elementary school teacher Madame Guillaume was so impressed with our older son Le´andre’s trilingual ability (our younger son Dominique was still prelingual at the time) that she literally spent the entire party following him around to listen to him switching languages with multilingual guests and family members. Although my husband and I have felt flattered by many such compliments over the years, we have also had some unpleasant experiences. For example, a few years ago, a man approached my husband at our community swimming pool to tell him off, saying, ‘It’s about time you speak English to your boys. If you continue to speak your language, they will not be able to speak English. You know, they live in America!’ When our children were younger, a Hungarian woman in our neighborhood bet with us that in a few years our children would give up their French and Chinese and switch to English, based on her ‘evidence’ that her son dropped Hungarian as soon as he had entered elementary school. One summer evening, she stopped me on my routine stroll and told me with a grin that her prediction had proven to be right. She said that she had ‘caught’ my children speaking English to each other that afternoon. She was blissfully unaware that Le´andre and Dominique were actually talking to their English-speaking friend Galo who was playing on the floor of the terrace and could not be seen by her. When Le´andre was in first grade, one of his classmates told other children that Le´andre had ‘something strange on his tongue’ because he could speak weird languages (after he had learned that Le´andre could speak other languages).

13

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Growing up with Three Languages

And, in Dominique’s third week of kindergarten, he brought back a consent form from a school-district language specialist seeking parental permission to enroll Dominique in a therapeutic language session. Alarmed and nervous as any parent would be, I immediately called to ask what led her to this decision. The language specialist explained to me that as part of her routine entrance screening, she had read a school information sheet which noted that Dominique was trilingual, and it also seemed Dominique was not able to open his mouth wide enough when speaking. Puzzled by her rationale, I asked her whether she had observed Dominique speaking in other circumstances as well, such as with his peers or his classroom teacher. She said that she had not. I suggested discreetly that she observe him a little longer before deciding what to do. I never heard from her again. I could go on with such stories. The point of sharing a few of them with you is not to blow my own horn with other people’s compliments or to be bitter about their not-so-flattering comments, but to show that many people may have extreme and skewed reactions, opinions and even biases toward trilingual children. In our conversations with people, we noticed that few realize that the process of becoming trilingual is not as simple and straightforward as they imagine. The small linguistic ‘miracles’ that my children have demonstrated involve many layers of complexity. As Colin Baker, a bilingual education expert in the United Kingdom, lucidly points out, bilingualism is a simple term that hides a complex phenomenon.1 In my opinion, the same goes for trilingualism. This chapter discusses the complexities and intricacies of the trilingual phenomenon. The questions that are explored include: who is trilingual, why equal competence and performance in three languages are unlikely, why purity in three languages is an illusion and why trilinguals should be treated as a separate group instead of being ‘judged’ according to the standards of monolinguals and bilinguals. The purpose is to weed out many of the commonly held myths and misconceptions regarding trilingualism and to present a realistic picture of what it means to be a trilingual.

Who is Trilingual? The complexity of trilingualism begins with the question, ‘Who is trilingual?’ The American Heritage Dictionary defines a trilingual person as someone who is ‘using or able to use three languages, especially with equal fluency or nearly equal fluency’. Most people probably will accept this definition without questioning, as shown by my survey of 200 preservice education graduate students, in which 96% think the definition is accurate.2 The truth is that if we use this definition, particularly the ‘with equal fluency or nearly equal fluency’ part, as a yardstick to measure trilinguals, I am afraid that very few of them would qualify. To put this discussion in context, I would like you to consider four individual cases.3

The Complexity of Trilingualism

15

Case 1: Philippe My husband Philippe was born in Switzerland. His father had a doctorate in law and worked for the OECD4 and then the Swiss federal government. His mother was an elementary school teacher and later a homemaker. Philippe spent his early childhood in Paris and Berne, and then his middle childhood, adolescence and young adulthood near Neuchaˆtel. Philippe started his life as a simultaneous bilingual in French and German (Swiss
German and High-German). Philippe’s parents spoke exclusively Swiss
German to him at home, and his mother read many books in HighGerman to him and his sister when they were young to make sure that the children acquired not only dialect; at the same time, he lived in a Frenchspeaking environment. At age 25, Philippe came to the USA as an exchange graduate student and thus added a third language, English, to his linguistic repertoire. Eventually, he earned a doctoral degree from an American university. At present, he is able to function at a high level in each of his three languages in listening comprehension, speaking, reading comprehension and writing (as evidenced by his university teaching and academic publications) in addition to possessing reading competence in Latin, ancient Greek, biblical Hebrew and rudimentary spoken Chinese.5 Philippe has a slight accent in spoken English (no one can tell whether it is influenced by French or German or a combination of both). The following are his own accounts of his linguistic abilities in different stages of his life. Nineteen years ago when he first came to the USA, he commented, ‘When I talk about kitchen experience, I feel I have more Swiss
German vocabulary. When I was growing up, I spent many hours with my mother in the kitchen. Our conversation was always in Swiss
German. When I talk about academic and other experiences, I feel I have more French vocabulary. I have lived in a French-dominated environment for 25 years, went through all my education including university in French; thus, I feel comfortable to discuss academic and other topics in French’. Today, after spending 19 years in the USA and having the responsibility to pass French to his children (living in French with the children on a daily basis), Philippe commented, ‘I now feel very comfortable to chat with my children on kitchen matters in French . . . In fact, I feel very competent in English, French and German because of the academic and everyday communication needs . . .’.

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Growing up with Three Languages

Case 2: Joanne Joanne was born in South Korea. Her father had a bachelor’s degree and her mother had a high school education. Her father was a pharmacist and later a businessman, and her mother a homemaker. Joanne spent the first 17 years of her life as a monolingual Korean. Thirty years ago, she immigrated to the USA at age 17 with her family. She started to learn English in high school and college and became fluent in it. In graduate school, she added another language, German. Later on, she went to Germany several times, and spent a few years there. Despite her obvious Korean accent in both English and German, she is highly competent in both of those languages in listening comprehension, speaking, reading comprehension and writing. She earned her doctoral degree from an American university. Joanne is currently a university professor in the USA. She teaches, reads and writes in English and German. As far as her Korean is concerned, Joanne feels that it is her mother tongue, and it gives her subtle emotional expressions that the other two languages do not. She has no problem communicating in spoken Korean, but does not feel so competent in reading and writing. Joanne says that her Korean remains at a high school level.

Case 3: Andrea Andrea was born in Poland. His birth father was a steel factory worker and his mother was a government secretary. Both his parents had high school educations. Andrea started his life as a Polish monolingual. At age 13, after the divorce of his parents, he moved to then West Germany with his mother, who married an American shortly thereafter. Andrea picked up German and English simultaneously. His mother spoke only Polish to him at home. His stepfather spoke mostly English to him. Dropping out of high school, Andrea took a job in an automobile factory. Twenty years ago, at 23, he moved to a small town in the UK and started his own auto business, and married a Polish woman (thus, having the opportunity to speak Polish on a daily basis). Now, on meeting him, one could not tell him apart from other Polish speakers living in Poland. By Andrea’s own account, however, his Polish reading and writing skills are elementary. His English listening comprehension and speaking are excellent although he has a slight Polish accent, and his English reading comprehension and writing are passable. His German functions well at a spoken level (almost accent-free on the first encounter), but minimally in reading and writing. The linguist who interviewed him concurs with Andrea’s self-assessment of his three languages.

The Complexity of Trilingualism

17

Case 4: Maria Maria was born in Argentina, where both her parents were university professors. From birth, Maria’s mother only spoke Portuguese to her and her father only spoke German to her. She has been living in a Spanishspeaking environment. Hence, Maria is a simultaneous trilingual from birth. Maria has a master’s degree in sociology, and is now living in a big city in Argentina and working as a high school teacher. Based on the assessment of the linguist who interviewed her, Maria functions highly in Spanish in listening comprehension, speaking, reading comprehension and writing. Her listening and speaking in Portuguese and German are also quite competent, but she functions only at a rudimentary level in reading and comprehending in these two languages. She is not competent in writing in either Portuguese or German. Are these four people really trilingual? Are any of them more trilingual than the others? Perhaps to your dismay, all four of them are indeed trilingual! According to linguist Jasone Cenoz,6 there are at least four types of trilingualism distinguished by the order of acquisition: Types of Trilingualism Type 1: The three language systems are acquired consecutively. Type 2: The third language system is acquired after the simultaneous acquisition of the first two. Type 3: The first language system is already acquired before the simultaneous acquisition of two other languages. Type 4: Simultaneous contact with three language systems. Based on Cenoz’s categories, Joanne belongs to the Type 1 trilingualism. Her three language systems were acquired consecutively (first Korean, then English and finally German). Philippe belongs to the Type 2 trilingualism. His third language system (English) was acquired after the simultaneous acquisition of the first two (French and German). Andrea belongs to the Type 3 trilingualism because his first language system (Polish) was already acquired before the simultaneous acquisition of two other languages (German and English). Maria belongs to the Type 4 trilingualism. She has had simultaneous contact with three language systems (Spanish, Portuguese and German) from birth. With these four trilingual cases in mind, when we go back and examine the definition of trilingualism in the American Heritage Dictionary, we begin to see that it is too narrow and simplistic for at least the following reasons:

Growing up with Three Languages

18

First, the dictionary definition lumps all trilinguals into one category, and the differences among them are completely ignored. Yet, as we just witnessed in these four trilingual cases, they are all different with reference to: .

.

.

the age of their trilingual acquisition (all four people acquired their three languages at different ages of their lives); the order of their trilingual acquisition (all four have different orders of three language acquisition); the circumstances of their acquisition (all four acquired their three languages in different environments).

Second, the dictionary definition assumes that people can acquire equal fluency in three languages when their trilingual environments vary. As shown in Maria’s case, her experiences in her three languages are different. She has lived in a Spanish linguistic and cultural environment all her life and was educated in that language as well. Thus, she is competent with it at all levels (listening comprehension, speaking, reading comprehension and writing). However, Maria’s major linguistic and cultural experiences in Portuguese and German were from her parents (Portuguese from her mother and German from her father) and she did not live either in Portugal or Germany, except for a few trips during childhood. Although Maria did not formally learn to read and write in Portuguese or German, she did pick up some rudimentary skills by browsing through magazines, newspapers and advertisements, and writing a few words to her relatives on holiday greeting cards. Thus, it is natural that Maria has developed only listening and speaking and not reading and writing proficiency in two of her heritage languages. Third, the dictionary definition of trilingualism is unclear with respect to the word ‘fluency’. It does not specify whether ‘fluency’ means competence, performance or both. According to some linguists,7 there is a difference between the two. Competence is what speakers know about a language, and performance is what speakers actually do in the use of a language. An inability to perform does not necessarily indicate a lack of competence. It is likely that a language user knows the rules of a language, yet does not always perform according to the rules in real communication. For example, if you test my younger son Dominique on his knowledge of the usage of the Chinese verbs da`i/ (wear, as in wear glasses) and chua¯n/ (wear, as in put on socks), he knows the differences. However, in his actual ’ instead of ‘da`i yaˇn jı`ng/ communication, he often says ‘chua¯n yaˇn jı`ng/ (wear glasses)’. Fourth, the dictionary definition fails to consider that trilingual people’s competence and performance are influenced largely by their education levels, not just the age at which they are exposed to the three languages.8 There is a popular belief that the younger a person is when exposed to a language, the better the chances are that the person will be able to achieve proficiency in that language. This may be true to some extent as far as the pronunciation of a language is concerned. For example, Joanne, Philippe and Andrea have various degrees of accents in

The Complexity of Trilingualism

19

languages they acquired later in life. But Maria does not have an accent in any of her three languages because she acquired them from birth. However, research indicates that older children and adults sometimes have more advantages than younger children in learning another language.9 As shown earlier, both Philippe and Joanne achieved high proficiency in English despite the fact that they acquired it late. Judging from the scholarly work they published, these two people have surpassed many so-called English native speakers. By contrast, although Maria acquired Portuguese and German from birth and is fluent in the spoken part of these languages and accent-free, she is not very competent in reading and writing in these two languages because she did not have the opportunity to develop these two languages in higher education. Similarly, Andrea does not function at a higher level in reading and writing in all his three languages because his education is limited. It is clear that education is associated with a person’s degree of language competence and performance (listening, speaking, reading and writing). The chances are that the more educated and literate a trilingual person becomes, the more competent she or he will be in the three languages. Finally, the dictionary definition treats a person’s trilingual competence and performance as static, and completely neglects that linguistic competence and performance change together with linguistic environments. Using Philippe’s case as an example, although he felt initially more comfortable discussing kitchen experiences in Swiss
German than in French, after his linguistic environment and needs changed, he felt equally comfortable in describing kitchen experiences in French, English and Swiss
German. Linguists Malcolm Edwards and Jean-Marc Dewaele called this process a dynamic, ever-evolving system.10 Having discussed the limitation of the popular definition of trilingualism as indicated by the American Heritage Dictionary, we are now in a better position to explore the complexity of trilingualism.

Why are Equal Competence and Performance in Three Languages Unlikely? In principle, anyone has the potential to be capable of having equal competence and performance in three or more languages. However, to achieve this potential, a person’s language experiences and contexts for learning would have to be parallel across languages.11 As we have seen in Maria’s case, it is very unlikely in reality that the language learning experiences for a trilingual child are parallel. To illustrate this point further, I will use my second son Dominique’s acquisition of the French verb as examples. Dominique tomber (tumble) and its Chinese equivalent shua¯i jia¯o/ acquired the French verb tomber at one year and one month, and he only acquired the at three and a half. Upon analyzing the contexts of Chinese equivalent shua¯i jia¯o/ Dominique’s acquisition of this verb,12 it is clear that Dominique’s experience of this word was very uneven, that is, not parallel. He heard tomber much more frequently than shua¯i jia¯o/ As a matter of fact, his father used tomber 45% more frequently

20

Growing up with Three Languages

than his mother used shua¯i jia¯o/ by his mother. Interacting with his father, Dominique had much more freedom in climbing and running than with his mother. As a result, he also had more incidents of tumbling, and thus, he had more opportunity to hear and use tomber rather than shua¯i jia¯o/ This example shows that it is unrealistic to expect a trilingual to have equal performance in three languages as their linguistic experiences are different. Even monolingual people, as linguists Tej Bhatia and William Ritchie remind us, cannot have equal control over all aspects of their language.13 For example, a friend of mine, who is a very well versed mono-English speaker by any standards, discovered to her shock one day that she did not know many of the terms used by her car mechanic. Although monolinguals are not necessarily competent in all aspects of their language, multilinguals are often subject to more severe evaluation and categorical judgments than monolinguals. Edith Harding-Esch and Philip Riley, authors of The Bilingual Family: A Handbook for Parents, pointed out that the problem is that people do not judge people with more than one language by the same standards they use to judge monolinguals. They judge people with more than one language in reference to ‘an impossible ideal, the ‘‘native speaker’’ who supposedly speaks all possible varieties of his language, who can, linguistically speaking, do everything in all domains and on all topics in his language’.14 Thus, competence and performance in a language are only a matter of degree; they often depend on the needs in the environment. Because the needs for each language are different across a trilingual’s life, the ability that they develop to respond to them will be different. Elite Olshtain and Frieda Nissim-Amitai, authors of a book chapter titled ‘Being Trilingual or Multilingual: Is There a Price to Pay?’ illustrate this point well by using the cases of multilinguals in South Africa and India: Since each speaker uses two or three different languages in daily encounters, the need for mastering each language may not be the same. One language might be used only within the family and the close environment; another may be used especially at work and a third for educational and professional purposes. This situation leads speakers to think of the knowledge required in each language as suited to the actual patterns of language use. We would like to refer to this as the multilingual perception of proficiency.15 Tej Bhatia and William Ritchie look at the same issue from another angle by differentiating between children’s competence and dominance in their linguistic abilities. Although their concern is bilingualism, their insight sheds light on trilingualism as well. They wrote: . . . when the two language systems are fully developed to form the linguistic and pragmatic competence of an adult bilingual, they do not form a symmetric relationship. Due to socio-psychological factors (some members of the society

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21

favoring one linguistic system over the other) or temporal and input relationships (lack of equal exposure to the two languages from birth), one system invariably holds the upper hand over the other and in that sense an asymmetrical dominance relationship is found between the two participating linguistic systems. Consequently, one of the bilingual child’s languages becomes dominant though he or she is competent in both.16 Taken together, it is clear that language acquisition, whether monolingual, bilingual or trilingual, is not just a matter of language per se. It is rather a complex process involving many intricacies. A trilingual’s language competence and performance must be considered holistically. I have identified several contributing factors that preclude equal competence and performance in three languages. Differences in parental childrearing beliefs and language socialization practices One important factor that may lead to uneven competence and performance among trilingual children is the different parental childrearing beliefs and language socialization practices. As Lynne Hansen-Strain, author of a book chapter Orality/ Literacy and Group Differences in Second-Language Acquisition, suggested, ‘Language acquisition is a form of socialization that involves discourse practices embedded in the unique world view and experiences of a particular culture. Thus, language learning is not just the learning of grammar*or even of ‘‘language’’*but rather is the acquisition of these discourse conventions in a culture. Language is used as a tool by parents to socialize children into their culture through languages and in turn, culture socializes children in how and with whom to use the language’.17 Many studies conducted in different cultures have shown that parental cultural beliefs affect how parents ‘talk’ to their children. For example, indigenous Canadian Inuit mothers believe that young children are not conversation partners, thus they often do not address young children directly.18 Japanese believe that affect (feelings or emotions) is an important component in childrearing, so Japanese mothers tend to focus on affective aspects when speaking to their infants.19 Chinese believe that children are malleable and need external assistance to learn. Hence, Chinese parents tend to focus on the ‘correctness’ of speech in everyday interactions with their young children.20 As a result of these different cultural beliefs and childrearing practices, outcomes of children’s language development will be different. It is very likely that trilingual children are brought up by parents from different cultures; the differences in their parents’ childrearing beliefs and language socialization practices will unavoidably affect the children’s language acquisition. Our family is a good case in point. When my husband speaks French and I speak Chinese to our children in an everyday context, the linguistic forms we each pass to our children are tinted with our cultural beliefs. For instance, it is improper for Chinese family members or close friends to use certain polite words such as qı˘ng/

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22

(please), xie` xie/ (thanks), or zaˇo/ (good morning) to each other; they are reserved for outsiders. As Eric Liu, a speech writer for former American President Bill Clinton in his book The Accidental Asian accurately wrote, ‘Chinese families often have their own elaborate etiquette, but ‘‘please’’ and ‘‘may I’’ weren’t the sort of words ever heard around my house. That kind of formality seemed so beside the point. I was never taught by my parents to write ‘‘Thank you notes’’. I didn’t have the breeding to say ‘‘Thank you’’ after sleeping over at a friend’s house . . .’.21 When we first married, my husband used to complain that I was very rude and rarely said ‘please’ when I asked him to do things for me. After living in the West for many years, I have assimilated the culture for the most part, though I do notice that when I talk to our children in Chinese, I use significantly fewer polite words to them than Philippe does (about one fourth fewer polite words than Philippe).22 Moreover, cultural presuppositions in communication vary in different cultural groups. Thus, the way that parents socialize their children will also be different. As Madalena Cruz-Ferreira, author of Three is a Crowd? Acquiring Portuguese in a Trilingual Environment vividly shows us, her Portuguese- and Swedish-speaking children were socialized differently by their mother and father in matters of politeness. She writes: Polite Swedish interlocutors (conversational partners23) make use of silence in conversations, as a way of expressing communion with the speaker’s message. In terms of communicative competence, silence is not the absence of speech, it is the presence of a physical event that has linguistic relevance in the appropriate situation. To fall silent relevantly is thus part of a Swedish identity. Polite Portuguese interlocutors must interrupt the speaker with comments and queries about the topic of the conversation, in order to convey interest and engagement in the message. Interlocutor silence is as rude in a Portuguese conversation, signaling indifference, as interruptions are in a Swedish one, signaling impertinence.24 Thus, the different cultural and linguistic socialization environments for a trilingual may be one reason why trilingual children’s competence and performances in different languages are not equal. Language differences Trilingual children’s developing linguistic competence and performance may also be influenced by the specific types of languages they are exposed to. A child who is acquiring German, French and English simultaneously will have a different acquisition experience than a child who is acquiring Chinese, English and French simultaneously.25 Research indicates that different languages present children with different learning tasks. Children acquiring Chinese will have different learning tasks than those who are learning English.26 For example, Chineselearning children will have to learn how to use classifiers (or measuring words, see

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Chapter 3) and English-learning children will have to learn how to use tenses. Furthermore, it is possible that children learning three languages that share more resemblance (such as French, English and German) may have an easier time (different experience) than children learning three languages which share fewer similarities (such as Chinese, English and Arabic), even though the language acquisition process may follow the same path. We noticed that it sometimes seems effortless for our children to acquire some English words by simply using their French cognates (words that are identical or similar in form and meaning in two languages27). For example, at age four and a half, Dominique was already able to use words such as succulent, imbecile and superb in English because these words are the same in French (and his father used these words often in French). However, Le´andre and Dominique do not have the same advantage of simply ‘borrowing’ Chinese and ‘importing’ it into English. Moreover, some studies (although controversial28) suggest that English-speaking children tend to acquire nouns first, whereas Chinese children (Japanese and Korean as well) acquire verbs first.29 Assuming this is the case, a child who is acquiring English and Chinese simultaneously may show different advantages in these two languages.30 Furthermore, the language differences may also reflect in the learners’ reading differences. For example, research shows that unlike readers of alphabetic writing systems (such as English), Chinese readers rely more heavily on context and less on individual words. In addition, the physical layouts of the languages are different. Alphabetic script such as English is typically arranged by strings of words of various length and shapes. Chinese text is constructed by arrays of little square symbols of equal size.31 These differences may lead to uneven reading competence and performance by children learning these languages. Hence, language difference is another reason why it is unlikely that trilingual children would have equal competence and performance in their three languages. The ‘second-hand’ language acquisition phenomenon When a trilingual child acquires heritage languages from parents, the context in which the child acquires the languages is very different from the context in which the parents acquired them. I call this the ‘second-hand’ language acquisition phenomenon. Note that ‘second-hand’ as used here does not contain any negative connotation, such as in ‘second-hand’ goods. It simply describes the nature of the acquisition process. For example, the major Chinese input for my two children is from me, and they are not living in a Chinese-speaking environment as I did. I have made every effort to pass the language to them. To some extent, my children are indeed quite competent in using the language to communicate with Chinese speakers (as you will read later in this book). However, the context in which they acquired their Chinese is fundamentally different from the context in which I acquired mine.

24

Growing up with Three Languages

When I was acquiring my Chinese, I not only had my mother to communicate with, I had my father, younger brother, friends, teachers, neighbors and most importantly I had a whole linguistic culture around me. I was literally immersed in the Chinese linguistic and cultural environment. My children, however, most of the time only have me. They are far removed from the Chinese language and cultural environment in which I grew up. While they may be competent in recognizing linguistic forms, they have little knowledge of the cultural meanings attached to them. In other words, they may be competent in the grammatical rules of Chinese, but not in the cultural communication (pragmatic) rules. For instance, at the age of four years, Le´andre was puzzled when, one day in a , farmers market in Nanjing, a man said to me, ‘Da` jieˇ, ni chı¯ guo` le ma?/ ’’ (literally, ‘Big sister, have you eaten?’). Le´andre asked me why the man called me ‘big sister’ and whether the man wanted to sell me food because he had (big sister) asked if I was hungry. Le´andre had no idea that in context, Da` jieˇ/ (big was simply a polite form of addressing a woman, not the same Da` jieˇ/ sister) as in the children’s books I read to him. Le´andre also had no clue that nıˇ chı¯ in this case had nothing to do with eating and that the man guo` le ma/ simply wanted to be friendly. It is hard for a second-hand Chinese language learner like Le´andre to grasp the Depending subtle contextual meanings associated with nıˇ chı¯ guo` le ma/ on the context (which only a Chinese who is socialized in that cultural environment can mean: How are you? as in the instance would know), nıˇ chı¯ guo` le ma/ of the man at the farmers market. In that context, he did not want to have a (have eaten) would be polite conversation. A brief answer like chı¯ guo` le/ enough. On the other hand, if an acquaintance or friend said this to me, I probably would stop and chat for a while. Unless I deliberately point it out to Le´andre (as later I did), it would be very unlikely for him to know about this subtle kind of usage. By contrast, during my Chinese language and cultural acquisition process, even though my parents never deliberately taught me these different usages, I ‘picked them up’ by living in the Chinese cultural and linguistic environment and hearing it used by others. This is another reason why it is unlikely that trilinguals like Le´andre, Dominique and Maria, who acquired their heritage languages mostly through their parents, would have the same linguistic competence and performance in all their languages. Changing linguistic environment As mentioned earlier, the linguistic environment of a language is not static and thus, a person’s linguistic competence and performance can change accordingly. Anyone who knows more than one language will know that depending on the experience, one feels more comfortable using one language than another. Using myself as an example, I grew up in a Chinese language and cultural environment and was educated in that monolingual environment until

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college. Under any kind of scrutiny, I am probably a quite competent Chinese speaker. However, if you ask me to give a lecture on the topic of child development in Chinese, I might not do it as well in Chinese as in English (although English is my second language) because I have spent over 20 years in the USA studying, researching and teaching that topic in English. I vividly remember when I was first invited as a guest speaker for Voice of America (VOA) a few years ago (broadcast in Chinese), I was embarrassed that I did not know the terminology used to describe childrearing and parenting issues. At times, I had to apologize to the anchor about how ill at ease I felt having to mix English words in my talk. However, because I had a good linguistic foundation in Chinese, I was able to speak well after a conscious effort to learn the necessary Chinese vocabulary. During my subsequent VOA talks, I did much better. I am confident that I would be competent in giving lectures in Chinese on child development if I lived in China for a few months. In addition, language itself (e.g. word meaning) is not static either. When I was a child, the word comrade (to´ng zhı`/ ) was used as a general term to address almost anyone. In the last 20 years or so, the word’s meaning has had a dramatic change. I did not become aware of the change until a trip to China in 2001 (sponsored by a Fulbright grant). In a Beijing subway station, a Chinese tour guide signaled me to look at two comrades (to´ng zhı`/ ). I first thought that she saw someone I knew. It turned out that she wanted me to look at two lesbians. As described by linguists Steven Brown and Salvatore Attardo, the changing use of the word comrade ‘shows how changes in word meaning often follow changes in society. A standard Chinese dictionary in 1936 defined comrade as the term for individuals with the same beliefs. In 1965, the dictionary defined the term as applying to members of the same political party, who presumably shared beliefs. In 1979, comrade was defined as the appropriate general term of address for China’s citizens. In the 1999 edition of the dictionary, the term was no longer defined as the preferred general term of address. The word fell out of favor because it is so strongly associated with the Cultural Revolution, which is now criticized as having been too radical a movement. Comrade is used in contemporary China as a euphemism for gay or lesbian . . .’.32 As the linguistic environment is not static, it is expected that a trilingual’s linguistic competence and performance will change as well.

Why is Language Purity an Illusion? As soon as there is more than one language involved, mixing them is inevitable. Language mixing33 can be observed at different levels, with sounds, words or parts of a sentence being mixed. The most frequently observed mixing is word mixing.34 The following is part of a conversation between two middle-aged Chinese women in the hallway of a Chinese school:

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Example 1.1 Woman 1:

Woman 2:

Woman 1: Woman 2:

Woman 1:

Nıˇ jı¯n tia¯n qu` grocery shopping ma? grocery shopping (You’ll do your grocery shopping today?) Woˇ zhuˇn be`i qu` (I plan to.) Golden Village ha´i shı` Golden Mountain? Golden Village Golden Mountain? Golden Village/ Ta¯ men de pıˇn zhoˇng bıˇ jia`o duo¯. Nıˇ ne? Golden Village/ (Golden Village. They have better choice there. How about you?) Woˇ xıˇ huan qu` Golden Mountain/ Woˇ xıˇ huan ta¯ men de vegetables, Broccoli he´ asparagus/ Woˇ yeˇ xıˇ huan ta¯ men de shuıˇ guoˇ/ Ta¯ men de kiwis bıˇ jia`o xı¯n xia¯n/ Golden Mountain/ vegetables, Broccoli asparagus/ kiwis (I think I will go to Golden Mountain. I like their vegetables. I like their broccoli and asparagus. I also like their fruits. The kiwis there are fresher.)

Taking into account Example 1.2, it is clear that the mixing in Example 1.1 was a result of the two women’s choice rather than their incompetence in Chinese. The evidence is in Woman 1’s conversation a few minutes later with an older Chinese woman (Woman 3) who knew no English. Example 1.2 Woman 3:

Nıˇ haˇo.

Woman 1:

(Hello.) Nıˇ haˇo/ Woˇ qu` maˇi ca`i/ Nıˇ ya`o da`i diaˇn she`n me?

Woman 3:

(Hello, I am going grocery shopping. Do you want me to bring you something?) Bu´ yo`ng le, wo e´r xı´ fu` yi jı¯ng qu` ma`i le/ (No, thanks, my daughter-in-law has done that.)

The Complexity of Trilingualism

Woman 1:

27

Haˇo, na` wo zou le/ Woˇ qu` maˇi diaˇn lu¨` hua¯ ca`i he´ lu´ suˇn she´n me de/ Woˇ nu¨ˇ e´r keˇ xıˇ huan chı¯ zhe` xie¯ ca`i le/ Za`i jia`n!

(Okay, then I’m leaving now. I am going to get some broccoli, asparagus, and something else. My daughter really likes them. Bye-bye!) This time Woman 1 did not mix a single English word in her conversation (as she did with Woman 2) because she knew that Woman 3 did not know English. She instead of grocery shopping, lu¨` hua¯ ca`i/ instead of broccoli and used maˇi ca`i/ ˇ instead of asparagus. lu´ sun/ Although mixing is a typical phenomenon when more than one language is involved, society at large often tends to view it as impure, incompetent, confusing and even ‘bastardized’. Thus, there is a stigma attached to mixing. Contrary to what people believe, researchers found that mixing may actually reflect a person’s cognitive, communicative and social competence.35 The following are some reasons why mixing occurs. Distinguishing one language use from another Sometimes, mixing serves the purpose of indicating to a conversation partner that a certain word or phrase is used by someone else in another language. For example, observe an exchange between Le´andre (one year and six months) and his father: Example 1.3 Le´andre:

Father: Le´andre: Father:

Wa´wa/ (Doll.) Poupe´e. (Doll.) Wa´wa/ Poupe´e, poupe´e, poupe´e. (Doll, doll, doll)

For people who did not know the context, Le´andre seemed to mix Chinese word wa´wa/ when speaking French with his father. Even his father thought that he was mixing the Chinese word and thus tried to use the French word poupe´e several times to make sure that Le´andre knew how to say it in French. Upon further

28

Growing up with Three Languages

examination of the video recordings, it seems that Le´andre was actually trying to He apparently knew the tell his father that his mother called this doll wa´wa/ French word poupe´e because he had used it several times earlier in the conversation. As other language-learning young child, he, at age one year and a half could not yet en chinois’ (Mother express in French the idea ‘Maman appelle cette poupe´e wa´wa/ in Chinese). Instead, he overextended the same meaning calls this doll wa´wa/ This is reminiscent of a typical language-learning young with the word wa´wa/ child who tends to overextend meanings of one and two words because of linguistic constraints. For example, ‘mommy sock’ used by young English-speaking children may contain an array of meanings: ‘Mommy, I wear socks’, ‘Mommy, I want socks’, or ‘Mommy, I like the socks’, depending on the context. Describing things that do not have equivalents in another language Mixing is also used to describe things that do not exist in another language. For example, there is no Chinese equivalent for the French word tartine (a piece of bread with jam or another kind of spread on it). Thus, when Le´andre and Dominique request that I make tartine for them, they have to mix this French word when speaking Tartine’ (Make a Tartine for me). Chinese to me, such as ‘Geˇi woˇ zuo` Tartine/ Oftentimes, mixing also occurs when expressing idioms and deep-rooted cultural wisdoms36 as illustrated by Example 1.4, where I tried to express the idea of ‘how Chinese parents try to help their children understand the importance of studying hard’ in a conference presentation. Example 1.4 In my interviews with Chinese parents, I found that they used a lot of ancient Chinese examples to help their young children understand the reasons why (fastening hair they need to study hard . . . The idiom xua´n lia´ng cı` guˇ/ to the beam and stabbing thigh with sharp object) is often used by parents to illustrate vividly the idea how successful ancient scholars pushed themselves to study hard. . . It is clear that I (a native Chinese speaker) was unable to express fully (in my mind) the concept of ‘fastening hair to the beam and stabbing thigh with sharp object’ without mixing (quoting) the original Chinese idiom xua´n lia´ng cı` guˇ/

Filling a vocabulary gap As discussed earlier, children may not have equal competence and performance because of their different linguistic experiences. Thus, when multilinguals lack words to express themselves in one language, they tend to use the ones they know

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in another language to fill in the gap37 (as seen in an example from Le´andre when he was three years and seven months). Example 1.5 Le´andre:

Woˇ xıˇ huan wa´n xueˇ/

Mother:

(I like to play with snow.) Duı`, woˇ zhı¯ dao nıˇ xıˇ huan wa´n xueˇ/

Le´andre:

Mother:

(Yes, I know you like to play with snow.) Woˇ da`o wa`i mian wa´n xueˇ, woˇ chua¯n parka/ parka/ (I go out playing with snow, I wear parka.) Duı`, nıˇ chua¯n mia´n aˇo/ (Yes, you wear coat.)

In this example, Le´andre mixed parka (pronounced in the French way) with Chinese because he did not yet know how to say its Chinese equivalent mia´n . From a communication standpoint, this is a very good communication aˇo/ strategy. Instead of being silent or using fillers (sounds used before a word or idea comes to mind), he blended a word from another language to make his Chinese communication smooth.

Achieving communication effects Mixing languages can also achieve many communication effects, such as to emphasize what a person is saying, to express certain emotions, to quote what someone else said, to protest or to narrate.38 Examples 1.6, 1.7 and 1.8 demonstrate how Dominique mixed languages to achieve these communicative effects. Example 1.6 Dominique and Le´andre were playing with their friend Galo. They were pretending to sell goods (stones). A boy named Adrian, who had just moved to the neighborhood from California, joined them. After a while, Dominique (seven years and six months) ran home and told me: Dominique:

Ma¯ma, Adrian zhe¯n yu´ chuˇn/ , Adrian

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(Mother, Adrian is really stupid.) Ta¯ shuo¯: ‘You can’t come to my shop’/ : ‘You can’t come to my shop’/ (He said, ‘You can’t come to my shop’.) Woˇ bu` xıˇ huan ta¯/

Mother:

(I don’t like him.) Ta¯ zhe¯n stupid! stupid! (He is really stupid!) Ta¯ we`i she´n me yu´ chuˇn?

Dominique:

(Why he is stupid?) Yı¯n we´i ta¯ qı¯ fu woˇ! (Because he is a bully!)

Example 1.7 When Henrik (Le´andre’s friend) borrowed Dominique’s Nintendo DS one day, Dominique (six years and ten months) was not very happy about it. After several attempts to get it back from Henrik, Dominique came to me to complain. I encouraged him to ask Henrik again. Mother:

Dominique:

Nıˇ za`i ge¯n ta¯ ya`o/ (Ask him again.) No! No! Woˇ yıˇ jı¯ng ya`o le haˇo duo¯ cı` le, ta¯ ha´i shı` bu´ geˇi woˇ/ No! No! , (No! No! I have asked him many times, he still did not want to give it to me.)

Example 1.8 After watching a program on TV, Dominique (six years and two months) went upstairs and told Le´andre about it. Dominique:

Le´andre, j’ai entendu . . . (Le´andre, I heard. . .)

The Complexity of Trilingualism

Le´andre: Dominique:

31

Quoi? (What?) J’ai entendu un monsieur a` la te´le´ qui a dit: ‘It’s super natural . . .’ (I heard the man on TV saying, ‘It’s super natural . . .’.)

In Example 1.6, Dominique did know how to say the Chinese word ‘stupid’ (yu´ chuˇn/ ) as shown in the beginning of his complaint. However, to emphasize his emotion (dislike), he later chose to use the English word stupid instead of the when speaking Chinese to me. Also to achieve the effect Chinese word yu´ chuˇn/ of what Adrian said exactly in English (the intonation, the speed and the loudness, for example), Dominique used his friend’s original English sentence, ‘You can’t come to my shop’. Although I was not there, I could feel why Dominique was upset. Imagine, if Dominique translated what Adrian had said into Chinese, a lot would have been lost. In Example 1.7, Dominique mixed English
‘No! No!’
when speaking Chinese to me to protest the fact that I asked him to talk to his playmate again. In Example 1.8, Dominique mixed English with French to report to his brother what he heard in a TV program. Research also suggests that mixing can serve the communication function of reiteration. As shown in Example 1.9, the speaker reiterated her English sentence in Spanish. Example 1.9 English
Spanish mix The three old ones spoke nothing but Spanish. No hablaban ingles (they didn’t speak English).39 Mixing can also be used to void taboo suppression (hedging), de-intensifying a vague ‘sort’ of expression (see Example 1.10). The following is an example by Ritchie and Bhatia: Example 1.10 Hindi
English mix Artificial insemination. Dekho ise kyaa kahte hain hindi men . . .barii aasaan ciiz hai . . .jab bhains garam ho rahii ho . . .to use AI Center le jaaiyee aur uskaa AI karava Daaliye. (Artificial insemination. Look, what do people call it in Hindi . . .It is very easy to explain. When a buffalo is in heat, take her to the AI Center and have her artificially inseminated.)

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Growing up with Three Languages

In this example, as Ritchie and Bhatia explained, a veterinarian attempted to explain to villagers in rural India the process of artificial insemination. When listeners failed to understand the English term, the doctor tried to explain the concept by paraphrasing it figuratively into Hindi. The dilemma regarding how to suppress the taboo via Hindi is clear from his hesitation and halting speech.40 Revealing one’s cultural and social identity Sometimes people mix languages as a way of revealing who they are. For example, a study which examined mixing patterns in a Puerto Rican Spanishspeaking community in New York City suggests that members of this community engaged in an especially fluent form of mixing, where the same utterance could include several switches from Spanish to English and back again. This kind of mixing can be an important marker of social identity in the Puerto Rican community; rapid, fluent mixing served to identify the speaker as both Spanishand English-speaking and, thus, as both Puerto Rican and American. Example 1.11 But I used to eat the bofe, the brain. And then they stopped selling it because, tenian, este, le encontraron que tenia (they had, uh, they found out that it had) worms. I used to make some bofe! Despue´s yo hacı´a uno d’esos (then I would make one of those) concoctions: the garlic con cebolla, y hacı´a un moho, y yo dejaba que se curare eso (with onion, and I’d make a sauce, and I’d let that sit) for a couple of hours. Then you be drinking and eating that shit. Wooh! It’s like eating anchovies when they drinking. Delicious!41 Overall, language mixing is a very important linguistic phenomenon as soon as two or more languages are involved in a person’s communication system. As Madalena Cruz-Ferreira rightly pointed out, one cannot mix languages without knowing how to mix them.42 Thus, the popular ‘pure language’ claim is untenable.

Why are Trilinguals Neither the Same as Monolinguals Nor the Same as Bilinguals? Trilingual children certainly share many common traits with monolingual and bilingual children. However, they are neither monolingual nor bilingual. The trilingual phenomenon needs to be examined according to its own unique characteristics. Trilinguals cannot be judged using the criteria of monolinguals Trilinguals are often unfairly measured with the same yardstick as monolinguals. Recently, researchers have expressed some legitimate concerns as to whether it is problematic to evaluate trilingual children with the criteria of monolingual children.

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This issue is certainly complex. On the one hand, studies have shown that children who have acquired more than one language seem to go through the same universal developmental milestones in much the same order and the same way in their different languages.43 Therefore, it seems that it is not entirely inappropriate to compare trilingual children with monolingual children. After all, they are all children. On the other hand, considering the different language learning environments between monolingual and trilingual children, we cannot assume that a trilingual child is three separate monolingual children in one. As has been suggested, once more than one language is involved, children will be inherently different from monolingual children.44 Although the acquisition process may be similar, the actual acquisition results may be different. Madalena Cruz-Ferreira said it well: . . .more insight can be gained into language and its acquisition from studies of what different multilinguals do with their different languages than from any comparison between multilinguals and monolinguals. Studies of the latter kind in fact restrict themselves to observing features of one single language across users, despite claiming to target the study ‘‘multilingualism’’.45 I echo Cruz-Ferreira’s view and believe that when monolingual children are used as the reference point for understanding trilingual language development, we will end up losing real insight into trilingual children’s distinct linguistic developmental characteristics. There is a danger in trying to understand the developmental experiences of the child with more than one language simply in the context of what we know about the monolingual child.46 Research shows that trilingual children use different strategies from those used by monolingual children in learning languages. Therefore, children with more than one language are a specific type of speaker-hearer who must be considered in their own right.47 Trilinguals are not the same as bilinguals Trilingualism is generally treated in the literature as another type of bilingualism and is frequently explained as a special phenomenon of bilingualism. Thus, theories and findings from studies of bilingualism are often assumed to be applicable to trilinguals by extension.48 Although there are many similarities between bilingualism and trilingualism (perhaps more than between the latter and monolingualism), some researchers remind us that being trilingual is not the same as being bilingual, as three languages can be manifested in production in more ways than two languages.49 As has been pointed out by some researchers, a quantitative difference exists between bilingualism and trilingualism. When two languages are involved, a child has three choices: speak language A, speak language B, or speak a combination of A and B in a single utterance. When three languages are available, the child now has seven choices: language A, language B, language C, or a combination of two of the

Growing up with Three Languages

34

languages such as AB, AC, or BC, or a combination of all three languages, ABC.50 In addition, there are social, cultural, psychological and personality-related factors that may assume disproportionately high significance in influencing trilingual competence compared with their influence in the case of bilingual competence.51 In recent years, researchers have begun to examine the possible differences between bilinguals and trilinguals.52 Though we have made considerable progress in our understanding of trilingualism, the findings are often based on small samples, and thus are not conclusive.53 Obviously, a lot more research needs to be conducted before we can pinpoint what the additional linguistic system exactly does to a trilingual child. For now, it is important that we do not equate a trilingual with a bilingual. Some people use the verb straddle to describe the linguistic situation of a bilingual (one leg is on one language/culture and the other is on the other language/culture). I think it would be hard to find an equally accurate verb to describe the linguistic situation of a trilingual. To use bilingual children’s language development as a measure to judge trilingual children would diminish the importance of the unique characteristics of trilingual children.

Summary Trilingualism is a complex phenomenon which consists of many aspects that require our attention. First, there are different types of trilinguals, who may exhibit different types of competence in the areas of listening, speaking, reading and writing. Second, trilingual competence is influenced by many factors including: . . . . . .

ages when the languages are acquired; types of language a person is acquiring; degree of exposure to different languages; level of a person’s education; changes in a person’s language environment; differences in parental childrearing beliefs and language socialization practices.

Third, as soon as more than one language is involved in communication, mixing is inevitable. Language mixing serves important communication functions. It can help: . . . .

.

distinguish one language use from another; describe things that do not have equivalents in another language; fill a vocabulary gap; achieve communicative effects such as emphasizing, quoting, protesting, narrating, reintegrating and hedging; reveal one’s cultural and social identity.

The Complexity of Trilingualism

35

Finally, although trilinguals share many similarities with monolinguals and bilinguals, they have their unique characteristics. Thus, only when we understand the nature of the trilingual phenomenon, can we truly appreciate what it means to be trilingual. Notes and References 1. Baker, C. (2007) A Parents’ and Teachers’ Guide to Bilingualism (3rd edn). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 2. Wang, X.L. (2008) Pre-service teachers’ understanding of multilingual issues. Paper Submitted to the 2009 American Educational Research Association annual conference. 3. The four individuals are real people. I know two of them very well (Philippe and Joanne). I do not personally know the other two (Andrea and Maria), whose cases were referred to me by two linguists who are very familiar with their cases and interviewed them on my behalf. All four individuals are in their 40s. 4. OECD stands for the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development. 5. The reason I did not consider Philippe as a septualingual is because he reads Latin, ancient Greek and biblical Hebrew, but does not use them to communicate nor does his rudimentary Chinese make him a competent communicator. 6. Cenoz, J. (2000) Research on multilingual acquisition. In J. Cenoz and U. Jessner (eds) English in Europe: The Acquisition of a Third Language (p. 40). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 7. Brown, S. and Attardo, S. (2005) Understanding Language Structure, Interaction, and Variation: An Introduction to Applied Linguistics and Sociolinguistics for Nonspecialists (pp. 7
9). Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. 8. Stavans, A. and Swisher, V. (2006) Language switching as a window on trilingual acquisition. International Journal of Multilingualism 3, 193
220. 9. Asher, J.J. and Price, B.S. (1967) The learning strategy of a total physical response: Some age differences. Child Development 38, 1219
1227. Collier, V.P. (1987) Age and rate of acquisition of second language for academic purposes. TESOL Quarterly 21, 617
641. Genesee, F. (1981) A comparison of early and late second language learning. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science 13, 115
127. Genesee, F. (1987) Learning Through Two Languages: Studies of Immersion and Bilingual Education. New York: Newbury House. Snow, C.E. and Hoefnagel-Hoehle, M. (1978) The critical period for language acquisition: Evidence from second language learning. Child Development 49, 1114
1118. 10. Edwards, M. and Dewaele, J.M. (2007) Trilingual conversation: A window into multicompetence. International Journal of Bilingualism 11 (2), 221
242. 11. Wiley, T.G. (1996) Literacy and Language Diversity in the United States. McHenry, IL: Center for Applied Linguistics and Delta Systems. 12. The analysis was based on forty-two hours of randomly sampled video recordings from the first three and a half years of Dominique’s life. 13. Bhatia, T.K. and Ritchie, W.C. (1999) The bilingual child: Some issues and perspectives. In W.C. Ritchie and T.K. Bhatia (eds) Handbook of Child Language Acquisition (pp. 569
643). New York: Academic Press. 14. Harding-Esch, E. and Riley, P. (2003) The Bilingual Family: A Handbook for Parents (p. 36). Cambridge: The Cambridge University Press. 15. Olshtain, E. and Nissim-Amitai, F. (2004) Being trilingual or multilingual: Is there a price to pay? In C. Hoffmann and J. Ytsma (eds) Trilingualism in Family, School and Community (pp. 30
50). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

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Growing up with Three Languages

16. Bhatia, T.K. and Ritchie, W.C. (1999) The bilingual child: Some issues and perspectives. In W.C. Ritchie and T.K. Bhatia (eds) Handbook of Child Language Acquisition (pp. 569
643). New York: Academic Press. 17. Hansen-Strain, L. (1994) Orality/literacy and group differences in second-language acquisition. In A.H. Cumming (ed.) Bilingual Performance in Reading and Writing (pp. 283
305). Ann Arbor, MI: Language Learning/John Benjamins. 18. Crago, M. (1990) Development of communicative competence in Inuit children: Implications for speech-language pathology. Journal of Childhood Communication Disorders 13, 73
83. 19. Minami, M. (1997) Cultural constructions of meaning: Cross-cultural comparisons of mother-child conversations about the past. In C. Mandell and A. McCabe (eds) The Problem of Meaning: Behavioral and Cognitive Perspectives (pp. 297
346). Amsterdam: Elsevier. 20. Wang, X.L., Bernas, R. and Eberhard, P. (2005) Maternal teaching strategies in four cultural communities: Implications for early childhood teachers. Journal of Early Childhood Research 3 (3), 269
288. Wang, X.L., Bernas, R. and Eberhard, P. (2002) Variations in maternal support to children’s early literacy development in Chinese and Native American families: Implications for early childhood educators. International Journal of Early Childhood 34 (1), 9
23. Wang, X.L., Mylander, C. and Goldin-Meadow, S. (1996) A cross-cultural study of mother-child interaction: Maximizing educational potential in the context of a handicapped child. In M. Cusinato (ed.) Research on Family Resources and Needs across the World. Milan: Lettere Economila Diritto. 21. Liu, E. (1998) The Accidental Asian: Notes of a Native Speaker (p. 44). New York: Vintage Books. 22. The number was calculated based on thirty-six hours of randomly selected videorecordings. 23. The content in the bracket (conversation partners) was added by me. 24. Cruz-Ferreira, M. (2006) Three is a Crowd? Acquiring Portuguese in a Trilingual Environment. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 25. Hoff, E. (2003) The specificity of environmental influences: Socioeconomic status affects early vocabulary development via maternal speech. Child Development 72, 1368
1378. Huttenlocher, J., Haight, W., Bryk, A., Seltzer, M. and Lyon, T. (1991) Early vocabulary growth: Relation to language input and gender. Developmental Psychology 27, 236
248. Pine, J.M. and Lieven, E.V.M. (1997) Slot-and-frame patterns and the development of the determiner category. Applied Psycholinguistics 18, 123
138. 26. Bowerman, M. and Choi, S. (2001) Shaping meaning for language: Universal and language-specific in the acquisition of spatial semantic categories. In M. Bowerman and S.C. Levinson (eds) Language Acquisition and Conceptual Development (pp. 475
511). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Maratsos, M. (1998) The acquisition of grammar. In D. Kuhn and R.S. Siegler (eds) Handbook of Child Psychology: Vol. 2. Cogitation, Perception, and Language (pp. 421
466). New York: Wiley. Naigles, L. and Terrazas, P. (1998) Motion verb generalizations in English and Spanish: Influences of language and syntax. Psychological Science 9, 363
369. 27. Lemho¨fer, K., Dijkstra, T. and Michel, M.C. (2004) Three languages, one ECHO: Cognate effects in trilingual word recognition. Language and Cognitive Processes 19 (50), 585
611. 28. Gopnik, A. and Choi, S. (1995) Names, relational words and cognitive development in English and Korean speakers: Nouns are not always learned before verbs.

The Complexity of Trilingualism

29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

34. 35.

36. 37.

38.

37

In M. Tomasello and W. Merriman (eds) Beyond Names for Things: Young Children’s Acquisition of Verbs (pp. 63
80). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Tardif, T., Gelman, S.A. and Xu, F. (1999) Putting the ‘‘noun bias’’ in context: A comparison of English and Mandarin. Child Development 70 (3), 620
635. Fernald, A. and Morikawa, H. (1993) Common themes and cultural variations in Japanese and American mothers’ speech to infants. Child Development 64, 637
656. Gopnik, A. and Choi, S. (1990) Do linguistic differences lead to cognitive differences? A cross-linguistic study of semantic and cognitive development. First Language 10, 199
215. Chen, H.C. (1999) How do readers of Chinese process words during reading for comprehension? In J. Wang, A.W. Inhoff and H.C. Chen (eds) Reading Chinese Script: A Cognitive Analysis (pp. 257
295). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Brown, S. and Attardo, S. (2005) Understanding Language Structure, Interaction, and Variation: An Introduction to Applied Linguistics and Sociolinguistics for Nonspecialists (p. 86). Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. Researchers have used different terms to describe language mixing (e.g. codeswitching and codemixing). For more information, see Stavans, A. and Swisher, V. (2006) Language switching as a window on trilingual acquisition. International Journal of Multilingualism 3 (3), 193
220. De Houwer, A. (1990) The Acquisition of Two Languages from Birth: A Case Study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Do¨pke, S. (1992) One Parent-One Language. An Interactional Approach. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Genesee, F. (2006) Bilingual first language acquisition in perspective. In P. McCardle and E. Hoff (eds) Childhood Bilingualism: Research on Infancy Through School Age (pp. 45
67). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Ritchie, W.C. and Bhatia, T. K. (2006) Social and psychological factors in language mixing. In T.K. Bhatia and W.C. Ritchie (eds) The Handbook of Bilingualism (pp. 336
352). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Edwards, M. and Dewaele, J-M. (2007) Trilingual conversations: A window into multicompetence? International Journal of Bilingualism 11 (2), 221
241. Hoffmann, C. and Stavans, A. (2007) The evolution of trilingual codeswitching from infancy to school age: The shaping of trilingual competence through dynamic language dominance. International Journal of Bilingualism 11 (1), 55
72. Stavans, A. (1992) Sociolinguistic factors affecting codeswitches produced by trilingual children. Language, Culture and Curriculum 5, 41
53. Stavans, A. and Swisher, V. (2006) Language switching as a window on trilingual acquisition. International Journal of Multilingualism 3, 193
220. Ritchie, W.C. and Bhatia, T.K. (2006) Social and psychological factors in language mixing. In T.K. Bhatia and W.C. Ritchie (eds) The Handbook of Bilingualism (pp. 336
352). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Genesee, F. (2006) Bilingual first language acquisition in perspective. In P. McCardle and E. Hoff (eds) Childhood Bilingualism: Research on Infancy Through School Age (pp. 45
67). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Ritchie, W.C. and Bhatia, T.K. (2006) Social and psychological factors in language mixing. In T.K. Bhatia and W.C. Ritchie (eds) The Handbook of Bilingualism (pp. 336
352). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Genesee, F. (2006) Bilingual first language acquisition in perspective. In P. McCardle and E. Hoff (eds) Childhood Bilingualism: Research on Infancy Through School Age (pp. 45
67). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

38

39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

44.

45. 46. 47. 48.

49. 50.

51.

Growing up with Three Languages Mixing has also been found to achieve other communication effects such as calling attention and seeking clarification. See Oksaar, E. (1977) On becoming trilingual. In C. Molony (ed.) Deutsch im Kontakt mit anderen Sprachen [German in Contact with Other Languages] (pp. 296
306). Kronberg: Scriptor Verlag. Ritchie, W.C. and Bhatia, T.K. (2006) Social and psychological factors in language mixing. In T.K. Bhatia and W.C. Ritchie (eds) The Handbook of Bilingualism (pp. 336
352). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Ritchie, W.C. and Bhatia, T.K. (2006) Social and psychological factors in language mixing. In T.K. Bhatia and W.C. Ritchie (eds) The Handbook of Bilingualism (pp. 336
352). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Poplack, S. (1980) Sometimes I start a sentence in English y termino en Espan˜ol: Towards a typology of code-switching. Linguistics 18, 581
618. Cruz-Ferreira, M. (2006) Three is a Crowd? Acquiring Portuguese in a Trilingual Environment (p. 9). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Romaine, S. (1995) Bilingualism. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Slobin, D.I. (1985) Crosslinguistic evidence for the language-making capacity. In D.I. Slobin (ed.) The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition Vol. 2: Theoretical Issues (pp. 1157
1249). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Pearson, B.Z., Fernandez, S.C. and Oller, D.K. (1993) Lexical development in bilingual infants and toddlers: Comparison to monolingual norms. Language Learning 43 (1), 93
120. Grosjean, F. (1985) The bilingual a competent but specific speaker-hearer. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 6, 467
477. Cruz-Ferreira, M. (2006) Three is a Crowd? Acquiring Portuguese in a Trilingual Environment. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Hulit, L.M. and Howard, M.R. (2006) Born To Talk: An Introduction To Speech and Language Development. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Wei, L. and Lee, S. (2001) L1 development in an L2 environment: The use of Cantonese classifiers and quantifiers by young British-born Chinese in Tyneside. International Journal of British Education and Bilingualism 4(6), 359
382. Barron-Hauwaert, S. (2000) Issues surrounding trilingual families: Children with simultaneous exposure to three languages. Paper presented at Innsbruck Conference on Trilingualism and Third Language Acquisition. On WWW at http://www.spz. tu-darmstadt.de/projekt_ejournal/jg-05-1/beitrag/barron.htm. Hoffmann, C. and Ytsma, J. (2004) Introduction. In C. Hoffmann and J. Ytsma (eds) Trilingualism in Family, School and Community (pp. 1
7). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Grosjean, F. (2001) The bilingual’s language modes. In J. Nicol (ed.) One Mind, Two Languages: Bilingual Language Processing (pp. 1
22). Oxford: Blackwell. Quay, S. (2001) Managing linguistic boundaries in early trilingual development. In J. Cenoz and F. Genesee (eds) Trends in Bilingual Acquisition (pp. 149
199). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hoffman, C. (2001) The status of trilingualism in bilingualism studies. In J. Cenoz, B. Hufeisen and U. Jessner (eds) Looking Beyond Second Language Acquisition: Studies in Tri- and Multilingualism (pp. 13
25). Tubingen: Stauffenburd Verlag. Quay, S. (2008) Dinner conversation with a trilingual two-year old: Language socialization in a multilingual context. First Language 28 (1), 5
23. Hoffman, C. (2001) Toward a description of trilingual competence. International Journal of Bilingualism 5 (1), 1
17.

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39

52. Stavans, A. and Swisher, V. (2006) Language switching as a window on trilingual acquisition. International Journal of Multilingualism 3, 193
220. Edwards, M. and Dewaele, J.M. (2007) Trilingual conversation: A window into multicompetence. International Journal of Bilingualism 11 (2), 221
242. 53. Edwards, M. and Dewaele, J.M. (2007) Trilingual conversation: A window into multicompetence. International Journal of Bilingualism 11 (2), 221
242. Quay, S. (2008) Dinner conversation with a trilingual two-year old: Language socialization in a multilingual context. First Language 28 (1), 5
23.

Chapter 2

In the Beginning This chapter focuses on the importance of planning as part of the process of considering raising children simultaneously with three languages. The purpose is to show how planning can facilitate later childrearing practice. Suggestions are made which can help parents think through their decisions, as well as anticipate the challenges ahead should they decide to raise trilingual children.

Our Plan and Discussion about Raising Trilingual Children A friend used to say, ‘You can never plan for parenthood; it comes when you are there’. Her comment is perhaps true for many people, who simply forge ahead by trial and error. In the end, most people turn out to be fine parents. However, research does indicate that thinking through and discussing childrearing issues before a child’s arrival can help parents foresee potential difficulties and become more effective in their childrearing practice.1 Research also suggests that for those parents whose racial, ethnic, cultural and linguistic backgrounds are differ from each other’s,2 and who plan to pass their heritage languages to their offspring, working out a plan of action before having children can make a difference.3 The experience my husband and I had indicates that careful planning and serious discussions by a couple, before raising trilingual children, can make parents better prepared to respond to the possible challenges and help provide stronger support for their children’s trilingual development. During the earlier period of our marriage, Philippe and I often talked about a range of things regarding our future children, from what we would name them to how many languages they would speak. Nevertheless, these talks were often brief. After we were married for three years and had known each other for six, we felt ready to start a family. Therefore, the conversations about our planning, in particular language planning, gradually turned serious. For a period of a few months, our conversations frequently centered on the following questions: .

. .

.

.

Should we pass our heritage languages on to our children? If so, how many languages, and when would we start the process? What should our family communication system be? What are our real motives in wanting to raise children with more than one language? Are we capable of raising children with more than one language, and do our personality traits fit the endeavor? Do we have support to realize our plan?

40

In the Beginning .

.

.

. .

. . .

41

What are our goals and expectations for our children’s heritage language achievements? Are we aware of the price that we and our children may have to pay in the process? Are we ready to face the inevitable challenges of raising children with more than one language in a monolingual environment? Are we prepared to modify our plan if it does not work out? What names should we give to our children to match their linguistic and cultural identities? How many citizenships should our children have, if we have a choice? Should we announce our plan to our extended families and others? What kinds of materials should we prepare before the children’s arrival?

In the following sections, you will read about the discussions we had and decisions we made regarding these questions. The number of heritage languages to pass on and the time to start From the beginning, both Philippe and I were inclined to bring up our children with more than one language, so it did not take long for us to make the decision. Because we had a choice of several languages, it did take us a while to decide which heritage languages and how many of them to pass on to our children. As you read in Chapter 1, Philippe grew up simultaneously with French and German (Swiss German and High German). He could pass one or both of those languages /puˇ to¯ng to our future offspring. I grew up knowing ‘standard’ Chinese ( hua`) and Shanghai as well as a couple of other Chinese dialects and could pass one or all of them to our future offspring. After many discussions, we decided to go with the languages in which we felt most competent and were formally educated; that is, Philippe would pass French to our children and I would pass /puˇ to¯ng hua`) to them. Our decision was tinted with ‘standard’ Chinese ( another kind of practicality as well: the three languages our children could potentially know
English, Chinese and French
were among the world’s most spoken languages, and therefore, our children would potentially have advantages in knowing them. We also decided that our children would be brought up with the three languages simultaneously from birth. Family communication system Once we decided how many heritage languages to pass on to our future children and when to start the process, we began to think about the communication system we would use among family members. Drawn from Philippe’s simultaneous bilingual experience and my knowledge of the published parental accounts and research on raising bilingual and trilingual children, we decided to

42

Growing up with Three Languages

use the one-parent-one-language approach4 in communicating with our future offspring. That meant Philippe would speak French exclusively to our children and I would speak ‘standard’ Chinese exclusively to them. At the time we made the decision to adopt the one-parent-one-language approach, we were fully aware of the debates about this method. For example, some researchers criticized it as atypical and unnatural5 as well as rigid.6 However, ruminating on our specific situation (that is, we would have no institutions or heritage communities available to provide sufficient heritage language support), we had little choice but to employ the one-parent-one-language approach if we indeed wanted to raise our children with our heritage languages. We were also wellinformed by previous research and published parental accounts that many children did successfully attain their heritage languages through such a method.7 Philippe and I also agreed that we would continue to speak English to each other (it had been our lingua franca up until that time). We were convinced that our future children would have the best chance to acquire the three languages simultaneously if we were consistent with this family communication system. Our motives for raising trilingual children After we became clear about what languages to pass on to our children, when to start and what communication system to use in the family, we took some time to question our motives for raising trilingual children. We considered this process important because we wanted to make sure that our reason for raising trilingual children was not just a short-lived passion, or a passing fad or our desires to fulfill our own selfish needs at the expense of our children. We knew well that we had better be sure about our real motives because whatever we planned to do would have serious consequences for our children. We convinced ourselves that we had at least four good reasons for wanting to raise trilingual children. Preservation of cultural heritages, identity and family ties

The first and most important reason for our desire to raise trilingual children was our wish to preserve our heritage cultures and family ties. Philippe and I belonged to a new generation of immigrants, and we were educated to believe that preserving our heritage cultures and languages was a healthy part of the process in recreating our identities in a new country. We understood that we had more choices in our personal life in a new world, beyond assimilating to the host country’s cultural mores and language. (We did well in the new environment by speaking the language, mingling with the locals and contributing to the host country.) We were convinced that passing on our heritage cultures and languages to our children was part of our responsibility to help them appreciate their roots, and would be beneficial to their identity development. Moreover, Philippe and I both had deep emotional and cultural ties with our heritage languages; they were an essential part of us. To speak our native tongues with our own children would feel natural and intimate to us.

In the Beginning

43

Furthermore, both Philippe and I were from close-knit families. We wanted our parents and relatives to have close relationships with our children. Helping our children speak the heritage languages would encourage that to happen, and it was especially important for a relationship between the monolingual Chinese grandparents and their grandchildren. Even though the Swiss grandparents were multilingual, knowing French would help promote the emotional and heritage ties between the Swiss grandparents and grandchildren. Benefits of multilingualism

The second reason for us wanting to raise trilingual children was our deep belief in the benefits of multilingualism and what it could bring to a society and to individuals. At the societal level, we believed that multilingualism could facilitate cultural and political exchanges, and promote cultural understanding and appreciation. In addition, we believed that multilingualism was one form of human capital,8 which could potentially bring economic prosperity to a society.9 At the individual level, we believed that multilingualism would enrich our children’s lives and create more cultural, linguistic, academic, economic and social opportunities for them. For instance, our offspring would potentially have more access to other languages and cultures, communicate more effectively with others, and have academic advantages (such as becoming more successful readers,10 more sensitive to language structures,11 more divergent in thinking12 and more creative13). They might also have more possibilities of working in different parts of the world, and more opportunities to socialize with people from different places, thus enlarging their circle of friends and broadening their worldview. Brain potential

The third reason we wished to raise trilingual children was our belief that human brain potential could be fully developed if cultivated. Research suggests that learning more than one language early in life can boost brainpower.14 Thus, learning three languages simultaneously would create advantageous conditions for our children to maximize their brain potential. As we ourselves were fortunate in knowing more than one language and dialect and had benefited from that, we felt it would be a pity if we did not try to provide the same kind of opportunities for our children as well. Interests in languages

Finally, my husband and I are genuinely interested in world languages, having had a passion for them since we were children. When I was a child, I used to make up languages and speak them to my friends and my younger brother. By experimenting with different sounds, I would pretend that I could speak many languages. Later on, I listened to foreign radio broadcasts every evening using my father’s short-wave radio (a forbidden thing to do at the time in the People’s Republic of China) and I imitated the different languages I heard
the Korean radio station was among my favorites. Using the sounds I picked up, I used to talk to

44

Growing up with Three Languages

myself in ‘Korean’. During my college and graduate school years, I took many courses related to linguistics, language acquisition and language development, and conducted research in the area. I studied a number of languages including Japanese, Russian, French and English. When I traveled around the world as a young adult, it was my hobby to just sit in a cafe´ or stand in a corner of a shop or street listening to the foreign tongues uttered by the people around me. Philippe shared the same passion for languages. Growing up in a multilingual environment in Switzerland and being bilingual in French and Swiss German, Philippe had made efforts to learn many other languages such as English, Latin, ancient Greek and biblical Hebrew. One of his hobbies was studying etymologies. In secondary school, he took the literary track rather than the science track solely to learn Latin and Greek. We persuaded ourselves that our interest in languages was a positive reason for us to raise trilingual children. We trusted that our enthusiasm for and curiosity about languages would help us devote the necessary time to support our children’s trilingual development.

Our suitability for raising trilingual children Having our language plan in place and having examined our motives, we began to ask ourselves a series of questions regarding our suitability for the endeavor. Through this self-assessment, we wanted to make sure that we were indeed capable of and suitable for embarking on the journey of raising trilingual children. We questioned ourselves in the following areas: Heritage language competence

As far as our competence in the heritage languages was concerned, we felt sure that we were capable of and proficient enough for the task. Both of us grew up and had college educations in the heritage languages we planned to pass on to our children, and both of us were competent in both the oral and written parts. Our proficiency would ensure that high-quality input would be provided for our children, which we deemed critical in the absence of heritage language input from other sources. Attitudes toward our heritage languages and cultures

Parents’ attitudes toward their own and each other’s heritage languages will influence their children in direct and indirect ways, so closely examining those attitudes is important. Both Philippe and I appreciated and valued our own and each other’s heritage languages and cultures. At the same time, we were ignorant about some aspects of them. Therefore, we began to make efforts to identify our misconceptions, and as a result, we made gradual progress in understanding each other’s cultures and languages.

In the Beginning

45

Personality traits

Both of us have always been goal-oriented; once we decide to do something, we carry it through. That made us confident that we would be able to stick to the difficult task we had set for ourselves. At the same time, we are both flexible. We were ready to readjust our plan if it was not working out. We were also good at resisting pressure from others. For example, Philippe resisted peer pressure in college, as evidenced by his studying theology (an unpopular subject area), and I resisted peer pressure in college by choosing Russian (at that time, a language regarded in China as ‘revisionist and useless’) as my second foreign language. In fact, both of us resisted societal bias when marrying outside of our racial boundaries. Based on our personality traits, we predicted that we would be able to handle the outside pressure and raise trilingual kids in a monolingual environment. However, both of us also had some personality traits that we needed to be cautious of in our childrearing process. For example, I tended to be a little impatient and to expect results in a short period. Philippe tended to be a little too laissez-faire and would probably let children do whatever they wanted. Thus, both of us needed to work to avoid giving in to these tendencies when raising our children. Interestingly, in our actual childrearing practice, we both behaved in ways that were opposite to what we had anticipated; was that perhaps the result of our conscious efforts to overcome the personality traits we were on guard against? Weighing potential support for raising trilingual children Heritage family support

One of the disadvantages was that we lived far from our heritage families, and none of the grandparents or relatives would be near us. Thus, we needed to be aware of the fact that we would not have frequent support from our extended families except during holidays and vacations. Community support

At the time of our planning, we lived in a small Mid-western town where I was teaching in a local university and conducting a research project in the nearby Hutterite15 and Native American Indian communities. It was clear that the community in which we were living would not be able to provide the linguistic and cultural support we needed to bring up our children with our heritage languages and we would have to move to a place where our future children would have more opportunities to be exposed to heritage languages and cultures. Traveling possibilities to heritage countries We regarded traveling to our heritage countries and language regions as a very important part of the process of bringing up our trilingual children. As our work schedules permitted us the luxury of an average of four months of vacation

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Growing up with Three Languages

(summer and winter vacations plus spring breaks), we would be extremely fortunate in having many opportunities to travel back to our home countries and to immerse our children in our heritage language and cultural environments. Childcare plan Research suggests that a child needs to be exposed to a language for a substantial amount of time in order to gain proficiency.16 Because we, the parents, would be the major input for our children’s heritage languages, we would have to spend enough time with our children to provide them with sufficient homelanguage input. Philippe was writing his doctoral dissertation and could serve as a stay-at-home dad. My plan was to teach late afternoon or evening courses and work at home when needed. We intended to hire babysitters as a source of English input and there were many high school and college students happy to do that job. Our goals and expectations for our children’s trilingual proficiency We decided that the goal for our children’s trilingualism would be to help them develop the four basic language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) in all three chosen languages. However, thinking about our reality, we knew that English probably would become our children’s dominant language. We predicted that because they would live and go to school in an English-speaking environment, our children were likely to have a higher English proficiency in the four language skills than their heritage languages. The sacrifice and challenge of raising trilingual children Although there are many advantages in raising trilingual children, we were aware, through reading and observation, that there would be a price to pay for both parents and children during the process. We had no illusions. Raising trilingual children would not be an easy journey for us, and we understood that it would be a give-and-take deal, as with many other things in life. We knew that as the primary caretakers, we would have to spend a substantial amount of time with our children. This meant that we would have to sacrifice our personal enjoyment to a large extent (e.g. we would not be able to go to the theater, movies or restaurants alone and often as we did before we had children). We would also have to slow down whatever we were doing or pursuing for the sake of spending enough time with our children. In fact, later on Philippe did significantly slow down his dissertation writing; it eventually took him 11 years to finish his doctorate. The amount of ‘invisible work’ we would take on in raising trilingual children (as Toshie Okita, the author of the book, Invisible Work: Bilingualism, Language Choice and Childrearing in Intermarried Families,17 called it) might even possibly exhaust us.

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Moreover, we would have to be ready to face many challenges in raising trilingual children. For example, we would have to be ready to be singled out in a monolingual environment because we would talk differently to our children. We would have to deal with ignorance and bias likely to be presented by the larger society. Furthermore, we also knew the price that our children might have to pay for being simultaneously trilingual. For example, they would have to sacrifice their playtime for home-language learning-related activities. They would potentially have to deal with their peers’ judgment. We hoped that the choices we made to bring up our children as trilingual would enrich their lives and ultimately bring them greater happiness. We were fully prepared to modify or even abandon our plans if things did not work out as we planned due to various unpredictable life events. Naming the children What’s in a name? Our names are a very important part of our identities. Throughout our lives, our names are associated with us and are part of our being, and what is in our names embodies who we are. Thus, naming is a quite important process for any children. Because our children would be trilingual and tricultural, there were many additional factors we had to consider. As our children would be a mixture of more than one culture, race and language, we wanted their names to represent and reflect their different cultural, ethnic and linguistic backgrounds. At the same time, we wanted our children to feel comfortable in their surroundings with names that are customary to the cultural and linguistic conventions. When I was pregnant with our first child, the doctor informed us, following a routine ultrasound examination, that we were probably going to have a boy. We began to search for a name for him that would reflect his cultural heritages and his future three languages. As Philippe and I are from two continents (Europe and Asia), we thought that the name Leander in ‘‘Hero and Leander’’
the two lovers celebrated in Greek legend
was a good one, because one side of the Hellespont (also known as the Dardanelles) is in Asia and the other is in Europe. We named our first child Leander in English and the equivalent Le´andre in ), which French. Because the pronunciation of Leander is close to Chinese Li-ang ( ) for his means reason ( /lıˇ ) and high-spirited ( /a´ng), we decided to use Li-ang ( Chinese name. To prepare for a possible surprise (in case we had a girl), we had the name Sophie ready, which would have easy English and Chinese equivalents. When I was pregnant with our second child, we did not know the fetus’ sex. So we decided to give him (or her) Philippe’s middle name Dominique, which can be used for either a boy or a girl. In addition, this name had an easy match in the English ), Dominic for a boy, and Dominique for a girl. We chose the Chinese name Ni-ke ( which sounds like the last part of Dominique. The Chinese name means close ( /nı`) and lovely ( /keˇ). For official documents, we would use Le´andre and Dominique.

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Deciding the children’s citizenship As the children would be born in the USA, they would automatically be American citizens. Switzerland allows dual citizenship, so we decided to make them Swiss citizens as well. The government of the People’s Republic of China does not permit multicitizenship and I was naturalized citizen of the USA; therefore, our children would not be able to obtain Chinese citizenship. Ideally, we would have liked them to have Chinese citizenship as well. We found out later that citizenship does indeed make a difference in how our children identify themselves. Even though my sons have no problem speaking the heritage languages and have a close connection to their heritage countries, they never claim they are Chinese, but they do claim they are Swiss. I often sense that our two boys feel a kind of entitlement while they are in the USA and Switzerland, that they do not feel while they are in China. I have heard them saying, ‘We Swiss . . . and they Chinese . . .’. I often wonder whether this has anything to do with their citizenships (see Chapter 6 for more discussion on this). Announcing our plan to extended families and others After we had crafted a plan of action to raise our children simultaneously with three languages, we decided to share this news with our extended families. We believed that it was important to prepare our extended families for this practice. We received their unanimous support for our decision. All grandparents and relatives thought it was an excellent idea and were excited for us. We also decided to announce our plan to our friends, colleagues and acquaintances. We figured that such an announcement would probably elicit many questions, which it did indeed: Many were supportive, some were curious and a few were skeptical about the feasibility of our plan. We found that our early announcement of the plan helped us further prepare for our practice. Preparing home-language materials To facilitate the trilingual childrearing process, we began to collect homelanguage materials. Sometimes it took a long time to get the children’s books we wanted in the home languages. Philippe and I began to investigate the best way to purchase French and Chinese children’s books. We also began to locate French and Chinese audio and video materials for our future children. We saw that French videotapes and CDs could not be played on standard US equipment, so we began to look at the Canadian market, which turned out to be a more convenient and cheaper source than France, Switzerland or Belgium. I also discovered that it was more convenient to order Chinese books from the Chinese book warehouses on the east coast of the USA rather than directly from China. Getting the home-language materials ready before the children’s arrival facilitated the trilingual childrearing process. We had time to study these materials and sort out the books we would read at different stages. On the very first night

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Le´andre was home from the hospital, Philippe picked up a French book he had prepared and began to read to him. As soon as the children were able to focus, I began to point out the colorful Chinese pictures and prints on the wall. We found that early preparation of the home-language materials was a kind of psychological preparation, which helped us get ready in a real sense. We did what we could as far as discussing our plan to raise our children, before their arrival. Could we stick to our decisions? Did we have to modify our plans? What would the difficulties be in implementing the plan? And how did the outside world react to our childrearing practice? You will read about these aspects in Chapters 3, 4 and 5.

Suggestions for Parents Who Plan to Raise Multilingual Children As with any other important decisions parents make on behalf of their children, linguistic decisions will have consequences for their development, and the experiences provided by parents will make a profound mark on their lives. Thus, it is important for parents to spend time thinking about and discussing their childrearing plans.18 Our experience convinces us that discussion about childrearing issues before children are born is very useful. Thinking ahead can make practice easier. Next, some thoughts and suggestions for parents to consider. Making decisions that are suitable to your own situation There will always be some expert advice along with unsolicited comments from people around you on the topic of how to raise multilingual children, from which parents can often gain insights and guidance. Knowing what works for others can help us anticipate what might happen and help us to be prepared and avoid making unnecessary ‘mistakes’. However, every family is different and every child is different. Assessing one’s own situation and making a decision that is best for the interests of one’s family, one’s own children in particular, may work well in the end. I agree with comments made by Edith Harding-Esch and Philip Riley, ‘ . . .When all is said and done, the decision is yours. Or at least, it should be; don’t let outsiders, whether family or ‘‘authorities’’, push you around. Remember, you know best . . .’.19 Asking yourself many ‘whys’ before you start your journey Before you start the journey of raising multilingual children, it may be important to ask yourself why you want to do it. Such a process can help you clarify your real intentions. Chances are, the more tough questions you ask yourself, the clearer you will be about your own motives and the more confident you will become about your decision. It seems that frequent, extensive and early discussions on whether to raise multilingual children are even more crucial for intercultural and inter-racial families because parents in these families may have fundamentally different childrearing

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beliefs, and thus may need more time, discussions and negotiations to reach mutually agreeable childrearing decisions. We have witnessed the case of an interracial couple’s divorce, possibly because of lacking communication. The couple later revealed to us in separate conversations that they believed divorce could perhaps have been avoided if they had had frequent discussions regarding their childrearing methods and made key linguistic decisions for their child together. Evaluating your reality Once you are sure that you want to raise your children with more than one language, it is important to find out whether your plan can be realized, by evaluating yourself as a parent, your environment and the support you can depend on. Though you may have an excellent plan, if your circumstances do not allow you to realize it, you will probably end up disappointed and discouraged. Evaluating yourself

First and foremost, parents may want to look at themselves. Understanding who they are may help them become more successful in raising children with more than one language. There are three important aspects that parents may want to examine about themselves: (1) their own language competence, (2) their personality and (3) their willingness to make sacrifices in order to raise multilingual children. Parental language competence. If parents are the major source of their children’s linguistic input, it is very important that they assess their own language competence because parental language proficiency will influence their children’s language proficiency. I do not mean that parents who have a ‘low’ level of proficiency in their heritage language (often as a result of not having had the opportunity to be educated) must not pass the language to their children; they have every right to do so. As a matter of fact, many immigrant parents choose to do so for their specific personal and family needs. For example, one of the custodians in my university told me that he could only speak ‘rudimentary’ Spanish because his parents only had elementary educations in their home countries. If parents want their children to surpass their own linguistic level, additional support and input are necessary to make that happen. Personality. Careful examination of parents’ own personalities can help them understand who they are and avoid certain tendencies that might get in the way of raising children with more than one language. For example, I tend to be impatient and want to see results immediately. Though I cannot change this personality tendency overnight, awareness of it has helped me greatly in my interactions with my children in their home-language learning activities. I can, for example, mentally prepare myself for a difficult task such as home-language reading and writing, or I can sometimes catch myself in the act and thus avoid losing my temper or becoming disappointed. Willingness to sacrifice. Raising children with more than one language requires sacrifice as well as determination. Parents may want to ask themselves whether they

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are indeed willing and able to make the necessary sacrifices, as raising children with more than one language in a non-Native environment requires that parents spend enough time interacting with their children frequently in everyday contexts. Parents may want to ask themselves if they are really ready for that. Personally, I do not believe in the ‘having-it-all’ idea; I prefer the ‘give and take’ approach to life. If we decide that we want to raise multilingual children, it may be necessary to sacrifice for what we believe to be a worthy cause. Evaluating your support

To explore what kind of support may or may not be available can help you form a realistic picture of your situation so that you can plan for your childrearing practice accordingly. The first kind of support you may want to consider is whether your extended family can help you. If they cannot provide constant support, an alternative plan needs to be made early. As you have read, our extended families live far away from us and therefore cannot provide frequent support. During our planning, we decided that we, the parents, would take most of the childrearing responsibilities and serve as the major heritage language input for our children. The second kind of support you may want to investigate is whether you have a community that can potentially provide support for you to raise children with more than one language. Heritage communities can serve as a source of strength for you; there you are likely to meet people who understand you and share the same convictions as you do. In addition, you may be able to find heritage-language speaking playmates for your children. There are other kinds of support that you may want to look into, such as heritagelanguage speaking childcare providers and financial support (e.g. some governments and agencies do provide financial support for heritage language school attendance for their citizens abroad).20 There are also online supports available for parents who are raising or consider raising children with more than one language.21 Deciding early on the family communication system There are at least three advantages in deciding on the family communication system before children arrive. First, it gives parents time to think through the pros and cons of their choice, and to modify it as many times as they want without a direct impact on their children. Second, the communication system that parents use to talk to their children is likely to stay once it becomes a habit; therefore, having a communication system plan in place can help ensure its early attainment. Finally, the communication system you decide to use is an important tool you will use to deliver your plan. I like the metaphor used by Christina Bosemark, founder of the Multilingual Children’s Association, ‘Even the most highly trained athlete couldn’t finish a marathon in ill-fitting shoes, and all your training won’t help if you aren’t settled comfortably for the long haul’.22 Raising children with more than one

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language without a consistent communication system may not help your children to realize their full potential. Setting up your goals and expectations Setting up goals and expectations for your children to achieve in their heritage languages can help determine the efforts and resources you will need to invest. There are different reasons parents want to raise their children with more than one language: Some parents want their children to know their heritage languages for religious reasons (I know some Jewish parents who want their children to learn Hebrew in order to read the Torah). Others want their children to know heritage languages for economic reasons (the parents of one of my children’s Chinese schoolmates want him to know Chinese because they expect their son to work in China when he grows up). Still others want their children to know heritage languages for intergenerational communication reasons (the parents in the custodian’s case mentioned earlier). Identifying reasons and setting up realistic goals and expectations can help parents be more focused in their efforts and become less frustrated and disappointed if they know what they can expect. Becoming well-informed There is much information on parenting available nowadays, including raising children with more than one language. Some of it is from researchers and experts and some from parents who have experience in raising children with more than one language. When parents have questions and do not know what to do, consulting experts’ advice and other parents’ experience can help them gain information and build confidence. Although readings can help us, they can also confuse us. Reading others’ advice, including experts’ critically is important. By reading critically, I mean that no one (even experts) can describe your specific family situation; other people’s successful and unsuccessful stories can only serve as a reference for you. You may want to analyze your situation and make your own decision. Furthermore, talking to others who have experience in raising children with more than one language can be helpful. Many parents’ self-help books and articles recommend this approach. However, in our experience, we found that talking to others can sometimes be discouraging. If we had heeded our Hungarian neighbor (see Chapter 1), we would have given up our hope of raising trilingual children. It is always good to remind ourselves: let others’ success stories encourage us, but don’t let others’ disappointments ruin our plan: we are not them! Announcing your intention Prospective parents rarely announce their childrearing plans to their extended families or their friends and acquaintances. However, there might be advantages in doing so for parents who plan to raise multilingual children. First, because there are

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diverse opinions, it is probably good to hear what others have to say and prepare yourself for a variety of comments (some of which may be unpleasant) before you put your plan into practice. Second, it is always beneficial to announce this kind of plan to your extended families because if they agree with and support your plan, you will have a much smoother road ahead. If they disagree with you, you will at least have time to persuade them and find ways to get them on your side. Informing your extended families before your plan is in place may avoid a lot of family and clan stress and friction. If they work together with you rather than against you in your childrearing efforts, it will facilitate the implementation of your plan. Naming your children is not a trivial matter Children’s names are often symbolic of what their parents wish for them. However, for the sake of children’s acceptance and comfort in society, parents may want to research cultural norms when naming their children to avoid accidental and unfortunate connotations, whether through sound or meaning.23 It is indeed harder for a child to be called Connor (or Conor) in a French-speaking environment than in an English-speaking environment because Connor sounds like connard, which is a vulgar and insulting word in French. In retrospect, we do have a slight regret about our choice of names for our two boys. We found that Dominique and Le´andre’s official names are sometimes regarded as girls’ names in the USA. For example, recently a person who was responsible for the local soccer team registration e-mailed me and asked whether we made a mistake by not registering Dominique to a girls’ team. As our two kids get older, they are sometimes annoyed with this kind of mistake. Fortunately, it has not turned out to be detrimental to their self-image. My first name Xiao-lei is often regarded by non-Chinese as a man’s name and my husband Philippe’s is often seen by Americans as a female’s name. This can be interesting, and occasionally may add some humor to life. For example, in the USA, I often receive advertisements for Viagra and Philippe often receives free pantyhose and sanitary napkin samples in the mail. As adults, we can chuckle about these incidents; however, this may not be amusing for a child. Thus, parents may want to be careful when deciding on names for their children. A consultation with natives in relevant languages and cultures may be helpful. Different and even exotic names may be interesting; but they can also cause unnecessary hassles. For instance, I refused to change my given name to a standard Anglo name, in order to preserve my cultural identity, and consequently, I have experienced many inconveniences. Usually non-Chinese do not know how to pronounce my name. For example, in a public situation where names are called out loud, such as picking up an item at a store or waiting in line at a popular restaurant, when there is a long pause during the calling process, I know it is my turn because most of the time, people who have no clue about how to pronounce my name are trying to figure it out. I used to be enthusiastic about explaining my name to people,

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but at this point I am a little tired of always having to tell people how to pronounce my name and what it means. I have recently found a way to solve this ‘problem’: while attending conferences, I started to put Chalet on my name tag to help people pronounce my name, and adding a little flower next to it to indicate its meaning.24 Some countries have laws about naming children. For example, until 1993, France used to require that all names be chosen from an official list. Even today, public prosecutors can still reject a newborn’s name. Switzerland has an official booklet to help parents choose customary Swiss names in its four national languages. In principle, naming a child should be the parents’ right and privilege. If someone feels strongly about their cultural, racial and ethnical identity and wants to name their children accordingly, no person or country should interfere with their personal choices. Using myself as an example again, if I have to choose between the hassle that I have to endure constantly (telling people how to pronounce my name and explaining what it means) and anglicizing my name to Shirley as my Californian uncle suggested when he first met me, I will most definitely choose the former. However, I must say that my decision to keep my Chinese name is different from the decision of naming my children who will grow up in a different environment than I did. Thus, I had to take their environment into consideration when giving them names and I certainly would not want them to be laughed at by their peers because of ‘strange’ names. It may be a sensible approach for parents to name their children with more than one language and culture by considering two factors: acceptability and cultural heritage. For instance, the Canadian
Japanese parents in Mitsuyo Sakamoto’s study25 chose names for their children that are either easy to Anglicize or easy to pronounce: for example, Karin is very similar to the English name Karen and Yuki and Ai are short and easy to pronounce. These immigrant parents’ naming practice reflects their hope to have their children accepted in society and their wish to preserve their cultural identity.

Summary Planning and discussion play an important role for prospective parents on their journey to raise children with more than one language. As the decisions and childrearing choices parents make in the beginning will influence their children’s development, careful thought and discussion by the couple should take place before the children’s arrival. Based on their circumstances, prospective parents may want to discuss and consider many fundamental questions regarding their plan to raise children with more than one language. If they decide to pass on their heritage language(s) to their children, prospective parents may want to examine their motives first. If their motives are focused on their children’s best interests, they may be able to start the journey in the right direction. Prospective parents may also want to look at their own language competence and personality as well as the availability of providing efficient heritage language input to their children to make sure that they are indeed

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ready for the challenging task. Setting up reachable goals and expectations and understanding the potential price both parents and children will have to pay can help parents be better prepared to meet the challenges ahead and determine what effort and resources they want to invest. To facilitate the process of raising multilingual children, some concrete plans need to be discussed and determined, such as what communication system the family will adopt, what kind of support the parents and children may expect from their extended families and heritage communities, and how to name the children to help them preserve their cultural heritage and feel comfortable in their environment. In addition, informing oneself critically with available expert advice and other parents’ experience can help parents assess their own situations and make choices that are best for their family. Although planning can never guarantee the actual realization in practice because of the unpredictable nature of life, it can point out a direction for prospective parents. Chapters 3, 4 and 5 will show you how our plan helped us through the first 11 years of our journey raising our two trilingual children. Notes and References 1. Sheeber, L., Biglan, A. and Metzler, C.W. (2002) Promoting effective parenting practices. In L. Jason and D.S. Glenwick (eds) Innovative Strategies for Promoting Health and Mental Health across the Life Span (pp. 63
84). New York: Springer. Anderson, K.L. (2007) Engaging theories in family communication: Multiple perspectives. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 26 (1), 91
92. Auerbach, A.B. (1968) Parents Learning Through Discussion: Principles and Practices of Parent Group Education. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Block, J.H., Block, J. and Morrison, A. (1981) Parental agreement-disagreement on childrearing orientations and gender-related personality correlates in children. Child Development 52 (3), 965
974. 2. Foeman, A. and Nance, T. (2002) Building new cultures, reframing old images: Success strategies of interracial couples. Howard Journal of Communications 13 (3), 237
249. 3. Mar, J.B. (1988) Chinese Caucasian interracial parenting and ethnic identity. Abstracts International 49 (5), 1278. 4. Barron-Hauwaert, S. (2004) Language Strategies for Bilingual Families: The One-Parent-One Language Approach. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 5. Bhatia, T.K. and Ritchie, W.C. (1999) The bilingual child: Some issues and perspectives. In W.C. Ritchie and T.K. Bhatia (eds) Handbook of Child Language Acquisition (pp. 569
643). New York: Academic Press. 6. Goodz, N.S. (1989) Parental language mixing in bilingual families. Infant Mental Health Journal 10, 25
44. 7. Ronjat, J. (1913) Le de´veloppement du langage observe´ chez un enfant bilingue [The Development of Language Observed with a Bilingual Child]. Paris: Champion. Leopold, W.F. (1939) Speech Development of a Bilingual Child: A Linguist’s Record. Evanston, IL: The Northwestern University Press. Bain, B. and Yu, A. (1980) Cognitive consequences of raising children bilingually: ‘Oneparent-one language’. Canadian Journal of Psychology 34, 304
313.

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8.

9. 10. 11.

12.

13.

14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20.

Growing up with Three Languages Hoffmann, C. (1985) Language acquisition in to trilingual children. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 6, 479
495. Meisel, J.M. (1990) Two First Languages? Early Grammatical Development in Bilingual Children. Dordrecht: Foris. Saunders, G. (1988) Bilingual Children: From Birth to Teens. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Breton, A. (1978) Le bilinguisme. Une approche e´conomique [Bilingualism. An economic approach]. Montre´al: C.D. Howe Institute. Carliner, G. (1976) Returns to education for Blacks, Anglos and five Spanish groups. The Journal of Human Resources 11 (2), 172
184. Hocevar, T. (1975) Equilibria in linguistic minority markets. Kyklos 28 (2), 337
357. Halliwell, J. (1999) Language and trade. In A. Breton (ed.) Exploring the Economics of Language. Ottawa, Ontario: Department of Cultural Heritage. Lindholm-Leary, K. (2000) Biliteracy for a Global Society: An Ideal Book on Dual Language Acquisition. Washington, DC: National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education. Titone, R. (1994) Bilingual education and the development of metalinguistic abilities: A research project. International Journal of Psycholinguistics 10 (1), 5
14. Eviatar, Z. and Ibraham, R. (2000) Bilingual is a bilingual does: Metalinguistic abilities of Arab-speaking children. Applied Psycholinguistics 21, 451
471. Bialystok, E. (2007) Cognitive effects of bilingualism: How linguistic experience leads to cognitive change. The International Journal of Bilingual Education & Bilingualism 10 (3), 210
223. Robinson, D.W. (1998) The cognitive, academic, and attitudinal benefits of early language learning. In M. Met (ed.) Early Language Learning. Glenview, IL: Scott Foreman-Addison Wesley. Srivastava, B. (1991) Creativity and linguistic proficiency. Psycho-Lingua 21 (2), 105
109. Corbett, L.H. (1991) Effect of bilingualism on humor and creativity. Dissertation Abstracts International 52 (4), 1307
1308. Ricciardelli, L.A. (1992) Creativity and bilingualism. Journal of Creative Behavior 26 (4), 242
254. Okoh, N. (1980) Bilingualism and divergent thinking among Nigerian and Welsh school children. Journal of Social Psychology 110 (2), 163
170. Mechelli, A. (2004) Being bilingual boosts brain power. Nature 431, 757. See note 9 in the Introduction chapter. Patterson, J.L. and Pearson, B.Z. (2004) Bilingual lexical development: Influences, contexts, and process. In B.A. Goldstein (ed.) Bilingual Language Development and Disorder in Spanish-English Speaker (pp. 77
104). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes. Pearson, B.Z., Ferna´ndez, S.C. and Lewedeg, V. (1997) Relations of input factors to lexical learning by bilingual infants. Applied Psycholinguistics 18 (1), 41
58. Vigil, D.C., Hodges, J. and Klee, T. (2005) Quantity and quality of parental language input to late-talking toddlers during play. Child Language Teaching & Therapy 21 (2), 107
122. Okita, T. (2002) Invisible Work: Bilingualism, Language Choice and Childrearing in Intermarried Families. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Baker, C. (2007) A Parents’ and Teachers’ Guide to Bilingualism (pp. 9
10). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Harding-Esch, E. and Riley, P. (2003) The Bilingual Family: A Handbook for Parents (p. 87) Cambridge, UK: The Cambridge University Press. For example, French citizens can apply for scholarships for their children living abroad to attend French schools at http://www.consulfrance-newyork.org/article.php3?id_ article  432#sommaire_2

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21. Some websites can provide support and information for parents who are raising children with more than one language. For example, http://www.biclturalfamily.org http://www.cal.org/about/index.html http://www.linguistlist.org/ask-ling/biling.html http://parents.berkeley.edu http://www.bilingualbabies.org 22. Bosemark, C. (2006) Raising Bilingual Children: The Best Parenting Methods. http:// ezinearticles.com/?Raising-Bilingual-Children:-The-Most-Successful-Methods&id= 247587 23. Harding-Esch, E. and Riley, P. (2003) The Bilingual Family: A Handbook for Parents (p. 155) Cambridge, UK: The Cambridge University Press. 24. My name Xiao means early morning and Lei means flower buds. 25. Sakamoto, M. (2000) Raising bilingual and trilingual children: Japanese immigrant parents’ child-rearing experiences (p. 32). Doctoral Dissertation. University of Toronto.

Chapter 3

The Home Years1 This chapter addresses the process by which we helped our children acquire and develop three languages simultaneously from birth to ages three and four. The topics covered include the specific strategies that we used to establish the early trilingual environment, the major challenges we faced, and how we dealt with them. In addition, the characteristics of the children’s early trilingual and identity development are highlighted. In the light of our experience and the research literature, suggestions are made on how to support trilingual children’s language and identity development in early years.

Strategies for the Home Years In 1995, Le´andre was born. Like many other firstborns, he was welcomed to this world by his parents with great joy and excitement. However, unlike many other firstborns, Le´andre was greeted by his mother in Chinese, by his father in French and by his doctor, nurses and visitors in English from the first moment he entered this world. Two years later, Le´andre’s younger brother Dominique was greeted in the same way by the people around him, with the exception that Dominique also had an older brother to greet him in French. Thereafter, the two children started their trilingual journey. Establishing the trilingual environment Maximizing the home-language input

In an ideal trilingual environment, our children would be evenly exposed to French, Chinese and English with a balanced exposure for each language. As discussed in Chapter 1, this is rarely possible in actual practice. Le´andre and Dominique live in a predominately Anglophone environment (the USA). Thus, English inevitably has more impact on them than French (the main input is from the father) and Chinese (the main input is from the mother). Informed by the experience of other parents who had successfully raised their children with more than one language2 and our own observations, we knew clearly that Le´andre and Dominique’s mother tongue and father tongue would not have a chance without deliberate ‘control’ of their linguistic environment. To maximize our two children’s chances of success in French and Chinese, we made the decision to keep them at home and to defer sending them to Englishspeaking preschools until they had firmly established their communication patterns in French and Chinese. In other words, to allow their mother tongue and father

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tongue the chance to establish, we deliberately ‘limited’ their English exposure. We did not send Le´andre to preschool until he was four and Dominique until he was three. During these home years, both parents shared the child care responsibilities. We were lucky that we had flexible working schedules. I taught evening courses twice a week and could work at home most of the time. Philippe was working on his doctoral dissertation and tailored his schedule by getting up early to read and write before the children were awake. Although we tried to ‘manipulate’ the children’s English exposure by not sending them to English-speaking nursery schools earlier, they were still naturally receiving English input because of living in an English-speaking environment. In addition, the parents conversed with each other in English; therefore, the children had the opportunity to hear it on a daily basis. Starting from the second year of our children’s lives, we hired native English-speaking high school and college students to play with the children once or twice a week (for one or two hours at a time). When Le´andre was two years and one month, he was recruited as a subject by a university professor to help her students develop English language teaching skills. Le´andre attended 45 sessions, each lasting about an hour. During these sessions, two female native English-speaking college students majoring in language and speech played with Le´andre, using English, based on lesson plans they developed under the guidance of their professor. The professor observed her students’ interactions with Le´andre through a one-way mirror and provided feedback for them after each session. Table 3.1 shows that during their home years, Le´andre and Dominique overall received more interactive input (they were addressed directly in person) in their heritage languages, and more passive input (they were not directly addressed, but received input through ‘eavesdropping’ on conversations among others, television or videocassettes) in English. I believe that our effort to maximize our two children’s heritage-languages exposure during their early years helped them lay a solid foundation for the establishment of their mother tongue and father tongue. As you will see in Chapters 4 and 5, this practice did bear fruit in the children’s later trilingual development. Establishing a communication system

Parents who have successfully brought up children with more than one language have unanimously indicated that the crucial initial step to ensure success was to establish a consistent communication system between parents and children early on,3 which we took as a priority during our children’s home years. Parent
child communication. Since our children’s births, we have carried out the one-parent-one-language principle without exception. This means that Philippe speaks only French and I speak only Chinese to our children, whereas the two of us speak only English to each other. As we live in an English-speaking environment, other people in the environment naturally speak English to our children. ‘He´ Ma¯ma

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Table 3.1 Percentage of the children’s exposure to three languages (birth to 3 and 4 years)* Le´andre

Language

Dominique

Birth to 1

1 2




2 3




3 4




Birth to 1

1 2




2 3




37%

36%

34%

31%

38%

38%

39%

3%

4%

6%

8%

4%

4%

3%

35%

33%

30%

28%

33%

29%

27%

3%

5%

5%

6%

3%

5%

4%

2%

4%

7%

11%

3%

5%

13%

20%

18%

18%

16%

19%

19%

14%

100%

100%

100%

100%

100%

100%

100%

French Interactive Passive Chinese Interactive Passive English Interactive Passive Total

* It is impossible to document exactly the percentages of the three-language exposure. To have a general idea about the exposure, I randomly selected an hour of naturalistic video-recordings of each month in the children’s home year (four years for Le´andre and three years for Dominique). The data shown in this chart were calculated on a total of 48 hours for Le´andre and 36 hours for Dominique

shuo¯ zho¯ng we´n/ (speak Chinese to mother), parle franc¸ais avec papa (speak French to father), and speak English to others’ has been the language motto and ‘policy’ of our family. This communication mode actually came to our children quite naturally because they were literally born into and socialized in this language environment. Our 11 years of video and audio recordings and observational records do not show any evidence of struggle for Le´andre and Dominique at all. They simply accepted this communication pattern as a part of life. Once this parent
child communication system was established, our children habitually responded to Mother in Chinese and Father in French. Sometimes, merely mentioning one parent was enough to elicit a response from them in the language used to communicate with that parent. The following is such an example from Dominique. Example 3.1 Dominique (two years and two months) was having potty training in the bathroom.

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61

Nıˇ zhe¯n ne´ng ga`n, nıˇ zı` jıˇ huı`sha`ng ce` suoˇ le8 (You are very capable. You can use toilet yourself now.) Jia`o ba` ba la´i ka`n haˇo bu` haˇo?

Dominique:

(Should we let Daddy know about this?) Je fais caca. (I am making bowel movement.) Grosse crotte. [Looked into the toilet bowl.] (Big piece of poop.)

This example shows that when a particular communication pattern is consistent, a child will naturally form the habit of responding to different parents in different languages. As Dominique demonstrated in Example 3.1, he started to speak French as soon as I mentioned his father. Sibling communication. Le´andre and Dominique literally did not have a choice as to what language to speak with their father, mother and people around them because they were born into a world with three languages. They did, however, have a choice as to what language they would speak to each other. Past research and anecdotal accounts of parents who raised children with more than one language suggest that siblings typically choose to communicate to each other in the dominant language in their environment.4 In principle, Le´andre and Dominique could have chosen English to communicate to each other. However, they chose French. This sibling communication pattern can perhaps be attributed to their early language environment, that is, we deliberately limited their English exposure during the early years and emphasized French and Chinese at home. As their home languages are French and Chinese, they excluded English as an option between them. Thus, the choices left to them were Chinese, French or a mixture of both. Interestingly, from the day Dominique was born, Le´andre has spoken French to him. As for Dominique, when he started to speak, he simply ‘went along’ with his older brother and used French. Our records (both videos and notes) during the home years indicate that there were only two incidents when Le´andre tried to speak Chinese to Dominique. Once, Le´andre (three years and seven months) was trying to repeat after me to tell Dominique what to do (imitating). Another time, when Le´andre (four years and one month) had just returned from a 37-day visit to China with me, he tried to speak Chinese to Dominique, but quickly reverted to French because Dominique consistently refused to communicate in Chinese. In our records, Dominique never spoke Chinese to Le´andre. Looking back, the two siblings’ using French did not just occur by chance. After carefully analyzing the video-recorded data and notes made during the home years,

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I have identified six possible reasons why Le´andre and Dominique may have chosen French
their father tongue
as sibling language: Six possible reasons why siblings speak the ‘father tongue’ to each other . . . . . .

The longer amount of quality time that they spent with their father. The engaging interactions that the children experienced with their father. The talkativeness of the father. The same-gender connectedness between the father and the children. The positive experience with French. Older sibling influence.

First, Philippe spent a substantial amount of quality time with the children during their home years. By quality time, I mean that Philippe gave 100% attention to the children while playing with them. As for myself, during the first two years of the children’s lives, I gave 100% attention to them, but as time went on, my attention receded to less than 100% when I was with them. I call this kind of interaction peripheral interaction, which means that when the children were around me, I was engaged in something else and would give them only partial attention. As a result, the longer quality time that Philippe spent with the children may have contributed to the sibling language choice. Second, Philippe frequently engaged the children in interesting activities, such as rough and tumble games, French rhymes, jokes and building with constructive toys (such as trains, blocks and Lego), other kinds of games and playful talks. For young children, these activities were engaging and the French language used in these activities was a natural part of the interaction. In comparison, my interactions with the children often were caring in nature. I talked to them more about food, hygiene and behavioral issues. Though these things are important from a parent’s perspective, young children may not necessarily find them as interesting as games and playtime. Third, Philippe was very ‘talkative’ when interacting with the children during their home years. He used 31% more words per hour on average than I did.5 The father’s talkativeness may be another reason why the siblings chose French as their communicative language. Researchers found that talkative parents tend to have talkative children.6 As shown by Le´andre (two years and four months) during a visit to Switzerland, he (the little ‘chatterbox’ as he was called by the guests of his paternal grandparents) really stole the show. Fourth, the father
son ‘connectedness’ and influence may have also played a role in the siblings’ language choice. Fathers have been found to be influential to their sons.7 Moreover, several recent studies suggest that fathers play an important role in children’s language development.8 In particular, fathers tend to have a greater impact than mothers on their children’s language development between ages two and three.9

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Fifth, the positive experience with French the children had during their early years may have also contributed to their language choice. Sometimes people went out of their way to show their admiration to these two little French-speaking children. However, the children did not get the same kind of feedback when they spoke in Chinese, because in the USA and Europe, most of the time people simply did not know what language they were speaking. Finally, the older sibling also played a role in ‘imposing’ the sibling communication pattern. Madalena Cruz-Ferreira reported that her oldest child started to use Portuguese as the default language among the siblings, and the younger siblings followed suit.10 Similarly, Le´andre spoke French to Dominique from the very beginning, and Dominique went along with it. Once the communication pattern between the two brothers was established during the home years (or in other words, once the habit was formed), they simply followed it. To this day, the two brothers still speak French to each other. This sibling communication pattern is reminiscent of the one between Philippe and his younger sister. Although they lived in France and the French-speaking part of Switzerland, their mother, who spent most of her days with them during their early childhood, spoke exclusively Swiss
German with them. Even now, the siblings still communicate to each other in Swiss
German. Communication with visitors. Edith Harding-Esch and Philip Riley identified four common strategies used by families that speak more than one language to communicate with visitors:11 Strategies used to communicate with visitors (outsiders) Strategy 1: all members of the family switch to the visitor’s language for the duration of the visit. Strategy 2: members of the family continue among themselves as before, using the visitor’s language only when addressing him/her directly. Strategy 3: members of the family continue among themselves as before when addressing remarks individually to one another, but switch to the visitor’s language when the visitor is part of the conversation. Strategy 4: a member or members of the family provide simultaneous interpretation for the visitor. Philippe and I decided to use the second communication strategy when guests were present. That is, Philippe remained speaking French and I Chinese to the children, and we shifted to English when addressing English speakers. Of course, we realized that there was a social consequence to our communication style. This practice seemed rude to English-speaking guests. However, all our guests accepted our family communication style. As a matter of fact, this often sparked interesting conversations. Some researchers have argued that our practice, i.e. the one-parent-one-language

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style may create a socially unnatural setting for language use, which could lead to the children’s failure to use language properly.12 However, I did not find this problem with our children. With our modeling in the early years, Le´andre and Dominique also started to use this communication strategy in the presence of others. The videorecorded data and observational notes made during their earlier years indicate that both Le´andre and Dominique initially did avoid talking to guests in English (particularly in the second year of their lives). However, after a while, they could manage well by chatting with guests in English and with us in the home languages. When Le´andre was about four years old and Dominique about two, I tried to use the third strategy described above, that is, I continued to speak Chinese to the children in the presence of others. If requests or remarks were made to all who were present (guests and our family members), I started to speak English to everyone including Le´andre and Dominique. For example, I would say, ‘Listen everyone, lunch is ready’. When I spoke English to everybody, Le´andre and Dominique felt very upset at first. Once, in the presence of the boys’ friend Henrik, Dominique was almost in tears when I asked him, in English, to wash his hands before eating. Interestingly, when we spoke English to our children in the presence of others, they almost took it as a punishment, something out of the ordinary. This experience is also shared by other parents who raised children with more than one language.13 When communicating with other French and Chinese native speakers, including our relatives, the children simply followed the one-person-one-language principle, that is, when they were addressed in French they responded in French, and when they were addressed in Chinese they responded in Chinese. Sometimes, when people who were not proficient in French tried to converse with them in French, Le´andre and Dominique would refuse to have a conversation with them in French. They responded similarly to speakers who were not proficient in Chinese. Maximizing the chances to become trilingual Unlike children who are exposed to the same language both inside and outside their homes, Le´andre and Dominique literally only had one single major input from the father in French and one single major input from the mother in Chinese during their home years. Despite the efforts Philippe and I each made in our respective languages to live up to the responsibility of representing a linguistic community each on our own, the input we provided to our children was simply not enough. Therefore, we also adopted the strategies described below to ensure our children’s chances of success with their heritage languages. Reading routines

From the first days of Le´andre’s and Dominique’s lives, Philippe and I took turns reading to them daily, usually at bedtime. To increase their vocabulary and awareness of context, we read to them from a variety of genres of French and Chinese books, such as fables, children’s short stories, science books and stories

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with rhymes. We hired English-speaking high school and college students to read children’s English books to them as well. When we read stories to the children, we employed both immediate talk and non-immediate talk, as suggested in research literature.14 Immediate talk refers to talks that are often closely tied to illustrations or words in the text that has just been (Look at that big read. For example, I said, ‘Ka`n kan na` ge da` pı´ng guoˇ apple)’ when I tried to draw Le´andre’s attention to a big apple in a children’s Chinese vocabulary book. Non-immediate talk refers to talks in which adults use the text or illustrations as a springboard for recollections of personal experiences, comments, or questions about general knowledge or for drawing inferences and making predictions. For example, when reading a Chinese book titled Sa¯n Ge` Haˇo (Three Friends), I had the following exchanges with Dominique Pe´ng Yoˇu/ (three years and eleven months): Example 3.2 Mother:

We`i she´n me xiaˇo tu` zi da`o xueˇ dı` lıˇ qu`?

Dominique:

(Why did the little rabbit go out in the snow?) Qu` zhaˇo chı¯ de do¯ng xi8

Mother:

(To look for food.) Duı` le8 (You are right.) Ta¯ yoˇu mei yoˇu he´ bie´ re´n fe¯n le chı¯?

Dominique:

(Did he share his food with others?) Yoˇu8

Mother:

(Yes.) Nıˇ ya`o bu ya`o he´ ge¯ge fe¯n do¯ng xi chı¯?

Dominique:

(Would you share your food with your brother?) Bu´ ya`o8

Mother:

(No.) We`i she´n me? (Why not?)

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66

Dominique:

Mother:

Dominique:

Mother:

Ge¯ge na´ woˇ de Lego; ge¯ge bu` geˇi woˇ ta¯ de wa´n ju`8 Lego; (Brother took my Lego; brother does not share his toy.) Keˇ shı` ru´ guoˇ nıˇ geˇi ge¯ge nıˇ de wa´n ju`, ta¯ jiu` huı` geˇi nıˇ ta¯ de wa´n ju`8 , (But if you share with brother, he will do the same thing.) Ge¯ge da`, da` ge¯ge ra`ng xiaˇo dı`di8 (Brother is big. Big brother shares with little brother.) Xiaˇo he¯i tu` bıˇ xiaˇo hua´ng tu` da` ma? Xiaˇo he¯i tu` keˇ ne´ng bıˇ xiaˇo hua´ng tu` xiaˇo. Keˇ shı` ta¯ ha´i shı` geˇi xiaˇo hua´ng tu` ta¯ de luo´ bo8

(Do you think the little black rabbit is older than the yellow one? Maybe he is younger, but he still shares his carrots with him.) In this exchange, I extended the talk with Dominique from the book to his sharing behaviors by using the non-immediate talk method. Research suggests that non-immediate talks during book reading, as demonstrated in Example 3.2, can help young children’s language and cognitive (intellectual) development in general. Book reading is a rich opportunity for the use of complex language that goes beyond the here and now. Verbal interactions during book reading promote the development of language and cognitive skills that children will be expected to use later in school, thus, the more often nonimmediate talks are used, with a wide variety of books, the more likely that children will be prepared for future school success. Personal story telling

Everyday conversation topics between adults and young children often tend to be restricted to present events. To provide opportunities for our children to discuss past and future events, we frequently recounted our childhood stories at their bedtimes and during meals. We also encouraged them to tell their own personal stories. Below is such an example (Le´andre four years and three months; Dominique two years and two months): Example 3.3 Le´andre and Dominique were lying in bed ready for sleep. Le´andre: [Climbed to his bunk bed] Ma¯ma, geˇi woˇ jiaˇng nıˇ xiaˇo shı´ ho`u de gu` shi8

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Mother:

(Mommy, tell me a story when you were little.) Ra`ng woˇ xiaˇng xiang8

Le´andre:

(Let me think of one.) ˘ yıˇ qia´n, da¯ng woˇ shı` xiaˇo ha´i zi de shı´ ho`u, woˇ heˇn tia´o pı´. Yoˇu Heˇn jiu shı´ hou wa`i po´ jia`o woˇ shua¯ ya´, woˇ jiaˇ zhua¯ng baˇ shuıˇ lo´ng to´u ka¯i zhe. Da`o wuˇ nia´n jı´ de shı´ ho`u, woˇ de ya´ fa¯ ya´n, woˇ de liaˇn zhoˇng de xia`ng ge da` qı` qiu´8 , , , , (Long time ago, when I was a little child, I was very naughty. Sometimes, your grandma asked me to brush my teeth. I pretended to brush my teeth by turning the faucet on. So, I had a tooth infection in fifth grade and my face was swollen like a balloon.) Nıˇ tia´o pı´. Woˇ shua¯ ya´8

Dominique:

(You are naughty. I brush my teeth.) Woˇ yeˇ shua¯ ya´, woˇ tı¯ng hua`8

Mother:

(Me too. I listen to mother.) Nıˇ ya`o shi xia`n za`i haˇo haˇo shua¯ ya´, jia¯ng la´i nıˇ de ya´ chıˇ jiu` bu´ huı` yoˇu we`n tı´8 (If you both brush your teeth carefully, you will not have problems with them in the future.)

It has been suggested by child language researchers that discussions about past experiences or future events, such as Example 3.3, can help young children’s language and narrative development.15 These conversations can help young children know how to discuss decontextualized (nonpresent) events and activities. In Example 3.3, I modeled how to describe things that happened in the past (e.g. /long time ago and da¯ng woˇ shı` xiaˇo ha´i zi de shı´ ho`u/ Heˇn jiuˇ yıˇ qia´n/ /when I was a little child) and how to describe things that will happen in the future (e.g. jia¯ng la´i nıˇ de ya´ chıˇ jiu` bu´ huı` yoˇu we`n tı´/ /If you brush your teeth carefully, you will not have problems with them in the future). In addition, by telling personal stories, we help our children enrich their vocabularies and understand our past.

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Dictating children’s stories

Another method we used to increase the children’s vocabulary and enlarge their communication context during the home years was to ask our children to tell us their stories, which we then dictated and read back to them. In doing so, we achieved several purposes. First, we monitored the children’s heritage-language progress. Second, we modeled heritage-language use when reading the dictation back to the children. Third, we had an idea of their cognitive or emotional status. Example 3.4 is an example of a dictation of Le´andre’s story (three years and three months):

Example 3.4 Jie´ ke` shı` xiaˇo ha´i zi. Ta¯ tia´o pı´. Ta¯ na´ da¯o zi. Ta¯ sha¯ le koˇng long. Bu` haˇo. Ta¯ sha¯ le haˇo duo¯ haˇo duo¯ de koˇng long8

(Jack is child. He is naughty. He took knives. He killed dragon. Bad. He killed many, many dragons.) After I dictated the story told by Le`andre, I read it back to him by keeping the essence of his story and adding some elements that made his story sound better (including better vocabulary, grammar and style). Example 3.5 Jie´ ke` shı` yı´ ge xiaˇo na´n ha´ir. Ta¯ heˇn tia´o pı´, yı¯n we´i ta¯ wa´n da¯o zi. Ta¯ xia¯n sha¯ sıˇ le yı` zhı¯ koˇng long. Ra´n ho`u ta¯ sha¯ sıˇ le haˇo duo¯ koˇng long8

(Jack is a little boy. He is very naughty because he plays with knives. He first killed a dragon. Then, he killed many dragons.) I found this kind of dictation provided opportunities for Le´andre and Dominique to receive extra heritage-language input that was more targeted than spontaneous conversations. Establishing a print-rich environment

Research suggests that a print-rich environment will promote young children’s language, literacy development and school success.16 For children who are learning more than one language, the print-rich environment in different languages is even more crucial. During the early years of their lives, we made efforts to expose our

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two children to a print-rich trilingual environment. For example, I hung pictures and posters with Chinese, French and English words on the walls; we covered the floors with alphabetic letter carpets; we showered the two children with Chinese, French and English books. The early exposure to print in Chinese, French and English has obviously made both our children ‘sensitive’ to them at a young age. For example, between seven months and one and a half years, Le´andre used to take the pocket-sized French picture book ‘L’imagier du Pe`re Castor’ everywhere and pointed at the pictures, letters and words when he saw something similar to the things in his book. He could also point out all the letters he recognized on store signs, such as the letter ‘K’ in K-Mart, at one year and three months, and Chinese characters in Montre´al’s China Town, such as /zho¯ng (middle) and /re´n (people), at one year and one month. Listening and singing children’s songs

For young children, music is an interesting and useful way to engage them. We made efforts to expose Le´andre and Dominique to French and Chinese children’s music during their home years. When traveling in the car or when the boys were lying in bed ready for a nap, we would play music or sing songs to them. Dominique, for example, could recite many of the French lyrics recorded by the popular Swiss
French singer Henri De`s, and the Chinese lyrics from the score of the Chinese cartoon The Monkey King. The words in these songs helped Dominique acquire many vocabulary words that he would not otherwise have the opportunity to know.

Challenging Issues and Ways to Deal with Them During our children’s early years, we encountered many challenges. I will discuss the most prominent ones here and demonstrate how we overcame them. Alone on the linguistic planet Passing heritage languages to our children in an environment where no other native speakers are around was not easy. We learned soon after our children’s birth that there were no other Chinese and French native speakers there who could provide constant language and cultural support. We frequently felt that we were alone on our linguistic planet. For example, Philippe had to make special efforts to build up his French vocabulary regarding infants and young children. Had he married a French-speaking spouse or lived in a French-speaking environment, these terms would have come naturally. In other words, he would have benefited from other linguistic references. I encountered similar issues in connection with my uncertainty about some Chinese words and expressions related to infants and young children. In this situation, we could have easily resorted to English to avoid the additional stress resulting from our ‘linguistic loneliness’. However, we made efforts to

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overcome our native-language limitations through active learning. Philippe made efforts to check with a French woman and a French-speaking Belgian woman about infant and infant-care terms. He also asked his mother to send him a French infant and child care book to enlarge his French vocabulary. I consulted with a Chinese woman about terms relating to infants and children. I also began to read child development books in Chinese. As a result, we enlarged our vocabularies in our native languages. Declining native language After spending some years in the USA, being without contact with native speakers of French and Chinese on a daily basis, our native languages had become ‘rusty’. I can recall that when I spoke with my parents on the phone before I had children, it took me about five minutes each time to feel comfortable conversing in Chinese. When occasionally I talked with someone who had just come to the USA from China, I used some words or phrases that were out of date or I could not quite understand the new terms that they used. For example, I had problems in grasping (which literally means to ‘go into the new meanings of such phrases as xia` haˇi/ (which literally the sea’ and its ‘new’ meaning is ‘doing business’), and haˇi guı¯/ ‘people returned home from abroad’). This means ‘sea turtle’ and now also means decline in fluency in our native languages, though natural, apparently presented a challenge for those of us who tried to pass our native languages to our offspring. To refresh our native languages, we began to read newspapers, watch satellite and cable television programs, and listen to radio shows in our native tongues. We also tried to speak more frequently with native speakers. After conscious efforts, we again felt good about our native languages. Honestly, we have to thank our children for helping us maintain our native languages. Coining words To many readers, it probably sounds ridiculous to have to invent words in one’s native language in order to communicate. Some people find coining words for the sake of sticking to one language futile and artificial, and believe that this practice can lead to communication failure.17 Although I agree that inventing words for the sake of making a language ‘pure’ is not a good language teaching strategy, my experience shows that sometimes coining words according to language rules may be beneficial when young children are forming their heritage-language communication habits (although such practice needs to be re-examined when children grow older; see Chapter 5). During the early years of our children’s lives, I frequently encountered the issue of not being able to find the Chinese equivalents of English expressions due to the lifestyle differences between the People’s Republic of China and the USA. In some instances, if I had not deliberately ‘invented’ some Chinese words, I found that most of the words I would have used would be English or anglicized foreign words

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because Chinese (at least when I was living in the People’s Republic of China) did not have those terms. Thus, sometimes I had to invent Chinese words for the sake of encouraging my children to use Chinese words as much as possible while they were forming their communication habits. For example, I invented yı`da`lı` mia`n bıˇng/ (Italian pie)18 for pizza, yı`da`lı` mia`n tia´o/ (Italian noodles) for (Italian dumplings) for ravioli, and ma`i pia`n/ spaghetti, yı`da`lı` jiaˇo zi/ (thin oats) for cereal. I made sure that my ‘inventions’ could be understood by native Chinese speakers. In fact, ‘Chineselizing’ foreign words is a common practice in the People’s Republic of China. Foreign words are often ‘invented’ into Chinese either by /French red wine) or by sound (such as feˇn meaning (such as faˇ guo´ ho´ng jiuˇ/ /fans, guˇ ge¯/ /google, bo´ ke`/ /blog, and bo¯ ke`/ /podcast). sı¯/ Based on our observations, it seems that when young children are in the process of forming their heritage-language communication habits, parents may need to use their heritage language as much as possible, even at the price of inventing some words or phrases, as long as their inventions can be understood by the native speakers of their heritage languages. To me, the purpose of inventing some words and phrases is really to ‘socialize’ children into the heritage-language use habit. Apparently it worked well for my children
to this day, Le´andre and Dominique always try to find out whether there is an equivalent word in Chinese first before they venture to use an English word. They have also formed the habit of asking . . .? (How do you say . . . in Chinese?)’ if ‘Zho¯ng we´n zeˇn me shuo¯ . . .?/ they do not know a Chinese term. Compared to my situation, coining new words when conversing with our children was less of an option for Philippe because of standard French concerns with neologisms (inventing new words and expressions). Language ‘policing’ When we communicated with our children during the home years, we frequently felt like ‘language police’. We were constantly vigilant for mistakes in almost every word and phrase the children uttered. At times, we felt uncomfortable constantly turning everyday conversations, even ‘scolding’ each other, into language instructions and lessons. However, this was the ‘price’ we were willing to pay to give our children a good start; and as far as ‘scolding’ went, a good language lesson diffused the tension like magic! Looking back at what we did during the early years, we feel that this type of interaction really did not do our children any harm. Our children simply accepted this kind of conversational style as a part of their lives. Feeling left out in family conversations When a parent does not understand the other parent’s native language, it may pose a challenge for family conversations. When such a situation occurs, one parent may feel left out in a family conversation when another parent is speaking to children.19

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In our case, Philippe did not know any Chinese before the two children were born. Even though I studied French at college, I never heard any French spoken to babies and young children and was very poor in comprehension before the children were born. This posed a challenge for us: how would we all have conversations together? In the first year of Le´andre’s life, both Philippe and I were a little anxious about not knowing what the other just said to the baby. With the help of other communication channels such as facial expressions, hand gestures, body postures and tone of voice, as well as the conversation context, we managed to get by in our family conversations, but some misunderstandings did occur. However, as time went on, we improved in each other’s language through daily exposure. By the time Le´andre could speak, both Philippe and I could get the gist of the conversation in each other’s language. We were astonished to discover that we could have conversations. Both of us made great progress in each other’s language. By the time Dominique came along, we found ourselves chatting quite well (using different languages) in a family conversation. The gendered-language input issue Le´andre’s early English interactive exposure was mostly from young women. As mentioned earlier, he had special English sessions with two female college students. So, in the very beginning, when Le´andre spoke English, he tended to use a high pitch just like his two female college-student teachers. Language models obviously played an important role. Una Cunningham-Andersson in her book co-authored with Staffan Andersson Growing Up with Two Languages, mentioned that she was the only English language model for her children who lived in Sweden; therefore, her children picked up a rather ‘sissified’ English.20 Similarly, Madalena Cruz-Ferreira21 mentions that a Portuguese friend pointed out to her that her three-year-old son Miaek spoke like a ‘sissy’. I also found a similar situation in my children’s early Chinese; Le´andre and Dominique tended to speak Chinese in a feminine way and picked up my intonation and choice of words, which a typical Chinese male would not do. Thus, children who are receiving input from a single model need to be exposed to a wider range of people. When Le´andre was about three-and-a-half and Dominique was about one-and-a-half, we hired a male English-speaking high school student as a babysitter to expose them to a different way of speaking. I also let the children listen to children’s stories on tape, read by Chinese men. Philippe brought the children to play groups where they had the opportunity to interact with native French-speaking mothers. The audibility and visibility issue Some scholar pointed out that audibility (what a speaker sounds like) is coconstructed between the speaker and the listener. Often it requires a collaboration on the part of both speaker and listener. Visibility (race or what a person looks like)

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plays a major role in this co-construction. Some speakers are more easily imaginable than others as authoritative, competent and legitimate.22 It is clear that a person’s race and ethnicity may determine how people perceive their language authenticity. A friend of mine is a fourth-generation Chinese American from California, who speaks English just like any other educated American English speaker, if not better. However, because she looks ‘Asian’, she is frequently asked by people what country she is from, because of her ‘accent’. Obviously, my friend’s Asian look makes many of her listeners hear an ‘accent’ that she does not actually have. Sometimes Le´andre and Dominique’s physical appearances (people often commented that Le´andre looks like his father, meaning Caucasian, and Dominique looks like me, meaning Asian) played a role in triggering reactions by strangers about their language competence. For example, when Le´andre visited China for the first time with me when he was four, we were frequently singled out by passers-by. People often whispered, ‘Look, this is a little foreigner’. Sometimes people even stopped to stare at him. Le´andre’s physical traits also seemed to influence people’s judgment about his Chinese authenticity. Some people simply assumed that he did not speak Chinese. Others claimed that they could hear his accent. Some Chinese friends even found faults with his Chinese (forgetting that their own four-year-old children who live in China made the same mistakes as well). Once, when Dominique was just an infant, Philippe was waiting in the checkout line at a local supermarket. A woman smiled at Dominique and commented to my husband that she too had adopted a Korean baby. This seemingly innocent comment suggests that people in general are quite biased about a person’s look. I could imagine that her next question would be ‘Does he speak English?’ Of course, Dominique was too young for her to ask the question. During Dominique’s early years, people did actually ask me quite often whether he could speak English and whether he was born in the USA.

Highlights of Early Language Development To provide readers with a picture of how Le´andre and Dominique developed their trilingual skills, and particularly their heritage-language skills during their early years, five areas of their language development characteristics are highlighted. They include the speech sounds (phonology), words (lexicon), grammar (sentences and language rules), language use (pragmatics) and language awareness (metalinguistic abilities). Speech sounds Cooing and babbling

Cooing is a vowel-like sound that infants make when they appear to be happy and contented. Le´andre started to coo at four weeks, and Dominique at five weeks.23 There is no evidence to show language-specific cooing to either the father or the mother.24

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Babbling is the repetition of consonant
vowel combination sounds such as bababa and mamama. Le´andre’s first babbling (ba, ma and ga) occurred at four months, and Dominique’s first babbling (ba and ga) occurred at the same age.25 Some researchers claim that bilingual infants’ babbling is language-specific.26 For example, one study has suggested that bilingual French and English infants develop differentiated language systems during the babbling period.27 However, there is no clear evidence to indicate that Le´andre and Dominique’s babblings are language-specific. The children used the same sets of consonant
vowel combinations with both mother and father.28 Tone in Chinese

Chinese is a tone language; a tone decides the meaning of a word. There are four tones in ‘standard’ Chinese (Putonghua): high level (tone 1), rising (tone 2), fallingrising (tone 3), and high-falling (tone 4). For example, ma differs in meaning when attached to different tones. When ma¯/ has a high level tone (tone 1), it means mother. When it has a rising tone (tone 2) ma´/ , it is used as the marker in a question. When it has a falling-rising tone or dip tone (tone 3), maˇ/ means horse, and when it has a high falling tone (tone 4) ma`/ , it means scold. Le´andre and Dominique’s simultaneous acquisition of Chinese, French and English did not seem to affect their Chinese tone acquisition. It is not surprising that there is no evidence indicating that the two children had any tone issues in Chinese at this stage.29 Research indicates that Chinese tone is a resilient feature. Chinese children who acquire Chinese as a first language in a monolingual environment rarely make tonal errors. Even for those Chinese children who have some forms of language impairment, tone is resistant to impairment during the process of phonological acquisition.30 (However, see Chapters 4 and 5 for the change later.) Simplifying and altering pronunciation in French

From one year and two months to two-and-a-half years, Le´andre tended to simplify or alter the pronunciations of some French words. For example, he consistently pronounced dentifrice (toothpaste) as dome´fice, camion (truck) as came´me´, guitare (guitar) as tane and manger (eat) as manga. Linguist Ellen Bialystok suggests that such idiosyncratic forms of simplification or alteration are perhaps strategies used by some young children to solve problems beyond their developmental repertoire.31 However, Dominique did not show this phonological simplification in any of his French. Gesture substitution in Chinese

While Le´andre used simplification in French to compensate for his limitations, he used hand gestures to deal with difficult Chinese pronunciations. For example, Le´andre moved his right hand from side to side in front of his mouth to substitute

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the pronunciation of shua¯ ya´/ (brush teeth), which seemed to be difficult for him to pronounce. Dominique only occasionally used this strategy. Accent

People often judge others by their accents.32 With children who develop more than one language simultaneously, accent is often the area that draws people’s attention. Both Le´andre and Dominique were regarded by native speakers of French, Chinese and English as native-like speakers most of the time. Native speakers of the three languages did not have obvious reactions to the children’s accents (despite the fact that a few Chinese, as mentioned earlier, did say that Le´andre had an accent when speaking Chinese). In fact, the children (or we, the parents) were frequently complimented for their native-like speech. Words Word comprehension and production

Word comprehension means the words children understand and word production means the words they use.33 The criteria used to determine children’s word comprehension are their active responses after a request or a comment by adults (e.g. action, turning head and smile). The criteria used to determine word production are the active use of words by children. At four months, Le´andre could first understand French and Chinese words such as lait (milk), lune (moon), and pomme (apple) in French, and me´n/ (door), xio´ng baˇo (teddy bear), wa´wa/ (doll) and pı´ng guoˇ/ (apple) in Chinese. At bao/ ´ 10 months, Leandre could first use Chinese words such as de¯ng/ , qiu´/ (ball), (open), shu`/ (tree), bu´ ya`o/ (no), ta`i ya´ng/ (sun), tia`o/ (jump), daˇ ka¯i/ ` ` ` ` (moon), jıng zi/ (mirror), gu shi/ (story) and hua¯/ (flower). yue liang/ Le´andre first used French words at 11 months, including pomme (apple), chat (cat) and bateau (boat). Dominique could first understand French words at five months and Chinese at four months, such as pomme (apple) and lait (milk) in French and naˇi/ (milk) and (apple) in Chinese. Dominique could use French and Chinese words pı´ng guoˇ/ (balloon), at 12 months such as chat (cat) and porte (door) in French, and qı` qiu´/ (apple), mia`n ba¯o/ (bread), naˇi/ (milk), chı¯/ xia`o/ (smile), pı´ng guoˇ/ (eat) and ka`n/ (look) in Chinese. Word spurt

Between one year and seven months and one year and ten months, Le´andre had a sudden increase in his use of Chinese and French words. During this period, he added 204 new Chinese words and 118 new French words to his vocabulary. As Le´andre’s interactive interactions with English native-speakers began at two years and one month (recall that previously his English came mostly

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through ‘eavesdropping’ on daily parental conversations, English guests, television, audiocassettes and people in stores), there was also a sudden increase in his English vocabulary, beginning at two years and eleven months. Some researchers call this phenomenon ‘word spurt’ or ‘vocabulary spurt’.34 On the other hand, Dominique’s vocabulary development went very steadily, and there was no vocabulary spurt as in Le´andre’s case. Word mixing

As discussed in Chapter 1, word mixing is a common phenomenon as soon as more than one language is involved in communication. Le´andre and Dominique’s word mixing during the home years was restricted to four situations. First, they were found mixing words (in particular, store names or brand names) that did not exist in their home languages, such as Wal-Mart, Target, Mrs. Green’s (the name of an organic food store), Lego, and tartine (a piece of bread with jam or other kinds of spread on it). Second, they mixed word in different languages to inform someone how a particular object was named in another language, for instance, Le´andre informing his father that wa´wa/ (doll) was used by his mother in Chinese (see Example 1.3 in Chapter 1). Third, the two children were found to use mixed expressions they had heard us use. Philippe and I used some words from either French or Chinese in public to avoid embarrassment. For example, we used the Chinese words da` bia`n/ (bowel movement) and xiaˇo bia`n/ (urinate) as euphemisms. Finally, the children were found to mix words because they did not know specific words in a particular language. As shown in Example 1.5 in Chapter 1, Le´andre (three years and seven months) did not know how to say ‘coat’ in Chinese, so he used the word parka (pronounced the French way) to substitute for mia´n aˇo/ . It is interesting to note that the two children mixed minimally in the three languages during their home years. Proportionally, most mixing occurred in the first three kinds of situations mentioned above. The fourth situation amounts to less than 1% for both children during their home years. The minimal mixing in the home years may be attributed to our conscious efforts. Philippe and I were models for our children and we were very careful not to mix English in our conversations with the children during the home years except for some words that did not have equivalents in Chinese or French (even though we did mix English when we had conversations with other native Chinese or French speakers). However, other researchers have argued that the fewer amounts of language mixing during early years could also be attributed to the fact that the three linguistic systems of a young child have not yet been fully acquired and thus, the child does not have a sufficient ‘knowledge base’ to mix languages (see Chapters 4 and 5 for more discussion).35

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Grammar Language complexity

Mean length of utterance (MLU) indicates the mean number of morphemes (smallest meaningful grammatical units) produced per utterance.36 MLU has been used as an index for measuring the complexity of children’s language development in early years,37 though some researchers believe that it becomes less reliable when a child’s MLU reaches beyond 4.0. Despite the recent questions on how accurate MLU measures of children’s linguistic complexity are,38 it can still help us to conceptualize children’s language development.39 Table 3.2 summarizes the MLU of Le´andre from ages one to four and Dominique from ages one to three in their three languages (note that Le´andre went to school one year later than Dominique). As observed in Table 3.2, there was a similar developmental trend in Le´andre and Dominique’s Chinese and French MLU for the first three years. What is most interesting is that, even though the two children’s initial English input was mostly passive, their English MLU was similar compared with the monolingual Englishspeaking children. There are several reasons that can explain this phenomenon. First, Le´andre was attending the 45 intensive one-on-one English sessions; apparently, the intensive adult model played a very important role in Le´andre’s English. As for Dominique, his English exposure became more than Le´andre’s because of the English babysitters who usually tended to engage him more because he requested more attention from them. Second, they lived in an English dominant environment. Finally, their two home languages (Chinese and French), though different, helped them build the fundamental process in learning English.

Table 3.2 Mean length of utterance* Le´andre

Dominique

Age (year)

Chinese

French

English

Chinese

French

English

1
2

1.0
2.0

1.0
2.0

N/A**

1.0
2.0

1.0
2.0

N/A

2
3

3.0
4.0

4.0
5.0

3.0
4.0

3.0
4.0

4.0
5.0

3.0
4.0

3
4

4.0
6.0

5.0
6.0

4.0
4.5

4.0
6.0 

5.0
5.5 

5.0
6.0

* In the first two years of the two children’s lives, English for the most part was passive or peripheral (see Table 3.1). The children did not actively engage in English conversation as they did in French and Chinese with others. Therefore, I did not have enough data to show their English MLU. Dominique’s home years are one year less than Le´andre. From ages three to four Dominique had higher MLU than ´ andre. This is probably because he was in an English-speaking nursery school and had more Le opportunity to speak English. It is interesting that the initial advance in English was later evened out in their school years **N/A not applicable

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French feminine adjectives

Dominique’s early grammar errors included overextended rules with respect to French adjectives. In French, most adjectives agree in gender and number. Feminine adjectives usually take an extra ‘e’. For instance, grand becomes grande when describing something feminine. With most adjectives, the result of this rule is that the last consonant, which is usually silent in the masculine, sounds. Dominique spontaneously applied the extra ‘e’ rule, but added the consonant ‘t’ of adjectives he was already familiar with to adjectives new to him. For instance, knowing petit/petite (small), he extrapolated the self-created feminine form ‘gentite’ instead of the correct ‘gentille’ (kind) to form the feminine of gentil as in ‘Maman est gentite’ (Mom is kind). Another example is pointute instead of pointue (pointed). Le´andre did not make that kind of mistake at first. Under Dominique’s influence, however, he adopted some of his little brother’s creations. Personal pronouns in French

In the first two years of Le´andre’s life, he had problems using the French first person pronoun je (I) in expressing the idea ‘I sit’. For example, instead of saying ‘je veux m’asseoir’ (I want to sit down), he would say ‘veux t’asseoir’. This phenomenon is perhaps attributable to him being the first child, that is, an only child for almost two years. Le´andre did not have other people in his French environment except his father. When his father asked him whether he wanted to sit, he said ‘Tu veux t’asseoir?’ Thus, Le´andre used this as a model. Interestingly, within a couple of months of Dominique’s birth, Le´andre was able to use the correct first person subject and reflexive pronouns. Le´andre did not have this issue in Chinese because I just had to use zuo` xia`/ (sit) to indicate either I sit or you sit in Chinese. In the context, it was clear who sat. Le´andre did not have the issue in English either at the same age, probably because he did not have to actively interact with people in English. By the time he needed to actively interact with people in English, he had already figured out the ‘I’ and ‘you’ issue as in French. Dominique did not make the same mistake probably because he had someone in his environment to model this for him. French irregular verbs

During the home years, Le´andre and Dominique both tended to make mistakes with some irregular plurals. For instance, they would conjugate wrongly croire in the third plural. For example, ils croivent instead of ils croient (they believe). Chinese classifiers

Classifiers are a distinct linguistic feature of the Chinese language. For example, when describing a quantity of candies, one cannot say five candies. Instead, one must insert the classifier (sometimes called the ‘measure word’) kua`i/ in between the ). number word and the noun (candy) as five kua`i/ candies (wuˇ kua´i ta´ng/ There are about 178 commonly used classifiers in Chinese.40

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In general, each object or animal requires a special classifier. However, there is a tendency to use ge`/ to substitute for the other classifiers, even among educated people such as teachers.41 Nevertheless, overusing the general classifier ge`/ and allowing it to co-occur with almost any noun is considered in adult language to be ‘informal’, ‘inappropriate’ or ‘linguistically unsophisticated’. Research indicates that children who live in a Chinese-speaking environment demonstrate a sound knowledge of the basic syntactic nature of classifiers (e.g. order and phrase structure) at a very young age. For example, linguist Mary Erbaugh reported that two and three-year-olds are almost as reliable as adults in using classifiers whenever they are required.42 Other research suggests that children as young as four years of age not only know that a classifier is required for a quantified noun phrase, but also know the correct order for the major elements that constitute the quantified noun phrase.43 Chinese children first acquire the general classifier ge`/ and use it as a ‘place-holder’ in a sentence.44 It has been claimed by many researchers that by the age of six or seven, children very often still use ge`/ for most nouns and master only about 10 specific count-classifiers. For example, instead of using lia`ng/ for a toy car and zhı¯/ for a puppy, children often use ge`/ and (one little car) and yı´ ge` xiaˇo goˇu gou/ (one say yı´ ge` xiaˇo che¯ che/ little dog).45 Like Chinese native-speaking young children, Le´andre and Dominique used ge`/ most of the time to describe animals, people and objects. Interestingly, though Le´andre and Dominique never failed to use classifiers as a syntactic placeholder, both overextended the rules of classifiers to describe such words as ‘day’ and ‘year’, which do not require classifiers. For example, Dominique (two years and eleven months) said, ‘ha´i yoˇu wuˇ ge` tia¯n/ ’ to express the idea that it would be his Le´andre (three years birthday in five days, instead of the correct term wuˇ tia¯n/ and four months) used xia` ge` nia´n/ instead of mı´ng nia´n/ (next year). Although both children made mistakes in extending the use of classifiers, there was a logic to it. It shows that both children were conscious about the rules of classifiers and tried to apply them. This is reminiscent of young English-speaking children overextending the common suffix -ed used in the past tense for irregular verbs, such as in taked (took) or goed (went).

Language use Conversation styles

Quiz-style conversation. People’s conversational style is influenced by their cultural and linguistic environment. Research indicates that when Chinese adults ask questions, they tend to have preselected answers in mind and persist in asking the questions until children produce precisely the expected answers. This conversational style is called quiz-style conversation.46 In my interactions with

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my children during their early years, I also frequently used such a conversational style. The following are some of the examples of questions I asked. Chinese quiz-style questions .

Da¯ng bie´ re´n ge¯n nıˇ daˇ zha¯o hu de shı´ ho`u, nıˇ zeˇn me shuo¯?

.

(What do you say when people greet you?) Da¯ng nıˇ guo` maˇ lu` de shı´ ho`u, nıˇ zeˇn me zuo`?

.

(What do you do before you cross the street?) Za`i go¯ng zho`ng chaˇng he´, nıˇ bu` ne´ng zuo` she´n me? (What shouldn’t you do when you are in a public place?) Za`i chı¯ fa`n zhı¯ qia´n, nıˇ yı¯ng ga¯i zeˇn me zuo`? (What do you do before eating?)

Interestingly, Le´andre and Dominique picked up that conversational style when they spoke Chinese to me, such as Ma¯ma, ru´ guoˇ woˇ za`i lo´u xia` jia`o nıˇ, nıˇ zeˇn me zuo`/ , (Mommy, what do you do if I call you down stairs?) ‘Baby talk’ in Chinese and ‘adult talk’ in French. Research suggests that middle-class North American and European parents tend to use simple sentences, high pitch and exaggerated intonation when speaking to infants and young children. This kind of speech modification has been called motherese, fatherese, parentese or baby talk.47 When talking to our children, I used this kind of simplified speech in Chinese (67%) more often than Philippe did (11%) in French (interestingly, Philippe did not adopt his cultural childrearing practice).48 As a result, our two children used more adult-like speech in French and more baby talk in Chinese. Language use in context

As Le´andre and Dominique were living in an ‘atypical’ French and Chinese linguistic environment (meaning not the typical linguistic environment of most Chinese or French-speaking children), they often lacked the opportunity and experience to know how to use language properly in a communication context, as shown in the following example. One day when we entered a tram in Basel (Switzerland), a frail old lady stood up to let Le´andre (three years and four months) have her seat. Instead of saying merci (thank you), Le´andre called out to his young brother Dominique: ‘Eh, Dominique, regarde la petite vieille qui m’a donne´ son sie`ge (Eh, Dominique, look at the little old woman who gave me her seat)’. From a pure language perspective, Le´andre not only used correct French words and grammar, but perhaps also surpassed many of his peers who live in a French-speaking environment. For example, he, at age three years and four months, already used a

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complex sentence ‘la petite vieille qui . . .’. However, to know the vocabulary and structure of a language is one thing; to know how to use them properly in context is another. In this case, Le´andre failed in using the language properly. He did not know that it is very impolite to call an old lady petite vieille (even though ‘la petite vieille’ is properly used in the stories and tales that his father read to him). He did not know the proper term should be la dame. Another example of the two children’s lack of knowledge in language use is that both did not address people properly using French vous (the formal you) and tu (the casual you). For example, Dominique called a French-speaking guest who was in his sixties tu when he first met the gentleman. French-speaking people are, in general, sensitive about the vous and tu differentiation. A mistake in using the two forms may sometimes cause problems. As Stephen Clarke humorously pointed out, the misuse of tu can really cause offense, just like if someone said ‘Hey, Bebe to the Queen’.49 As Le´andre and Dominique were young, they were able to get away with their mistakes. The two children also had similar problems in using the Chinese formal and respectful ‘you’
nı´n/ and informal ‘you’
nıˇ/ (see Chapter 5 for more discussion). Language awareness Research suggests that children who know more than one language tend to develop the ability to notice aspects of their languages earlier than monolingual children.50 Around the age of two to three, many children who have been brought up with the one-person-one-language method will be able to talk about their language(s).51 The following are a few examples: Naming the language they are speaking

Both Le´andre and Dominique were able to name the languages they spoke at an early age. For instance, at one-and-a-half, Le´andre was already able to tell a guest that he was speaking French, Chinese and English. In his third interactive session with his English teacher
one of the college students (at two years and two months), Le´andre named his languages 34 times (French and Chinese) in a one-hour . In session. For example, he said to the teacher, ‘In Chinese, we call this qı` che¯/ French we call this camion (truck)’. At three years and four months, Le´andre played with his babysitter Ozzie, a high school student, and told Ozzie the French and Chinese equivalents of English words 41 times in an hour. Here is an example: Example 3.6 Le´andre was playing with plastic replicas of food items. Ozzie: [Passes Le´andre a plastic tomato] Le´andre: Thank you. Ozzie: You are welcome.

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Le´andre:

In French, it’s merci. In English, it’s thank you. In Chinese, it’s xie` xie/

Curiosity about different languages including the writing systems

Both Le´andre and Dominique were sensitive and curious about different languages at a very young age. For example, Dominique (two years and one month) asked me what language two people were speaking in a children’s theater when he heard two Russian speakers behind us. The whole time in the theater, he seemed to focus his attention on what language the two people were speaking, rather than the play (the Russian speakers continued to chit-chat during the show). Additionally, both children were able to notice the writing system differences early on without our explicit teaching, through observation. One day, I was astonished (perhaps a little annoyed initially) to find Le´andre and Dominique scribbling with pencils on their bunk bed and walls. I asked Le´andre (three years and four months) what they were doing. He told me they were writing. He pointed out to me that some of the writing was Chinese and some was French. Interestingly, the supposed Chinese was more picture-like and the supposed French more alphabetic-like. Sensitive about non-native speakers

Sometimes people (particularly some of our guests) tried to show their friendliness by speaking ‘broken’ French to Le´andre and Dominique, but none received an answer from the children. Early on in the two children’s lives, they were able to tell a native speaker from a non-native speaker in the three languages. They tended to shy away from nonnative speakers and draw closer to native speakers. For example, when two exchange teachers from France came to visit us, Le´andre delved right into conversation with them in French. He had the same reaction to my Chinese friends. However, when guests who were non-native speakers of French or Chinese tried to ‘show off’, Le´andre and Dominique never answered them in either French or Chinese. Dominique (two years and eleven months) once even commented that a guest was speaking bad French. Furthermore, the two children were very sensitive to accents. For example, they frequently laughed at my accent when I tried to speak French. They were also very good at imitating other accents. Dominique (more than Le´andre) was able to imitate British, Scottish, Irish, Australian, Italian, Spanish, Indian and Southern American accents very well. Comparing languages

The two kids often compared languages. For example, at age one year and nine in months, Dominique commented that qiu´/ in English is ball and dia`n shı`/

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English is television. Le´andre (two years and one month) commented that the is Chinese onomatopoeia of the sound made by a train ho¯ng lo¯ng ho¯ng lo¯ng/ different from the English choo choo. Making jokes with languages

The first evidence that Le´andre could make jokes was at age two years and two months, and Dominique at two years and five months. For example, I mentioned previously in this chapter that for a while Le´andre simplified the French word dentifrice (toothpaste) as dome´fice. When he could pronounce this word well, after age two-and-a-half, he would often make jokes about it. Here is an example (two years and seven months): Example 3.7 Father: Le´andre: Father:

Le´andre:

Le´andre, mets du dentifrice sur ta brosse a` dents. (Le´andre, put toothpaste on the toothbrush.) Dome´fice. [with a smirk on his face] Dome´fice? [imitated Le´andre] Petit coquin! (Little rascal!) Dome´fice.

Le´andre and Dominique were also good at using accents to make jokes early on. They often imitated French people speaking English (with heavy French accents). Among Dominique’s favorite Chinese accents was Jackie Chan’s (a famous Hong Kong movie star). This kind of language awareness and sensitivity exhibited by Le´andre and Dominique in their early years is common among those children who acquire more than one language early in their lives.52

Noticeable Aspects of Identity Development During the Home Years Le´andre and Dominique not only had a linguistic environment that was different from many other children, but they are also biracial (Caucasian and Asian). How did this unique experience (biracial and trilingual) affect their early identity development in the home years? In this section I will discuss some aspects that call for attention (Chapter 6 will have more discussion on their identity development). Research indicates that during early childhood, children’s sense of self (initial stage of identity) is often restricted to observable characteristics such as names, physical appearance, possessions and everyday behaviors.53 However, by age threeand-a-half, they also show recognition of psychological characteristics,54 such as ‘I am happy’, and some general understanding about themselves. Le´andre and

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Dominique’s self-development went along a path similar to the one described in the research literature. Biracial identity Research indicates that when the physical appearance of a minority language child differs extensively from that of the mainstream group of society, some children may try to minimize their distinctiveness by conforming as best they can to the norms of the mainstream population. One way to conform is to refrain from speaking the minority language.55 Some researchers point out that because biracials straddle the color line, their marginality makes them stand out. Thus, biracial individuals do make choices within circumscribed cultural contexts, and their selfunderstanding is influenced less by the color of their skin than by the way others perceive them.56 Le´andre and Dominique often in their conversations with others (e.g. guests and relatives) spontaneously reveal that they are half Chinese and half Swiss. For them, the words Chinese and Swiss mean their race (Asian and Caucasian). The boys seemed to be very rooted in their understanding of their racial category. Realizing early on that they were living in a racially sensitive environment where they would be reminded directly or indirectly about their differences, it was important for us to give our children some ‘immunization’. I started by dressing them the same. Their identical clothes would elicit comments from people such as ‘Are they twins? Why do they dress the same?’ The purpose was for Le´andre and Dominique to become used to people’s attention early on and to know that they are different. In retrospect, I believe that my strategy worked. By the time they entered kindergarten, they could deal with some of their classmates’ questions quite readily (particularly Dominique, because he looks more Asian than Le´andre). Feelings toward their home languages As mentioned earlier, both Le´andre and Dominique feel a stronger bond to French and Chinese speakers than they do to English speakers (except their babysitters). According to linguist Suzanne Romaine, young children sometimes overgeneralize their expectations about who speaks which language on the basis of their experiences with the ‘one person-one-language’ principle.57 As Le´andre and Dominique’s major French communication was with their father and Chinese with their mother, they regarded these languages as the languages they ‘owned’, and were often suspicious of others who used them. It is common that children who are used to the one-person-one-language communication system have a bias toward people who try to speak their home language(s); they tend to be very possessive about their home languages. Sometimes they think that they are the only people who speak the languages. Le´andre and Dominique often eavesdropped on people in New York City and when they heard someone speak French or Chinese, they would make facial expressions at each

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other, indicating ‘What, they speak our languages!’ Further, Le´andre and Dominique often made fun of people who spoke French or Chinese in a funny way. In their verbal plays, they often acted out the situation of someone speaking French with an English accent. Even when their peers tried to speak French to them, they simply answered them in English or cut the conversation short by saying au revoir (goodbye). Interestingly though, when native speakers of French or Chinese addressed them, they had no problem in responding to them. Sometimes, they even responded to them with joy. This phenomenon is apparently not unique to Le´andre and Dominique. In fact, many children who know more than one language share the same experience. For example, Louis, the son of French psychologist Jules Ronjat, was bilingual in French and German and felt upset by anyone who addressed him in ‘imperfect’ French or German.58 The bilingual children of Australian linguist George Saunders rarely continued to converse with people who they detected were not native speakers of either German or English.59 Similarly, American psycholinguist Werner Leopold’s daughter Hildegard, who was bilingual in German and English, often criticized people when they spoke ‘defective’ German.60 This reminds me of my own experience of being ‘rejected’ by two French-speaking children when I was studying French in college in China. I had seen two French children (one was about five and the other was about seven) on campus. I thought that young children would not care about my accent and grammar and would give me a good opportunity to practice my French. I approached them and tried to speak French. After a few minutes of monologue (I tried to ask them their names, what they were doing, but they never responded), they looked at me as if I were a halfwit. They were probably right, because I had violated their linguistic normality. Secret language and gossip Le´andre and Dominique used French or Chinese depending on whom they were talking to as secret languages in public. For example, Dominique at two years and eight months commented to me in Chinese (in front of an English-speaking guest) (snot) inside her nose. I was relieved that he did not say this that she had bı´ shıˇ/ in English! Early on, I also noticed that both Le´andre and Dominique had a tendency to ‘tell’ on one parent to the other, or to complain to one parent about the other. For example, if Dominique was not happy with what I did with him (e.g. nagging him to brush his teeth), he would complain to his father that ‘Maman, m’agace (Mother is annoying)’. Similarly, he would complain to me about his father: ‘Ba` ba bu` haˇo/ (Father is bad to me)’. Both children also used either French or Chinese depending on which parent they were ‘gossiping’ with. For example, once Dominique saw a man showing part of his behind when squatting down, and Dominique told me loudly in Chinese that the man was showing his behind (fortunately, the man did not know Chinese). We

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were quite nervous about such ‘gossiping’ behaviors of the two children when we were in China or French-speaking parts of Europe because our children were so used to living in the USA and assumed that nobody would understand them if they gossiped in their home (secret) languages. Social relations with others The downside of our practice (keeping children at home and limiting their English exposure during the early years) was that sometimes Le´andre in particular was not always in tune with the prevalent American social norms. For instance, when a male guest raised his hand and said ‘Gimme five’, Le´andre looked at him without a clue, whereas a typical American child would spontaneously have hit the guest’s palm with his or her open hand (see more discussion in Chapters 4 and 5).

Suggestions for Supporting Trilingual Children During the Early Years Based on our childrearing practice and research literature, I would like to make some suggestions on how to support children’s trilingual and identity development in the early years. However, what I put forth may be controversial. My purpose is to show that certain choices parents make in children’s early years may result in certain developmental consequences. By reading about our practice and experience, parents can decide whether the strategies are workable for them based on their specific childrearing reality and situation. Moreover, some of the strategies I propose for this early period may change when children grow older (see Chapters 4 and 5). The importance of starting early and being consistent When children like Le´andre and Dominique acquire their heritage languages primarily through interacting with their parents, using the following three principles during the early years may be helpful. Three principles to ensure heritage language acquisition . . .

Start the home-language exposure as early as possible. Follow the one-parent-one-language practice as early as possible. Be consistent with the communication system.

As our experience shows, we started our family communication system (father speaks only French to the children, mother speaks only Chinese and others speak only English) from the first day of the children’s lives. We found that this practice made it natural for our children as they were literally born into this communication system. If the process starts late, parents are likely to meet resistance from their children. I know a mother who did not start to speak her heritage language to her

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son until he was six (when he was already used to communicating with his mother in English). The mother went through quite an ordeal to get her son to speak her heritage language, and eventually gave up in frustrations. I don’t mean to suggest that starting late will guarantee failure; I do mean that starting early will be easier for both parents and children. When a communication habit is formed, it is usually hard to change. Our experience with Le´andre and Dominique also suggests that it is important to be consistent in the heritage-language use when communicating with children. Parents are the language models for their children, and if parents make their preference for the use of the heritage language explicit, their children will follow suit.61 If we look at all the cases of raising children with more than one language in the published literature, we see that consistency on the part of parents is usually the key factor for success. In addition, establishing the communication pattern with the firstborn child, as we did with Le´andre, is crucial. Once the pattern is established, it is likely to be sustained with the subsequent children.62 When our second child Dominique arrived, the family communication pattern was well-established. Thus, it was natural for him to enter the system. The importance of monitoring heritage-language input If parents are the major source of heritage-language input for their children, it may be important for parents to closely monitor their children’s heritage language environment. The following are some suggestions for parents to consider: Monitoring the quantity and quality of trilingual input

An adequate amount of heritage-language input and exposure is crucial to ensure children’s success during the early years. Thus, parents need to monitor how much time a child is exposed to the heritage languages. In our situation (living in an English environment), our children will inevitably have more contact with English than French and Chinese. Therefore, besides making a decision to defer sending them to school to maximize their home-language exposure time, we also tried to maximize our contact time with them. That means we literally went everywhere with them during their early years. For example, we brought the children to all social events, tried to incorporate work with their care and brought them to conferences and meetings. I am aware that not many parents can afford to do as we did. My point is really to explain that the maximal amount of contact time with your children is very important. The more you expose your children to the heritage language during the early years, the better are chances that they will be successful in their heritage language. Moreover, research suggests that there are overall benefits for young children when they spend more time at home with their parents during early years.63 Looking back at this stage, I really believe that the amount of time we spent with our children was crucial in establishing the early communication patterns. To many people, our practice may seem extreme. However, given that

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English is so present and dominating, the ‘measures’ we used were absolutely necessary in our situation. However, it is not just the quantity of exposure to a language that counts, the quality of the parental input the children receive is also important for them to acquire the language well.64 For trilingual children, particularly those who have very limited input in their heritage languages, the input quality is vital. Unlike children who live in a cultural and linguistic community where other people (such as adults and peers) can provide additional input and support, children whose input is mainly from one parent will be disadvantaged if parents do not deliberately monitor what they say to their children. Thus, parents may want to create ample opportunities for their children to be exposed to the heritage language. One way to ensure the quality of parental input is through mealtime talks. Studies indicate that mealtimes are a very effective quality time for parents to chat with their children. Researchers have found that children are often exposed to rare words in the course of casual conversations during mealtimes, and that most of the time there is contextual information relevant to the meanings of these words.65 Therefore, parents may try to talk to their young children in home languages during mealtimes and ask about their day, for example, what they did that day and what they will do the next day. Furthermore, some heritage languages may contain features that require specific instruction. Chinese classifiers or measure words are such an example. As our children do not live in a linguistic environment in which they receive the same kind of input as their counterparts who live in the Chinese-speaking environment, I had to deliberately ‘teach’ them in our daily interactions. For example, some classifiers can be learned as a general rule, such as the count-classifiers tia´o/ which denotes the properties of being long, thin, cylindrical and flexible: there are permanent or inherent properties associated with and shared by entities such as ropes, snakes, pants or fish. Tia´o/ picks out these properties and groups these entities into a set. It is usually easy for children to grasp the concept. However, there are other classifiers that cannot be learned as a general rule. For example, the mass-classifiers be¯i/ (cup) does not denote any properties permanently or inherently associated with or shared by things,66 such as water, sand or flour. It simply denotes a measure of these things. Therefore, it is necessary to provide direct instructions for children on these kinds of classifiers. Some people may argue that language should be learned in naturalistic and everyday interactions. I agree. However, when this is impossible, deliberate efforts on the part of the parents are very important. In fact, one study suggests that direct instructions from parents do promote children’s language development.67 Know which mistakes to correct and not

It is typical for children to make mistakes in their early language acquisition process, whether be monolingual, bilingual or trilingual. Mistakes made by children can provide a window for us to understand how they learn a language68 and how

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they solve problems by using their available linguistic repertoire. Furthermore, some mistakes made by children actually reflect their cognitive advancement rather than their linguistic limitations. For example, mistakes typically made by Englishspeaking children around age three, such as saying ‘taked’ (took) and ‘goed’ (went) indicate that children have begun to notice the rules of the English past tense. This phenomenon shows their cognitive progress. Most children usually ‘self-correct’ these mistakes when they grow older, as long as they continue to live in an Englishspeaking environment. Developmental psychologists generally advise parents and teachers to refrain from correcting mistakes of this kind. However, the heritage-language input for trilingual children like Le´andre and Dominique is restricted mainly to one person (either father or mother) and it is unlikely that someone else in the environment will ‘show’ them the proper linguistic forms. Thus, parents may need to sort out what kinds of mistakes require correction and what mistakes do not. In my opinion, the mistakes that demonstrate children’s developmental limitations or advancement should not be corrected, whereas, the mistakes that relate to other than developmental aspects should be monitored and ‘corrected’ as early as possible. For instance, the phonological simplification mistakes Le´andre made, such as saying dome´fice instead of dentifrice (toothpaste), do not require correction, because many children make the same kinds of phonological (pronunciation) simplification mistakes before they develop phonological competence and maturity. These kinds of mistakes can be regarded as a child’s way of solving problems that at the moment are beyond their developmental capability. However, other mistakes, such as Dominique’s use of (literal translation: put down socks) instead of chua¯n wa` zi/ fa`ng wa` zi/ (put on socks), need to be monitored and corrected. The fact that I did not correct him early enough (hoping that he would get it later) has contributed to his habit of using these two words fa`ng/ and chua¯n/ wrongly. Though he shows awareness of the mistake when questioned, he has formed the habit of making such mistakes even to this day. When we correct our children’s mistakes, we may want to be mindful that doing so is not simply a matter of repeating the correct forms, but rather showing children how the correct forms are used in context. Example 3.8 shows how I was trying to ‘correct’ Le´andre’s use of Chinese classifiers when he was three years and seven months: Example 3.8 Le´andre was drawing with crayons. Le´andre: Nıˇ ka`n woˇ yoˇu yı´ ge69 ju´ hua´ng ya´n se`. Nıˇ ka`n woˇ yoˇu liaˇng ge ju´ hua´ng ya´n se`8 (You see, I have one ge orange color. You see, I have two ge orange colors).

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Mother:

Liaˇng zhoˇng ya´n se`, duı`. Naˇ liaˇng zhoˇng ya´n se`?

Le´andre:

(Two kinds/zhoˇng of colors, right. What are the two kinds/zhoˇng of color?) Ha´i yoˇu liaˇng ge` she´n me?

Mother:

(Two more what?) She´n me?

Le´andre:

(What?) Ha´i yoˇu liaˇng ge` zıˇ ho´ng8

Mother:

(There are two ge purple colors.) Ha´i yoˇu liaˇng zhoˇng zıˇ ho´ng ya´n se`8 (There are two kinds/zhoˇng of purple colors.) Ra`ng woˇ la´i ka`nkan he´ zi lıˇ yoˇu jıˇ zhoˇng ya´n se`8 (Let me see how many kinds/zhoˇng of colors you have in the box.) Yoˇu sa¯n zhoˇng ho´ng ya´n se`8 (There are three kinds/zhoˇng of red color.) Yoˇu yı` zhoˇng la´n ya´n se`8 (There is one kind/zhoˇng blue color.) Yoˇu liaˇng zhoˇng lu¨` ya´n se`8 (There are two kinds/zhoˇng of green color.) Nıˇ shuˇ shuˇ ka`n nıˇ de he´ zi lıˇ yoˇu duo¯ shaˇo zhoˇng ya´n se`? (You count and let me know how many kinds/zhoˇng of colors you have in your box?)

In this example, I did not directly correct Le´andre’s mistakes in classifier use by telling him he was wrong. Instead, I tried to model the correct classifier zhoˇng/ for colors by rephrasing what he was saying ‘liaˇng zhoˇng ya´n se`/ (two kinds of colors)’. I also asked him a question immediately by using the correct (What are the two kinds of classifier again ‘Naˇ liaˇng zhoˇng ya´n se`/ colors?)’. Altogether, I used zhoˇng/ eight times to reinforce this classifier in

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interaction. To Le´andre, it seemed I was just talking to him; my purpose was to model how to use the classifier. Experience informs me that the early correction in the language-specific aspects makes a difference. In reviewing the video-recorded data, I found that Le´andre and Dominique tended to be more successful in using the five typical Chinese classifiers (kua`i/ , zhı¯/ , zha¯ng/ , jia`n/ , tia´o/ ) I ‘corrected’ during the first four years (Le´andre) and the first three years (Dominique) than the five classifiers (pıˇ/ , suoˇ/ , to´u/ , tua´n/ , waˇn/ ) that I did not correct; the latter they tended to either replace with ge`/ or use them incorrectly. Teaching language in context

Parents may want to consider teaching the heritage languages in context and seize opportunities to elicit children’s immediate interests. In this way, children will not feel that they are constantly being drilled. Linguist Paul Bloom pointed out clearly in his book How Children Learn the Meanings of Words, that some words, such as the adjective hot and the verb hit, can be learned through observation of the material world and attention to the intentional acts of the people around children. However, some other words, such as determiners (the, some and each) and conjunctions (but, although and because), need to be learned through hearing them in the context of sentences and using the linguistic context to figure out what they mean. Bloom and other researchers suggest that the best way to learn a word through context is by hearing it used in conversation with another person. They believe that there might be rich extralinguistic context to conversation, that the speaker will often have some sensitivity to the extent of the listener’s knowledge, and that the listener can ask questions. It is likely that many words are learned in this way, particularly by preliterate children and by older children and adults in nonliterate societies.70 However, children like Le´andre and Dominique who have limited linguistic input in their heritage languages, lack the opportunity to observe how those languages are used among other people, and thus need the context even more than the children who have a larger linguistic community around them. In everyday interactions with children, parents may need to find a way to mimic such context. One way to do so is to use children’s initiation as a base, and to elaborate on it. In Example 3.9, I demonstrated the practice with Le´andre (three years and seven months). Example 3.9 Le´andre and Dominique were drawing at the kitchen table. Le´andre: Zhe` lıˇ yoˇu xue`/xueˇ8 (There is blood/snow71 xue`/xueˇ here. Orange blood/snow.)

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Mother:

Le´andre:

She´n me ya´n se` de? Shı` ho´ng ya´n se` de xue`, ha´i shı` ba´i ya´n se` de xueˇ? Shı` nıˇ bı´ zi lıˇ chu¯ la´i de xue`, ha´i shı` wa`i mia`n xia` de xueˇ? Nıˇ de bı´ zi lıˇ chu¯ la´i de xue` shı` zıˇ ho´ng de8

(Which color? Is the red color xue` or white color xue˘? Is the blood xue` from your nose or the snow xue˘ you play with? The blood coming out of your nose is deep red.) Xue`, xue` shı` zıˇ ho´ng de8 (Xue, Xue is deep red.)

In this example, I seized the opportunity to inform Le´andre of the differences between xue˘/ (snow) and xue`/ (blood) in Chinese, and their meanings in the context. After this conversation, I had several follow-up conversations with him to make sure that he knew how to use them correctly. Another way of teaching language in context is through language games. Parents can engage young children in language games to ‘teach’ them language. The following is a good example of a language game Philippe played with the children when they were younger: Example 3.10 La preuve que j’ai seulement neuf doigts (The proof that I only have nine fingers) [Pointing at his fingers and counting them.] Mon premier (My first finger) Mon deuxie`me (My second finger) Mon second (My second finger) Mon troisie`me (My third finger) Mon quatrie`me (My fourth finger) Mon cinquie`me (My fifth finger) Mon sixie`me

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(My sixth finger) Mon septie`me (My seventh finger) Mon huitie`me (My eighth finger) Mon neuvie`me (My ninth finger) In this game, language teaching is present. For example, counting the ‘second’ twice in different ways (deuxie`me and second) is a fun and engaging way for children to learn two ways to say second. If you count the second and third fingers as deuxie`me and second, you end up with nine fingers. The children enjoyed this game immensely. Until this day, they still play the game with Philippe. Parents can either invent or find games like this to engage children. The importance of providing multiple sources of input Early literacy

Research suggests that reading to children early on can contribute to their language development and that there is a reciprocal relationship between early experiences and later success in school.72 Thus, it is never too early to read to children. As linguistic input for children like Le´andre and Dominique is limited, early literacy such as reading becomes an even more important aspect of their linguistic development. It is through books that they encounter the vocabulary that may not occur in their daily interactions with their parents. However, reading is not limited to reading written words aloud. According to some researchers,73 reading can be used as an opportunity to teach skills and facts that will be used later in school, and it can be used as an opportunity to explore imaginary worlds. Stories can be springboards to create fantasies, and a starting point for talks about what is not immediately present, past experiences, predictions and inferences. Book reading may also provide more opportunities for complex talk with preschoolers than afforded by many other situations. The following are a few suggestions on what and how to read to your children early on. Read a variety of books. Research has demonstrated that particular types of picture books promote particular styles of talk and amounts of interaction.74 For example, Jeanne DeTemple found that the mothers in her study tend to use different styles of talk when they read What Next, Baby Bear! than when reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar.75 During our children’s home years, Philippe and I tried to read all sorts of books to our children (both fiction and nonfiction). Through reading different genres of books, our two children learned a variety of vocabulary and styles of communication. The words and the phrases they heard from the books

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would have never occurred in their daily conversations with us. Thus, parents may try to make extra efforts to read many genres of books to their children in their early years. Talks used during reading activities. Book reading is a rich opportunity for the use of complex language that goes beyond the here and now. The verbal interactions during book reading promote the development of a cluster of language skills that children will need for communication competence. As I mentioned earlier in this chapter, immediate talks
talks focused on the here and now (e.g. ‘see the apple’)
do not show strong links to children’s later literacy skills. However, nonimmediate talks
talks that are not immediately visible in illustrations
typically involve longer utterances and more explicit, complex language than the labeling or the yes
no questioning that constitutes much of immediate talk. Research has shown a strong link between the parents’ nonimmediate talks and children’s later literacy skills. The mothers in DeTemple’s study who used a high percentage of immediate talk while reading to their preschoolers and kindergarteners had children with low scores on kindergarten measures of early literacy. Mothers who used a low percentage of immediate talk while reading these books tended to have children who had high scores on these measures. Example 3.2 is a good way of using nonimmediate talks with children. Using pretend play to teach language

Many studies indicate that when parents engage their young children in pretend play, they essentially ‘teach’ role-playing by modeling behavior and talk typical of certain activities, such as when a mother tends a baby or when workers construct a building.76 There is a reciprocal influence
a kind of feedback loop
between parents and their young children when they play together. Parents’ talk and play do not merely have an effect on children’s talk and play; when children understand language better, talk more and engage in more pretend play, their parents respond with more connected (that is, contingent) talk, more extending questions about the play and more pretend talk and play, which in turn encourages the children’s pretend talk and play.77 As shown in the following example from a study by Jane Katz78, a three-year-old child, Tina, was in a pretend play with her mother. In it, the mother engaged the child in a linguistic exchange that extended beyond the here and now. Example 3.11 Mother:

Tina:

That’s three bottles of milk she drank, Tina. She must be very hungry. Look at that. She drinks more than you drink, and you drink an awful lot. Yeah, she’s probably also . . .

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You should probably burp her now, before she gets a tummy-ache. You gonta burp her? There’s a little bit more left. Okay. I think you should burp her, and then you let her have the rest. Now that can she do? She’s gonta burp. No, she, she, she’s not real. But she’s pretend, so you can have a pretend burp. No, you do it. Okay
you pat her back, and I’ll pretend burp. [Tina pats, and her Mother burps.] Yuck. Yucky. [Her mother laughs.]

Katz found that using more pretend talk from birth to ages three and four has benefits for children’s language and early literacy development. Among the benefits listed are better performances in the formal definitions task, receptive vocabulary test, emergent literacy task and narratives in kindergarten. Thus, pretend play can provide an ideal opportunity for parents to orient their children in discourse that is effective in language socialization. The relationship among language, thought and experience It seems that when people discuss the language development issue, they often limit themselves to the issue of language per se. In fact, though language is an important part of our larger mental structure, it is just one part. There is an inter-relatedness of language and cognition, and the early years of a child’s life is the time for making connections.79 Language is often a tool for that connection. For example, researchers found that children learned movement words, such as ‘fall down’, only after they were successful in understanding the action.80 Similarly, other researchers found that children began to use disappearance terms, such as ‘all gone’, when they understood the concept.81 Thus, while we are helping children learn heritage languages, we are also helping them in their intellectual development, which requires stimulating environments and experiences. For children, learning the meanings of words has much to do with their linguistic experiences, i.e. their knowledge of the world.82 Rich experiences can provide children with opportunities to express themselves. The more varieties of experience children have, the better the chance for parents to use language to help children describe their experience. It has been suggested that parents can expand children’s vocabularies by involving them in many kinds of activities, such as visiting the supermarket, bank or drugstore, and by explaining to their children the words and concepts connected with these activities.83 We notice

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that after each trip abroad, to a museum or to a children’s play, our two children tend to ask more questions, thus providing us with the opportunity to discuss these experiences with them in our heritage languages. The words used in these conversations will go beyond our routine daily vocabulary. In addition, it is possible that acquiring three languages, especially when the languages are vastly different, may also make the children perceive the world differently. The linguistic relativity hypothesis proposed by anthropologists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf indicates that our languages influence how we think about the world.84 For example, the word bread in French and Chinese may trigger different mental images/concepts for a young child depending on his/her daily experience with it. That is, a French-speaking child who grows up in France or Europe may think about bread differently than a Chinese-speaking child who grows up in China. For a French-speaking child growing up in Europe, bread comes in many shapes, textures, colors and tastes. For a Chinese child, bread is a steamed bun. Therefore, when using the word bread in French and Chinese to Le´andre and Dominique who are growing up in the USA (where breads are often square shapes in plastic bags), it requires us to draw their attention to the differences (such as baguette, boule, pain du pays or pain paysan in French and ma´n to´u/ or ba¯o zi/ in Chinese) by providing them with the experiences (that is, we deliberately bought different kinds of breads for them and talked about them). Social psychologist Roger Brown suggested that the particular words adults use when they talk to children can influence children’s cognitive organization.85 For example, when a child points to a tree and says, ‘what’s that?’ it’s up to the adult to say ‘maple’ or ‘tree’. The child whose parents say ‘oak’, ‘maple’, and ‘dogwood’ will develop more differentiated mental categories of trees than the child whose parents just say ‘tree’. The word an adult provides serves as ‘an invitation to form the concept’. Therefore, when parents use different words in a target heritage language, they may want to go beyond the words and explain the concepts that may be different (e.g. the different bread concepts in China and Europe). This extra step can help trilingual children build different concepts when using words and, consequently, help them excel in their intellectual development.

The relationship between language and gesture Words are not the only channels we use to communicate; other nonverbal behaviors such as hand gestures, body postures and facial expressions are an integral part of our communication system. Some people even claim that most of our messages in communication are conveyed through nonverbal channels.86 In the last two decades or so, a particular type of nonverbal communication
hand gestures
has been receiving the attention of many researchers. A growing body of

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research suggests that spontaneous hand gestures accompanying speech can serve the following functions: Functions of hand gestures . .

.

.

.

A window to assess children’s problem-solving abilities.87 An index to detect a child’s potential knowledge that is not present in speech and his/her readiness to learn.88 A way for children to express scientific concepts before they can verbalize them.89 A channel for children to express thoughts they are unable to put into words.90 A mnemonic device to recall information.91

If hand gestures are as important as research suggests, parents who raise children with more than one language can take advantage of this communication modality. First, parents can encourage the use of hand gestures before children can sufficiently express themselves in a language. One advantage of encouraging children to use hand gestures is that they will not get frustrated when they do not know a word. Instead of stopping communication because of linguistic constraints, children will have a way to convey their thoughts through hand gestures. Some parents may be concerned that if they encourage their child to use gestures rather than words, the child will become lazy and not use words. Research actually shows differently. For example, studies by developmental psychologists Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn show that when prelinguistic infants are taught to use a set of gestures to communicate their needs and wants, they tend to be less frustrated and show a greater gain in their language acquisition than their peers who are not trained to use gestures before they can speak92 (however, a recent study did caution parents when teaching their infants to use baby signs).93 Another advantage in encouraging young children to use gestures is to provide opportunities for parents to know what word or concept the child does not know how to express. For example, before Le´andre was able to say the word jiaˇn da¯o/ (scissors) in Chinese, he used to open and close his index finger and middle finger to express the meaning of the word. His gesture provided me with a clue that he did not know how to say scissors in Chinese. Thus, I had the opportunity (scissors). to model for him how to say jiaˇn da¯o/ Second, all cultures contain a set of gestures that are recognizable by people from that specific community (these type of gestures are called emblems or conventional gestures). Emblems are a very important part of acquiring a language. Knowing how to use conventional gestures in a language/culture can make a speaker look more ‘authentic’. Parents need to intentionally inform children about these conventional gestures by using them themselves and pointing them out to the

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children. Philippe has demonstrated many French gestures to Le´andre and Dominique such as mon oeil (I don’t believe you) by slightly pulling the lower eyelid down. I have demonstrated to our children how to use the Chinese emblem ). ‘shameful’ by scratching my index finger on my nose (gua¯ bı´ zi/ Third, encouraging children to gesture can also help parents figure out the implicit information a child may know. For example, a recent study suggests that asking children to gesture deliberately in learning a new task can bring out their implicit knowledge about the task and lead to learning.94 Moreover, another recent study suggests that teaching through gestures and speech might be more effective than teaching the spoken component alone.95 The importance of family communication It would be an ideal situation in a trilingual family if both parents understood all three languages. However, life is not always arranged in that way. When families consist of parents who do not understand each other’s heritage languages, how can family communication occur when all the members are together? Earlier in this chapter, I mentioned that sometimes a parent can feel left out of the family conversation in one-parent-one-language families. The frustration of not being proficient in the spouse’s heritage language and thus, unable to participate in a family conversation with children and spouse may indeed present difficulties for family communication.96 Some people even perceive this kind of family communication structure as harmful to family integration.97 I believe, however, that parents can overcome such communication difficulty if they are willing to explore different family communication strategies. For example, when Philippe cannot understand what the children and I are talking about (during our daily dinner-table conversations, etc.), I often ask the children to repeat or relay the message to their father in French, as shown in this example.

Example 3.12 Le´andre (three years and ten months) just received a big Lego toy that looked like a Chinese temple. Le´andre: Ma¯ma, na` ge Lego de fa´ng zi, na` ge fa´ng zi he´ su¯n wu` ko¯ng dia`n yıˇng lıˇ yı´ ya`ng de8 Lego (Mom, that Lego house, that house is the same as the one in Monkey King film.) Mother: Duı`, haˇo xia`ng shı` yı´ ya`ng de. Keˇ shı` na` ge bu´ jia`o fa´ng zi, na` ge jia`o go¯ng dia`n8

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(Yes, they look the same. But that is not called a house; it is called a temple.) Ga`o su` ba`ba nıˇga¯ng ca´i shuo¯ de hua`8

Le´andre:

Mother:

(Tell father what you just told me.) Le singe dans le film, il a un baˆton. Il saute. Il vole. Mon nouveau jouet Lego ressemble a` la maison. (The monkey in the film, the monkey has a stick. He jumps. He flies. My new Lego toy looks like the house.) (To father) Do you know the DVD my parents gave to Le´andre and Dominique? It is what he tried to tell you. The temple in that DVD looks like the Lego building. Monkey King is a popular character in one of the Chinese classics. . .

To some people, this kind of family communication is cumbersome. To me it has the following benefits: from a linguistic and social cognitive perspective, Example 3.12 shows that a child in such a situation has to express the same information differently in different languages (not just the exact translation). For example, in Chinese, Le´andre expressed the similarity between the Lego building and the building in a Chinese film he saw. When he relayed the message to his father, he had to add some details such as ‘the monkey has a stick and he jumps and flies’ to help him understand the context. From a family communication perspective, such an experience provides opportunities for parents from different cultural backgrounds to inform each other about their cultures (e.g. I informed Philippe, ‘. . .Monkey King is a popular character in one of the Chinese classics . . .’). Thus, parents can turn difficulties into opportunities to promote children’s cognitive, linguistic and social development. Parents may want to start such a family communication style early in children’s development. In fact, our two children soon spontaneously learned to relay our messages to each parent in a family conversation when they sensed that one may not have understood what they said. The importance of supporting children’s identity development When young trilingual children develop their three languages, they are also developing their identity. In the long run, their trilingual experience will have a fundamental impact on how they feel about themselves. There is little research regarding how children’s trilingual experience can affect their self-perception. However, according to psychologist Susan Harter, children’s sense of self has four important functions in their development. It helps them make sense of the things that happen to them (e.g. that kid next door always has play dates with me, I must

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be likable). It motivates them to engage in behaviors to which others might respond favorably (e.g. if I can speak three languages, other children will admire me). It influences their reactions to events (e.g. I am really frustrated when I don’t know how to express this idea in Chinese). It allows them to envision the various future selves they might become (I want to be a successful writer). Once they begin to look seriously at a particular future self, it helps them make choices appropriate for their goals (e.g. I’d better write more if I want to become a successful writer).98 Many psychologists believe that human beings have a basic need to think of themselves as competent, likable and worthy individuals
that is, to achieve and maintain a positive sense of self-worth.99 However, research also indicates that a child who constantly experiences failure can develop a negative self concept.100 Thus, one important way to help children with different linguistic experiences develop positive self concepts is to provide positive experiences in their language acquisition process. It is inevitable that children will make mistakes, and sometimes serious ones, when learning a language. The experience they have in the three languages is also the process by which they develop their sense of self. Parents perhaps need to be positive rather than negative. Recall early in this chapter, I discussed that Dominique had a tendency to extrapolate the feminine form ‘gentite’ instead of ‘gentille’ (kind). Instead of scolding him for not being able to say it right, Philippe has been trying to use positive reinforcement. One day Dominique used the correct form ‘Maman est gentille (Mom is kind)’, and Philippe said to him, ‘Bravo, Dominique. Tu a dit ‘‘gentille’’’. Dominique was obviously very proud that he could say this right. Thus, encouragement is the best way to help trilingual children build selfconfidence and a positive self-image during their early years.

Summary The first few years of children’s lives are the best time for parents to help them establish a communication system in different languages. The goal in this period is to provide children with a supporting environment in which they will have a chance to lay a solid foundation for acquiring and developing their heritage languages. Several factors seem to be crucial in facilitating the process. First, children should be exposed to the heritage languages as early as possible so that they will have an easier time getting used to the languages being spoken around them. Second, it is helpful to communicate with young children in a consistent language system, and for children to get into the habit of responding and communicating in the language in which they are spoken to. Third, because children who acquire their heritage languages typically receive their language input only from their parents, parents may want to spend as much time as possible giving their children sufficient heritage-language exposure. Fourth, activities such as personal story telling, book reading, nonimmediate talks and pretend play are important to expand children’s heritage-language experiences. Fifth, some difficult language features which children will not have the opportunity to encounter in the

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everyday context may need to be deliberately taught in the context. Sixth, parents may need to encourage their children to express themselves by taking advantage of spontaneous and conventional hand gestures. Finally, parents may need to cultivate children’s healthy identity development by providing positive experiences for children learning their heritage languages. With proper strategy and support, parents can help their children lay a good foundation for their future multilingual and identity development. Notes and References 1. The ‘home years’ refers to the period before our children attended any kind of school. During this period, the children were at home under the alternative care of both parents, occasionally interacting with English-speaking babysitters. The length of the home years was different for the two children. Le´andre spent four years at home and Dominique three before attending preschool. 2. Hoffmann, C. (1985) Language acquisition in two trilingual children. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 6, 479
495. Saunders, G. (1988) Bilingual Children: From Birth to Teens. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 3. Ronjat, J. (1913) Le de´veloppement du langage observe´ chez un enfant bilingue. Paris: Champion. Saunders, G. (1988) Bilingual Children: From Birth to Teens. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Leopold, W.F. (1939) Speech Development of a Bilingual Child: A Linguist’s Record. Evanston, IL: The Northwestern University Press. 4. Cruz-Ferreira, M. (2006) Three is a Crowd? Acquiring Portuguese in a Trilingual Environment (pp. 240
243). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Cunningham-Andersson, U. and Andersson, S. (1999) Growing up with Two Languages. New York: Routledge. Saunders, G. (1988) Bilingual Children: From Birth to Teens. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 5. The data are calculated and analyzed based on a random sample of 12-hour videotapes recorded during the home years. 6. Huttenlocher, J., Haight, W., Bryk, A., Seltzer, M. and Lyon, T. (1991) Early vocabulary growth: Relation to language input and gender. Developmental Psychology 27, 236
248. 7. Hamilton, M.L. (1977) Father’s Influence on Children. Chicago, IL: Nelson-Hall. Blatt, J.A. (2007) Father’s role in supporting his son’s developing awareness of self. Infant Observation 10 (2), 173
182. 8. Tamis-LeMonda, C.S., Shannon, J.D., Cabrera, N. and Lamb, M.E. (2004) Resident fathers and mothers at play with their 2- and 3-year-olds: Contributions to language and cognitive development. Child Development 75, 1806
1820. Abkarian, G.G. and Dworkin, J.P. (2003) Fathers’ speech to their children: Perfect pitch or Tin ear? Fathering 1 (1), 27
50. 9. Pancsofar, N. and Vernon-Feagans, L. (2006) Mother and father language input to young children: Contributions to later language development. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 27 (6), 571
587. Tamis-LeMonda, C.S., Shannon, J.D., Cabrera, N. and Lamb, M.E. (2004) Resident fathers and mothers at play with their 2- and 3-year-olds: Contributions to language and cognitive development. Child Development 75, 1806
1820.

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10. Cruz-Ferreira, M. (2006) Three is a Crowd? Acquiring Portuguese in a Trilingual Environment (pp. 240
243). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 11. Harding-Esch, E. and Riley, P. (2003) The Bilingual Family: A Handbook for Parents (p. 87). Cambridge: The Cambridge University Press. 12. Bhatia, T.K. and Ritchie, W.C. (1999) The bilingual child: Some issues and perspectives. In W.C. Ritchie and T.K. Bhatia (eds) Handbook of Child Language Acquisition (pp. 569
643). New York: Academic Press. 13. Saunders, G. (1988) Bilingual Children: From Birth to Teens. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 14. DeTemple, J.M. (2001) Parents and children reading books together. In D.K. Dickinson and P.O. Tabors (eds) Beginning Literary with Language: Young Children Learning at Home and School (pp. 31
51). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes. 15. Cote, L.R. (2001) Language opportunities during mealtimes in preschool classrooms. In D.K. Dickinson and P.O. Tabors (eds) Beginning Literary with Language: Young Children Learning at Home and School (pp. 205
221). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes. 16. Clay, M.M. (2000) Becoming Literate: The Construction of Inner Control. Portsmouth: Heinemann. 17. Cruz-Ferreira, M. (2006) Three is a Crowd? Acquiring Portuguese in a Trilingual Environment (pp. 240
243). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 18. Later on, we began to use pı¯ sa`/ or bıˇ sa`/ because I read these terms in Chinese newspapers. When we were in China a couple of years ago, we found the stores where pizza were sold used pı¯ sa` bıˇng/ or bıˇ sa` bıˇng/ We have now begun to use these new terms for pizza. 19. Cunningham-Andersson, U. and Andersson, S. (1999) Growing up with Two Languages. New York: Routledge. 20. Cunningham-Andersson, U. and Andersson, S. (1999) Growing up with Two Languages. New York: Routledge. 21. Cruz-Ferreira, M. (2006) Three is a Crowd? Acquiring Portuguese in a Trilingual Environment. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 22. Miller, J. (2004) Identity and language use: The politics of speaking ESL in schools. In A. Pavlenko and A. Blackledge (eds) Negotiation of Identities in Multilingual Context. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 23. English-speaking infants typically start cooing around six to eight weeks of age. See Hoff, E. (2005) Language Development (3rd edn). Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth. 24. This information is based on analysis of 24 hours of randomly selected video-recorded data for each child in the first year (two hours each month). 25. English-speaking children typically start to babble at around four to eight months. See Berk, L.E. (2006) Child Development. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Bialystok, E. (2004) Bilingualism in Development: Language, Literacy and Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tabor, P.O. (1997) One Child, Two Languages. Baltimore, MD: Paul. H. Brookes. 26. Bialystok, E. (2001) Bilingualism in Development: Language, Literacy and Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 27. Poulin-Dubois, D. and Goodz, N.S. (2002) Language differentiation in bilingual infants: Evidence from babbling. In J. Cenoz and F. Genesee (eds) Trends in Bilingual Acquisition (pp. 95
106). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 28. This information is determined by analyzing the same video-recorded data used to examine cooing (see Endnote 24 in this chapter). 29. The information is based on 48 hours of video-recorded data for Le´andre and 36 for Dominique, (one hour in each months for four years for Le´andre and one hour each month for three years for Dominique).

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30. Zhu, H. (2002) Phonological Development in Specific Contexts: Studies of Chinese-Speaking Children. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 31. Bialystok, E. (2004) Bilingualism in Development: Language, Literacy and Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 32. Caldas, S.J. (2006) Raising Bilingual-Biliterate Children in Monolingual Cultures. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 33. Children usually produce their first words sometime between 10 and 15 months of age (most typically around the end of 12 months of age). See Benedict, H. (1979) Early lexical development: Comprehension and production. Journal of Child Language 6, 183
200. Fenson, L., Dale, P.S., Reznick, J.S., Bates, E., Thal, D. J. and Pethick, S.J. (1994) Variability in early communicative development. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 59 (Serial No. 242). Huttenlocher, J. and Smiley, P. (1987) Early word meanings: The case of object names. Cognitive Psychology 19, 63
89. By 16 months, monolingual children usually can understand 191 words and produce 64 words on average. See Bates, E., Dale, P.S. and Thal, D.J. (1995) Individual differences and their implications for theories of language development. In P. Fletcher and B. MacWhinney (eds) Handbook of Language (pp. 96
151). Oxford: Basil Blackwell. 34. Benedict, H. (1979) Early lexical development: Comprehension and production. Journal of Child Language 6, 183
200. Nelson, K. (1973) Structure and strategy in learning to talk. Monographs of the Society for Research Child Development 38 (149). Goldfield, B.A. and Reznick, J.S. (1990) Early lexical acquisition: Rate, content, and the vocabulary spurt. Journal of Child Language 17, 171
183. 35. Hoffmann, C. and Stavans, A. (2007) The evolution of trilingual codeswitching from infancy to school age: The shaping of trilingual competence through dynamic language dominance. International Journal of Bilingualism 11 (1), 55
72. 36. If readers are interested in finding out the rules for counting morphemes and calculating MLU, please refer to Brown, R. (1973) A First Language: The Early Stages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 37. Blake, J., Quartaro, G. and Onorati, S. (1993) Evaluating quantitative measures of grammatical complexity in spontaneous speech samples. Journal of Child Language 20, 139
152. 38. Cruz-Ferreira, M. (2006) Three is a Crowd? Acquiring Portuguese in a Trilingual Environment. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 39. Owens, R.E. (2005) Language Development: An Introduction. New York: Pearson Education. Crystal, D. (1986) Listen to Your Child. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 40. Jiao, F. (2002) A Chinese-English Dictionary of Measure Words. Beijing: Sinolingua. 41. Erbaugh, M.S. (1992) The acquisition of Mandarin. In D.I. Slobin (ed.) The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition (Vol. 3, pp. 373
455). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 42. Erbaugh, M.S. (1986) Taking stock: The development of Chinese noun classifiers historically and in young children. In C.G. Craig (ed.) Noun Classes and Categorization (pp. 399
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93. 92. Acredolo, L. and Goodwyn, S. (1996) Baby Signs: How to Talk with Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk. Chicago: Contemporary Books. Moore, B., Acredolo, L. and Goodwyn, S. (2001) Symbolic gesturing and joint attention: Partners in facilitating verbal development. Paper presented at the Biennial Meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development, Minneapolis. 93. Johnston, J.C., Durieux-Smith, A. and Bloom, K. (2005) Teaching gestural signs to infants to advance child development: A review of the evidence. First Language 25, 235
251. 94. Broader, S.C., Cook, S.W., Mitchell, Z. and Goldin-Meadow, S. (2007) Making children gesture bring out implicit knowledge and leads to learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology 136 (4), 539
550. 95. Nicoladis, E. (2007) The effect of bilingualism on the use of manual gestures. Applied Psycholinguistics 28 (3), 441
454. 96. Harding-Esch, E. and Riley, P. (2003) The Bilingual Family: A Handbook for Parents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 97. Zierer, E. (1977) Experiences in the bilingual education of a child of pre-school age. IRAL 15, 143
149. 98. Harter, S. (1999) The Construction of Self. New York: Guilford Press. 99. Covington, M.V. (1992) Making the Grade: A Self-Worth Perspective on Motivation and School Reform. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Deci, E.L. and Ryan, R.M. (1992) The initiation and regulation of intrinsically motivated learning and achievement. In A.K. Boggiano and T.S. Pittman (eds) Achievement and Motivation: A Social-Developmental Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 100. Urdan, T. (2004) Predictors of academic self-handicapping and achievement: Examining achievement goals, classroom goal structures, and culture. Journal of Educational Psychology 96, 251
264. Wolters, C.A. (2003) Regulation of motivation: Evaluating an underemphasized aspect of self-regulated learning. Educational Psychologist 38, 189
205.

Chapter 4

Transition from Home to Preschool and Kindergarten1 This chapter reports the strategies we used to help our children transition successfully from the home environment to the school environment, and in particular, it discusses how we helped our children maintain balance between the home languages and English. New challenges during the transitional period are described, as well as possible ways to respond to them. To show how the changing trilingual landscape can ´ andre’s trilingual and identity development are affect children, Dominique’s and Le highlighted. Finally, suggestions are provided on how to support children’s trilingual and identity development during the transitional period from home to school.

Strategies for Coping with the New Linguistic Environment Sending a child to school for the first time is a big event for both parents and children. Like any other parents, we were excited and nervous at the same time when our children first attended preschool and then kindergarten. Unlike most ´ andre and parents, however, we had one more thing to worry about, given that Le Dominique had been raised almost entirely in a home environment where parents were their major caretakers. We wondered how they would cope with the new school linguistic and social environment, whether the teachers would be able to appreciate their trilingual abilities and how their peers would react when they ´ andre and Dominique spoke other languages. found out that the Le ´ andre was nearly four years old, we sent him to a private nursery school When Le for the first time. That was really a big day for all of us. We got up early and had a ´ andre carried his favorite Teletubby backpack and entered the special breakfast. Le first school ever in his life. Despite his initial uneasiness (he cried briefly after we ´ andre spent three hours left), he soon got used to the new environment. That year, Le each weekday in the private nursery school. The following year, he entered kindergarten in our public school district and spent six hours per day there, Monday to Friday. Dominique was enrolled in a different private nursery school at age three. He was immediately integrated into the school environment with little struggle. This was mostly because he was familiar with the school setting, having joined us on ´ andre. Dominique spent two years in the the daily trip sending and picking up Le private nursery school and was then enrolled in the same kindergarten as his brother.

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If our goal for the children’s home years was to lay a solid foundation for the acquisition of their heritage languages, then our goal for the children’s early school years was to ensure the desired balance of their home languages and English. As our children were living in an English-speaking environment, it was inevitable that English would have more influence on them. As is typical in multilingual families, the dominant language in a child’s environment (in our children’s case, English) tends to have the upper hand after they enter school. Recall that in Chapter 1, our Hungarian neighbor had predicted that our children would switch to English as soon as they entered school. Her prediction probably would have come true if we had not had specific strategies in place, which we carried out diligently. In fact, researchers2 in one study found that when comparing children who learned Turkish abroad with children who lived in Turkey, the two groups of children’s home-language development (Turkish) was more or less the same up until the age of five. However, after they started school, the children who lived abroad did much worse in their home language (Turkish) than the children who lived in Turkey. Moreover, the children who lived abroad never caught up in their home language with their peers who lived in Turkey. Informed by this kind of study and our own observations, we were clear that the successful maintenance of our children’s home languages was dependent on the strategies we would use to deal with the new challenges. In the following sections, I will elaborate on some effective strategies that we employed during this transitional period to ensure the balance between the home languages and English.

Gently ‘insisting’ on using home languages ´ andre and Dominique were mostly surrounded by During the home years, Le their home languages. Both children had much more interactive input in their home languages than in English (see Table 3.1 in Chapter 3). This landscape in their three languages began to change when they entered nursery school and kindergarten. Each school day, the two children had three hours of direct interactive exposure to English in their nursery schools, and later six hours of direct interactive exposure to English in their kindergarten, in addition to other interactive English exposures, such as play dates with English-speaking children. The sheer amount of exposure to English began to pose a real threat to the very existence of the home languages. Little by little, the two boys, Dominique in particular, began to insert English words into their home languages (and more often when speaking Chinese than French). As soon as we observed this phenomenon, we lovingly ‘insisted’ that they express themselves in their home languages. The following example shows how I helped Dominique (three years and six months) avoid using the English word balloon in his Chinese conversation with me.

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Example 4.1 Dominique: Woˇ jı¯n tia¯n za`i xue´ xia`o wa´n balloon8 balloon8 (I played with balloon today in school.) Mother: Nıˇ jı¯n tia¯n wa´n she´n me le? (What did you play with today?) Dominique: Balloon. Mother: Nıˇ wa´n she´n me? (You played with what?) Dominique: Ba . . . Mother: O, nıˇ jı¯n tia¯n wa´n qı` qiu´ le8

Dominique:

(Oh, you played with balloon today.) Duı`8

Mother:

(Yes.) She´n me ya`ng de qı` qiu´?

Dominique:

(What kind of balloon?) Hua´ng ya´n se` de8

Mother:

(Yellow.) Hua´ng ya´n se` de qı` qiu´8 (Yellow balloon.) Hua´ng ya´n se` shı` nıˇ zuı` xıˇ huan de ya´n se`. Zhe` jiu` shı` nıˇ we`i she´n me xıˇ huan hua´ng ya´n se` de qı` qiu´8 (Yellow is your favorite color. That’s why you like yellow balloon.)

Notice in this example, I strategically reminded Dominique to use the Chinese instead of the English word balloon. I did not ask him to repeat word qı` qiu´/ (You the word; rather I started with a question ‘Nıˇ wa´n she´n me?/ played with what?)’. I repeated the question and hoped that Dominique would Realizing that he had forgotten be reminded to use the Chinese word qı` qiu´/ the Chinese word (I was quite surprised that he forgot the word because he was able to use it as soon as he could speak), I helped him supplement the word

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qı` qiu´/ by saying ‘O, nıˇ jı¯n tia¯n wa´n qı` qiu´ le./ , (Oh, you , I repeated it again by played with balloon.)’. To reinforce the word qı` qiu´/ (What kind of balloon?)’. Detecting saying ‘She´n me ya`ng de qı` qiu´?/ that Dominique used the color (hua´ng ya´n se` de/ /yellow) to describe the , I used the word again, balloon, yet still did not try to use the word qı` qiu´/ saying ‘Hua´ng ya´n se` shı` nıˇ zuı` xıˇ huan de ya´n se`. Zhe` jiu` shı` nıˇ we`i she´n me xıˇ huan hua´ng ya´n se` de qı` qiu´/ (Yellow is your favorite color. That’s why you like yellow balloon.)’. My intentional talk went on like this until Dominique used the word qı` qiu´/ on his own. Based on his own experience and observation growing up as a simultaneous bilingual, Philippe understood well that the transition from home to school was a crucial period for parents to ‘hold their ground’ about using home languages. Thus, when the children mixed English words in their French conversation, Philippe would say something like: ‘Comment?’ (what?) or ‘Qu’est-ce que tu as dit?’ (What did you say?). After such gentle reminders, the children usually realized that they should use French words or expressions. Sometimes, when Philippe sensed that the children did not know how to use French words or phrases, he would say: ‘Ah! Tu veux dire (Oh, you want to say . . .)’ and supply the French words or phrase they did not know. We did not find our children having any resentment toward our conversational style. In fact, we found that in such situations, our conversations with them tended to be richer and longer (we used about four times more vocabulary and spent twice as much time).3 While we gently ‘insisted’ that the children use home languages, we were nevertheless very cautious in two important ways. First, we allowed the children to mix the English words in home-language conversations, when their mixing was used to distinguish one language from the other, to express things that did not have equivalents in the home languages, to fill a vocabulary gap or to achieve communicative effects (such as to emphasize, to quote, to protest or to narrate). Second, we made sure that we would not discourage our children from communicating with us by interrupting them for the sake of correcting them. We believed that such practice might make children withdraw from what they were about to say and eventually might lead to a complete communication shutdown. Helping children form the habit of asking To encourage the children to use the home languages as much as possible, we helped them form the habit of asking, ‘How do you say . . .in Chinese/French?’ when they did not know how to say a home-language word or phrase. When I told a friend about this strategy, she asked me, ‘Isn’t it unnatural in conversations with your children when they always have to ask this kind of questions’. I explained to her that in practice (especially, if you start early), it is not a problem at all. Children

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learn communication styles in their everyday interactions with their parents, and every family and every culture has different ways to communicate. Children are flexible enough to adapt to their linguistic environment, including its conversation styles. In a family like ours, children learn to ask first when they don’t know a word in the home languages. In retrospect, we believe that this strategy helped our children limit the tendency to use English to substitute terms without first trying in the home languages. The following vignette illustrates how I helped our children form the habit of requesting Chinese words and phrases when they did not know them. Example 4.2 ´ andre (four years and three months) Le ´ andre: Le

Mother:

Ma¯ma, Oliver de ma¯ ma ka¯i le coffee shop8 , Oliver coffee shop8 (Mommy, Oliver’s mom opens a coffee shop.) O, nıˇ de pe´ng yoˇu de ma¯ ma ka¯i le yı` jia¯ k a¯ fe¯i dia`n8 , (Oh, your friend’s mother opens a coffee shop?) Zho¯ng we´n jia`o ka¯ fe¯i dia`n. Ru´ guoˇ nıˇ shuo¯ bie´ de re´n jia¯ tı¯ng bu` doˇng8 (In Chinese, coffee shop is called ka¯ fe¯ dia`n. Chinese say ka¯ fe¯ dia`n. If you say something else, people will not understand you.) Xia` cı` ru´ guoˇ nıˇ bu´ zhı¯ da`o, nıˇ keˇ yıˇ we`n ma¯ ma. Nıˇ keˇ yıˇ shuo¯ ‘‘ma¯ ma zho¯ng we´n zeˇn me shuo¯?’ haˇo ma? , ‘‘ , ’’,

Le´andre:

(Next time, if you don’t know how to say a Chinese word, you can ask, ‘How do you say . . .in Chinese?’ Okay?) Haˇo8 (Okay.)

As you can see in Example 4.2, the conversation proceeded quite naturally. To ´ andre, it was just a normal conversation with his mother. For me, it was a Le ‘tutoring’ opportunity: I showed him how to ask if he did not know a Chinese word, ). To this day, the two and modeled how to say coffee shop in Chinese (ka¯ fe¯ dia`n/ boys retain this habit. Although Philippe did not explicitly use this strategy with the children, the boys spontaneously ‘borrowed’ the style, ‘Comment est-ce qu’on dit . . .en franc¸ais? (How do

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you say . . .in French?)’ when they did not know a French word or expression. It is interesting to note that the strategies used by one parent are often transferred to the interactions with another parent. Helping children describe school experience in home languages During our children’s home years, it was relatively easy to have conversations with them in their home languages because we pretty much knew what was happening in their lives. However, this situation changed when they went to school and encountered new things daily. We were not there with them, and thus unable to match their experience with their home languages. In addition, the children had not been exposed to the home-language vocabulary that would have been used to describe their school experience. Therefore, it would be natural for them to describe their school experience in English rather than French or Chinese. Anticipating that this might happen if we were not proactive in equipping them with matching school vocabulary in their home languages, we began to use different strategies to help the children gain more home-language vocabulary related to their school experiences. Philippe started to read French children’s books (such as Le petit Nicolas) and ´ es
comic books, such as Titeuf) that had sections describing BD’s (bandes dessine ´ andre and Dominique learned many school environments. From these books, Le French words and expressions that were related to school. In addition, Philippe discussed his own school experience with the children in French. As a consequence ´ andre and Dominique had quite a rich French vocabulary with of this strategy, Le which to talk about their school experience. As I was familiar with the early school environment in the USA (I frequently visited schools because of my profession), I knew the routines in preschool and kindergarten. When the boys came home from school, I would say things like, ‘woˇ (I ca¯i nıˇ jı¯n tia¯n za`i xue´ xia`o zuo` le zhe` xie¯ shı` . . . . . ./ bet you did these things in school today . . .)’. This was a very good way to give them Chinese vocabulary to talk about their school experience. We also let our children draw pictures about what they did in school and looked at their drawings with them. During the process, we supplied them with homelanguage vocabulary to help them describe the drawings. Matching the school language with the home languages Although the school experience can never be exactly matched or replaced with the home experience, to ensure a relatively parallel development of their English and home languages we tried to replicate some school activities at home. For example, there is a popular activity called ‘show and tell’ in US preschools and kindergartens. Children are asked to bring an item to school and describe it to the other children. Each time after our children had such activity in school (the teacher usually sent notes home before or after the activity), we would ask them to describe the item they showed and talked about in school in their home languages. The following is an

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example of how I tried to provide the Chinese vocabulary to match the possible English vocabulary the children used in school. Usually, I would start by asking the children what they did in school that day. Often the children would simply say, ‘show and tell’. I would then ‘press’ them further, asking what they had said about the item they brought to school. They tended to utter just a few words and stop. I would make silly statements to prod them into telling me what they had said in their show and tell, such as, ‘you talked about the turtle today’ when I knew they had really talked about fossils. Then, I either paraphrased what the children were saying or demonstrated how to describe the items in Chinese. Example 4.3 demonstrates the steps. Example 4.3 Le´andre (five years and two months) Mother:

Le´andre:

Mother:

Le´andre: Mother:

Nıˇ jı¯n tia¯n za`i xue´ xia`o lıˇ ga`n she´n me le? (What did you do today in school?) Woˇ me´n show and tell8 show and tell8 (We did show and tell.) O, nıˇ geˇi nıˇ de pe´ng yoˇu ka`n nıˇ da`i qu` de do¯ng xi. Nıˇ da`i she´n me do¯ng xi da`o xue´ xia`o? , (Oh, you showed your friends what you brought to school. What did you bring to school today?) Shell. Be`i ke´8 (Shell.) Nıˇ ge¯n ta¯ men jiaˇng she´n me?

Le´andre:

(What did you tell them about it?) Ta¯ shı` ba´i de8

Mother:

(It’s white.) Nıˇ shı` bu shı` ga`o su` ta¯ men nıˇ de be`i ke´ shı` za`i dia`n lıˇ maˇi de?

Le´andre:

(Did you tell them you bought the shell in a shop?) [Actually, I knew he picked it up on a beach on Long Island.] Me´i yoˇu. Woˇ ga`o su` ta¯ men woˇ za`i cha´ng daˇo jiaˇn de8

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Mother:

(No, I told them I picked It up on Long Island.) Ra´n ho`u nıˇ shuo¯ she´n me le?

Le´andre:

(Then what did you say?) Woˇ wa`ng jı` le8

Mother:

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´ andre did not want to (I forgot.) [This is a typical reaction when Le continue the conversation.] O, nıˇ shuo¯: ‘woˇ ya`o ga`o su` nıˇ men zhe` ge be`i ke´ de gu` shı`. Woˇ shı` za`i ge¯n ba`ba he´ dı`di za`i cha´ng daˇo yo´u yoˇng de shı´ ho`u za`i sha¯ ta¯n sha`ng jiaˇn da`o de. Zhe` ge be`i ke´ shı` ba´i se` de. Sha`ng mian yoˇu zo¯ng se` de hua¯ we´n. Woˇ keˇ yıˇ yo`ng ta¯ la´i wa¯ sha¯ zi. Woˇ yeˇ keˇ yıˇ yo`ng ta¯ la´i zhua¯ng shuıˇ. Woˇ xıˇ huan woˇ de be`i ke´’8 , : ‘‘ , (Did you say, ‘I want to tell you something about this shell. I picked it up on the beach in Long Island when I went to swim in the ocean with my dad and brother. This shell is white with some brown coloring. I can use it to scoop sand. I can also put water in it. I like my shell’.)

Little by little, I provided the children with the Chinese vocabulary to match their show and tell experience in school. At the same time, I also modeled in Chinese what needed to be included in a narration. Interestingly, the children would often voluntarily offer school information to Philippe. There were two possible reasons for this. One was that I had already asked them to tell about their experience in school so they simply retold it in French. Another is that the school experience Philippe read or talked about in French was similar to the children’s experience, thus they had more French vocabulary to carry out the conversation.

Matching school literacy skills with home-language literacy skills In preschool and kindergarten, our children were gradually introduced to early literacy skills in English. By that time, the children’s home-language early literacy skills were well advanced because of our deliberate efforts. However, we knew that

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skills in the home languages would soon fall behind if we did not continue to make efforts. We did a few things to try to match their emergent English literacy skills with the same kind of skills in home languages. Asking questions to facilitate decontextualized language

When our children were younger, their talks were often grounded in the immediate physical context (e.g. ‘Mommy, put the cookie here’). This kind of language is called contextualized language. As the children entered preschool and kindergarten, their experience became more complex. They needed to use more decontextualized language to describe their experiences beyond the here and now; they needed to be able to express such ideas as we played hide and seek today in school or we will visit the Bronx Zoo tomorrow. Developmental psychologists believe that decontextualized language is essential for a child’s future academic success. We did not worry about our sons’ English decontextualized language development because they were given many opportunities in their preschool and kindergarten settings. However, we did worry about how our children could match the decontextualized language they acquired in school in their home languages. Although we did use decontextualized language such as nonimmediate talks while reading stories to the children during their home years (see Chapter 3), we needed to increase its use. Besides creating more opportunities in everyday conversations to help them develop decontextualized language in the home languages, we used literacy in the home languages as a good opportunity to enhance decontextualized language development in Chinese and French. We continued daily reading routines with the children, but we altered our ways of talking to them during reading activities. Recall that in Example 3.2 of Chapter 3, I used the text and illustrations of the Chinese children’s book Sa¯n Ge` Haˇo Pe´ng Yoˇu/ (Three Friends) as a ´ andre’s behavior of not sharing things springboard to discuss Dominique and Le with each other. New strategies we used during this period focused more on eliciting the children’s responses through constant questioning based on the books we read together. The steps are illustrated in the following example. Example 4.4 Mother was reading the Chinese story Xiaˇo Ma¯o Dia`o Yu´/ ´ andre (five years and two months). Fishing) to Le Mother:

Xiaˇo ma¯o we`i she´n me me´i yoˇu dia`o da`o yu´? (Why didn’t the little cat catch fish?)

(Little Cat is

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Le´andre:

Yı¯n we´i ta¯ wa´n8

Mother:

(Because it played.) Wa´n she´n me?

Le´andre:

(Played with what?) Hu´ die´ he´ hua¯, ha´i yoˇu . . . . . .

Mother:

(Butterfly and flowers and . . .) Xiaˇo ma¯o yoˇu mei yoˇu zhua¯n xı¯n dia`o yu´?

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(Is the little cat concentrating on fishing?) Ta¯ shı` bu shı` sa¯n xı¯n e`r yı`?

Le´andre:

(Is it serious about what it is doing?) Bu`8

Mother:

(No.) Za`i jiaˇng jiaˇng8

Mother:

(Tell me some more.) Xiaˇo ma¯o bu` zhua¯n xı¯n dia`o yu´. Ta¯ ga`n bie´ de do¯ng xi. Ta¯ ka`n da`o hu´ die´ la´i le, ta¯ jiu` qu` zhuo¯ hu´ die´8 , (The little cat is not concentrating on fishing. It did other things. It saw a butterfly, it went to catch it.) Nıˇ za`i xue´ xia`o lıˇ yoˇu mei yoˇu zhua¯n xı¯n tı¯ng laˇo shı¯ jiaˇng hua`?

Le´andre:

(Are you paying attention to what the teacher says in school?) Woˇ tı¯ng laˇo shı¯. Woˇ zhı¯ da`o laˇo shı¯ shuo¯ she´n me8

Mother:

(I pay attention to the teacher. I know what the teacher is saying.) Heˇn haˇo Ru´ guoˇ nıˇ bu´ tı¯ng laˇo shı¯ jiaˇng huı` zeˇn me ya`ng ne?

Le´andre:

(Good. If you don’t listen to the teacher, what would happen?)

´ andre answer them. Notice in the In this interaction, I asked questions and let Le ´ andre’s answers were very short. As I prodded him further, his beginning Le answers became more complex.

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Increasing children’s print knowledge in home languages

Listening to stories read in the home languages was the major focus during the children’s home years. After the children entered preschool and kindergarten, we deliberately began to increase the children’s exposure to print when reading to them. For example, I would point to the Chinese character yu´/ or (fish) to show ´ andre (four years and two months) that the upper part of the character looks like Le the head of a fish, the middle part looks like the body of the fish with scales and the lower part looks like the tail of a fish. In addition to letting the boys have opportunities to observe print while we read to them in the home languages, we also provided opportunities for them to ‘read’ the home languages in other ways. For example, before opening a French or Chinese package (often containing toys), the children were urged to ‘read’ the print on the package. Of course, they were often unable to do so, but because they were so eager to open the toys, they would comply with our request to focus on the words on the packages. Introducing Chinese handwriting knowledge

Given paper and crayons, most young children scribble spontaneously. You may ´ andre entered preschool (Chapter 3), he had already recall that before Le experimented with writing in French and Chinese by scribbling on the wall and on his bunk bed. His spontaneous product (handwriting) seemed to indicate that he had developed a basic notion of the differences between Chinese and French handwriting systems and the process of handwriting. However, to move from the stage of scribbling to the stage of recognizable handwriting definitely takes much deliberate effort, in addition to physical maturity. Research has shown that handwriting skills usually can improve without direct instruction if children are ´ andre and Dominique given ample opportunity to practice.4 By age four, both Le had been introduced to the writing of English alphabetic letters in preschool. To match these newly developed skills in English, we began to introduce them to the same skills in the home languages. Their French skills benefited directly from their English skills (that was easy!). Thus, less needed to be done in this regard. However, I had to show them deliberately how the Chinese handwriting system worked. As Chinese handwriting emphasizes the order of strokes, I began to demonstrate to the children how to write some very simple characters and how the order of the strokes worked, such as in yı¯/ (one), e`r/ (two), sa¯n/ (three), koˇu/ (mouth), re´n/ (people), sha¯n/ (mountain) and shoˇu/ (hand). I introduced the Chinese handwriting in a playful way. For example, I first showed them the book Yoˇu Qu` De Ha`n Zı`/ (Fun with Chinese Characters) by Chinese cartoonist Tan Huay Peng5 and told them the stories behind the characters. I would then show them how to write certain strokes and encourage them to practice. They were often fascinated by the writing process and eager to try. ´ andre and Dominique see the connection In addition, we also tried to help Le ´ andre (four years and between writing and real-life needs. For example, one day Le

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seven months) was pretending to write a letter by scribbling on a piece of paper. I asked him what he was doing, and he said that he was writing a letter. I asked to whom. He said he didn’t know. I suggested to him that he could send the letter to his Chinese grandparents so that they would know what he was doing. He was obviously delighted with this idea and wrote (scribbled) some more. What I ´ andre is called scaffolding6 (providing and adjusting assistance practiced with Le according to the child’s ability), a strategy that is believed to help children achieve desired goals effectively. Educators have long advised that handwriting instruction should not be attempted in preschool, but should be introduced in kindergarten very carefully. In general, I agree. However, I also believe that when young children can see the purpose of writing and can place learning in the context of their communication needs, they can be gradually scaffolded (assisted) into the process. Motivating children through interesting reading materials

By the time the children entered preschool and kindergarten, they were very used to the reading routines in their home languages and English (we had hired high school and college students to read English-language books to them, and they were read to in school daily). However, to be read to and to read on one’s own are not the same thing, even though the former helps the latter. To motivate and elicit their interest in reading early on, particularly reading in their home languages, we had to determine what kind of reading materials would engage them to read on their own. We found during this period that our children were particularly drawn to the comic books, such as Tintin, Aste´rix, Titeuf, and Le (The Three-Haired Boy series) in Chinese. These Chat in French and Sa¯n Ma´o/ comic books often contain funny illustrations and contents. The two children would read them spontaneously. Initially, the boys simply looked at the pictures, but then they wanted to find out more about them. The boys would ask us what they meant if they did not know the words. We would use the opportunity to read together with them. Some parents worry that books of this kind may not be suitable for young children. However, we found that they can provide a wealth of information about culture and language if carefully guided by parents (see Chapter 5 for more discussion). Moreover, children (both young and old) tend to like them right away. Thus, they can be used as a ‘carrot’ to attract children to read on their own. Taking advantage of media technology There is a debate as to whether television and media technology are harmful to young children. In my opinion, it all depends on the ways children watch and use the technologies. To use television and other media programs as ‘babysitters’ is obviously not an ideal thing to do because young children need interactions with their parents. However, if television and other multimedia programs, such as

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interactive CDs, are monitored and selected carefully by the parents, they can be judiciously used to stimulate children’s intellectual and language development. During our children’s home years, we did not involve our youngsters in too many media activities. We believed that our children needed to explore their environment in a more active manner and interact with us directly. However, during their transitional years from the home environment to the formal school environment, we took great advantage of media technology. In particular, we found that our children benefited greatly from children’s television programs, videos and multimedia interactive CDs. As there was no direct television broadcasting in French or Chinese specifically for children in the place we lived at the time, we bought many French and Chinese children’s videos and let our children watch them every day. Sometimes we watched these videos together with them. After each viewing we would talk about what they saw and we would emphasize certain words and related concepts. We found these to be very good occasions for vocabulary enrichment in the home languages. Many of the videos we bought in French and Chinese were related to preschool settings and naturally provided our children with a matching vocabulary in their home languages. As we didn’t speak English to our children at home, we let them watch English television programs to gain English vocabulary. We sometimes watched with them and talked in their home languages about the things we saw. We also let them play with multimedia interactive CDs7 in all three languages. Overall, we found that with our guidance and monitoring, the media technology had provided our children with enriched experiences. Frequently, we were pleasantly surprised that our boys used home-language vocabulary they had learned from the multimedia programs, which we never taught them. Monitoring the children’s English development through conversations with others Though we were confident with the children’s English, we still wanted to monitor how their English progressed in case there were any issues. As they only spoke to us in their home languages, it was hard for us to assess their English development. The best way for us to know our children’s English development at this stage was to create opportunities to listen to their English conversation with other English speakers. One strategy we used was to invite their friends to ride in our car when going somewhere, and we would eavesdrop on their English conversation. In addition, we learned a lot about the other aspects of their development by listening to them speaking to other children in English.

New Challenges and Ways to Deal with Them The temptation to speak English Perhaps many parents share the same frustration as we do when their young children do not want to talk about what happened at school when they come home.

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Some parents have complained to me that when they ask about their young children’s school day, the typical answer is either very brief or nothing. For our children, there was another obvious hindrance to their communicating with us about school: they had to use two other languages to convey their school experience. Despite the fact that we used various strategies to help them describe their school experience in the home languages, we were still not very successful in getting them to initiate any conversation about their school day. I remember that in the very beginning of their preschool school years, it was like pulling teeth to get the children to say a few words about what had happened in school. To deal with this situation, besides the strategies I described previously, we constantly initiated conversations about what they did in school. When they gave short answers, we helped them elaborate on their answers or encouraged them to say more. When they hesitated, we supplied them with home-language vocabulary. When they stopped, we asked more questions. Once in a while I did have the urge just to speak English with our boys because it took so long to get the conversation going in Chinese. However, I am glad that I was stubborn enough to resist the temptation of speaking English to them
an effort which paid off in the end. I observed that it is precisely in this kind of situation many parents unfortunately give in to the dominant language. Learning heritage languages in non-heritage cultural contexts Language and culture go hand in hand
learning a language without learning the culture associated with it is incomplete. An acquaintance who grew up speaking French in the USA once told me that he felt extremely uncomfortable when he first moved to Paris. He said that he felt as if he were speaking English when he was actually speaking French, because he used American mannerisms and styles when he spoke French. My acquaintance apparently did not master the subtle aspects of native people’s customs and nonverbal behavior, even though he seemingly spoke the language well. Learning Chinese and French in the USA posed increasing challenges for our sons. It was often impossible to replicate every cultural experience that was associated with Chinese or French. Recall that in Chapter 1 I called this kind of language-learning experience the second-hand language acquisition phenomenon. Again using the word bread as an example, it was relatively easy for our children to learn the different words used in French for this food item (such as baguette, boule, pain and ba¯o zi/ ). However, the paysan) and in Chinese (such as ma´n tou/ experience associated with bread in Chinese and European cultures needs deliberate explanation and attention for our children to absorb the culture and practice behind it. For instance, in continental Europe, a small piece of bread is often used as a ‘tool’ for eating (moving salad toward and onto the fork), whereas such behavior is regarded as improper in the USA. Also, in the Chinese culture, there are some (a kind symbolic meanings associated with steamed bread. For example, ba¯o zi/

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of steamed bread stuffed with vegetables, meat or seafood) is often served during Chinese New Year and symbolizes the wish to have more money and not to waste it.8 Without explicit explanation and attention in these areas, it would be impossible for our children to know these kinds of cultural details. Thus, to help children associate heritage-language words and expressions with their cultural meanings could help them ‘sound’ more authentic both in languages and cultures. ´ andre had quite a Traveling to Europe and China helped greatly. For example, Le good experience observing his Chinese grandmother cooking a whole fish with everything intact (head, eyes, bones and tail). The extended conversations between them about why fish should be cooked as a whole instead of cutting it in pieces ´ andre learn not only Chinese words related to fish and cooking, but also helped Le Chinese customs and beliefs. Similarly, our two children learned to use various ingredients and methods for making traditional cookies (dating back to the 17th century) by observing, participating in preparations and talking with their Swiss grandmother. Celebrating traditional heritage holidays also helped our children understand their heritage cultures and languages. For example, we began to celebrate all the important traditional holidays in our cultures, such as the Spring Festival, the Dragon Boat Festival, and the Moon Festival, Noe¨l, St. Nicolas, Epiphany and Easter. During these celebrations, we told and read stories about them, prepared the traditional holiday foods and engaged in the customs associated with them. Living in New York provided our children with many opportunities to participate in cultural activities and events. Museums and children’s theaters in New York City also gave our children many opportunities to be exposed to our heritage cultures. These experiences greatly helped our children understand their heritage cultures. Ignorance about trilingualism As noted in Chapter 1, people often have different views on trilingual children. Some have positive opinions, others negative. What was most challenging for us was encountering the ignorance on the part of teachers and child development specialists. As a case in point, recall the ‘incident’ I described in Chapter 1 about the language specialist who attempted to enroll Dominique in a special therapeutic session solely on the basis of his being trilingual and his failure to open his mouth wide enough (which was perhaps due to his being shy when speaking to a stranger). We also encountered teachers who had a limited understanding of trilingual children and their families. For example, during one parent-teacher conference, a teacher pushed an article in front of us about the importance of speaking and reading to young children, and suggested that we should read and speak only English to our child at home. Surprised by such a suggestion (I was naı¨ve to believe that in this day and age, teachers would know better), I asked whether our child was having problems in English or any other areas. The teacher gave no reason of

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that nature at all. While she was not wrong to recommend such an article to parents, she was wrong to assume that reading and speaking only English to our children was the way to ensure their later school success. Language bias Although we told people explicitly that our boys were able to speak Chinese and French as well as English, we noticed that their French was often more valued and praised than their Chinese. (This may have been partly because many people in the USA and Europe are more familiar with French than Chinese.) We often had people say to us, ‘French is really a beautiful language. I wish I could speak it’, or ‘It’s great your kids are able to speak French’, when they had been told explicitly that the ´ andre in children were able to speak Chinese as well! Once when I went to pick up Le his nursery school, one of his teachers told me excitedly that she had tried in class ´ andre that day to encourage other language use in her classroom. She had asked Le to speak French to the other children. I asked her whether she had also asked ´ andre to speak Chinese. She said ‘no’ with a puzzled expression. Le Besides the praise for being able to speak French, and the lack of attention for being able to speak Chinese, our children also encountered unfair judgment by native Chinese and French speakers (often even before the boys had opened their mouths). For instance, one summer in Switzerland, we were invited to dinner by Philippe’s friend and his family. When the friend saw our sons for the first time and asked Philippe whether they spoke French, Philippe said ‘yes’. The friend immediately commented that they must speak ‘exile’ French (meaning not authentic French), ´ andre’s though later on he was suitably impressed with the boys’ French. During Le ´ andre could speak first trip to China, some of my Chinese friends doubted whether Le ´ andre refused to talk to these people, who, after all, were Chinese at all when Le strangers to him. Sibling influence Siblings can have a big influence on each other’s language development, and ´ andre tended to have more Le´andre and Dominique are no exception. Initially, Le influence on Dominique. As time went on, Dominique also began to influence ´ andre. For example, Le ´ andre would say technique a` se battre instead of technique de Le combat (combat technique) in French. Dominique would follow his brother and make the same kind of mistake. Similarly, Dominique would say ‘woˇ me´i yoˇu no`ng ’ instead of ‘woˇ me´i yoˇu ga`n zhe` jia`n shı`/ ’ (I didn’t do zhe` ge/ ´ andre would copy him. We were vigilant regarding sibling influence. As this) and Le soon as we heard such mistakes, we immediately tried to point them out to both children. Sometimes we also asked one sibling to show the other one the correct usage in the home languages (they thought it was a game and happily ‘played along’ with us).

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Speaking home languages in the presence of others Speaking home languages in the presence of others was fine when the children were younger. As I mentioned in Chapter 3, often it would trigger interesting conversations with our guests during those years. However, we noticed that as the children became older, that practice occasionally caused other people’s discomfort
as if the children were talking about them. For example, Philippe was chatting with a neighbor and the boys went to say something to him. When they left, the neighbor asked Philippe anxiously, ‘Did they just laugh at me?’ Another time a guest was visibly hurt when she thought that Dominique did not like the book she bought for him because Dominique said something to me in Chinese (he actually asked in Chinese whether he could go upstairs to play). To avoid such misunderstandings, we learned to explain briefly to others what the children had just said. Or, we would simply tell guests that what the kids had just said had nothing to do with them. Difficulty in finding families that share the same language practice We tried very hard to find families that shared our language practice, either in Chinese or French. Frequently, we were disappointed that children from either Chinese- or French-heritage families often did not speak the languages. Occasionally, we did find families that spoke one of our home languages (French or Chinese). Yet, when we invited these children to play at our house or our children were invited to ´ andre play at theirs, they always ended up speaking English together. Even when Le and Dominique’s Chinese-speaking cousins from Florida visited, they would speak English to each other.

Highlights of Language Development from Home to School In this section, I will highlight some of the children’ language development features. The areas that I will discuss are speech sound, word, grammar, language use and language awareness. Speech sound Tones in Chinese

Linguists who studied Chinese children’s language development found that children growing up in Chinese-speaking environments rarely make mistakes in tones when acquiring Chinese,9 including those children with language learning disabilities.10 In Chapter 3, I mentioned that both Le´andre and Dominique were almost error-free in their use of the four Chinese tones during their home years. However, as soon as they had more interactive English exposure in preschool and kindergarten, the tones of their Chinese began to display some qualitative changes. Particularly, they began to show some signs of problems in pronouncing the third tone (the falling-rising tone), though not to the point of unintelligibility. They just

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sounded a little ‘foreign’ to a native ear. Interestingly, their French did not have any visible impact on their Chinese tones, but English did. Some researchers indeed suggest that Chinese tones are especially fragile for children learning Chinese in an English-speaking environment.11 Liaison in French

Dominique sometimes made mistakes in French liaisons (when the last consonant of the previous word is pronounced together with the first vowel in the next word). For instance, he tended to say ‘qui’z ont’ instead of ‘qui ont’ in sentences like ‘les gens qui ont un chien’ (people who have a dog). His mistake consisted of adding the most common mark of the plural, an ‘s’ that he sounded as if in a liaison. French-speaking children who grow up in a French-speaking ´ andre, environment sometimes make the same kind of mistakes as Dominique.12 Le however, did not have this issue. Word Word mixing

´ andre and Dominique rarely mixed English As you recall in Chapter 3, both Le words in the home languages during the home years, except in a few areas that could not be avoided (such as store or brand names and achieving communicative effects: emphasizing, expressing strong emotion, repeating and narrating). However, during the preschool and kindergarten years, as the children spent more and more time outside the home in school settings, English slowly crept into their home languages. Despite the fact that I tried to help them avoid mixing English vocabulary, both children started to insert English words into their Chinese. Though the extent of mixing was minimal, when compared with their home years, I was alarmed to see the influence of English on their Chinese (for us, this validated our early decision to delay sending our children to English school). Philippe had a more ‘strict’ attitude toward mixing when having French conversations. As a consequence, both children had significantly less English mixing when speaking French than Chinese. ´ andre and Dominique almost never mixed Chinese with French or Interestingly, Le vise versa during this period (as well as during the home years), except for a few Chinese and French euphemisms that Philippe and I had created or words that do not exist in one of the home languages. This is perhaps because the children were exposed to the one-parent-one-language environment from birth and they had already formed the habit of associating French with their father and Chinese with their mother. Discrepancy between knowing a word and using it correctly

During the transitional period, both children showed a discrepancy between what they knew about a word and how to use it. For example, in Chinese the children consistently used incorrect verbs, even though when questioned they knew instead of chua¯n yı¯ fu/ (put on exactly the right verbs such as fa`ng yı¯ fu/

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clothes), chua¯n yaˇn jı`ng/ instead of da`i yaˇn jı`ng/ (wear glasses) and na´ instead of jie¯ ge¯ge/ (pick up brother). ge¯ge/ It seemed to me that once the children had formed the habit of using the wrong words, even if they knew the correct words, they tended to continue to use the wrong ones. It is also possible that their Chinese mistakes in word choice were influenced by English. For example, the direct Chinese translation of the English word put is and the direct Chinese translation of the English verb phrase pick up is The children may have simply borrowed the English translations in Chinese expressions. Grammar French verb agreement in relative clauses

A frequent mistake made by Dominique was his way of conjugating verbs in the French relative clause. The rule is to make the agreement with the antecedent, just as in English. Because in English there are fewer changes when conjugating verbs, Dominique tended to leave the verb in one form for all the persons. For instance, he would say ‘c’est nous qui va a` la piscine’ instead of ‘c’est nous qui allons a` la piscine’ (it is we who go to the swimming pool.) Interestingly, French children who live in the French-speaking environment have also been found to make such mistakes.13 French tenses

Concerning tenses, Dominique sometimes used the conditional instead of the ´ simple. For example, ‘a` l’e´cole, j’aurais duˆ e´crire’ instead of ‘a` l’e´cole j’ai duˆ e´crire’ passe (in school I had to write). However, after Philippe corrected him, he started overcorrecting himself to such an extent that he banned the conditional from his speech altogether. Language use American colloquial style

Although both boys did remarkably well in English considering that we had delayed their English interactive input, they often lacked the typical American colloquial style (the way that Americans speak) compared with their Englishspeaking peers. For example, they never used such common expressions as ‘you guys’, ‘other kids’ and ‘it sucks’ when playing with their peers. While I observed the use of these colloquial expressions by the other children, there was not one instance ´ andre and Dominique using them in any of my recordings from this period. of Le (However, the boys began to use them in their elementary school years when they had more time to interact with their peers.) I suspect that the major reason for the lack of American English colloquialisms during this period is that their early English passive input was from us (my husband and I spoke English to each other and we didn’t use these expressions) and when they were in school, their teachers’ English tended to be more formal.

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Language awareness The children became more vocal in commenting on others’ accents and more creative in playing with languages during the transition from home to school. For ´ andre and Dominique frequently laughed at their father’s accent when example, Le he tried to use Chinese words. They made fun of him by deliberately speaking Chinese the way he did. I was also a constant laughing stock for my inability to pronounce some French words well. Below are some examples of the two children’s awareness and sensitivities to languages: Playing with language

Most interestingly, the two boys were very witty in playing with their languages. They invented many phrases that showed their advancement in language awareness. For example, they made up mixed-lingual phrases to make jokes such as fromage criminel (criminal cheese) to mean cream cheese. The wordplay is that English ‘cream’ sounds like French ‘crime’, which means the same as its English cognate (crime). ‘Cream cheese’ pronounced with a French accent led to ‘crime cheese’, which in turn gave way to fromage criminel. At another level, the joke was about the almost criminal amount of fat in cream cheese. Another example is the word violonisateur invented by Dominique to describe himself playing the violin so badly that he ‘violated’ other people (violated their ears). In this invented French word violonisateur, Dominique cleverly played with the combination of sound (violon and violent) and meaning teur or ateur (someone who does something) to come up with the word violentizer (the person who does the violence). Creativity in language use

The two children sometimes created home-language expressions when they did not know exactly how to express themselves in an authentic way. Their language creation reflected that they understood the basic rules in the respective home ´ andre (four years and one month) did not know how to languages. For example, Le ’ (I am very thirsty
literally means my say in Chinese ‘woˇ zuıˇ heˇn ga¯n/ ’ (I very much want mouth is very dry); instead he said ‘woˇ heˇn ya`o he¯/ drink). What he said is not authentic in Chinese (at least to an educated Chinese ear); nevertheless, I could understand him well and admired his ability to put words together to make sense.

Noticeable Aspects of Identity Development During the Transition from Home to School ´ andre and The transition from home to school was a real test of how Le Dominique felt about themselves as biracial and trilingual, and how they negotiated their biracialism and trilingualism in a new linguistic and social environment in which most of their peers (white and monolingual) were different from them. In this section, I will discuss some noticeable features of the two children’s sense of self and identity during the transition from home to school.

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Adjusting to the new environment with ease Research suggests that when young children spend more time at home with their parents (or primary caretaker) than in a group-care environment (such as a daycare center), and especially when caregivers are attentive, sensitive and responsive to their needs, they tend to develop secure attachments and thus adjust better to new ´ andre spent his first four years and environments.14 As noted in Chapter 3, Le Dominique his first three exclusively in the home environment under the care of both parents. The home environment not only helped them in their home language acquisition and development, but also helped in the formation of their secure attachments. They showed little struggle in mingling with others in the preschool and kindergarten environment. Both children were able to adjust quickly to the new social and linguistic environment and make friends easily. Moreover, they felt very comfortable about themselves and proud that they were trilingual and inter-racial. As we frequently discussed their biracial status early on ´ andre and Dominique often voluntarily informed in their lives, we noticed that Le their friends that they were half-Chinese and half-Swiss (in their terms Chinese and Swiss meant the race rather than the nationality) and that they spoke three languages. Donna Jackson Nakazawa, the mother of two inter-racial children, suggested in her book Does Anybody Else Look Like Me? A Parent’s Guide to Raising Multiracial Children that when parents discuss issues related to race early with interracial children, they tend to be more prepared to deal with their racial category.15 Overall, the two boys were happy in their preschool and kindergarten environment.

Attachments to heritage cultures In Chapter 3, I indicated that our sons showed signs of understanding their double heritages (Chinese and Swiss) and linguistic status (trilingual). As they entered the more intensely American cultural environment of preschool and kindergarten, their attachment to their heritage cultures seemed to become stronger. They showed pride in their Swiss and Chinese heritages. For example, when I was invited by his teacher to talk about Chinese New Year, Dominique was very happy to sit next to me and introduce me to his schoolmates, ‘This is my mom. She is Chinese. She knows Chinese New Year!’ The two children also formed special attachments to Switzerland and China. When shopping, if there was a choice between an item that was made in Switzerland or China or in other places (e.g. backpacks, ballpoint pens or chocolates), they would automatically choose the Swiss or Chinese product. It is fascinating to observe that both children showed such a strong attachment (stronger than both Philippe or myself) to their heritage cultures. Presumably, their Chinese and French functioned as an emotive tie to China and Switzerland, which they knew little and only occasionally visited.

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Different representations of self in different languages Some researchers proposed that speakers knowing more than one language may possess different representations of self that are organized around their respective ´ andre and Dominique began to show traces of different languages.16 Both Le representations when speaking their respective languages. The different representations of their selves seemed to be most visible in their arguments. For example, ´ andre and Dominique tended to show a more humorous self in their French Le arguments, such as ‘Tchoˆ, monde cruel!’ (Hi, cruel world! This is actually one of the titles in the Titeuf comic series) to complain in a joking way about something that was done to him unjustly. They liked to impart a moral touch in their Chinese arguments such as ‘Zhe` jiu` shı` we`i she´n me nıˇ bu` ne´ng zhe` ya`ng zuo`/ (that is why you cannot do this)’. They seemed to show a more linear, straightforward self in their English arguments such as ‘First . . . and then . . .’. Their three languages and the ways that they were socialized in them seemed to contribute to their different linguistic selves (Philippe is more humorous; I tend to be more scrupulous; and the school instructions are often linear).

Suggestions for Supporting Trilingual Children During the Transition from Home to School Moving from the home environment to the preschool and kindergarten environment is a challenging step for any child. Trilingual children whose home languages are different from the language used in school face even more challenges. Our experience shows that with effective strategies, parents can guide their children through the transition successfully.

Working together with teachers and childcare professionals Communicating with teachers

Teachers seem to have a special power over children. Parents can testify to the fact that children tend to go out of their way to carry out what their teachers want them to do, but not necessarily what their parents ask of them. Therefore, teachers’ attitudes toward children’s heritage languages play a crucial role in how children will feel about their home languages and cultures. Teachers are also important agents to provide support in the development of multilingual children in the classroom environment. Unfortunately, many teachers are not well-informed about multilingual issues. Thus, parents need to be proactive and communicate to the teachers about their language practices at home with their children.17 You can also encourage teachers to consider taking advantage of your children’s home and cultural experiences in their classrooms. Parents who are not able to communicate with teachers in the dominant language may choose to write a letter to the teachers or communicate with them through an interpreter. Sometimes it may take a while

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for teachers to understand your family practice and cultural beliefs. Be patient and be persistent. I do not, however, recommend direct confrontation with teachers, even though sometimes you may really feel the need for it. As in any human interaction, direct confrontation will likely result in an abrupt shutdown of communication. Such a situation will do no good for either the children or the parents. In my own experience, teachers are usually open-minded if I communicate with them in an open and honest manner. For example, during a parent-teacher conference, when one of the children’s kindergarten teachers insisted that we read and speak English to our children, I explained to her that we have been reading to our children since the very beginning of their lives in our home languages, and that we had crafted a well-thought out and deliberately considered plan for the children’s English and other language acquisition. After a while, I think the teacher was able to realize that we not only read to our children, but also that the children seemed to benefit from their multicultural and multilingual experience, and that as a result they excelled in many areas, including academics (more in Chapter 5). It is the parents’ responsibility to inform teachers about their children’s needs and to seek their support. Our experience shows that a teacher’s valuing the children’s home languages can greatly boost the children’s maintenance of their home languages. For example, Dominique’s head nursery teacher was bilingual in French and English, and she really made Dominique feel very special about his ability to speak other languages, which helped keep him on the path we wished for him. Working with childcare professionals

Another helpful agent in the development of multilingual children is the support of childcare professionals such as pediatricians. If you are able to find a childcare professional who has a multicultural or multilingual background or is at least aware of multilingual issues, they can provide additional support to your multilingual children. For example, we are fortunate that our sons’ pediatrician, who is multilingual himself, appreciates very much the trilingual experience of our two boys. Each year during their annual checkups, he makes our children feel so good about their ability to speak three languages. I can tell that the boys value the compliments from this pediatrician (an authority figure to them) more than the compliments from us. Boosting children’s self confidence in using the home languages As the children entered preschool and kindergarten, their experience was further enriched by having to rise to the challenge of describing their school experience in their home languages. Earlier in the chapter, I shared with you the strategies we found successful in helping our children express themselves in their home languages. Parents may need to remember that their role is to facilitate the children’s expressing themselves in the home languages, but not to hinder them from telling their school experience. Because children sometimes lack homelanguage vocabulary or make mistakes in the home languages, it is important

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that parents make their children feel positive about the process. In other words, parents should be supportive rather than critical about what their children say. The well-known psychologist Erik Erikson18 reminded us long ago that children’s early experience in social interaction with parents and others can influence their self and identity development. If children experience success in what they do, then they will develop confidence about their abilities. On the other hand, if they constantly experience failure, they will develop doubts about themselves. The following are a few strategies for you to consider: Free drawing can help children express themselves

When children lack home-language vocabulary to describe their school experience, you can ask them to draw what happens in school. If they don’t feel like doing it alone, you can draw together with them. In the process, you can provide the children with home-language vocabulary. The advantage of this approach is that the children won’t feel pressured. The drawings provide a context for you to understand the sequence of events that happened in school, and help the children better describe their school experience in the home languages. In our own practice, we found this method to be very effective in getting children to talk. Our own children enjoyed this kind of activity tremendously. Responding to language mixing

It is natural for trilingual children to mix their home languages with the dominant language. However, it is also important to help them avoid unnecessary mixing in order to achieve a high level of communicative competence in their home languages. Parents need to master the art of helping their children avoid mixing words cross-linguistically. At the same time, they must be careful not to discourage the children from communicating by making ‘mixing’ languages an issue. Try to consider Examples 4.1 and 4.2 to help children avoid mixing the dominant languages with the home languages. These examples may help you think about how to make the language teaching part of a natural, stress-free and enjoyable experience for both you and your children. Encouraging language experimentation

Language learning involves experimenting, and experimenting involves testing assumptions about grammatical rules and usages. Just like young monolingual English children tend to experiment with the irregular past participles by adding ‘ed’ as in ‘taked’ instead of ‘took’, trilingual children will experiment with their languages as well and perhaps have even more possibilities for experimentation with their languages. Parents need to encourage such language experimentation and use it as an opportunity for language learning instead of discouraging it. Again ´ andre’s creation ‘woˇ heˇn ya`o he¯/ ’ (I very much want drink) instead using Le ’ (I am very thirsty) as an example, he provided me with of ‘woˇ zuıˇ heˇn ga¯n/ a good opportunity to praise his creativity and at the same time to model a more authentic way of expressing his idea in Chinese.

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The benefits of reading to children in your native language Some bilingual experts believe that we express our feelings and total self through the language(s) we have a good command of (often it is the language acquired as first language) and that children can lose respect for a parent who speaks a language over which they do not have a good mastery.19 Thus, parents whose native language is not the language of their children’s school environment may consider reading to their children in the language they feel they can express themselves well in. As mentioned previously, a newly immigrant Spanish-speaking mother was called to school numerous times by her child’s teacher who told her that she must speak and read English to her child even though she (the mother) could hardly utter a word in English. It is not hard to imagine that the mother would do a much better job reading Spanish to her child rather than English. More importantly, the child would definitely benefit more from her mother’s reading in Spanish rather than English. Even if a parent has a good command of a second or third language (given the parent did not grow up in these languages), it will make a difference in the way the parent reads in the second language and the third language. This is because quality reading is more than just reading the words printed on the page. It involves what a parent can infer from the reading and the conversation during and after the reading. When I read to our children in Chinese, I am able to give them the emotional aspect that reflects years of Chinese socialization (particularly during childhood), which would be unavailable to me if I read to them in English.

Taking advantage of media technology Many parents seem to have a rather negative attitude toward media technology (such as television and multimedia games). Research indeed shows that television may have some harmful effect on very young children.20 In addition, when children are younger, they need quite a lot more direct interaction with their parents. ´ andre and Dominique who only receive homeHowever, for children like Le language input from their parents, media technology can serve as an important additional language and cultural source. Media technology can also provide opportunities for parents and children to talk and play together. I noticed that ´ andre and Dominique acquired many words and expressions in the two both Le home languages and also in English through spending time with television and interactive multimedia games. If chosen well, these media can provide children with the experience and vocabulary they need in their new school environment. Thus, during the transitional period from home to school, it may be beneficial for multilingual children to be gradually introduced to these programs, with proper parental guidance.

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Engaging inter-racial children in conversations about inter-racial self School is likely to be the place where inter-racial children first experience being singled out by their peers as different from the rest of the children. Some believe that the best strategy for dealing with the race issue is not to mention or discuss it at all (the so-called color-blind strategy). According to Jackson Nakazawa,21 this is an improper strategy. Even if parents do not talk about it, other children in school will. Many parents receive a wake-up call only after their children are hurt by nasty comments from their peers. If such a situation persists, it will affect inter-racial children’s identity development. The best way to prepare children to deal with racial issues and differences when interacting with peers in the preschool and kindergarten settings is to talk about issues surrounding race as early as possible. Nakazawa suggests that ‘promoting our children’s self-growth involves mindful attention and open communication regarding all issues in our kids’ lives
attention to their emotions, their needs, their development in all arenas’. Our experience also informs us that when parents help their children understand their racial status, children tend to like who they are. In addition, they are likely to respond better to awkward, nasty and intrusive comments from their peers.

Summary When children spend more time outside of the home environment and enter the preschool and kindergarten environment, the dominant language children use in school will gradually take over the home languages if parents are not proactive in responding to this situation. Our experience suggests that a successful balance between home languages and the school language for a child depends heavily on strategies that parents choose to use. Several key strategies have been shown to be successful in our practice to help our children maintain their home languages: . . .

. . .

. .

Matching the school experience with the home languages. Helping children describe their school experience in the home languages. Helping children form the habit of asking when lacking the home-language vocabulary or expressions. Facilitating language use that is beyond here-and-now situations. Matching school literacy skills with home-language literacy skills. Motivating children to read by selecting interesting home-language reading materials. Taking advantage of media technology. Traveling to heritage countries and engaging children in heritage cultural activities.

During the transition from home to school, the force of the school language can at times be very strong, and both children and parents may be tempted to give in to the

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school language. This is the moment when parents’ persistence is important. It is likely that once parents allow themselves to slip into using the dominant (school) language, it may be harder for them to get their children back on the track of homelanguage maintenance. Our experience suggests that as soon as children pass this first hurdle
the transition from home to school
they are one step closer to keeping their heritage languages. However, parents may also want to be cautious about insisting on using the home languages. It is helpful to remind ourselves that our ultimate goal is to help our children communicate in the home languages, but not hinder them from doing it. Our children need our warm support at every step on their journey to maintain their heritage languages. We can foster our children’s healthy identity development by helping them build self-confidence in the use of their home languages. Moreover, we may want to inform and involve the other important agents in our children’s lives, such as teachers and childcare professionals. Together, we can provide consistent support for our children. The transition from home environment to school environment is a crucial step in determining whether children will maintain the home languages or not. With strong support and effective strategies, trilingual children can thrive in the new linguistic and social environment and be prepared to enter the next academically and socially more demanding period
the elementary school years. Notes and References ´ andre and Dominique. Le ´ andre went to nursery 1. The preschool years were different for Le school at age four and Dominique at age three. 2. Verhoeven, L. and Boeschoten, H. (1986) First language acquisition in a second language submersion environment. Applied Psycholinguistics 7, 241
256. ´ andre 3. This was calculated based on an analysis of 24 hours of video-recordings of Le (one hour per month for two years) and 36 hours of Dominique (one hour per month for three years) in the preschool and kindergarten years. Dominique had longer hours because he had one more year in the preschool setting than Le´andre. 4. Ferrerio, E. and Teberosky, A. (1982) Literacy Before Schooling. Exeter, NH: Heinemann. 5. Peng, T.H. (1989) Fun with Chinese Characters. Hong Kong: Federal Publications. 6. Bruner, J. (1998) The Culture of Education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 7. For example, My Happy Day interactive CD series by the Learningground, Inc. is among the children’s favorites (http://www.learningground.com). 8. Wang, X.L. (2005) Exploring the Meaning of Chinese New Year: Some Ideas for Teachers. New Berns: Trafford. 9. Erbaugh, M.S. (1992) The acquisition of Mandarin. In D.I. Slobin (ed.) The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition (Vol. 3, pp. 373
455). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 10. Zhu, H. (2002) Phonological Development in Specific Contexts: Studies of Chinese-Speaking Children. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 11. Erbaugh, M.S. (1992) The acquisition of Mandarin. In D.I. Slobin (ed.) The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition (Vol. 3, p. 408). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 12. Comments by Jean-Marc Dewaele in the review of the final draft (March 2008). 13. Comments by Jean-Marc Dewaele in the review of the final draft (March 2008).

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14. NICHD (National Institute of Child Health and Development) Early Child Care Research Network (1997) The effects of infant childcare on infant-mother attachment security: Results of the NICHD study of early child care. Child Development 68, 860
879. 15. Nakazawa, D.J. (2003) Does Anybody Else Look Like Me? A Parent’s Guide to Raising Multiracial Children (p. 8). Cambridge, MA: Perseus. 16. Foster, R.P. (1996) The bilingual self: Duet in two voices. Psychoanalytic Dialogue 6, 99
121. Pavlenko, A. (2006) Bilingual selves. In A. Pavlenko (ed.) Bilingual Minds: Emotional Experience, Expression and Representation (pp. 1
33). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Koven, M. (2007) Selves in Two Languages: Bilinguals’ Verbal Enactments of Identity in French and Portuguese. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 17. The website http://www.ed.gov/parents/academic/help/succeed/part8.html by the United States Department of Education can help parents understand how to communicate and work with teachers. 18. Erikson, E.H. (1963) Childhood and Society (pp. 251
258). New York: W.W. Norton. 19. Arnberg, L. (1987) Raising Children Bilingually: The Preschool Years (p. 92). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 20. Christakis, D.A. and Zimmerman, J.A. (2007) Violent television viewing during preschool is associated with antisocial behavior during school age. Pediatrics 120, 993
999. 21. Nakazawa, D.J. (2003) Does Anybody Else Look Like Me? A Parent’s Guide to Raising Multiracial Children. Cambridge, MA: Perseus.

Chapter 5

The Elementary School Years1 This chapter focuses on the general strategies we used to help our children build essential home-language reading and writing skills and the effective methods we applied to respond to the overwhelming English impact on the children’s home-language maintenance and development. It also touches upon the major difficulties we faced during this period and the way we overcame them. The features of the children’s trilingual development as well as their identity development are underlined. Finally, suggestions are made on how to support children’s home-language and identity development during the elementary-school years.

Strategies for Home-Language Literacy and Maintenance If our goal for the children’s home years was to lay a solid foundation for the acquisition of their home languages, and the goal for their early school years (preschool and kindergarten) was to ensure the desired balance of their home languages and English, then our goal for the elementary school years was to help them build the essential home-language literacy skills and to continually facilitate their home-language development. Our experience confirms that using the following strategies, in addition to perseverance on the part of the parents, is effective in achieving the goal of this stage.

Building essential skills in home-language literacy In Chapters 3 and 4, I discussed strategies we used to facilitate our children’s oral home-language development and briefly touched upon the strategies we applied for their early (emergent) home-language literacy development, such as book reading and handwriting practices. This chapter focuses on systematic and purposeful guidance in developing home-language literacy skills. Edith Harding-Esch and Philip Riley gave the following reasons why it is important for children to acquire home-language reading and writing skills:2 Four reasons for developing home-language reading and writing skills .

.

Children will be able to participate in their home culture(s) and read original literature in home languages. Children will be exposed to different styles and varieties of their home languages.

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.

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Written home languages give children a tool to represent and manipulate their experiences. Reading in multiple languages makes significant contributions to their developing higher levels of cognitive functioning. Reading and writing will help children to maintain their home languages.

Few parents will doubt the necessity for their children to master home-language literacy skills. However, many of them may ask whether their children should acquire home-language literacy skills at home or in school; when is the best time for their children to begin the formal home-language literacy process; what results they can expect their children to achieve in home-language literacy; and what the effective strategies are to make it happen. Our practice may shed some light on these questions. Should children acquire home-language literacy skills at home or in school?

In contemplating whether to send our children to home-language schools or to teach them at home for their formal process of home-language literacy, we made two separate decisions for their two home languages based on our circumstances at the time. For their Chinese literacy, we decided to send the children to a weekend Chinese language school.3 Our decision rested on the following rationales: first, formal schooling in the Chinese language could help our children systematically learn many grammatical features that are necessary for building essential literacy skills. Second, the language-learning contexts of home and school are different. The school social context makes children familiar with interaction that is pedagogically motivated, in contrast with the multiplicity of goals underlying interactions at home. The school also provides systematic training that helps develop higher levels of systematic functioning associated in particular with the teaching of reading and writing, in contrast to the spontaneous, untaught acquisition of speech at home.4 Thus, our children would have a better chance of success in their Chinese reading and writing by attending a weekend Chinese language school. Third, it is usually harder to teach one’s own children well unless parents are exceptionally determined and pedagogically well-informed. For some of the same reasons, we also tried to send our children to a French language school. However, in visiting these schools, we found that a number of the local French or International schools were targeting children whose first language was English, and the French competency of both our boys was far more advanced than the children enrolled in these schools. To send our children to these schools would not serve our purposes. We also played with the idea of sending our children to a private bilingual French and English school. Nevertheless, the tuition would have posed a serious financial strain on us. Ultimately, we decided that Philippe would home-school our boys using a series of French teaching materials. In retrospect, we find that our decisions worked well for our specific situation. As the children took on other activities in their elementary years, such as music lessons

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and soccer practice, and going to the Chinese school already consumed part of their precious playtime, we could not imagine imposing additional demands on them by sending them to yet another school on weekends (a French school). When is the best time to start the formal literacy process?

Once we reached the decision to send our children to Chinese school on weekends and home-school their French, the next thing we needed to figure out was when to send them to Chinese school. We were faced with two choices. First, we could send them to Chinese school when they were in first grade so that their Chinese and English literacy skills could develop simultaneously. However, we worried that our children at age six were still adjusting to the formal learning environment in their public school (e.g. having increased amounts of daily homework). Sending them to Chinese school on weekends would add another level of challenge to their already full lives. Alternatively, we could delay sending them to Chinese school until they were ready. However, it was also tough to decide when the children would be ready, because what child would ever feel ready to go to another school on weekends. After constant ‘negotiation’ with the children, we sent Le´andre to a local Chinese language school when he turned nine (three years behind the standard age) because it took us a long time to persuade him. Le´andre was willing to give the Chinese school a try on the condition that Dominique would go also. Thus, Dominique attended the Chinese school at age seven (one year behind the standard age), which Dominique took well. We enrolled the boys in the same class to make it easier for me to monitor their progress and to make Le´andre feel that he was not the only person in our family who had to ‘work’ on weekends. Compared to a typical developmental path of reading and writing, our children (particularly Le´andre) started their formal Chinese literacy process a little late. In hindsight, however, there are several advantages to having done so. First, the basic learning skills that Le´andre and Dominique developed in their English school helped them in Chinese school. For example, the English literacy skills they acquired in school helped them to learn pı¯n yı¯n/ (the Chinese alphabetic system used to aid Chinese pronunciation). It was a ‘piece of cake’ for them to read, spell and write pı¯n yı¯n/ Second, the learning strategies the children developed in their regular English school helped them in their Chinese school. For example, in Chinese exams, Le´andre was able to use a variety of strategies. If he forgot how to write a Chinese character in dictation, he would first write down the pı¯n yı¯n/ (so he could remember the sound); he then would come back, either trying to recall the Chinese character or to search for it in the other parts of the exam. Many of his younger classmates had not yet developed this kind of learning strategy. In addition, Le´andre was able to follow teachers’ directions more readily than most of his younger classmates. Third, our two children had built positive self-efficacy (they knew they could do well) in their English school. By the time the boys were enrolled in Chinese school, it

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was clear to them that they were successful learners. Both children’s English reading and writing were above grade level (based on written reports from their teachers, the school district or New York State standardized test results, and the InView Test results for gifted children). Their success with English literacy and other subject areas gave them confidence that they were capable learners. As Dominique (seven years and eight months) bluntly put it, ‘I am smart. If I don’t know how to read or write Chinese, it’s because I did not work hard. . .’. In talking to some of the parents of the younger children in the same class, we learned that these children in their Chinese class encountered much more difficulty because they had no prior success by which to measure their own abilities. Finally, research suggests that children who are older (even by a few months) tend to perform better than younger children in the early grades.5 Moreover, research comparing older and younger children learning a second language clearly points to the advantage of older children, whose learning processes tend to be faster and more efficient than younger children.6 I believe that three factors made Le´andre and Dominique more successful than their younger classmates in the Chinese language school: they were a little older, had mastered the general learning strategies (as a result of attending English school) and had built self-confidence. What are the realistic expectations for children’s home-language literacy skills?

It is a popular belief that a child needs to read and write equally well in his or her three languages to be qualified as a ‘true’ trilingual. Ideally, this would be the best situation. However, in reality it is rare that a trilingual child achieves equal abilities in all aspects of all three languages. As noted in Chapter 1, a trilingual child’s different language systems and the different experiences associated with them will lead to different levels of triliteracy success. Even though our children attended Chinese school each weekend and their father diligently tried to help them with their French literacy, their home-language literacy skills would not reach, let alone surpass their English, as they kept going to school in an English-speaking environment. Thus, we had to set up a realistic and reachable goal as to the level we could expect our children to achieve in their home-language literacy. Knowing that in their elementary school years, our children’s home-language literacy skills would not reach the same level as their English literacy, we decided that our goal in their home-language literacy should concentrate on essential skill building; hopefully those skills would facilitate their home-language literacy success when opportunities might arise in the future (e.g. studying or living in the heritage countries or choosing the home languages as a subject area of study). Our hope, therefore, was to provide tools for their home-language literacy. This means that they might not be able to read the home languages as fluently as they do English, and they might not able to write as well in their home languages as they do in English. However, they

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would know how to use resources (such as dictionaries) to help them read and write in the home languages. Effective strategies for building home-language reading skills

Research suggests that children learn many more words through reading during the school year than they would through conversation, particularly as most of their conversation takes place with children of the same age who have roughly the same vocabulary.7 Even children who read relatively little, and only during the school year, will read about half a million words a year and be exposed to about 10,000 words a year that they do not know. Some researchers claim that the only way to explain how adults can acquire a very large vocabulary
over 100,000 words
is through reading.8 Therefore, the most effective way to help children acquire large vocabularies in their home languages is to have them read, to read to them, and to read together with them. In our practice, we found the following strategies particularly useful in helping our children acquire home-language reading skills during the elementary school years. Reading the same books in different languages. Over the elementary school years, our children had many favorite English books. The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling was among them. For example, Le´andre finished the fifth Harry Potter book in less than two days. The children’s craze for the series provided us with a good opportunity to introduce the Chinese and French versions to them, first by reading to them, then reading together with them and finally encouraging them to read some of the translations on their own. Because the children were so interested in Harry Potter, it was no struggle for them to try the home-language versions. In fact, the boys voluntarily looked at the French and Chinese versions and compared their favorite parts with the English version. The advantage of reading the same books in different languages is that the children had the opportunity to acquire three different sets of the same vocabulary and expressions. Moreover, the translated versions (no matter in which language) were often done by people who have above-average (or higher) levels of mastery of the languages, from which the children definitely benefited (though some people believe the translated versions are never better than the original versions; I refer more to the use of language). Furthermore, as the children read the books in English first, that served as a crutch to help them understand the same contents in their home languages even though they might not have known every word. Providing incentives for home-language reading through children’s interests. Compared with speaking, reading home languages was not always an easy task for our children. In the beginning, they felt it was like doing chores, so we had to think about some strategies to ‘lure’ them to reading. We found that our boys were more motivated to read the home languages when the readings were relevant to their interests. For example, for a period, both boys were interested in Yu-Gi-Oh and Poke´mon playing cards. They would spend hours collecting, sorting and researching them. I seized this opportunity to have them read Chinese by offering to buy the

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cards in Chinese. Because the children were so interested in these cards, they began to read them on their own and constantly asked me about the words they did not know. I noticed one day that Le´andre (eight years and five months) was showing off to his friend Henrik that he could read the kanji (Japanese use of Chinese characters) on the cards they were playing. We also took advantage of the children’s desires to get things they really wanted by leaving them notes written in the home languages. Below is an example of how Philippe encouraged the boys to read French so that they could get what they wanted (e.g. action toys). Example 5.1 Le´andre (eight years and one month) and Dominique (six years and two months). One day when the boys came home from school, they got a note from Philippe. Le´andre et Dominique, quand vous aurez fini vos devoirs, regardez dans la the´ie`re sur la table basse au salon. Vous y trouverez un message. (Le´andre and Dominique: after you finish your homework today, look inside the teapot on the Chinese table in the living room. There you will find a message.) Allez au premier. Dans ma chambre, ouvrez le pied droit de mon bureau. Sur la premie`re tablette, vous trouverez un second message. (Go to the second floor. In my room, open the cabinet on the right side of my desk. On the top, you will find another message.) Demandez a` votre me`re de vous donner quelque chose que vous aimerez. (Ask your mother to give you something interesting.)

Holiday activities were another hook to make our children read their home languages. Halloween, for example, was a big event for both children. Every year they would make plans for this event, such as what costumes to wear to their school’s parade, months in advance. We knew that we could take advantage of their eagerness by getting them to read in the home languages. During their Halloween preparation period (which usually started at the end of August), Philippe would find all reading materials possible in French to ‘coax’ them into reading (the products for the Canadian market were always a good choice because they were in both French and English). For instance, one year I bought Dominique a Halloween mask and costume, and on the package there were French instructions for planning a Halloween party. Philippe told Le´andre that there was something very interesting written on the package and it would give him some good ideas for Halloween. The following is the interaction between Philippe and Le´andre (eight years and three months):

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Example 5.2 Father: Le´andre:

Father : Le´andre: Father :

Le´andre:

Father: Le´andre: Father:

Lis c¸a! (Read what’s on the package.) [Starts to read] Con-seils, Con-seils [tries to read the word] pour les feˆtes d’Halloween (Halloween Party Tips) Conseils pour les feˆtes d’Halloween [Helps pronounce the word conseils.] Conseils pour les feˆtes d’Halloween Bien, conseils. (Good, conseils.) Continue. (Continue.) CHOISIS UN THE`ME: Cre´e ta propre ambiance de feˆte! Laisse libre cours a` ton imagination et transforme ta maison en chapiteau de cirque, en surboum de monstres, en cimetie`re surnaturel, en film historique ou en chaˆteau de vampire. Tout est possible! (PICK A THEME: create your own unique party atmosphere! Let your imagination run free as you transform your house into a Big Top Circus Tent, a Monster Bash, an Eerie Graveyard, a Historic Movie Set or a Vampire’s Castle. The possibilities are endless!) Tu sais ce que c¸a veut dire ‘Laisse libre cours a` ton imagination?’ (Do you know what is ‘Laisse libre cours a` ton imagination?’) Tu peux faire tout ce que tu imagines. (You can do what you can think of) Bien. (Good.) Continue! (Continue!) INVITE TES AMIS: Harmonise le style de tes invitations avec le the`me de ta feˆte. Choisis des cartes de´ja` imprime´es dans un magasin ou fabrique-les toi-meˆme. Essaie de faire un clown ou une chauve-souris en papier, un loup sur lequel figurent tous les de´tails de la feˆte ou livre en personne ton invitation cache´e dans une citrouille en plastique. Invite tes amis au moins deux semaines a` l’avance. [INVITE YOUR FRIENDS: coordinate the style of your invitations to the theme of your party. Select from preprinted styles available at your local store or make your own. Try a construction paper clown or bat, an eyemask with party details attached to a special message

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concealed in a hand-delivered plastic pumpkin. Invite your friends at least two weeks before your party.] Father: Bravo! Tu lis bien. Vas-y, ouvre le paquet et regarde ce qu’il y a dedans. (Great! You read well. Go ahead and open the package and look at the thing you want.)

We noticed that when our children were motivated, they not only complied with our demand to read the home languages, but they also read on their own. For example, Dominique became a soccer fan in third grade. He was often impatient while waiting for Philippe to download the soccer news from Europe for him, so he took the matter into his own hands by going online himself to read the latest European soccer news. It was amazing to see him read so well in French about the things that he was interested in. Who could have imagined this level of reading fluency from a boy acquiring French in a home environment. Encouraging home-language reading through opportune moments. We also noticed that the children tended to be more motivated to read if we seized the right moments in their lives. For instance, in a bookstore Le´andre found a book entitled The Tiger’s Apprentice by Laurence Yep,9 in which the author described a monkey character ’ (The Journey to the West).10 borrowed from the Chinese classic ‘Xı¯ Yo´u Jı`/ Le´andre was fascinated with the monkey’s magic stick, which could play 72 tricks. I seized the opportunity and directed him to learn more by reading the original story ’11 and about the monkey in the Chinese children’s version of ‘Xı¯ Yo´u Jı`/ 12 watching the Chinese DVD that his Chinese grandparents had given him on his birthday. This was a good enough incentive for Le´andre to read Chinese over the next few weeks. Similarly, during a visit to an antique furniture store in New York’s Chinatown, I ). On the way back, bought a table made in the Qı¯ng Dynasty (Qı¯ng Cha´o/ Dominique (eight years and three months) asked me to tell him the names of the first and last Chinese dynasties because he had read in the book Days of the Dragon King (one of the Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne)13 about the first emperor ). I told him that the names of the two dynasties in the Qı´n Dynasty (Qı´n Cha´o/ , sounded similar, but the first Chinese dynasty was pronounced as Qı´n Cha´o/ . I suggested that if he was interested the last one was pronounced as Qı¯ng Cha´o/ in the Chinese dynasties, he could find Chinese children’s books about them on his bookshelves. As I predicted (because he was interested), Dominique started to flip ). He also looked through the Chinese books on the Qin Dynasty (Qı´n Cha´o/ through the Chinese DVDs and watched the Chinese version of Mulan
an animated ) movie based on a story that took place during the Qin Dynasty (Qı´n Cha´o/ when the first Qı´n/ emperor forced people to build the Great Wall. We found that seizing the right moment and opportunity to encourage our children to read is quite useful in their home-language literacy skill development.

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Effective strategies for building home-language writing skills

If reading the home languages was difficult for Le´andre and Dominique, then writing them was even more challenging for them. In the process of helping them master the home-language writing, we fumbled our way through their elementary school years, and in the end we found the following strategies that worked well. Helping children discover the power of writing. Sharon Edward and co-authors in their book Ways of Writing with Young Kids: Teaching Creativity and Conventions Unconventionally made an insightful comment on how writing can empower children, and how adults, including parents, can facilitate acquisition of writing skills by children: ‘Through writing, children discover the astonishing power and vast fascination of their thoughts. They learn that language is an always-at-hand tool to critical thinking, problem solving, and information communicating. Writing facilitates children’s belief that they are bright, thoughtful individuals with important things to say using written language. But, building an abiding sense of oneself as a writer is not easy for children to achieve by themselves. They need and immensely benefit from adults who can assist them in unlocking the potentials of written communication’.14 In their elementary school years, we steadily helped our children discover the power of writing in home languages through a variety of ways. We encouraged them to put thoughts and emotions into words as often as they could. For example, one day Dominique (eight years and two months) was angry with me because I asked him to practice piano when he wanted to watch his favorite television program. I told him that he could express his feelings to me by writing them down (in Chinese). As he was so upset, he took my suggestion with no hesitation. He began to write (with a lot of mistakes) and discovered in the end that it was a better way to communicate with me as it was without any direct confrontation. Though his note was in fractured Chinese and full of mistakes, I did get the gist of it. Dominique apparently felt empowered because he had another way (through writing) to express himself effectively in Chinese. I used the opportunity to talk to him and helped him rewrite the note. Examples like this one created excellent opportunities for the children to understand the power of written words while at the same time deepening the communication between parents and the children. Learning writing for a purpose. Writing for specific purposes is the key to keeping children interested. The children were often asked by their Chinese teachers to copy Chinese words or phrases many times in their notebooks, as Le´andre and Dominique put it, ‘We don’t know why we write!’ To keep the children interested, I began to encourage them to connect the Chinese words and phrases they were asked to write to the activities in their lives. For example, one week they were (participate in) ten times in asked by their teacher to write the phrase ca¯n jia¯/ their exercise book. I changed the task by asking the children to write the phrase ca¯n jia¯/ in context. They could write what activities they recently participated in and whether they enjoyed them, etc. After a while, the originally ‘boring’ task

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became enjoyable and ended with Le´andre and Dominique competing to see who could write the best sentences on ca¯n jia¯/ We found that e-mails and other multimedia devices, such as the Nintendo DS and Wii, are also good incentives for our children to write for a purpose; they could, for example, write instant messages to each other or to their friends. From the third grade on, we started to send e-mail messages to the children in the home languages to inform the boys about something that they were interested in. When the children saw the message, ‘You have mail’, they were always eager to open them and felt obligated to write back. Although their messages were often ‘imperfect’ and had many mistakes, they gave us a chance to help them write in home languages. Little by little, we could see they were making progress. Using explicit grammar instruction to assist writing. Children’s spoken language acquisition often occurs in everyday spontaneous interactions with parents. Although spontaneous writing helps children develop their writing skills, at some point, explicit grammar instruction is important for them to become competent writers. For children who are developing home-language writing skills, explicit grammar instruction may prove crucial. Research indicates that explicit grammar instruction can help a first or second language learner acquire the language effectively.15 During the elementary school years, children have developed abilities to understand rules in general,16 therefore this is perhaps an ideal time to introduce grammatical rules as well, as long as they are introduced with concrete examples. Our experience shows that explicit grammar instruction in French and Chinese was very effective in helping our children’s home-language writing. For example, the explicit French conjugations helped the boys to write French with fewer mistakes. Similarly, explicit Chinese grammar instruction helped our children write better Chinese (such as correctly using adverbs and measuring words). Teaching culture and language conventions Besides helping our children build the foundational skills in home-language reading and writing during their elementary school years, we also focused on helping them build the cultural and linguistic skills necessary for their homelanguage success. Conventional cultural gestures

There are some culturally specific conventional gestures or emblems that are unique to a group of people in a culture, which often distinguish one group from another. To help our children become culturally and linguistically competent in French and Chinese, we made efforts to introduce them to some of the most commonly used conventional gestures in our heritage cultures. Both Philippe and I began to demonstrate conventional gestures in Frenchspeaking cultures and Chinese culture whenever we could. The following is an example:

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Example 5.3 Dominique (seven years and seven months) Dominique:

Ge¯ge¯ bu´ geˇi woˇ wa´n ta¯ de kaˇ pia`n8

Le´andre:

(Brother didn’t let me play with his cards.) Shı` waˇ de8

Mother:

(They are mine.) Ge¯ge¯ ya`o ra`ng dı`di. (Older brother should share with younger brother.) Nıˇ zhı¯ da`o yo`ng she´n me ya`ng de shoˇu shı` la´i biaˇo da´ zhe` zhoˇng xı´ng we´i ma?

Dominique:

(Do you know what kind of gesture Chinese would use to describe this behavior?) Bu` zhı¯ da`o8

Mother:

(Don’t know.) [Moves right index finger up and down her nose] Gua¯ bı´ zi8

Dominique:

(Shameful.) [Starts to use the gesture to Le´andre.]

This kind of explicit demonstration helped our boys recognize the gestures and also use them spontaneously in their home-language conversations. With the use of the conventional gestures in their respective home languages, Le´andre and Dominique sounded and looked more and more ‘native-like’. Cultural customs

Some cultural customs are deeply rooted in people’s everyday interactions. A violation of these customs often annoys natives. However, children learning their heritage languages abroad are often ignorant of certain cultural customs that people must follow in communication. We tried diligently to introduce these customs to our children whenever we had the opportunity. For example, in Switzerland (including the French-speaking part of Switzerland), people greet each other by kissing on the cheeks three times (one kiss on one side of the cheek, another on the other side, and the third on the first side). I often can tell either at the Geneva or Zurich airports whether people are native Swiss or not by observing the way they

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greet each other. The non-native Swiss often seem to forget to give the third kiss, or are surprised when they receive it. Cultural customs may also include certain ways of saying things. For example, there are different ways of expressing an apology when one has to leave the dinner table. In the USA, one may simply say something like, ‘Excuse me, I have to leave. Enjoy the rest of your dinner’, whereas, in Chinese culture, one often says things ’ or ‘ma`n ma`n yo`ng/ ’ (literally translated as ‘eat like, ‘ma`n ma`n chı¯/ slowly’). In addition, the way of addressing people based on their status, age or gender is also different from culture to culture. Without knowing the rules, one might sometimes sound rude. For example, in the USA, people are usually casual. Sometimes, people address each other by their first names when they first meet. Being overly formal signals distance. However, in China and some parts of Europe, it is almost taboo for people to address each other by their first names without certain explicit agreement. As mentioned in the last chapter, in French you are not supposed to call an adult person ‘tu’ before you know the person well. You should always use ‘vous’. In some French-speaking cultures, it is usually regarded as more polite to greet someone with Bonjour Madame/Monsieur rather than just Bonjour. In China, children should never address their parents or adults by their first names. Communication rules like this are very difficult for Le´andre and Dominique without our deliberate instruction and demonstration. The following is an example. Example 5.4 Dominique (eight years and three months) Dominique: Father: Mother:

Xiao-lei a dit c¸a. (Xiao-lei said so.) Xiao-lei a dit quoi? (Xiao-lei said what?) Nı` keˇ, nıˇ bu´ ya`o jia`o ma¯ ma de mı´ng zi. Nıˇ bu` ne´ng jia`o bıˇ nıˇ da` de re´n de mı´ng zi. Za`i zho¯ng guo´ nıˇ ya`o jia`o ta¯ men ma¯ ma, a¯ yı´, shu¯ shu8 , , (Dominique, you cannot call me, your mother, by my first name. In China, you are supposed to call people who are older as mother, aunt or uncle.)

We tried a variety of activities on different occasions, such as playing games or creating a setting that is typical, to give the children opportunities to understand the cultural rules. For example:

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Example 5.5 Dominique (six years and ten months)

Dominique:

Ru´ guoˇ yoˇu yı´ ge` zho¯ng guo´ ke` re´n da`o woˇ me´n jia¯ la´i, nıˇ ka¯i me´n de shı´ ho`u zeˇn me shuo¯? , (If a Chinese guest comes to visit, what would you say when you open the door?) Nıˇ haˇo!

Mother:

(Hello.) Hua¯n yı´ng nıˇ da`o woˇ jia¯ la´i8

Dominique:

(Welcome to my house.) Nıˇ haˇo!

Mother:

(Hello.) Ra´n ho`u nıˇ shuo¯ she´n me?

Dominique:

(What do you say then?) Jı`n la´i8

Mother:

(Come in.) Qıˇng jı`n la´i8

Dominique:

(Please come in.) Qıˇng jı`n la´i8

Mother:

(Please come in.) Ke` re´n jı`n la´i le yıˇ ho`u nıˇ shuo¯ she´n me?

Dominique:

(What do you say after the guest come in?) [Hesitating] Woˇ men wa´n8

Mother:

Mother:

(Let’s play.) Nıˇ xia¯n ya`o we`n ke` re´n xiaˇng he¯ huo` zheˇ shı` xiaˇng chı¯ she´n me. Zhe` ya`ng bıˇ jia`o ke` qi8

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Mother:

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(Before you say that, you may want to ask the guest whether they want something to drink or eat to show your hospitality.) Nıˇ he¯ she´n me? (What do you want to drink?) Nıˇ yeˇ ke´ yıˇ shuo¯: ‘He¯ cha´ ha´i shı` he¯ guoˇ zhı¯?’ :‘ ’ (Or you can say, ‘Would you like tea or juice?’)

We were gratified to see that this kind of deliberate cultural instruction has helped our children become more aware of their cultural ‘demeanors’ when using their heritage languages. Foul language exposure

Foul words and expressions can often cause offence. As annoying and embarrassing as they can be, they are an integral part of any language. Though ‘decent’ people try not to use them and parents try hard to shelter their children from them, they are present and alive. Ask someone who learns a foreign language or visits a foreign country
expletives may be among the first they remember. Even in literary works by Shakespeare and other celebrated writers, foul language is frequently present. Perhaps there is an element of truth in the comment made by Natalie Angier when she wrote: ‘Chaucer’s ‘‘Canterbury Tales’’ were unabashedly bawdy and profane. That may be why students can still be persuaded to read them’.17 Her comment speaks to the power of foul language in human communication and human psychology. It is hard to claim that a person is linguistically competent when they do not understand the common foul words and expressions in a language (though, of course, the person can choose not to use them in their communication). For children who live in a French- and Chinese-speaking environment where foul language and expressions are used (e.g. in the street, in movies and among peers), it is not difficult to understand these words and expressions. Similarly, as my kids live in an Englishspeaking environment, they learn many English foul words and expressions from their peers in school (particularly in the playground and on the school bus). They ’ today. They often come back and whisper to me that they heard so and so say ‘ also know well that they are not supposed to use these words in certain settings. However, because our children are learning their heritage languages abroad and do not have many opportunities to hear them in their environment, we believe that knowing foul words and expressions are a necessary part of home-language teaching. Our practice may be controversial for many parents. However, we think that the elementary years are better years for us to begin explaining to our children the foul words and expressions in their heritage languages for the following three reasons. First, in the elementary school years, foul words and expressions are frequently used on the school bus, during class recess and in the school playground when

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children are not closely supervised by their teachers. Thus, it is not too surprising for us to point out that such words and expressions also exist in their home languages. Second, during the elementary school years, children become more sophisticated in knowing which words and expressions are proper in what circumstance, and which are not. For example, our children tried to keep the foul words they picked up in school to themselves and chuckled over them, but did not use them in front of us, or with guests or with their teachers. We waited until the elementary years to talk about foul words and expressions in their home languages because when children are too young, they may not have the cognitive ability to fully understand the meaning of foul words and expressions and may not know when and where (not) to use them. As linguist John McWhorter in his book The Power of Babel noted, ‘. . .young children will memorize the illicit inventory long before they can grasp its sense’.18 Third, many studies have indicated that foul language can play a role in releasing anxiety and stress. They can actually reduce the possibility of physical violence.19 Finally and most importantly, as foul words and expressions are an integral part of any language, parents may want to take the opportunity to discuss language use and cultural differences. The following example illustrates how parents can help their children understand the function of language through foul words and expressions. Example 5.6 Le´andre (eight years and one month) and Dominique (six years and two months) were doing their homework in the kitchen. Dominique: Mother:

[Suddenly laughed loudly.] Yoˇu she´n me haˇo xia`o de?

Mother:

(What’s so funny?) Jı¯n tia¯n yoˇu yı´ ge` re´n za`i woˇ de ba¯n sha`ng shuo¯ ‘shit’8 ‘shit’8 (Today, a person in my class said ‘shit’.) Nıˇ zhı¯ da`o ta¯ we`i she´n me yo`ng na` ge` zı`?

Dominique:

(Do you know why he used that word?) Ta¯ de qia¯n bıˇ dia`o za`i dı` sha`ng8

Dominique:

Mother:

(He dropped his pencil on the floor.) Ta¯ baˇ bıˇ dia`o za`i dı` sha`ng, ta¯ keˇ ne´ng bu` ga¯o xı`ng, suo´ yıˇ ta¯ jiu` yo`ng zhe` ge zı` la´i biaˇo da´ ta¯ de qı´ng xu`8 , ,

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Dominique:

Mother:

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(He was not happy to drop his pencil. That may be why he used this word to express his mood.) Ta¯ heˇn cu¯ luˇ. (He is vulgar.) Nıˇ shuo¯ de heˇn duı`. Ta¯ bu` yı¯ng ga¯i za`i go¯ng go`ng chaˇng he´ yo`ng zhe` ge zı`8 (You are absolutely right. He should not have used that word in public.) Nıˇ zhı¯ da`o zhe` ge zı` zho¯ng we´n zeˇn me shuo¯ ma?

Dominique:

(Do you know the Chinese equivalent of this word?) Bu` zhı¯ da`o8

Le´andre:

(Don’t know.) Woˇ yeˇ bu` zhı¯ da`o8

Mother:

(I don’t know either.) Ta¯ ma¯ de!

Le´andre:

(Shit!) Ta¯ de ma¯ma?

Mother:

(His mother?) Duı`, zhe` tı¯ng qıˇ la´i xia`ng shı` ‘ta¯ de ma¯ma’, keˇ shı` zhe` shı` ma` re´n de hua`. Zhe` heˇn bu` go¯ng pı´ng, zuˇ zho`u de shı´ hou ma¯ ma zoˇng shı` a´i ma`. Zhe` jiu` shı` we`i she´n me bu´ ya`o yo`ng zhe` zhoˇng za¯ng hua`8 , ‘ ’, , , (You’re right. It sounds like ‘his mother’, but it a swearing phrase. It is not fair, isn’t it? Mothers are always cursed. That is why one should avoid using such a foul expression.)

In this exchange, we can see clearly that the two children have a clear understanding that the classmate should not have used the word in school (in public). However, Dominique found the word funny. I used this opportunity to introduce a Chinese equivalent. At the same time, I pointed out the unfair elements in this Chinese expression. I do not think that I contaminated my children with a

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vulgar Chinese expression. On the contrary, I believe that if my two kids did not know this commonly used expression and one day heard it from people on the street in China, they might be puzzled and think that these people are calling their mothers! Philippe kept explaining and pointing out French foul language used in books and movies, and explained to the children what these word and phrases meant. He, once in a while, threw in a few commonly used French ‘foul’ expressions, such as merde, in his own speech. He also modeled for the children how to use milder forms of merde, such as mince, zut and fluˆte. Dominique (nine years and ten months) was found checking the French foul words and expressions in a French dictionary and studying them. Teaching idioms in home languages

For children like Le´andre and Dominique who are growing up learning their heritage languages abroad, the idioms in the heritage languages are difficult to master without deliberate attention. Thus, we have to provide every possibility for using idioms. One day I made sushi for dinner. Philippe was out teaching that night, so just three of us were having dinner. After consuming two plates of sushi, Le´andre (seven years and three months) said that he was full and did not want any more tuna fish sushi. I said to him: ‘Bu´ ya`o jıˇn, ba`ba huı´ la´i de shı´ hou ka`n da`o zhe` ge sho`u sı¯ huı` ga¯o , (‘Don’t worry; Father will xı`ng sıˇ le/ be extremely happy to see the tuna fish sushi when he is back’. The literal translation would be ‘father will drop dead when he sees the sushi’.) Le´andre was astonished ’ and said, ‘She´n me? Ba`ba ka`n da`o zhe` ge sho`u sı¯ huı` sıˇ le/ (‘What? Father will drop dead when he sees the sushi?’). Apparently, Le´andre had no clue about this Chinese idiom. I seized the opportunity to give him an ‘on-the-spot’ (dead) to express extremes such as ga¯o lesson in how Chinese tend to use sıˇ le/ (happy to death
extremely happy) and e` sıˇ le/ (hungry to xı`ng sıˇ le/ death
too hungry). The boys found these expressions funny and they both started to use them in their conversations. Philippe also tried hard to use as many French idioms as possible with the children. He frequently checked whether they understood the idioms while watching French movies and French news with them, and he also played a game in which he told the beginning of an idiom and asked the boys to guess the ending. Monitoring home-language use by both parents As the children grew older, Philippe and I both spent less time with them. Thus, it became necessary for us to serve as the ‘language police’ for each other and to remind the children to ‘stick to’ heritage languages if they started to use English. In other words, even though I don’t speak French to our children, I helped Philippe monitor the children’s French use. For instance, on the way back from school one day, Le´andre (nine years and two months) and Dominique (seven years and three months) were gossiping in French about the sister of one of Le´andre’s classmates. Le´andre told Dominique that his classmate had a big, fat sister. When detecting that he used some English words in speaking French, I reminded Le´andre that he could use the French

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words. I found that even when one parent does not speak the other parent’s language, they can play the role of reinforcer for the other parent’s home language.

Challenging Issues in Elementary School Years and Ways to Deal with Them If I had to rate the degrees of difficulty in Le´andre and Dominique’s trilingual development from birth to the end of their elementary years, the elementary school period was the most challenging. As our children grew older and had more contact with the predominantly English-speaking world, their home languages became increasingly threatened. The joy and excitement we once felt with every small step of their home-language achievement were gradually replaced by frustration. Worst of all, many home-language activities the boys used to enjoy slowly became chores or struggles. This section will focus on several unique challenges we faced in the period and how we responded to them. What languages to use when helping children with their homework? Up until the first grade, every aspect of conversations between our children and us was carried out in our home languages. However, we found that it became increasingly difficult to express some terms in home languages when we helped them with their homework. In the beginning, I tried to use Chinese as much as possible when discussing their homework, even at the risk of disrupting the flow of communication (because I had to check the Chinese dictionary). Ultimately, I found that I could no longer determine the Chinese equivalent for our children each and every time, and began to use English terms occasionally. Many parents who have the experience of raising children with more than one language shared this sentiment.20 To respond to the inevitability of inserting some English terms into our Chinese in communicating with the children during their homework, I did the following: I allowed myself and the children to use them. However, when there was a chance of finding the equivalent in Chinese, I would use Chinese rather than English. I noticed that if I read the children’s school textbooks or their homework before I interacted with them, I had a better chance of understanding the context and could think about how to express the ideas in Chinese. For example, when I first came across the term Charles’s Law in Le´andre’s science textbook, I could not find a Chinese equivalent (thus, I had to use the English term). However, after I made an effort to read about it, I was able to find the Chinese equivalent re` zha`ng leˇng suo¯/ (gases expand when they are heated and they contract when they are cooled). But, I have to admit that the process was quite challenging, and it does require much discipline on the part of parents. Philippe, on the other hand, tried to use French almost exclusively in interacting with the children doing their homework. His ‘insistence’ on using French was perhaps due to his own upbringing as a simultaneous bilingual and his mother’s

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example. He always had dictionaries and reference books around him when he did homework with the children. I often saw him checking while talking to the children. Under his influence, the two children started to practice the same when they did not know a French phrase or word. As a result, Philippe was successful in getting the children to express themselves in French during their homework interactions. Based on our own experience, there were two practices: one which prescribed almost French-only in homework interactions and one that allowed the use of English terms if necessary. These two practices resulted in two different kinds of home-language competences. My suggestion is that if a parent is able to use the home language to interact with children in their academic and school-related activities (such as Philippe did), then that is excellent. On the other hand, if parents have to borrow the children’s school language terms to interact with their children in academic and school-related activities due to linguistic constraints or lack of familiarity with the subject areas, that is also fine, as long as the general communication is carried out in home languages. In the case of our Chinese, the general communication pattern had been established, that is, we carry out our communication in Chinese; strategic use of English will not jeopardize the children’s Chinese language development. In addition, I believe that the early years in elementary school are years of building intellectual ability, thus, the purpose of academic-related interaction should be focused more on the understanding part, rather than the purely linguistic part. Fending off different bias Literature and media bias

As our children began to read more books and watch more movies in their heritage languages, certain cultural biases began to influence them. For example, the French comic series Tintin contains negative or stereotypical descriptions and images about Chinese, Africans and Native Americans. Sometimes, the children revealed or acted out these negative images. For example, when Dominique described Chinese, he would imitate the character he read in Tintin and would often make fun of them. I believe that it is harmful for multilingual children to mock their own heritage cultures and people without understanding the underlying meanings of derogatory jokes, images and bias. My view is in line with critical literacy practice,21 which involves an active, challenging approach to reading and textual practices. Critical literacy encourages the analysis and critique of the relationships among texts, language, power, social groups and social practices. It shows us ways of looking at written, visual, spoken, multimedia and performance texts to question and challenge the attitudes, values and beliefs that lie beneath the surface.22 I began to spend time discussing with the children what they read and watched, and carefully pointed out to them that certain literature, cartoons and movies had limited historical perspectives and were produced by people who had little understanding about

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other cultures. For example, Herge´, the author of Tintin, had never set foot in China, and any information he had about China was given to him by a young Chinese sculpture student and through researching archived materials. I discussed with the children that from a literary, artistic and historical context, Herge´ deserved merit, and that he tried to be accurate about other cultures; yet one has to be careful in interpreting the message and images he presented in Tintin, for example about Chinese, Africans and Native Americans. Through such meaningful conversations, our children not only benefited from the humor and charming language and image of these books, but also developed critical abilities about literature and media biases. Judging a culture through isolated events

Although the children had no issues with speaking the Chinese language (after all, it is their mother tongue), they began to show some negative attitudes toward the Chinese culture. For example, on his second trip back from China, one of my colleagues asked Le´andre what he thought about China. The first thing Le´andre said was, ‘It’s dirty!’ I was mortified by his comment. I thought to myself, ‘It is the only thing he can think of China. How about the Great Wall, how about the terra cotta soldiers, how about the many wonderful places he visited . . .?’ I also understand that a child often dwells on one specific area in thinking and cannot see matters from a global perspective. This incident made me realize that even though comments like this from a multilingual and biracial child are innocent (even truthful
some parts of China may not be as clean as Switzerland), it is important to discuss them. If left alone, in the long run, this kind of bias would negatively impact their cultural identity development. Children need to realize that one aspect of a culture or a country or a people cannot replace the other aspects of them. In discussion with the children, I realized that some of their cultural biases were actually influenced by me. For example, when examining my own behaviors (through videotapes), I realized that I sometimes made negative comments about my own culture. Even though I criticized my culture, I still valued it
but my comments had inadvertently influenced our children in their way of looking at China. I began to pay attention to my own comments. I also tried to help them separate one negative event or person from the culture or the country as a whole, as shown below. Example 5.7 Dominique (seven years and one month) Dominique:

Mother:

Woˇ bu` xıˇ huan zho¯ng guo´ re´n8 (I don’t like Chinese.) We`i she´n me? Ma¯ma yeˇ shı` zho¯ng guo´ re´n, nıˇ bu` xıˇ huan ma¯ma? , (Why? I am also Chinese. You don’t like me?)

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Dominique:

Mother:

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Zho¯ng guo´ re´n sha`ng dı` tieˇ de shı´ hou qiaˇng zuo` we`i8 (Chinese always fight to get on the subway.) Nıˇ shı` shuo¯ yoˇu xie¯ zho¯ng guo´ re´n, keˇ shı` bu` shı` suo´ yoˇu de zho¯ng guo´ re´n8 , (You mean some Chinese. Not all Chinese.) Sha`ng cı` nıˇ za`i ruı` shı` de shı´ hou, yoˇu liaˇng ge` re´n quˇ xia`o nıˇ chua¯n de tıˇ xu` sha¯n. Nıˇ ne´ng shuo¯ nıˇ bu` xıˇ huan suo´ yoˇu de ruı` shı` re´n ma? Ha´i shı` nıˇ bu` xıˇ huan na` liaˇng ge` ruı` shı` re´n? , (When you were in Switzerland last time, two guys laughed at your t-shirt. Can you say you don’t like all the Swiss or you just don’t like those two Swiss?)

I believe that conversations like this can help children separate isolated incidents about a culture from the general judgment on the culture. I believe that for multilingual and multicultural children, discussion of this nature is important for their healthy identity development. Racial bias

The public school district my children attended was predominantly white, and our children sometimes blindly believed that they were part of that. They sometimes participated in some mocking practices without realizing their derogatory racial connotations. For example, both Le´andre and Dominique for a while told jokes they picked up in their school playground, such as ‘My daddy is a Japanese and my mommy is a Chinese, look what they did to me’ (pulling one eyelid up and the other down to make uneven slanted eyes). To me this kind of joke is not amusing at all. I felt that it was my obligation to point out the offensiveness of this kind of racial joke. If they were not prepared for the reality that at some point this kind of joke might be made about them, they would be affected by it later on. I also tried to discuss with them that it is human decency to respect people. Struggling with Chinese reading and writing In the Chinese school Le´andre and Dominique attended, the Chinese language was often taught out of context and the materials that the children had to read were often irrelevant to their lives. After the first half-year in Chinese school, our children had lost interest in reading and writing Chinese. Sadly, many of the Chinese reading and writing activities the boys had previously found enjoyable became chores and fraught with struggles. Obviously, I could not change the way the Chinese teachers

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taught; however, I could help our children make the activities required by the Chinese teachers more relevant to their lives. I started to review their Chinese textbooks and homework and tried to connect the isolated words and sentences to their lives. In reviewing their texts or homework, I would tell stories about the words in them, as I used to do when they were younger. After constant efforts on my part, the children’s interest in Chinese reading and writing activities was rekindled. But, I have to say that I did feel like giving up occasionally, because sometimes the struggle between the kids and me was just too big to handle. I used to tell my friends that two things in my life gave me a ‘heart attack’: one was helping our children with their Chinese reading and writing homework given by the Chinese school, and the other was asking the boys to practice piano. As hard as those efforts were, I am glad that I kept at it. Peer judgment Elementary school children can be very direct and their comments can be blunt and rude. One day Le´andre came back and told me that one of his first-grade classmates told other children in the playground that he had something strange on his tongue (because the classmate heard that Le´andre could speak other languages). This was the first time that Le´andre heard negative comments about him being able to speak other languages and he was definitely not happy about it. To help him cope with his peer’s unpleasant comments, I told him that everyone who was different, whether it was because of language, skin color or looks, often was the subject of others’ comments. There was nothing strange about it. His classmate seemed to be ignorant or mean. To make him feel good, I told him that I once saw a photo in a Chicago tabloid of a man with three tongues. His classmate could make some comments about that!

Highlights of Language Development During the Elementary School Years In this section, some of Le´andre and Dominique’s language development characteristics are highlighted. Speech sound Difficulty with the Chinese dipping tone

As mentioned in Chapter 4, the children started to exhibit some Chinese tone issues in their preschool and kindergarten years. During the elementary school years, they made great progress. Mostly thanks to their Chinese school, they were made aware of the differences between tones through working at many exercises. However, both children kept having issues with the dipping tone (also called the third tone, or falling and rising tone). In spontaneous conversations, they often mispronounced the dipping tone, though when they were reminded, they could correct themselves. For example, they tended to pronounce xia˘o/ (small) as if they

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were pronouncing xia`o/ (laugh). In the later elementary school years (fourth and fifth grade), the children began to self-correct their tone issues. Benefits and interference of Chinese pı¯n yı¯n/

Benefiting from English and French, Le´andre and Dominique had a very easy (an alphabetical system used to aid Chinese time learning Chinese pin yin/ word pronunciation). On the one hand, it was an advantage for the children to read . On the other hand, they simply relied on pı¯n yı¯n/ Chinese through pı¯n yı¯n/ , and without them, the children sometimes did not know how to pronounce Chinese characters. Many times I was ‘tricked’ by the children into believing that they could read their Chinese texts fluently (they were actually reading the pı¯n yı¯n/ ). I observed that many children in their Chinese class did the same thing. Realizing this tendency, I made sure to cover the pı¯n yı¯n/ part in the Chinese textbooks and ‘force’ them to read Chinese characters (however, they were allowed if they did not know how to pronounce the words). to look at the pı¯n yı¯n/ Word and grammar Word mixing

During the elementary school years, the children continued to mix English words with their home languages (more often with Chinese than with French). However, most of the mixing was restricted to the actual quoting of someone speaking English (to enhance the vividness), to terms that have no home-language equivalents (such as English store and brand names) and to words and phrases that they had not heard in the home languages. After reviewing and analyzing the randomly sampled videotapes from the elementary school years,23 I noticed an interesting trend: both children had more English mixing with the home languages in the first and second grades (9% in Chinese and 5% in French) than in the third, fourth and fifth grades (4% in Chinese and 2% in French). There was no increase from fourth grade to fifth grade. This may suggest that the children had ‘stabilized’ their mixing thanks to their and our conscious efforts. It may also suggest that the home-language communication pattern and habit had been firmly established. As mentioned in Chapter 4, during the preschool and kindergarten years the children only mixed English with their home languages and almost never mixed between the two home languages. This continued to be the case in their elementary school years; the only exception is that Le´andre (nine years and five months) once used the French canif (penknife) to substitute the Chinese dao/ (but he quickly corrected himself). This is perhaps because they had been socialized in the two home languages since birth with a clear and strict one-parent-one-language communication practice. Interestingly, the children almost never mixed their home languages with English when speaking English. This is perhaps because they knew that if they mixed home languages when speaking English, their peers would not understand them. More

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interestingly, even when the children knew that some of their schoolmates spoke Chinese or French, they did not mix Chinese or English when speaking English to them. There may be some explanations for this. First, Chinese and French are their ‘sacred’ home languages; they simply do not want to use them with their schoolmates. Second, they have enough English vocabulary to express themselves; they do not have the need to borrow vocabulary from either Chinese or French as they do the other way around. Third, English is their school/country language; they speak it with people they know from school. ` bie´ zı`/ Errors in Chinese homophones (cuo

)

Homophones are words that have the same pronunciation, but different meanings and spellings (e.g. ‘right’ and ‘write’). Chinese has a substantial number of ) are a frequent phenomenon homophones. Errors with them (cuo` bie´ zı`/ among children and less-educated adults. Le´andre and Dominique were no became exceptions. During the elementary school years, their cuo` bie´ zı`/ known to me because they had to write the words. Before, they had only spoken them; it was hard for me to detect their mistakes as these words are pronounced the that the boys used include: qı¯ng/ (quiet) same. The common cuo` bie´ zı`/ versus qı¯ng/ (grayish blue), jia¯/ (home) versus jia¯/ (add), and hua`/ (speak) versus hua`/ (drawing). I had to constantly check to make sure that they knew how to distinguish the homophones in writing. Just a little negligence on my part would . result in their use of cuo` bie´ zı`/ Anglicizing French

The children’s French facilitated their English learning and vice versa. However, when English became stronger during the elementary school years, it affected the children’s use of French. We noticed that they sometimes borrowed English words when speaking French. For example, Le´andre tended to use the English word character (a false cognate of the French word caracte`re, which sounds and looks like the English word character, but has a different meaning) to substitute for personnage (character) in French when he was speaking about a ‘character’ in a story. We also noticed that Dominique sometimes borrowed English sentence structure for use in French. For example, he would say, ‘Je suis content que j’ai rec¸u ce jeu (I am glad that I received this game)’ instead of ‘Je suis content d’avoir rec¸u ce jeu’. Dominique also tended to translate literally the English prepositions ‘by’ and ‘on’ into French. For example, sometimes Philippe allowed the children to ride their bikes to the schoolbus stop. Dominique would ask, ‘On y va par ve´lo?’ (We go by bike?) instead of ‘On y va a` ve´lo?’ Both Le´andre and Dominique also said quite frequently that they did this or that ‘sur le bus’ (on the bus) instead of ‘dans le bus’ or ‘en bus’. They made the same mistake with ‘sur l’avion’ (on the airplane) for ‘dans l’avion’ or en avion. Moreover, Dominique tended to copy the English structure ‘makean adjective’ as in ‘this makes you stupid’. In French one should say ‘cela te rend beˆte’ and not ‘cela te

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fait beˆte’. Faire (make) followed by an adjective is not wrong in itself but it has a different meaning. Furthermore, Dominique tended to make mistakes in French subject-pronoun agreement. For example, the word personne (person) is feminine in French
whether the person is a man or woman, elle (feminine) is always used to agree with it. Whereas Dominique tended to use il (masculine) after personne when he talked about a man, as in Une personne entre dans la pie`ce. Puis il ouvre la feneˆtre. Instead, he should have said, Une personne entre dans la pie`ce. Puis elle ouvre la feneˆtre (A man enters the room and then he opens the window). Language use and awareness Sensitive to other languages and accents

When the children were very young, I noticed that they picked up Spanish phrases easily and pronounced them well after they watched Dora the Explorer (an American television program for young children). At the time, I did not really pay much attention to it. Their exceptional language learning and imitation abilities finally struck me one summer while we were traveling in Southern Spain. The boys impressed us by being able to sound like Southern Spaniards in less than two weeks (while it took me about the same amount of time to get only two Spanish sentences right). When we returned to Switzerland, I heard Dominique (seven years and eleven months) speaking to his grandmother’s dog Moira in amazing Spanish! This is reminiscent of many trips we took abroad. For example, in Uppsala, Sweden, Le´andre (six years) could imitate the train conductor so well that he made one wonder whether he was from there. In Tokyo, Dominique (nine years and one month) could fool people by ordering food like a real Japanese. In Heidelberg, Germany, Dominique (ten years and one month) could vividly mock a German man cursing. In Granada, Spain, Dominique (seven years and one month) could mimic a local merchant selling leather bags. In Hangzhou, China, Dominique (nine years) could impersonate a farmer from Northern China selling watermelons. Apparently, the children’s trilingual development continued to make them more sensitive to other languages and accents in the elementary school years. Accuracy in word use

Our children are sensitive
perhaps even picky
about the choice and accuracy of words in their three languages. This may be the result of their having to constantly deal with three languages in their lives. Their father also shows such a tendency. In comparison, I am the least careful person in the family as far as the choice and accuracy of words are concerned. In fact, Philippe and the children keep a notebook just to record my mistakes. Interestingly, while we are usually ‘policing’ the children’s home-language use, they are in turn ‘policing’ our language use. For example, unlike in Putonghua (‘standard’ Chinese), in Shanghai dialect people say (eat tea) instead of he¯ cha´/ (drink tea). Dominique was always the chı¯ cha´/

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one to point out to me that one does not eat tea but one drinks it. During one trip to China, he even reminded his Chinese grandmother to say he¯ cha´/ instead of chı¯ . We noticed many times that the children were also quite sensitive to other cha´/ people’s choice of words in English. For instance, when we were watching a television cooking program one day, the host of the program used the word dip to describe the idea of marinating a chicken breast in sauce. Le´andre (eight years and six months) immediately criticized the person because she did not know the difference between dip and marinate. Monitoring home-language use by self-correcting

Among all the children’s achievements through the end of their elementary school years, self-monitoring their own home-language use stands out. Somewhere around the third grade, the boys began to correct their own mistakes as soon as they detected them. For a while, one would hear them say in their home languages something like ‘Excuse me, I think I should have said . . .’, ‘I meant to say . . .’ or ‘I think I just used a wrong word’. The boys also formed the habit of checking the dictionaries (thanks to our modeling) when they were not sure about the use of a word or a phrase. When they detected that they were making ‘lots’ of mistakes in their home languages, they would say, ‘We need a vacation’ (a saying Philippe used to use), meaning that they needed to be away from the English-speaking environment and to visit their heritage countries.

Noticeable Aspects of Identity Development During the Elementary School Years The attachment to heritage countries through heritage languages The famous American novelist Amy Tan wrote in her memoir The Opposite of Fate that her mother tongue (the language her mother spoke to her when she grew up) was the language that helped her shape the way she saw things, expressed things and made sense of the world.24 Lisa Delpit shared the same sentiment in the introduction of the book she co-edited with Joanne Kilgour Dowdy, The Skin That We Speak. Delpit wrote, ‘Our home language is as viscerally tied to our being as existence itself*as the sweet sounds of love accompany our first milk, as our father’s pride permeates our bones and flesh when he shows us off to his friends, as a gentle lullaby or soft murmurs signal release into restful sleep. It is no wonder that our first language becomes intimately connected to our identity’.25 Though both our children were born in and grew up in the USA, through their mother tongue and father tongue, they have become closely attached to their heritage cultures and countries. Over the years, the children have developed deeper and deeper attachments to the places their parents originally came from (despite the occasional negative comments on China, for example). Beginning in the first grade, it was harder and harder to get the children back to the USA after each visit to the

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heritage countries, Switzerland in particular. One year on the way to the airport, the two boys (Le´andre aged nine years and one month and Dominique aged seven years and two months) kept pressuring me to promise to buy them return tickets to Switzerland as soon as we arrived at New York’s Kennedy Airport. I tried to reason with them that our livelihood was in the USA. Neither of them were convinced and offered to be my French teachers so that I could speak good French and be able to teach in Geneva. Their attachments to their heritage countries were also linked to the people there. For example, one year when Dominique (eight years and eleven months) received an award from the Chinese school, he told me that I should share this good news (his exact words) with his grandparents in Shanghai, China. By third grade, both children spontaneously chose to read in their home languages when playing video and electronic games or looking for information related to their hobbies, if the home-language versions were available. Once I was in hurry and returned Le´andre’s e-mail message in English because it was too cumbersome to write in Chinese on my office computer. Le´andre was not happy at all and asked me why I hadn’t written to him in Chinese. It is interesting to notice that both boys not only take speaking the home languages as an important part of their identities (recall that in Chapter 3, I wrote that Dominique cried when I spoke English to him in the presence of his friend), they also feel the same about writing their home languages. It is indeed true that once the communication between a child and a parent has formed, it becomes a habit and even a code.26 There is an emotional reaction if such a code is broken. Home languages as private languages Even though the children grew older and felt less possessive about their home languages than when they were younger, they still treated their home languages as their personal, private and secret languages. They continued to gossip or make uncomplimentary comments about people in their home languages in public. They also used Chinese or French instead of English for the words that they should not use in English in public. On the one hand, the boys benefited from the convenience of using their home languages in the USA and some parts of Europe. On the other hand, they seemed to have formed a bad habit of commenting about others right in front of them
a negative consequence of knowing languages that others do not! Clear self-assessment about their language abilities By the mid-elementary school years (around third grade), the boys began to be conscious of their home-language abilities. For example, when Le´andre and Dominique were asked whether they wanted to attend a Chinese school in Shanghai during their trip to visit their Chinese grandparents, Le´andre (eleven years) and Dominique (nine years and one month) said clearly and loudly that they

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could not do it because their Chinese was not good enough compared with Chinese students in China. Also during the same trip, Dominique had the following comment about his Chinese ability: Example 5.8 Mother was going to videotape young children for her research project. She wanted to know whether Le´andre and Dominique want to come along with her to see other Chinese children in their homes. Mother:

[To Le´andre and Dominique] Nıˇ men ya`o bu ya`o he´ woˇ yı` qıˇ qu` ka`n bie´ de zho¯ng guo´ xiaˇo pe´ng yoˇu?

Dominique:

(Do you want to go with me and visit other Chinese children?) Bu´ ya`o8

Mother:

(No.) We`i she´n me?

Dominique:

(Why?) Woˇ de zho¯ng we´n me´i yoˇu ta¯ men shuo¯ de´ haˇo. Ta¯ men huı` xia`o woˇ8

Mother:

(My Chinese is not as good as theirs. They will laugh at me.) Nıˇ zeˇn me zhı¯ da`o?

Dominique:

(How do you know?) Yı¯n we`i woˇ bu´ zhu` za`i zhe`r8 (Because I don‘t live here.)

The children seemed to have a clear sense about their Chinese abilities. They were much more confident with their French. For example, they had no problem mingling with their grandparents’ neighbor David (who is five years older than Le´andre and seven years older than Dominique) and his friends each time they were in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Avoiding attention During the children’s early years (home, preschool and kindergarten years), both boys often volunteered to reveal to others, both children and adults, that they

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were trilingual. This changed in their late elementary school years (somewhere around their fourth and fifth grade), when they stopped offering this information to their peers. In fifth grade, a new student transferring from Geneva joined Le´andre’s class. When the girl found out from her mother that Le´andre spoke French, she tried to speak French to Le´andre. He told her frankly that he preferred to speak English in school. I asked Le´andre why he refused to speak French with this girl; he said that it was because other children in his class did not speak French. He did not want to be different. I sensed that Le´andre became more conscious about what his peers thought about him.

Suggestions for Supporting Trilingual Children During the Elementary School Years The elementary school years are the years when children begin to make great progress in their cognitive, language and social development. Parents who raise trilingual children can benefit from their children’s improvement in these areas by helping them develop the home-language literacy skills and other aspects of the home languages. During this period, parents will see the increasing influence of the dominant language on their children’s home languages and may encounter challenges in maintaining their children’s home languages. However, the outlook is promising as long as parents use proper strategies and persevere. Different paths to heritage-language literacy Reading and writing in heritage languages can help trilingual children become more proficient in them. However, the environment in which trilingual children acquire the heritage-language literacy skills is different from family to family and from child to child. For the majority of trilingual families, circumstances and financial conditions may not allow their children to be formally educated in home-language literacy. Thus, parents may want to ponder their situations carefully in order to make decisions that will benefit their children. Realistically, it is also possible that many trilingual children may never achieve proficiency in their home-language literacy. However, this outlook should not discourage parents from trying to help their children develop home-language literacy skills. Parents can consider creating opportunities to help their children build the basic literacy skills, which can be further developed in the future if they so choose. When reading about the experiences of many multilingual people, it is clear that there are different paths to learn reading and writing. For example, Anna So¨ter, in the book Reflections on Multiliterate Lives, gave an interesting account of her experience in learning to read German:27 I learn to read my dad’s German magazines, for that is how I learned to read. He has a habit of dropping them at the foot of the kitchen table after finishing each one in turn. I would often sit beneath the table and took to flipping the pages, connecting pictures and cartoons to text, and thus, over time, recognizing links

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between the two. At times, I know, I asked him what the words meant. Thus, in a rudimentary way, I had learned to sight read the German language. Anna’s experience is reminiscent of many people’s first experience with literacy (monolingual, bilingual or multilingual alike). For example, this is the way Philippe learned to read German, by looking at his father’s Der Spiegel on the dining table, and how I learned to read Chinese by flipping through my parents’ old magazines in the storage room. Cultural context in heritage-language reading Reading research suggests that the background knowledge of a text affects a reader’s comprehension (for both native and non-native speakers).28 Moreover, research demonstrates that the cultural origin of the text and the readers’ prior familiarity or lack of familiarity with that culture both affect readers’ recall of information from the text.29 For example, our children live in an environment that is very different from their Chinese heritage culture. Sometimes they cannot comprehend the underlying meaning of the heritage-language books they are reading even though they can recognize every word. For instance, in Shanghai’s Book City when Le´andre and Dominique first came across the series written and illustrated by Tsai Chih Chuang (a well-known illustrator who popularized Chinese classics by simplifying them), they were so thrilled that they requested I buy all of them. Shortly after they started to read these books, both children found they could not understand them at all because they had no clue about the historical and cultural information portrayed in the series. For example, Dominique had a hard time figuring out the relationship between the characters and the main point of the book titled Madam White Snake ‘Ba´i ’.30 However, a trip to Hangzhou’s Le´i Fe¯ng Taˇ/ (Lei Feng She´ Zhua`n/ Pagoda) and a discussion with his Chinese grandfather afterwards gave him the context with which to understand the book. One lesson we learned over the years of working with our children is that cultural background information is a key for them to comprehend reading materials related to the heritage cultures. Parents as examples If we want our children to read and write, it may be helpful to do the same ourselves. Examples set by parents are often more powerful than words. Our own daily reading and writing behavior has a great influence on our children. We noticed that the boys (in particular Le´andre) enjoy reading. We are never stingy about buying them books. I promised the boys there is one thing that I will always be willing to spend money on
that is, books. They can profit from my promise as much as they want. Once a real estate agent came to look at our place; when she entered the boys’ room, she commented that she never had seen so many books in a child’s room.

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We also share what we are working on with the children. Sometimes, Philippe even reads parts of papers he is working on to the boys. One summer, I was working on a booklet about how to teach about Chinese New Year. Dominique was fascinated. He started to write his own book (fiction as he put it), but never finished it because he could not figure out the title (a typical excuse from Dominique). Nevertheless, I am still pleased to see that Dominique at least tries to write something once in a while. Providing choices When we reflect on our childrearing practice, we realize that providing our children with choices often works well in motivating them to read and write in their home languages. They are more compliant with our request to read and write if we give them several choices rather than insisting that they read one particular genre of books or write in a particular way. For example, for a while (from second to fourth grade), Le´andre was only interested in one genre of books: scary stories. He was extremely fond of the children’s version of the Chinese classic book The Tales of Liao Zai Zhi Yi ‘Lia´o Zha¯i ’,31 in which there are many ghost stories. I tried to read other books Zhı` Yı`/ to him, or make him read in other genres. He was not happy and stopped reading altogether. I changed my approach and told him that there were similar stories in other books on his bookshelves. This gave him the incentive to look for more books and in the process he found some other interesting books that were not just about ghosts. We also provided our children with choices in their home-literacy related activities. For instance, sometimes when I asked the boys to practice writing or reading Chinese, they would procrastinate and find all the excuses in the world to get out of it. In such a situation, I would provide them with different options. I would say, ‘if you don’t want to practice writing today, you can identify (a certain number of) Chinese words in the text’, or ‘underline the new words learned in Chinese school’. Once I knew what the children wanted and what they did not want to do, I would start by offering them several possibilities to choose from. In this way, the children felt that they had control over what they were doing. Creating opportunities to talk with children During their elementary school years, children are busy with various activities and thus have less time to talk to their parents than when they were younger. This situation can pose some problems for home-language maintenance. With the increased exposure to the dominant language outside the home, if children do not speak or hear the home languages on a regular basis, they may not keep them up. Therefore, parents can try to create opportunities to make conversations happen. Even ‘small talk’ often makes a difference. For example, mealtime is a good opportunity to chat with children. I have found that even in brief encounters,

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parents can find something to talk about: ask a question or make a comment when passing by the children on the stairs, chat with them while doing housework, talk to them in the car while going somewhere, ask them to relay a message to a sibling, tell them what you did during the day. There are many opportunities throughout the day that parents can seize to chat with their children. Adding all the ‘small talks’ together can make a difference in children’s home-language maintenance. Moreover, when children are growing older and moving into the adolescent period, talking to children can keep parents informed about what is going on in their children’s lives and heads.

Preparing children for peer pressure Peer pressure will become more pronounced in the adolescent years. It is one of the hallmarks of adolescence to seek confirmation from peers. Peer relationships are important for healthy development, but peer pressure can lead adolescents astray. During the late elementary school years (fourth and fifth grade) children (though not adolescent yet) may begin to care about what others think about them. The previous example about Le´andre’s refusal to speak French with a girl in his class demonstrates that he was sensitive to his classmates’ opinions. In Chapter 3, I discussed that I deliberately dressed our sons the same so that they could get used to people’s questions about them. Around late third grade, both Le´andre and Dominique began to protest about having to dress the same. They told me that their schoolmates were making comments about their identical clothes. I also noticed that the two boys sat apart from each other on their schoolbus. One strategy that can help children resist peer pressure is to build their selfconfidence. Deliberate praising about the children’s achievements in every aspect can boost their self-confidence. When children realize their strength and worth, they are less likely to be bothered by others’ comments and opinions.

Balancing heritage-language learning and other activities David Elkind in his book The Hurried Child: Growing up Too Fast Too Soon wrote about the stress that children are facing today.32 He advocates giving children more leisure time. Multilingual children may carry a heavier burden if their parents give them too many things to do. For a while, I was ambitiously arranging too many after-school activities for our two children (such as Chinese school and piano lessons). In the end, not only did the boys feel stressed, but I was exhausted too. Experience convinces us that the best way to carry out different activities in our children’s lives (including the language-learning activities) is to involve them in one activity at a time. When an activity becomes part of a routine, then they can be introduced to a new activity. We believe that it is in the children’s best interests to balance their leisure time with home language and other activities.

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Perseverance and patience It takes effort, willpower and patience to help children with their home-language development. Sometimes frustration can test our determination. There will be some moments that make us feel like quitting what we are doing. However, when we get past the breaking point without caving in, we will be rewarded for our efforts. A mistake that I observed some parents make is that they want to see the results immediately or within a relatively short period of time. When encountering frustration and resistance, they quickly abandon their plan. However, childrearing in every aspect is a long-term process, and home-language maintenance is no exception. Every parent has stories to tell about the joys as well as the hardships along their childrearing journey. In the end, those who persevere will see the fruits of their labor. As the Chinese proverb goes, ‘With patience, one can hone a metal rod , )’. into a needle (zhıˇ ya`o go¯ng fu she¯n, tieˇ ba`ng mo´ che´ng zhe¯n/ Our children’s achievement in their trilingual development is testimony to perseverance and patience.

Summary The elementary school years are golden years for the development of literacy skills, and they are also suitable for multilingual children to start the formal processes of their heritage-language literacy. Because of the different circumstances in multilingual children’s home-language environments and children’s individual developmental characteristics, there may be different ways for them to develop home-language literacy skills. Therefore, parents may need to think carefully about when to start the process, whether to teach their children at home or in school, and what the realistic expectations are for their children’s achievement in their homelanguage literacy skills. After deciding the direction of their children’s home-language literacy path, the use of effective strategies, including the following, will facilitate the process: . .

. .

Reading the same book in different languages. Providing incentives for children to read home languages through their interests. Encouraging home-language reading through seizing opportune moments. Encouraging home-language reading and writing in context.

To further aid children in home-language literacy development, parents can set up examples by reading and writing themselves. Sometimes, providing choices for children in literacy activities can make children feel that they are in control of what they are learning. It is also essential to help children develop critical abilities in what they read and help them become aware of the possible cultural and racial biases in literature and media. In the long run, these critical abilities will benefit children’s development.

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Moreover, to help children develop an overall competence in their home languages, parents may try to introduce their children to conventional gestures, cultural customs, foul language (cautiously) and idioms embedded in the home languages. Parents can also support their children’s development by creating more opportunities to talk to them in home languages and by balancing their ‘work’ and play activities. The road to home-language competence can be bumpy at times during the elementary school years. With patience, willpower and the right strategies, success is within reach. Notes and References 1. The elementary years cover the period between ages 6 and 11. 2. Harding-Esch, E. and Riley, P. (2003) The Bilingual Family: A Handbook for Parents (pp. 141
142). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 3. These Chinese language schools offer Chinese language lessons at weekends. 4. Harding-Esch, E. and Riley, P. (2003) The Bilingual Family: A Handbook for Parents (pp. 20
21). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 5. Uphoff, J.K. and Gilmore, J. (1985) Pupil age at school entrance
How many are ready for success? Educational Leadership 43, 86
90. 6. Gorosch, M. and Axelsson, C.A. (1964) English Without a Book: A Bilingual Experience in Primary Schools by Audio-Visual Means. Berlin: Cornelsen Verlag. Stern, H.H., Burstall, C. and Harley, B. (1975) French from Age Eight or Eleven? Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Zobl, H. (1993) Prior linguistic knowledge and the conservation of the learning procedure: Grammaticality judgments of unilingual and multilingual learners. In S. Gass and L. Selinker (eds) Language Transfer in Language Learning (pp. 176
196). Amsterdam: John Benjamin. 7. Nagy, W.E. and Herman, P.A. (1987) Breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge: Implications for acquisition and instruction. In M.G. McKeown and M.E. Curtis (eds) The Nature of Vocabulary Acquisition. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 8. Miller, G.A. (1996) The Science of Words. New York: Freeman. 9. Yep, L. (2003) The Tiger’s Apprentice. New York: HarperTreophy. 10. Wu, C.E. (1500
1582) ‘Xı¯ Yo´u Jı`/ ’ (The Journey to the West). ’. Nanjing: Jiangsu Children’s 11. Yu, B.H., Jin, G.S. and Qie, G.Q. (2002) ‘Xı¯ Yo´u Jı`/ Publishing. 12. Published by the Chinese International TV Inc. 13. Osborne, M.P. (1998) Days of the Dragon King. New York: Random House. 14. Edwards, S.A., Maloy, R.W. and Verock-O’Loughlin, R.E. (2003) Ways of Writing with Young Kids: Teaching Creativity and Conventions Unconventionally. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon. 15. Ellis, N.C. and Laporte, N. (1977) Context of acquisition: Effects of formal instruction and naturalistic exposure on second language acquisition. In A. de Groot and J.F. Kroll (eds) Tutorials in Bilingualism (pp. 53
83). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Terrel, T.D. (1991) The role of grammar instruction in a communicative approach. The Modern Languages Journal 75, 52
63. Paisley, M. (2002) Reading Instruction that Works: The Case for Balanced Teaching. New York: The Guilford Press.

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16. Piaget, J. (1952) The Origins of Intelligence in Children. New York: International University Press. 17. Angier, N. (2005) G#%!Y; Almost before we spoke, we swore. New York Times Science Session (September 20, F 1). 18. McWhorter, J. (2003) The Power of Babel. New York: Perennial. 19. Allan, K. and Burridge, K. (2007) Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 20. Caldas, S.J. (2006) Raising Bilingual-Biliterate Children in Monolingual Cultures (pp. 70
71). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Cruz-Ferreira, M. (2006) Three is a Crowd? Acquiring Portuguese in a Trilingual Environment (pp. 240
243). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 21. Comber, B. and Simpson, A. (eds) (2001) Negotiating Critical Literacies in Classrooms. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 22. http://wwwfp.education.tas.gov.au/english/critlit.htm#what is 23. 120 hours of randomly sampled videotapes from the elementary school years were used in this analysis. That is one hour per month in five years for each child. 24. Tan, A. (2003) The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life. New York: Penguin Books. 25. Delpit, L. and Dowdy, J.K. (2002) The Skin that We Speak: Thoughts on Language and Culture in the Classroom. New York: The New Press. 26. Hoffmann, C. and Ytsma, J. (2004) Introduction. In C. Hoffmann and J. Ytsma (eds) Trilingualism in Family, School and Community (p. 32). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 27. So¨ter, A. (2001) Straddling three worlds. In D. Belcher and U. Connor (eds) Reflections on Multiliterate Lives. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 28. Carrell, P.L. (1981) Cultural-specific schemata in L2 comprehension. In R. Orem and J.F. Haskell (eds) Selected Papers from the Ninth Illinois TESOL/BE (pp. 123
132). Chicago, IL: Illinois TESOL/BE. 29. Dale, P.S., Crain-Thoreson, C. and Robinson, N. (1995) Linguistic precocity and the development of reading: The role of extralinguistic factors. Applied Psycholinguistics 16, 173
187. 30. Tsai, C.C. (2006) Madam White Snake. Beijing: Modern Publishing. ’ (The Tales of Liao Zai Zhi 31. Shi, L., Li, S.L. and Deng, C.Q. (1998) ‘Lia´o Zha¯i Zhı` Yı`/ Yi). Nanjing: Jiangsu Children’s Publishing. 32. Elkind, D. (2001) The Hurried Child: Growing Up Too Fast Too Soon (3rd edn.). New York: Perseus.

Chapter 6

Identity and Personality Development: Children’s Voices This chapter examines children’s identity and personality formation process during the course of acquiring three languages. To show readers how children navigate and negotiate their complex yet interesting trilingual lives and actively construct their identity and personality, Le´andre and Dominique’s own voices are presented through their everyday narratives. In addition, Le´andre and Dominique’s distinct personality traits are described as a possible consequence of growing up with three languages. Suggestions on how to help children develop healthy identity and personality are made at the end of the chapter for those parents who are raising or consider raising children with more than one language.

An Identity Revealed Through Narratives What is identity and how can it be represented? The well-known Canadian developmental psychologist James Marcia defined identity as an ego structure
an internal, self-constructed and dynamic organization of aspirations, skills, beliefs and individual history.1 To simplify Marcia’s definition, identity is our sense of who we are and our relationship to the world.2 According to Yasuko Kanno,3 many aspects of our ‘selves’ contribute to our understanding of who we are: language, culture, race, gender, class and age among many others. Which of these parts become salient features of our identity depends on the context and changes over time. In the case of Le´andre and Dominique, the most noticeable aspects of their identity features include trilingualism, triculturalism, biracialism and binationality. Thus, to look at how the children positioned themselves within the four elements, and how they incorporated these elements into their sense of who they are, can help us understand how their selves evolved over the years. There are different ways to capture a child’s identity development process, one of which is through the narrative inquiry
a method used by many researchers to study identity formation. Some researchers believe that children interpret their own experiences and communicate their thoughts and emotions through the medium of everyday personal narratives. In the process of creating these narratives, children are constructing their selves.4 Developmental psychologist Susan Engel, in her book The Stories Children Tell: Making Sense of the Narratives of Childhood, argues that narratives play a vital role in shaping children’s sense of themselves and their presentation of that self to others.5 In the following sections, you will read some narrative samples produced by Le´andre and Dominique and my analysis of them. Although these narrative 171

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samples appear to be piecemeal, taken together they offer a perspective on the children’s identity formation process. To help readers gain a clearer picture of the two children’s identity development, the narrative samples are organized into the categories of linguistic identity, cultural and national identity and ethnic-racial identity,6 though in reality these categories are integrated rather than separated. Linguistic identity Even before they could utter a complete sentence in any of their three languages, Le´andre (one year and six months) and Dominique (one year and nine months) were able to clearly articulate their linguistic identity to others. For example: Example 6.1 Mother and Le´andre (one year and six months) are playing. Mother:

Lıˇ-a´ng shı` shuı´?

Mother:

´ andre?) (Who is Le Lıˇ-a´ng, xiaˇo baˇobao. Lıˇ-a´ng
[raised three fingers] zho¯ng we´n, faˇ we´n, yı¯ng we´n8 , , (Le´andre, little baby. Le´andre [raised three fingers] Chinese, French, English.) Nıˇ shuo¯ sa¯n zhoˇng yuˇ ya´n?

´ andre: Le

(You speak three languages?) Duı`8

Mother:

(Yes.) Nıˇ zhe¯n ne´ng ga`n8

´ andre: Le

(You are really capable.) [Nodded.]

´ andre: Le

In this example, Le´andre had an emergent, but clear grasp of his trilingual ´ andre?’ he could have picked up many other identity. When asked ‘Who is Le aspects about himself (e.g. a boy and curly-haired). Instead, he singled out the aspect about his three languages. However, the understanding of his linguistic identity at this early stage was limited to a simple labeling of languages. As time went on (from about two to six years of age), the children began to show a trend of

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´ andre possessiveness with their home languages. As shown in Example 6.2, Le bluntly told a female guest that French was ‘reserved’ only for him, his father and his baby brother, and not for anyone else. Example 6.2 Le´andre (two years and seven months) Female guest: Le´andre: Female guest: Le´andre:

What did you just say to your daddy? French. Can you teach me how to speak French? No! French to my daddy and [pointed to Dominique] the baby.

´ andre In this example, the female guest initially just wanted to find out what Le had said to his father and she did not really intend to ask what language he was ´ andre could have informed her about what he had told his father. speaking. Le Instead, he emphasized the language (French) he was speaking. When the female ´ andre’s response) whether Le ´ andre could teach her guest asked (adjusting to Le ´ andre (one could tell from his voice) French, this question apparently ‘annoyed’ Le as if the woman was asking for one part of him. Sometimes, the children believed that they were the only people on this planet who were able and allowed to speak more than one language, as shown in another narrative by Le´andre: Example 6.3 Le´andre (five years and ten months) Leandre:

Mother:

Ma¯ma, Henrik shuo¯ ta¯ jiaˇng sa¯n zhoˇng yuˇ ya´n. Ta¯ shuo¯ huaˇng. Ta¯ shuo¯ ta¯ jiaˇng yı¯ng we´n, Finish he´ de´ we´n. Woˇ shuo¯ ta¯ shuo¯ huaˇng. Zhı´ yoˇu Dominique he´ woˇ jiaˇng sa¯n zhoˇng yuˇ ya´n8 , Henrik Finnish Dominique (Mom, Henrik said he speaks three languages. He is lying. He only speaks English. He said he speaks English, German and Finnish. I think he is lying. Only I and Dominique can speak three languages.) Henric ne´ng shuo¯ liaˇng zhoˇng yuˇ ya´n. Ta¯ ge¯n ta¯ ba`ba jiaˇng fe¯n la´n yuˇ8 Henrik

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´ andre: Le

(Henrik is able to speak two languages. He speaks Finnish to his father.) Bu` keˇ ne´ng. Woˇ co´ng la´i me´i yoˇu tı¯ng da`o ta¯ shuo¯ qı´ ta¯ de yuˇ ya´n8 (Impossible. I never heard him speaking other languages.)

Besides being possessive with their home languages and believing that they might be the only people who could speak three languages, the boys often spontaneously revealed their trilingual identity to others by telling them how to say words in their home languages (see Example 3.6 in Chapter 3). This trend, however, gradually changed to a more sophisticated and balanced direction when they were in their later elementary school years, as indicated in the narrative below: Example 6.4 Le´andre (nine years and ten months) is talking to his friend Galo Jr. on our terrace. Dominique is shouting something to Le´andre from the second-floor window. Le´andre: Dominique: Le´andre: Galo: Le´andre: Galo: Le´andre: Galo: Le´andre: Galo: Le´andre: Galo: Le´andre: Galo: Le´andre: Le´andre: Galo:

Oui,Dominique, qu’est-ce que tu dis? (Yes, Dominique, what are you saying?) Ou` est mon Nintendo DS? (Where is my Nintendo DS?) Sur mon lit. (On my bed.) Is that French? Yes, that’s French. It sounds kind like Spanish. Do you speak Spanish? Yeah. You speak Spanish to your parents? Sometimes to my mother. But, most of the time, my mom speaks Spanish to me and I answer in English. Do you speak Spanish to your dad? No, we speak English. Why doesn’t he want to speak Spanish to you? I don’t know. It happened in that way, I guess. My dad speaks French to me and my mom speaks Chinese to me. Do you speak Spanish to Yogi [Galo’s dog]? Mostly English.

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I know many people who can speak other languages. Do you remember my friend Henrik? He came here a couple of weeks ago? He can speak Finnish. Oh, Adrian, you know that Adrian, the guy lived over there [pointed at the direction where Adrian used to live], he can speak Portuguese and Italian, I think.

Compared with Example 6.3, this example shows a considerable progress in Le´andre’s understanding of his trilingual identity in relation to others. First, he wanted to find out whether Galo spoke Spanish, and after he found out that Galo did, he asked him further whether he spoke it to his parents and his dog. The ´ andre was no longer egocentric about his own curiosity itself indicated that Le ability to speak other languages. He was open-minded about the possibility that other people might also be able to speak more than one language. Second, he was curious about why Galo’s father did not speak Spanish to Galo and made effort to find out why other families did not do things the same way as his. Finally, and most ´ andre was able to recognize the fact that some children he knew significantly, Le could also speak other languages; while just a few years earlier he believed that he and Dominique were the only people who could speak other languages. This example suggests that children’s identity development is indeed the product of ´ andre negotiated his social interaction with others.7 As observed in Example 6.4, Le own trilingual identity through comparing it with Galo and other children’s situation. ´ andre more than Also, as a consequence of interacting with others, the boys (Le Dominique) stopped volunteering their trilingual identity to their peers in the later elementary years (see Chapter 5). This phenomenon could have been the result of peer pressure; it may also indicate that the children became more balanced in their understanding of their linguistic identity, i.e. they did not always have to wear their trilingualism on their sleeves (as they did when they were younger). Instead, they could adjust and adapt to the linguistic environment that they were in: speaking English to English speakers, French to French speakers and Chinese to Chinese speakers. Overall, our children’s linguistic identity in the first 11 years seems to have gone through three developmental stages: from a simple labeling of their languages to being overly possessive about them, and finally to having a more sophisticated and balanced realization of their selves in relation to their languages. All this advancement in identity formation is the result of interactions with others.8

Cultural and nationality identity Over the period of the first 11 years, both of our children became attached to their heritage countries and cultures through the process of acquiring their heritage

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languages. Their sense of cultural identity was initially connected to their gratifying experience with parts of their heritage cultures and countries. For example: Example 6.5 Dominique (two years and five months), returning to his grandmother’s house from a Christmas lunch in his aunt Helen’s apartment in Zu¨rich. Dominique: Father: Dominique: Father: Dominique: Father:

J’aime la Suisse. (I like Switzerland.) Pourquoi? (Why?) Parce que j’aime la dinde. (Because I like turkey.) [He had roast turkey for lunch.] Mais, la dinde c’est ame´ricain? (But, turkey is American?) Le chocolat suisse est bon. (Swiss chocolate is good.) Tu as raison. Le chocolat suisse est bon. (You are right, Swiss chocolate is good.)

In this example, Dominique’s positive feeling about Switzerland was simplistic, and it was merely based on his immediate experience (in this case, the food he liked). Such a positive feeling about Switzerland and its culture became more intense when he had more enjoyable experiences there, as seen in the next example. Example 6.6 Dominique (five years and one month) Dominique: Father: Dominique:

En Suisse, tout est bon. (Everything in Switzerland tastes good.) Tu es suˆr? Meˆme les pommes de terre? (Are you sure? Even potatoes?) Oui, tout. J’aime les pommes de terre suisses. Tout est bon en Suisse. J’aime la Suisse et j’aime eˆtre suisse. (Yes. Everything. I like Swiss potatoes. Everything in Switzerland is good. I love Switzerland. I love to be Swiss.)

This kind of feeling is reminiscent to the next example when he was visiting his grandparents in Shanghai.

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Example 6.7 Dominique (seven years and one month) had just returned to his grandparents’ house from a trip to Shanghai’s television tower
the Pearl of the East. Dominique:

Woˇ xıˇ huan Sha`nghaˇi8

Mother:

(I like Shanghai.) Woˇ yeˇ xıˇ huan Sha`nghaˇi. Ga`o su woˇ nıˇ we`i she´n me xıˇ huan Sha`nghaˇi?

Dominique:

(Me, too. Tell me what you like about Shanghai?) Sha`nghaˇi yoˇu ho´ng do`u bı¯ng ba`ng8 Woˇ xıˇ huan wa`i po´ zuo` de co¯ng yo´u bıˇng8 Woˇ xıˇ huan do¯ng fa¯ng mı´ng zhu, za`i na` lıˇ woˇ ke´ yıˇ ka`n da`o zheˇng ge` Sha`nghaˇi8 , (Shanghai has red bean ice cream. I like the green onion pancakes made by grandmother. I like the Pearl of the East; we can see the whole Shanghai from there.)

It seems (as demonstrated in Examples 6.6 and 6.7) that Dominique’s cultural identity is partly circumstantial, and it changes depending on the physical location and gratifying experiences. When the children were in Switzerland, they tended to talk more about their positive feelings about Switzerland, and when they were in China, they seemed to mention more about their positive feeling toward China. Back to the USA, they became a little less attached to Switzerland or China after a few months. They never made such comments about the USA and its culture. Maybe this is because they lived here and did not have to talk about their feelings about it. In other words, they assumed that they were part of it. While they spent relatively shorter time in Switzerland and China (once or twice a year for a couple of months), they felt the need to express their impressions of and identifications with these countries and cultures. As for their national identity, the boys seemed to develop a sense of belonging to the countries of which they are citizens (the children are the citizens of the USA and Switzerland). The boys consistently called themselves we when they talked about Americans or Swiss and used they to talk about Chinese (even though they recognized early that they are ‘half’ Chinese from a racial perspective). Moreover, both children seemed to be overly sensitive about how others would judge them when they were in their heritage countries. For example:

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Example 6.8 Dominique (ten years and one month). The family was attending the Swiss National Day Celebration Event in Neuchaˆtel. Dominique: Father:

Dominique: Mother:

Dominique: Mother:

Father:

Dominique:

[trying to erase his face painting
a Swiss flag, which he had so eagerly put on one hour ago.] Mais pourquoi tu l’essuies? C’est toi qui m’as demande´ de te dessiner un drapeau suisse sur la joue. (But, why? You requested it to be painted on your face.) Oui, mais personne n’en a. J’ai l’air ridicule. (No one is doing that. I look ridiculous.) Ru´ guoˇ nıˇ ya`o baˇ ta¯ ca¯ dia`o de hua`, nıˇ ka`n sha`ng qu` jiu` xia`ng be`i re´n jia¯ daˇ le shı` de. Bu´ ya`o ca¯ dia`o, me´i yoˇu re´n huı` xia`o nıˇ de8 , (If you erase it now, it will look even worse as if someone just hit you. Don’t erase it. Nobody will laugh at you.) [Covered his face with a paper bag he was holding.] Nıˇ yo`ng zhıˇ da`i baˇ liaˇn daˇng zhu` ka`n sha`ng qu` ge`ng keˇ xia`o. Bie´ re´n huı` ge`ng zhu` yı` nıˇ de8 (You look more ridiculous when you cover your face with a paper bag. You draw more attention that way.) Tu verras, l’anne´e prochaine, tout le monde aura des drapeaux peints sur le visage. Toi et Le´andre vous innovez, vous donnez des ide´es aux gens d’ici. (You will see, next year everyone will have painted flags on ´ andre have set a trend. You give ideas for their faces. You and Le people here.) Ah, c¸a sera a` la mode. C’est bien. (Oh, it will be trendy. That’s good.)

It is fascinating to observe that Dominique cared so much about whether other people perceived him as Swiss or not (whereas, he did not show a hint of such sensitivity in the USA). Maybe this was because he did not live in Switzerland; he was not quite sure how a ‘real’ Swiss should behave. In a somewhat childish way, he believed that to display openly his allegiance to Switzerland, such as putting its national flag on his face, other Swiss would ‘pass’ him as one of them. After

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observing no other Swiss that day wearing face paintings, he felt embarrassed and out of place. Many psychologists believe that a person’s identity is influenced by how others perceive them,9 and in particular, how they believe others perceive them.10 ´ andre and Dominique had not reached a balance in their cultural By age 11, Le and national identity. They remained at the level of overly identifying with their heritage cultures and countries (particularly Switzerland). It has been pointed out by some researchers that there is a period in the life of some of those people who grow up with more than one language when they feel insecure and unsure of themselves because they sense differences.11 So, to ‘cover’ the differences between the people in Switzerland and China and themselves, both Le´andre and Dominique had to over-identify themselves to ‘prove’ that they were part of their heritage cultures or countries. This reminds me of an anecdote told by an acquaintance, who grew up in the USA with southern European parents. When he visited his parents’ native country for the first time, he was the laughing stock of the locals because he was over-correct in his manners (as he thought he should). This experience (though tough for him at the time) helped him realize more about himself in relation to his heritage culture.

Ethnic-racial identity Early on in our children’s lives, Le´andre and Dominique were able to label their ethnic-racial identity. As you read in Chapters 3 and 4, the two children often revealed themselves to others as ‘half Chinese and half Swiss’, though in their terminology Chinese and Swiss were related to racial categories rather than ´ andre was able to tell nationalities or cultures. As early as two years of age, Le one of my Chinese friends the following: Example 6.9 Adult:

Le´andre:

Adult:

Le´andre:

Lıˇ a´ng, nıˇ zhe¯n pia`o liang8 , ´ andre, you are handsome.) (Le Woˇ shı` ba`n ge` zho¯ng guo´ re´n, ba`n ge` ruı` shı` re´n8 , (I am half Chinese and half Swiss.) Yı¯n we`i nıˇ ma¯ma shı` zho¯ng guo´ re´n, nıˇ ba`ba shı` ruı` shı` re´n? , (Because your mother is Chinese and your father is Swiss?) Duı`8 (Yes.)

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Although our children could label their ethnic-racial identity early, they did not really have a clear understanding about its true meaning. For instance, in the following conversation, Dominique did not really understand the concept of race. Example 6.10 Dominique (four years and six months) Henrik: Dominique:

My friend Joseph is black [meaning Black]. I am white [looking at his hands]. See, they are white.

In this conversational context, Dominique really meant that he was white in the sense of skin color. Because his skin is fair, he thought fair color was equivalent to the race White. However, as they grew older, the children began to have a more clear understanding of their ethnic-racial identity and they became more and more conscious about others’ comments. The following is an example.

Example 6.11 Le´andre (ten years and nine months) Ma¯ma, woˇ de to´ng xue´, ta¯ men zhı¯ da`o woˇ shı` ba`n ge` zho¯ng guo´ re´n, e`n, yı´ bu` fen zho¯ng guo´ re´n, ta¯ men heˇn shocked. Ta¯ men ga`o su woˇ ta¯ men yıˇ we´i woˇ shı` ba´i re´n. Robert shuo¯ ta¯ yıˇ we´i woˇ yoˇu yı` diaˇn diaˇn xia`ng yı`n du` re´n - yı`n du` de yı`n du` re´n. Ta¯ men shuo¯ woˇ bu´ xia`ng Jeremy. Woˇ ga`o su ta¯ men woˇ shı` yı´ bu` fen zho¯ng guo´ re´n, yı´ bu` fen ba´i re´n. Woˇ ga`o su ta¯ men woˇ za`i jia¯ lıˇ he´ nıˇ shuo¯ zho¯ng we´n. Woˇ he´ Jeremy yı´ ya`ng xı¯ng qı¯ tia¯n sha`ng zho¯ng we´n xue´ xia`o8 , , , , , shocked8 Robert Jeremy8 , Jeremy (Mother, my classmates were shocked to find out that I am half Chinese, I mean, part Chinese. They told me that they thought I was White. Robert said that he thought I looked a

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little bit like Indian
Indian from India. They said that I did not look like Jeremy [he is Chinese]. I told them I am part Chinese and part White. I also told them I speak Chinese at home with you and went to Chinese school every Sunday like Jeremy.) ´ andre was clear about his ethnic-racial category. Interestingly, In this narrative, Le he stopped using the word half to describe himself as he used to do (as in half Chinese). Instead, he began to use the word part to describe himself (as in part Chinese and part White). This was progress in his understanding of his ethnic-racial category because the word half was not really accurate, and part was a better choice. He also felt comfortable informing his classmates about his ethnic-racial identity, and even offered the additional information that he spoke Chinese at home with his mother and went to Chinese school like his Chinese classmate Jeremy.

A Distinct Personality Formed Through Unique Experience ´ andre and Dominique’s own voices on their linguistic, cultural, After ‘hearing’ Le national and ethnic-racial identities, I will now discuss some aspects of their personality development,12 which may be related to their unique experience of growing up trilingual, tricultural, biracial and binational.

Constant use of linguistic and cultural resources One of the children’s distinct personality traits was that they were always ready to utilize their linguistic and heritage-cultural resources in their daily lives. Next is an example of how Dominique used his heritage-cultural resources in preparing his fourth-grade Horizon13 Science Exhibition. Example 6.12 Dominique (nine years and five months) and his father were discussing what project topic Dominique would pursue for his up-coming Horizon Science Exhibition. Dominique:

Father: Dominique:

Papa, tu peux m’aider a` pre´parer mon projet pour l’e´cole? (Father, can you help me with this school project?) [Showing his father the project requirement sheet.] Bien suˆr. Qu’est-ce que tu veux faire? (Certainly. What do you want to do?) Je pourrais faire quelque chose sur la Suisse ou la Chine. Je crois que je vais faire quelque chose sur la Suisse, sur un savant suisse. Sur Daniel Bernoulli?

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Father:

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(I can do something about Switzerland or something about China. [A few seconds later] I think I will do something about Switzerland, about a Swiss scientist? Maybe Daniel Bernoulli?14) Tu pourras dire que c’e´tait ton arrie`re-arrie`re. . . huit fois arrie`regrand-oncle, je crois. On va appeler grand-maman et lui demander de ve´rifier dans le livre vert sur la famille Bernoulli. (You can say that he is your great, great and great. . . I think your great uncle times 8. Let me call your grandmother and ask her to check in the green Bernoulli Family Book.) C’est une bonne ide´e. (This is a good idea.)

In addition, the children also frequently utilized their linguistic resources in their interactions with their peers, as shown in Example 6.13. Example 6.13 On the way back to our friend’s apartment from a show. Her son Henrik was walking ahead of us with Dominique (four years and two months). Dominique:

Henrik: Dominique: Henrik:

[Henrik constantly put his right hand on Dominique’s head.] Why do you bother me? Imbecile! What did you say? I detest you! What?

In my 22 years of experience working with English-speaking young children (both in classroom and research setting), I never heard a four-year-old Englishspeaking child using such words as imbecile and detest. What is intriguing in this example is that Dominique (who is about a year and a half younger than Henrik) knew that he could not top Henrik with strength and therefore decided to revenge by deliberately using the not-so-usual English cognates of common French words. He knew that Henrik would not understand them. By taking advantage of his linguistic resources, he managed to release his anger and to show that he had an advantage over his physically much stronger friend. Some adults, including some of the children’s teachers, also informed us that the two kids often used their linguistic resources (French or Chinese) in oral discussions and writings. The children were creative and humorous in their language use by integrating their knowledge of the different languages. Many words invented by them were quite creative and imaginative such as fromage criminel and violonisateur

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(see descriptions in Chapter 4) and humorous such as Jacques Boulanger (a nickname they gave to one of their Chinese school classmates, James Baker). Apparently, using linguistic and cultural resources is common among children who know more than one language. As Olga Vasquez and coauthors15 pointed out in their book Pushing Boundaries: Language and Culture in a Mexican Community, children who know more than one language are often able to use resources from all of their languages as they engage in social interactions and learning situations, and they actively construct their identities and communication styles by pooling their knowledge of language conventions and cultural norms across their languages. Thinking of different possibilities ´ andre and Dominique had to deal with different It is possible that because Le languages and cultures as well as the related aspects, they were more inclined to think about different possibilities when given a seemingly impossible task. Once in a friend’s apartment in north Manhattan, Le´andre and Dominique were playing with five other boys, making so much noise that the downstairs neighbor telephoned my friend to complain. I tried to engage the children in a quieter activity by asking them to play with Lego. I told the kids that they could build something impressive using the Lego pieces in the box and show me what they had done after 20 minutes. One boy (about five years old) immediately complained that he could not build anything nice with those Lego pieces because they were all the same shapes and sizes, and he needed different shapes like the ones at his home to build interesting objects. Another boy (about six years old) tried to make something with the Lego pieces and quickly abandoned the task, giving the same excuse as the first boy. Le´andre (five years and three months), on the other hand, began to work with the Lego pieces by trying out different possibilities. He first built a Lego house (a hollow cube) and a helicopter (stacking the Lego pieces), then he put the helicopter on top of the house, built a stair that led to the helicopter, a road and another blocklike object he called a hospital. He went on building with the Lego pieces, which the other kids there thought were useless, to make something interesting. We were constantly impressed with Le´andre and Dominique’s abilities to think about different possibilities in everyday activities, which seemed to be related to their trilingual experience; it could also just be their personality. Nevertheless, the children were always able to come up with more than one solution. This tendency can sometimes slow things down, however. For example, it is often hard for Dominique to complete his school projects because he always has many ideas, and he finds it difficult to settle with just one idea. Exceptionally observant Another striking personality tendency is the children’s exceptional observation ability, which may be the ‘by-product’ of growing up in different linguistic systems. For example, we were often impressed with the boys’ ability to detect the slightest

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accents people had. Once we were traveling in Bath, UK. I was sure that the gentleman who served our breakfast in the hotel was a ‘native’ English-speaker. Dominique (eight years and one month) whispered to me that he was certain the waiter was French. I asked him why. Dominique said that he could hear the man pronouncing certain words differently from the other people he heard in Bath. Indeed, Dominique was right, the man was French (he began to speak French when he heard the conversation between the boys and their father).

Different representations of selves in different languages The children also showed a tendency of representing their different selves in different languages. The following is part of a lengthy description by Dominique about his four-day trip to Paris to three different people in three different languages: English to a Dutch relative, French to his older brother and Chinese to his mother. Example 6.14 Dominique (ten years and one month) [In English] ‘ . . . We lived in a hotel called the Splendid Hotel the first night. It was not splendid at all! I don’t recommend it. The rooms were too small . . . The breakfast was bad. We then moved to the Hilton Hotel the next night; it was the best in all of Europe. . .’ [the poster on the wall says it’s the best in Europe.] [In French] ‘. . . J’ai visite´ le Louvre et j’ai vu la Joconde. C’e´tait super. Je vais pouvoir dire a` mes copains d’e´cole que j’ai vu la vraie! Papa m’a meˆme pris en photo devant elle. Je n’oublierai jamais cette journe´e . . . J’ai aussi vu la Ve´nus de Milo. Tu sais pourquoi elle n’a plus ses bras? C’est un ‘‘hobo’’ qui les lui a mange´s’.’ (‘ . . . I visited the Louvre and I saw the real painting of the Mona Lisa. It’s fabulous. I can now tell my classmates in school that I finally saw the real thing. Father took some pictures of me in front of her [the painting]. I’ll never forget this day . . . I also saw the statue of Venus. [Laughing] Do you know why her arms were missing? They were eaten by a hobo . . .’). [Dominique wanted to make the similar kind of joke as the Belgian cartoonist Philippe Geluck in one of his comic books.] [In Chinese] ‘ . . . . . . Woˇ men da`o yı´ ge` zho¯ng guo´ re´n ka¯i de ta`i guo´ fa`n dia`n chı¯ waˇn fa`n. Woˇ jia`o le ka¯ fe¯i bı¯ng qı´ lı´n, keˇ shı` na` ge` zho¯ng guo´ zha¯o da`i yua´n geˇi woˇ qiaˇo ke` lı` de. Ta¯ keˇ ne´ng xiaˇng xiaˇo ha´i zi bu` ne´ng chı¯ ka¯ fe¯i, keˇ shı` ta¯ me´i yoˇu ga`o su woˇ. Ta¯ jiaˇ zhua¯ng ya`o geˇi woˇ, keˇ shı` ta¯ me´i yoˇu geˇi woˇ . . . . . .’.

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‘

, ,

, ’ (‘ . . .We ate dinner in a Thai restaurant opened by two Chinese people. I ordered coffee ice cream, but the Chinese waitress gave me chocolate instead; she probably thought that children should not have coffee [caffeine]. She didn’t tell me that I couldn’t have coffee ice cream. She pretended to take my order and then gave me a different kind of ice cream. . .’). When describing his visit to Paris, Dominique did not just directly translate his experience from one language to another and use the same sets of words and expressions. Instead, he picked up different aspects of his experience when speaking to different listeners. In English, he picked his hotel experience. His description in English is linear (the first night, then, the next night) and evaluative (the hotel is not splendid, small rooms, bad breakfast and the Hilton is the best). In French, he chose to comment on his experience in the Louvre. His description in French is emotional (finally saw the real painting and never forget the experience) and humorous (the arms of Venus were eaten by a hobo). In Chinese, he decided to tell his experience in the Thai restaurant. His description in Chinese is judgmental (the Chinese waitress was not straightforward). In these descriptions, Dominique enacted three different selves: the linear and evaluative self in English, the passionate and humorous self in French and the judgmental self in Chinese. These different representations of selves demonstrated by Dominique when speaking different languages are also observed by other researchers, such as Susan Ervin-Tripp and Miche`le Koven.16 They suggest that languages used by speakers with more than one language are used not just to represent a unitary self, but to enact different kinds of selves, and different linguistic context create different kinds of self-expression and experiences for the same person. It is perhaps also possible that the different selves represented in different linguistic contexts reveals that multilingual persons understand what kinds of selfrepresentation can most likely capture their audience in a particular language (and culture). In Example 6.14, Dominique’s linear and evaluative self is enacted to adapt to his English-speaking audience (based on his understanding of what an Englishspeaking person may want to hear), his passionate and humorous self is enacted to adapt to his French-speaking audience, and his judgmental self (moral is perhaps more accurate, i.e. you don’t tell one thing and then do another) is enacted to suit his Chinese-speaking audience. Overly critical of the ways that others speak Perhaps because Le´andre and Dominique had been frequently corrected by their parents in their heritage languages, they seemed to be particularly sensitive and

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even critical of how others speak. Sometimes, they went a little overboard with their critical attitude. For example, when approaching the Swiss border city Basel from Germany, the French voice of our GPS told us to follow ‘Basel City’. The children were up in arms when they heard the French voice they called Bernard say [bazel3] instead of the French name ‘Baˆle’. Dominique shouted from the back of the car: ‘Monsieur Bernard, ce n’est pas [bazel3], c’est Baˆle, espe`ce d’idiot!’ (Mr. Bernard, it’s not [bazel3], it’s Baˆle, you idiot!’). Once, on a boat we sat next to a Swiss family with three young children. Le´andre leaned over to me and commented quietly that those people were not native French speakers. I asked why, and he replied that real French speakers would never use il (he) when they referred to their mother. Having a sense of knowing more than their peers Because the two children heard more praise than criticism from others about being able to speak three languages, and because they have traveled in many parts of the world, they sometimes believed that they knew more than other children. For example, one of Le´andre’s teachers was discussing Gibraltar in a social studies class. She assumed that none of the children in the class had ever visited there, and thus commented, ‘I bet none of you know the place’. To her surprise, Le´andre raised his hand and said that he had been there. Le´andre told me that one of his classmates commented afterwards saying, ‘Le´andre, you are lucky to be able to travel to many places. The only place I ever visited was New Jersey’. Also, Dominique’s fifth-grade teacher told us in a parent-teacher conference that Dominique showed some pictures of his summer trip to his classmates. He was particularly excited to tell them about a picture he took of a statue of Plato in a Berlin museum. One of the girls in his class asked, ‘What kind of playdough?’ Dominique arrogantly commented that the girl was ‘ignorant’ and did not know the difference between Plato and playdough. Le´andre and Dominique seemed to develop a sense that they knew more than their peers. I sometimes heard them use the word ‘stupid’ when they found that other children did not know certain things they knew (and they simply did not understand that other children could call them the same thing when they talk about baseball or golf). Despite these tendencies, Le´andre and Dominique overall developed healthy identities and personalities in the first 11 years of their lives, and they continue to thrive as happy, enthusiastic, creative and intelligent trilingual individuals.

Suggestions for Fostering a Healthy Identity and Personality Development Raising a child simultaneously in three languages is not just a linguistic matter; it is also a matter of raising a child with a healthy identity and personality outlook. Because there are more complexities and intricacies involved in a trilingual child’s

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life and because the early identity formation process (e.g. a child’s perceptions of self) has a significant influence on a child’s later development,17 a great deal of attention should be given to the child’s identity and personality developmental needs. The following suggestions are for parents to consider in their childrearing practices. Successful experiences in heritage-language learning are important People (children included) tend to evaluate their abilities based on their past experiences of success and failure. The chances are that the more successful experiences people have, the more confident they will become.18 Thus, the experience children have in learning heritage languages will possibly influence how confident they feel about themselves. Although no parents would intentionally hurt their children’s self-esteem, sometimes not-meant-to-be comments could be hurtful to children and make them feel that they are not ‘smart’ enough. Therefore, parents may want to focus more on encouragement rather than criticism when helping their children learn their heritage languages. We may want to make efforts to create an environment in which children can genuinely feel confident about their own abilities through successful experiences. Parents play a key role in children’s identity and personality development Parents play a major role in their children’s early identity and personality formation process.19 The environment they provide for their children, including their comments, behaviors, attitudes and childrearing strategies, directly influence their children’s world view and sense of self. In our interactions with our children, we noticed that our casual comments about our heritage countries and cultures can sometimes make a big impression on them. They do listen to us carefully and take our comments and opinions seriously. When reviewing the video, audio-recordings and notes of our interactions with our children (over the first 11 years), I noticed that many small comments made by us about our heritage countries and cultures have found their way into the children’s own comments and attitudes. For the most part, we are successful in instilling in our children a positive image of our heritage countries and cultures. However, I noticed a difference between Philippe and me. Philippe in general is positive about his heritage country Switzerland and its culture (such as the scenery, the federal political system, the quality of products and services). Even if he occasionally criticizes some aspects of his heritage (past and current), he explains to the children his reasons, which may contribute to our children’s positive outlook on that part of their heritage. I also try to be positive about my heritage country and culture, and at many levels, I am successful with it. Nevertheless, I have found that some of my

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comments about my heritage country and culture may have unintentionally contradicted my effort because of my having omitted explanations. As adults, we can criticize one part of something and at the same time, appreciate other parts of it. Children, however, may mistake the bits for the whole. When they hear the negative comments their parents make about their heritage countries and cultures, they may believe in it. It is not to say that parents cannot criticize their heritage; it is how the message is transferred and explained to their children. Another way parents can help their children become attached to their heritage countries and cultures is to provide positive experiences for the children. As you read earlier, Dominique’s favorable feeling toward Switzerland and China started with immediately gratifying experiences (e.g. the food he liked). The more positive experience children have toward the heritage countries and cultures, the more likely it will be that they will identify with them. In the long run, feeling positive about being part of one’s heritage will help a child’s healthy identity development. I have read many accounts of people who lamented the impact of their lost heritage on their identity, as Eric Liu poignantly commented, ‘I realized, as well, that my route of entry has taken a certain toll. I have neglected my ancestral heritage. I have lost something’.20 Teacher, professional childcare provider and peer influence on children’s identity formation Besides parents, other adults, such as teachers and pediatricians, also play crucial roles in children’s identity development.21 Children care very much about what ´ andre’s fifth grade teacher these authority figures say about them. For instance, Le Mrs. George boosted Le´andre’s confidence as a trilingual because she, on the first day of that school year, asked her class, ‘Do any of you speak other languages?’ This ´ andre and he got off to a good question apparently made a big impression on Le start for his fifth grade year. That year Le´andre often told us about how his teacher valued him as a trilingual person. I also mentioned in Chapter 3 that the children’s pediatrician played a very important role in supporting the children’s trilingual development. Each year in their annual physical check-up, Dr. Mayer never failed to praise their ability to speak three languages. Year after year when the children hear the positive comments from their doctor, they feel good about who they are. Peers are also an important force in children’s identity and personality development.22 Their comments and judgments carry weight as to how children think about themselves. As Bent Søndergaard in his article ‘Decline and Fall of an Individual Bilingualism’ painfully reported, negative peer reactions resulted in his son JH’s abandonment of his maternal heritage language
Finnish.23 ´ andre and Dominique have been lucky to have peers who are admiring of their Le trilingual abilities. The positive attitude on the part of peers has helped the children feel good about themselves and has contributed to their healthy identity and personality development.

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Having opportunities to interact with peers who are multilingual is also ´ andre important to make children feel positive about themselves. For example, Le found it encouraging and enjoyable to talk and play with a Chinese classmate during recess in his later elementary grades. He felt good knowing that there are other people who also share his experience. Therefore, parents may want to make efforts to look for youngsters who share similar linguistic and cultural experiences as playmates for their children. Children’s role in their trilingual identity formation Although parents, other adults and peers play an important role in children’s identity development, children themselves are not passive.24 They actively construct their own identity by negotiating with these agents in their environment. Even though Le´andre and Dominique are growing up in the same linguistic and cultural environment, they do not necessarily have the exact same identity. As children are active in building their own identity and personality development, it is important to listen to them carefully. The more we are willing to tune in to their voices, the better we can understand their needs and the more effectively we can support them. Identity development is an ongoing process Identity is not fixed and it is constantly being constructed and reconstructed.25 At different stages of children’s identity development, they will demonstrate different characteristics. Parents may want to realize that the identity formation process is a process of negotiation. For instance, in Example 6.8, Dominique exhibited his insecurity about his Swiss-ness. I was not worried about it because such insecurity appears to be typical of those who have more than one language and cultural background. Our role as parents is to support them and help them reflect on their experience and feelings. What Philippe did (as shown in Example 6.8) is commendable. He told Dominique that his face painting would set a trend for other Swiss children. Such a supportive comment from Philippe may have helped Dominique in his negotiation of his Swiss identity, which may have proceeded something like this: I tried (painted a Swiss flag on my face), it seemed not right (because other Swiss did not do it), but my father told me that I may set a trend for them (therefore, I feel good), next time I may ‘do some research’ before I try to act like a Swiss. Some issues to watch out for about the one-parent-one-language method Although the one-parent-one-language method is effective in helping children acquire home languages as shown in our childrearing practice, there are some downsides that parents may want to be careful about. Because in such a method, children only speak one language to one parent, they may be led to believe that the other parent either does not understand what they say or is not aware of what they are saying. Recall in Chapter 3 I mentioned that both Le´andre and Dominique

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sometimes tended to tell on one parent to the other parent. Such behavior, if not paid attention to, could affect the harmony of the family in the long run. In our practice, when we notice that such phenomenon happens, we tell them that it is not nice to speak about the other parent behind their back. If they want to say something, they should tell the other parent. Next is an example of how I dealt with Dominique’s telling on his father: Example 6.15 Dominique (six years and three months) Dominique:

(Ba`ba haˇo taˇo ya`n8

Mother:

(Dad is annoying.) We`i she´n me nıˇ. zhe` me shuo¯?

Dominique:

(Why do you say so?) Ta¯ shuo¯ ta¯ ya`o he´ woˇ da`o Clubhouse qu` wa´n. Keˇ shı` ta¯ ha´i za`i lo´u sha`ng ga¯n ta¯ de shı` qing8 Clubhouse (He promised me to go play with me in the Clubhouse. But, he is still working upstairs.) Nıˇ we`i she´n me ga`o su woˇ? Ta¯ shuo¯ de, nıˇ yı¯ng ga¯i qu` we`n ta¯8 , (Why do you tell me about this? Since he promised you, you should go ask him.) Keˇ shı` ta¯ bu` tı¯ng8

Mother:

(But, he is not listening.) Na` me nıˇ ya`o xiaˇng ba`n faˇ jia`o ta¯ tı¯ng8

Dominique:

(Then, you should find a way to make him listen.) Zeˇn me ke´ yıˇ?

Dominique:

Mother:

Mother:

(How?) Deˇng ta¯ zuo` wa´n ta¯ de shı` qı´ng de shı´ hou, nıˇ za`i qu` ge¯n ta¯ jiaˇng, ta¯ jiu` huı` tı¯ng de8 , , (When he finishes his work, you go to him and tell him what you think. He will listen.)

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To pay attention to this issue earlier will help young children realize that direct communication is important in a family relationship. It will also help cultivate children’s healthy personality development.

Summary ´ andre and Dominique’s In this chapter, readers have the opportunity to observe Le identity formation process over the first 11 years of their lives. It is observed that the children’s linguistic identity went from simple labeling to overly possessive, and finally to a more sophisticated and balanced understanding. Their ethnic-racial identity went from simple labeling to a state of color (race) confusion, and to a deeper understanding. Their cultural and national identity has not yet reached the balanced status. As a possible result of growing up in a complex environment (e.g. three languages and three cultures in addition to two races and two nationalities), our children developed some distinct personality characteristics. They tended to utilize their linguistic and cultural resources to their advantage, they tended to consider different possibilities in problem solving and they tended to be exceptionally observant. When expressing themselves in different languages, they tended to enact different selves to achieve different communicative effects. However, there is also something in their personality that needs to be watched out for: for example, they tended to be overly critical of the ways that others spoke and to have a sense of knowing more than their peers. Raising trilingual children is more than a linguistic matter. It is also a matter of raising children with healthy identities and personalities. Parents may want to be strategically thoughtful about this. First, we need to provide positive experience for our children in their home-language learning process. Second, we may want to be careful about what we say and do because even the most casual comments about heritage cultures and languages can make big impressions on our children, and potentially influence their identity formation. Parents may want to make efforts to discuss their perspective on their heritages countries and cultures with their children. Third, other people, such as teachers, pediatricians and peers in the children’s lives also influence the children’s identity and personality development. It is often through others that children confirm who they are. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor children’s environments and make sure that people around them can provide support for their identity and personality development. Fourth, children are active in their own identity and personality formation process. They are constantly negotiating their way through their environment and within themselves. It is normal for them to show variations in the stages of their identity formation. They may not reach the same level in all aspects of their identity. Parents may want to listen to their children’s voices carefully to gain insight into how they are developing and provide support accordingly. Finally, identity is not fixed; children are constructing and reconstructing it constantly. It is through such a process that children negotiate, grow and thrive.

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Notes and References 1. Marcia, J.E. (1966) Development and validation of ego-identity status. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 3, 551
558. 2. Reyes, A. (2007) Language, Identity, and Stereotype Among Southeast Asian American Youth: The Other Asian. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 3. Kanno, Y. (2003) Negotiating Bilingual and Bicultural Identities: Japanese Returnees Betwixt Two Worlds (p. 3). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 4. Uszyn´sk-Jarmoc, J. (2004) The conception of self in children’s narrative. Early Child Development and Care 174 (1), 81
97. Golden, J. (1996) Critical imagination: Serious play with narrative and gender. Gender and Education 8, 323
336. Miller, P. and Sperry, L. (1988) Early talk about the past: The origins of conversational stories of personal experience. Journal of Child Language 15, 293
315. Miller, P., Potts, R., Fung, H., Hoogstra, L. and Mintz, J. (1990) Narrative practices and the social construction of self in childhood. American Ethnologist 17 (2), 293
311. Clandinin, D.J. and Connelly, F.M. (2000) Narrative Inquiry: Experience and Story in Qualitative Research. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. MacIntyre, A. (1981) After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. McAdams, D.P., Josselson, R. and Lieblich, A. (eds) (2006) Identity and Story: Creating Self in Narrative. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Pahl, K. (2004) Narratives, artifacts and cultural identities: An ethnographic study of communicative practices in homes. Linguistics and Education: An International Research Journal 15 (4), 339
358. 5. Engel, S. (1995) The Stories Children Tell: Making Sense of the Narratives of Childhood (p. 185). New York: W.H. Freeman. 6. There are currently many different opinions on the terms racial identity and ethnic identity. Until we find a better term, I adopt the term ethnic-racial identity proposed by Diane Hughes and colleagues. See Hughes, D., Rodrigues, J., Smith, E., Johnson, D. and Stevenson, H. (2006) Parents’ ethnic/racial socialization practices: A review of research and directions for future study. Developmental Psychology 42(5), 747
770. 7. McCallister, C. (2004) Schooling the possible self. Curriculum Inquiry 34 (4), 425
461. 8. Bruner, J. (1996) The Culture of Education. Cambridge, MA: The Harvard University Press. 9. Pinar, W., Reynolds, W.M., Slattery, P. and Taubman, P.M. (1995) Understanding Curriculum: An Introduction to the Study of History and Contemporary Curriculum Discourse. New York: Peter Lang. 10. McCallister, C. (2004) Schooling the possible self. Curriculum Inquiry 34 (4), 425
461. 11. Kensaku, Y. (1999) Sociocultural and psychological factors in the development of bilingual identity. Bilingual Japan 8, 5
9. 12. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the definition of personality is a characteristic way of thinking, feeling and behaving. It embraces moods, attitudes and opinions and is most clearly expressed in interactions with other people. It includes behavioral characteristics, both inherent and acquired, that distinguish one person from another and that can be observed in people’s relations to the environment. 13. Horizon is a program for gifted children in my children’s school district. Dominique’s InView test results qualified him to be enrolled in this program. The children in this program were given additional instructions in reading and math as well as other subject areas daily, and are required to complete additional assignments and projects throughout the school year. 14. Daniel Bernoulli (1700
1782) was a Dutch-born Swiss mathematician who spent much of his life in Basel, Switzerland. He discovered Bernoulli’s principle which is of critical use

Identity and Personality Development: Children’s Voices

15. 16.

17.

18. 19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

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in aerodynamics. His principle laid the foundation for mordern aviation. Dominique’s Swiss parternal great grandmother was a Bernoulli descendant. Vasquez, O.A., Pease-Alvarez, L. and Shannon, S. (1994) Pushing Boundaries: Language and Culture in a Mexican Community. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ervin-Tripp, S. (1964) Language and TAT context in bilinguals. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 68 (5), 500
507. Koven, M. (1998) Two languages in the self/the self in two languages: French
Portuguese bilinguals’ verbal enactments and experiences of self in narrative discourse. Ethos 26 (4), 410
455. Koven, M. (2007) Selves in Two Languages: Bilinguals’ Verbal Enhancements of Identity in French and Portuguese. Amsterdam: John Benjamin. Cooper, P.S. (1993) Self-esteem and facial attractiveness in learning disabled children. Child Study Journal 23, 79
92. Erikson, E. (1980) Identity and the Life Cycle. New York: W.W. Norton. Erikson, E.H. (1963) Childhood and Society (2nd edn, pp. 251
258). New York: W.W. Norton. Bandura, A. (1977) Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review 84, 191
215. Hitlin, S. (2006) Parental influences on children’s values and aspirations: Bridging two theories of social class and socialization. Sociological Perspectives 49 (1), 25
46. Tse, L. (2000) The effects of ethnic identity formation on bilingual maintenance and development: An analysis of Asian American narratives. International Journal of Bilingual Education 3(3), 185
200. Liu, E. (1998) The Accidental Asian: Notes of a Native Speaker (p. 54). New York: Vintage Books. Anicich, M. and Rea, K. (1999) Cultural awareness education in early childhood education. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, San Francisco, CA. 6
9 March. Sherriff, N. (2007) Peer group cultures and social identity: An integrated approach to understanding masculinities. British Educational Research Journal 33 (3), 349
370. Søndergaard, B. (1981) Decline and fall of an individual bilingualism. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 2 (4), 297
302. Piaget, J. and Inhelder, B. (1969) The Psychology of the Child. New York: Basic Books. Norton, B. (1997) Language identity and the ownership of English. TESOL Quarterly 31, 409
430.

Chapter 7

Concluding Remarks This chapter begins with a brief assessment of the current state of the study on trilingual first language acquisition to inform parents where the field stands. It then highlights several perplexing issues about my findings to help parents grapple with its complexity. It concludes with 10 important take-home messages regarding raising multilingual children to encourage parents to create a supportive environment for their children to thrive while developing their heritage languages and cultures.

The Current State of Trilingual First Language Acquisition Research In recent years, research on trilingualism has gained considerable momentum. A variety of topics have been explored. For example, researchers have: . . . . . .

examined the role bilingualism plays in acquiring a third language;1 explored trilingual identity issues;2 studied trilingual literacy development;3 analyzed trilingual codeswitching (language mixing);4 inquired into trilingual brain development;5 looked at the situation of trilinguals who have special conditions (such as disabilities6 and medical conditions7).

While studies on trilingualism proliferate, most of them, however, deal with later language acquisition or trilingual second or third language learning situations.8 There is still little research on trilingual first language acquisition; in particular, there is a want of systematic and longitudinal studies. In 2001, linguist Suzanne Quay gave an accurate assessment of the study of children who acquire three languages as their first languages when she wrote, ‘we know very little about raising multilingual children as work on trilingual families and early trilingual development is still in its infancy’.9 Several years have passed since Quay’s remark, and research on trilingual first language acquisition has remained scarce. To the best of my knowledge, the only other published studies that document trilingual first language acquisition besides this book are periodical reports of a 10-year-old child who has been simultaneously acquiring English, Dutch and French since birth,10 and a few other studies that focused on the trilingual development of young children.11 The reason for the lack of research on trilingual first language acquisition is well explained by linguists Charlotte Hoffmann and Anat Stavans. They pointed out that the study of child trilingualism can be frustrating because it is often hampered by 194

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practical problems relating to the collection and interpretation of data and the absence of theoretical models.12 For now, my study in this book can serve as an important step in advancing our understanding of the process of trilingual first language acquisition, particularly the parental support and its impact on heritage-language acquisition and maintenance.

Complexity of Trilingual First Language Acquisition Throughout the book, you have glimpsed Le´andre and Dominique’s trilingual development process. However, several areas still need further elaboration in order to help parents see the complexity of multilingual acquisition and development. Nature versus nurture To what extent is a child’s language acquisition process guided by innate universal human language-learning capacities (nature) and to what extent is it determined by the specific language-learning environment (nurture)? This perennial question is asked here again in the case of trilingual as first language acquisition. As we have seen in this book, even though Le´andre and Dominique’s language-learning environment (one-person-one-language) and the number of languages they acquire (Chinese, French and English) are different from many other children (especially different from monolingual children), both children followed the same universal language-learning trajectory by going through the same cooing, babbling, one-word and two-word stages. Moreover, both children utilized the same universal language-learning strategies to solve linguistic ‘problems’ that were beyond their repertoire. For example, they experimented with (extended) the general Chinese classifier rules in situations where no classifiers are in (five days) instead of . This kind of needed, such as adding language experimentation is reminiscent of young English-learning children’s extension of the general past tense ‘-ed’ rule to situations where irregular verbs are needed (such as goed for went and taked for took). Interestingly, multilingual children like Le´andre and Dominique are also able to experiment with language rules from one language to another. For example, Dominique extended the English subject-pronoun agreement in French as in Une personne entre dans la pie`ce. Puis il ouvre la feneˆtre (A man enters the room and then he opens the window). Instead, he ‘should’ have used Une personne entre dans la pie`ce. Puis elle ouvre la feneˆtre. It seems that there is indeed an innate universal language acquisition device13 or language-making capacity14 that guides human language development whether a child learns one language or more languages. While we recognize that the universal language-making abilities may help children unfold their language-learning potential, we also need to recognize that the variations in a child’s language-learning environment may make the child’s universal potential emerge differently. Because Le´andre and Dominique are learning three languages simultaneously from birth, they have to develop abilities

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to navigate among three different linguistic systems and cultures. Such experience may make them learn their languages from a different vantage point. Compared to their monolingual peers, Le´andre and Dominique, for example, developed more advanced metalinguistic abilities (awareness of languages) at a young age. They are also more creative in language use (such as the invention of fromage criminel and violonisateur, see Chapter 4) and are more sensitive to word accuracy (such as a television host’s misuse of dip for marinate, see Chapter 5). Although my findings do not allow me to generalize whether Le´andre and Dominique exhibit any language-learning differences compared to their bilingual peers, other research on trilingual as first language acquisition suggests that differences do exist.15 For example, Suzanne Quay recently reported that a trilingual child (Chinese, Japanese and English) used strategies that are different from bilingual children in language mixing.16 Moreover, we also have recent evidence from trilingual as second language acquisition that trilinguals show differences in their phonological awareness compared with bilinguals.17 Future research will tell us more about the differences in the two populations. Therefore, it is important to understand that notwithstanding innate language development faculties (nature), children who acquire three languages may demonstrate different language characteristics and competencies (the result of nurture). Input versus output Child language researchers have always been interested in the relationship between parental input (modeling) and children’s output (language production). On the one hand, my observations in this book have shown that there is an obvious link between the parental input (the strategies that my husband and I used) and Le´andre and Dominique’s language output (the language behaviors that they demonstrated). Sometimes, such links between parental input and children’s output can be directly traced. For example, the children’s use of quiz-style conversation described in Chapter 3 is the direct influence of my input. However, parental input and children’s output should not be regarded as a straightforward relationship. In real language learning situations (multilingual learning included), children’s language production may not always match the parents’ input. As we observed throughout the book, Le´andre and Dominique sometimes altered their heritage-language production by either changing the way of ’ instead of ‘woˇ me´i yoˇu ga`n expression (such as ‘woˇ me´i yoˇu no`ng zhe` ge/ ’ (I didn’t do this)) or using expressions different from their zhe` jia`n shı`/ and sur le bus instead of en bus or dans le bus). input (such as using instead of Such a phenomenon is not necessarily a failure in language acquisition. It is rather a child’s way of discovering meaning or experimenting with languages. Furthermore, though the amount of input is important in children’s language development (production), the quality of the input may be equally important.

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Though trilingual children (simultaneously acquiring three languages) may have less input in their heritage languages quantitatively, it should not be regarded as detrimental in their heritage-language acquisition. My findings have shown that the quality of their multilingual input may compensate for a lack of input quantity. Thus, parents may want to make every effort to provide an enriched linguistic input to help their children learn multilanguages.

Language similarities versus language differences The types of language children are acquiring can ease or complicate their language-learning process. Similarities between two language systems can facilitate certain aspects of language learning in multilingual children. For example, you have observed that Le´andre and Dominique had an easier time acquiring and using French cognates in English (e.g. imbecile, detest, succulent and superb). However, similarities in languages can also interfere with language learning. For instance, Le´andre mixed up the English character with French caracte`re (which has a different meaning). Similarly, both Le´andre and Dominique had an advantage in learning Chinese pı¯n yı¯n ( ) by knowing English and French. However, this exposure to pı¯n yı¯n has interfered with their learning Chinese characters
(see Chapter 5). We also witnessed that Le´andre and Dominique sometimes anglicized their French and Chinese. For example, Dominique borrowed an English sentence structure in French such as je suis content que j’aie rec¸u ce jeu (I am glad that I received this game) instead of je suis content d’avoir rec¸u ce jeu (see Chapter 5). Dominique borrowed the instead of English meaning pick up and used it in the Chinese context: (pick up brother). Furthermore, the types of language being acquired can also affect the acquisition of certain linguistic features in other language(s). Learning the four Chinese tones is a good example: during the children’s early years (home years), they acquired native-like Chinese tones (see Chapter 3). However, as soon as they had more English input, their Chinese tones went through changes. In particular, the dip tone ) was affected (see Chapters 4 and 5). The issue is or falling-rising tone ( complicated: on the one hand, research on native Chinese-speaking children’s tone acquisition seems to indicate that the tone acquisition is resilient,18even among the population with a language impairment.19 On the other hand, research also suggests that the Chinese tones are vulnerable to the acquisition of English.20 From my findings, it seems that multilingual children’s tone acquisition is more complex than in the case of monolingual Chinese. In sum, the language development process of children who acquire three languages simultaneously is interesting, yet complex. More research is needed to understand these complexities; maybe your own multilingual childrearing practice can shed further light on these issues.

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Take-Home Messages for Parents Before I end this book, I would like to offer 10 important take-home messages, as concluding thoughts, for parents to consider in their process of raising multilingual children. There are potential advantages to know more than one language Despite some earlier studies that reported the negative consequences of being bilingual21 and some mixed research findings about the absence of benefits of being bilingual,22 most recent studies indicate many advantages associated with knowing more than one language. Although most advantages reported in the current research literature are drawn from observations of bilingual children, we may assume that these advantages can be extended to multilingual children as well. Current research suggests that bilingual children, compared with their monolingual counterparts, do have particular and varied advantages. In particular, there are advantages in cognition (the mental process involved in knowing, learning and understanding things) and metalinguistic awareness (the awareness of the aspects of a language) and literacy.23 For example, bilingual children are found to be more flexible in thinking and reasoning24 and perform better in problem-solving,25 including social problem-solving.26 Moreover, they are likely to show a greater readiness to recognize language structure27 and are more advanced in phonological (sound), lexical (word) and syntactic (sentence) awareness;28 they also have better lexical-semantic (word-meaning) association skills,29 and tend to have a richer lexicon (vocabulary).30 Furthermore, bilingual children are found to learn to read more rapidly than their monolingual peers.31 In addition to the above-mentioned advantages, children with more than one language may have advantages in other areas as well.32 Colin Baker suggests 10 potential advantages of being bilingual33 (see Table 7.1). These advantages can be equally attributed to multilingual children, who may have additional advantages for speaking more than two languages (e.g. wider communication and cultural possibilities). Taken together, it is clear that there are potential advantages to being bilingual or multilingual. However, such advantages can only be considered in terms of many complex factors,34 such as the features of the language(s) that children are acquiring, their proficiency,35 the specific language-learning environment36 and individual children’s developmental characteristics. Children’s well-being should always come first Raising children with more than one language is not just a language issue; it is also and perhaps even more so a childrearing issue. Though learning more than one language may be a major task in a child’s life, their well-being should always come before anything else. Putting children’s well-being first may require parents to do the following:

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Table 7.1 The advantages of being bilingual Communication advantages 1.

Wider communication (extended family, community, international links, employment).

2.

Literacy in two languages.

Cultural advantages 3.

Broader enculturation, a deeper multiculturalism, and two ‘language worlds’ of experience.

4.

Greater tolerance and appreciation of diversity.

Cognitive advantages 5.

Thinking benefits (e.g. creativity, sensitivity to communication).

Character advantages 6.

Raised self-esteem.

7.

Security in identity.

Curriculum advantages 8.

Increased curriculum achievement.

9.

Easier to learn a third language.

Cash advantages 10.

Economic and employment benefits.

Source: Adapted from Colin Baker (2007) A Parents’ and Teachers’ Guide to Bilingualism (p. 2). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters

Attending to children’s emotional needs

Growing up with more than one language is not easy, and is often quite challenging. Sometimes conflicts between parents and children resulting from heritage-language learning can be emotional. Properly handling such conflicts may be crucial for our children’s emotional health. In order to ease and facilitate healthy emotional development in the heritage-language learning process, parents can try to create a nurturing environment and make the process enjoyable. Being positive and supportive in your interactions with your children will make them feel encouraged in their heritage-language learning. Colin Baker uses a vivid metaphor to describe this nurturing when he writes, ‘The gardener cannot make the language seeds grow. All the gardener can do is to provide certain conditions: rich soil, light, water, and careful tending. . . The

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language gardeners are to provide a stimulating soil
a variety of pleasurable environments for language growth’.37 Attending to children’s developmental and individual needs

Children have different needs during different developmental stages. Some successful heritage-language teaching strategies used when a child is younger may not work when the child is older. Thus, using age-appropriate strategies to help children learn their heritage language(s) is important. It might be helpful if parents understand the developmental characteristics and needs of their children through careful observations and conversations, and adequately change and adjust their strategies during their children’s different developmental stages. The more parents attend to the developmental needs of their children, the better they know their children and the more effective are their heritage-language teaching strategies. In addition, not all children are the same. Even siblings may show differences in their home-language learning styles and achievement. What an older sibling can do at a certain age in the home language(s) should not be the yardstick for a younger sibling. Individual children have different developmental timetables and outcomes. Therefore, a gardener needs to attend to every flower in his or her garden to provide the best environment for each flower to bloom at its own speed and its own potential. Balancing play and leisure with heritage-language learning activities

It is important to balance children’s home-language learning activities and their time for play and leisure. The old saying ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’ is perhaps still a good reminder for us while considering children’s needs in childrearing. Moreover, research indicates that play and leisure can have an overall positive effect on children’s physical, cognitive and social development.38 Negotiating parenting differences and conflicts

Different parents bring their varied childrearing beliefs to the childrearing practice. In particular, parents of children with more than one language are likely to come from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. In general, children can benefit from these differences. However, parenting style differences and, in particular, major conflicts can sometimes cause children’s social, emotional and behavioral problems.39 Thus, negotiating parenting differences and conflicts may serve the best interests of our children. Putting our children’s well-being first will help them develop a healthy personality and identity. Reducing parental frustration and attending to your own needs Raising children with more than one language is challenging. Perhaps every parent who has such experience has a story to tell
many of which may be about frustration as well as fun. One parent ‘complained’ to me that it stressed her to help her daughter learn Chinese. She said, ‘I am close to giving up. The kid just does not

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want to make efforts. I speak Chinese to her, she answers back in English . . . It’s so painful to drag her to her Chinese class each week . . .’. Such parental frustration is not uncommon. I myself certainly share the same sentiment. Thus, it is important that we parents take care of our own emotional needs to avoid letting this kind of negative reaction and stress affect the quality of our interactions with our children. When we feel frustrated or stressed, our mood will definitely influence our children. The following suggestions may help parents cope with their anxiety, frustration and even anger: Finding the source of your anxiety, frustration or anger

When you get angry with your children or become anxious or frustrated with them when helping them with their heritage-language learning, the first question you may ask yourself is why you feel that way. Is it because you are trying to do too many things at the same time or is it because of some other reasons? Finding the source of your emotion can help you understand yourself, and then help your children. For example, during the early years of my children’s home-language learning (particularly in the reading and writing aspects), I found myself frequently angry and frustrated with my children. As I described in Chapter 5, I used to tell my friends that helping my children do their Chinese homework was like having a heart attack. When I reflected on the cause of such negative feelings, I found that I tried to do too many things at the same time. For example, sometimes when I helped my children do their Chinese homework, I was also preparing for my own class, grading my students’ papers and preparing a meeting agenda. In such a situation, any slight ‘resistance’ from my children would trigger anger and frustration from me. Later, I learned that I needed to prioritize my work and my children’s language activities. If I helped them with their Chinese homework, that should be my priority at that time. In this way, I felt more relaxed and devoted my whole attention to them. Naturally, my behavior and mood were contagious to my children. When they felt that I was there for them, they were in turn more cooperative with my requests. Another way to avoid parental stress is to set up one goal in heritage-language learning at a time. In this way, we will feel less frustrated. For example, if my task today is to help my children learn how to make sentences with 10 Chinese characters, then my focus should be on that rather than on the order of the strokes ) in each character. If I expect too much and spread myself in too many (bıˇ hua`/ directions, I am bound to be frustrated. If I have only one goal to achieve today, I tend to be more successful and less frustrated. Childrearing is a learning process

Nobody is born to be a perfect parent and know everything about childrearing (not even childrearing specialists). Childrearing by nature is a learning process. Both parents and children learn to adjust to each other. Thus, conflicts are part of learning to know each other. Each time I remind myself of this, I tend to be more

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‘tolerant’ of my children’s ‘resistance’ and more patient in guiding them in their home-language learning. Besides, we all make mistakes. Even experts are not perfect. As long as we learn from them, we don’t need to be too worried about their effects on our children. Children are resilient and they can cope with occasional parenting errors. Motivating children may reduce your frustration

Children are intrinsically motivated learners who have a drive to be competent, including in languages, and they are by nature curious and ready to learn.40 If children resist learning, there might be a reason for it. The key for parents to reduce home-language learning-related frustrations is to learn how to motivate their children. If the language-learning activities you provide for your children are interesting and relevant to them, your children will want to get involved. Giving yourself a break

Parents’ sanity is also very important
we can’t succeed without it! Parents who engage their children in many activities such as heritage-language learning are often already overworked and stressed. Thus, to give ourselves a break once in a while can regenerate our energy and keep our sanity. It is all right to give ourselves a break when we feel stressed. Missing a day or a week in home-language learning activities is not detrimental; it may actually help us recuperate. It is likely that happy parents will have happy children.

Communication should be the top priority in home-language learning Language learning is a process of learning how to communicate, and it is through communication that parents and children establish and strengthen their emotional bonds and that children learn proper ways of using languages. However, because of the possible limitations of their language abilities, bilingual and multilingual children (and also monolingual children) may make grammatical and vocabulary mistakes, and sometimes are unable to use the heritage language(s) to express their thoughts and feelings. If parents fuss about their children’s errors or insist that their children use the heritage language(s) instead of helping them to communicate, their children may simply ‘shut themselves off’. In the long run, that kind of behavior can be damaging to the parent
child relationship, and consequently limit children’s chances of learning heritage language(s) as well. Thus, parents may want to make communication between themselves and their children a top priority in heritage-language teaching and learning. When children have difficulties expressing themselves in the heritage language(s) or make mistakes, we can provide assistance and modeling. When children understand that parents are their conversation partners, they will feel encouraged to exchange their thoughts and feelings with us.

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Language learning occurs in context Language learning is not an isolated activity; it occurs in everyday activities. Nobody can learn a language well from just learning vocabulary and phrases. The words and phrases need to have a context to make sense. Thus, to help children learn heritage language(s), parents must provide opportunities for them to hear and use the language(s). When multilingual children are involved in different activities, they tend to be more motivated and successful. Thus, one key to helping children become competent in their heritage language(s) is to involve them in a variety of activities. The more activities your children are engaged in, the more opportunities they have to be exposed to the heritage language and to use it. Language and cultural heritage go hand-in-hand Language is part of the cultural heritage. Thus, when helping children learn their heritage languages, parents may want to focus on helping them learn their cultures at the same time. The important aspects that are related to heritage languages such as customs, rituals, idioms, understandings, beliefs, values and conventional gestures are very important and they can help children become more authentic when using their heritage languages. It’s never too late to start Though it is perhaps ideal to start the languages simultaneously from birth, it should not be regarded as the only way to bilingual/multilingual success. Each family is different and, therefore, every family should decide the timetable that best suits their needs. In fact, although the onset (beginning) age of acquiring a language may influence certain areas of language proficiency (such as pronunciation),41 research suggests that older learners also have many advantages.42 Few people will dispute the clarity, the wit and the mastery present in the English of Henry Kissinger (the German-born former US Secretary of State), despite his heavy accent. Thus, it is never too late for children to start the multilingual process. Children are active learners Children are not passive learners. They are actively contributing to their own development. If parents observe their children carefully and listen to them attentively in order to understand their needs and wants, they can then provide the best possible support for their bilingual or multilingual development. A classic example by the psycholinguist David McNeill43 says it all. In his study, McNeill found that three-year-old English-speaking children consistently made certain mistakes in their use of irregular past tense. Despite the mothers’ repeated corrections, these children continued to use the ‘wrong’ words. In fact, their seeming ‘mistakes’ demonstrated that these children were active learners using a general ‘rule’, because this was evidence of their thinking and observing rather than just passively imitating their parents and other adults around them. Thus, only

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when parents realize that children are active language learners can they genuinely appreciate the language developmental characteristics
including their language mistakes! Language learning is a life-long process Language learning, whether it’s one language, or two or more, is a life-long process. Even as adults, we are changing and perhaps ‘perfecting’ our language(s). No one can claim that they have perfectly mastered a language, not even their mother tongue, and that there is no room for improvement. Understanding this, parents will be able to regard their multilingual children’s language learning as a process, rather than the end product. They will realize that mistakes their children make while developing more than one language are an ordinary part of language learning and development. They will regard the mixing of languages as a common characteristic of children who grow up with more than one language. They will be more motivated to work with their children rather than criticize them, and they will encourage their children to experiment and explore their heritage language(s). Parents will accept the different proficiencies that their children exhibit in their heritage language achievement. And, most happily, they will enjoy the smallest achievement their children make in their heritage language development. Be a public advocate for multilingual children In previous chapters, I have focused on how parents can provide support for their children at the immediate family level. However, to create an environment in which multilingual children can achieve their highest potential, family support by itself is not enough. As a popular African proverb rightly says, ‘It takes a village to raise a child’. Developmental psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner advocated that many layers in a child’s environment (such as the immediate and extended families, neighborhoods, schools, parents’ work places, mass media, community services, political systems and cultural beliefs) work together to contribute to a child’s development.44 Thus, it is in the best interests of bilingual and multilingual children if all the factors in a child’s environment can be joined together to support their development. In our politically conscious 21st century, parents have the opportunity to advocate for the development and maintenance of heritage languages. In fact, in some regions and countries, heritage languages are now revitalized and taught in state-funded schools as a result of the efforts of concerned citizens.45 Therefore, if we want things to happen, we must act on them. No one will speak for us and our children unless we do. I agree with linguist Ingrid Piller that raising bilingual and multilingual children is not just a private matter, and that it is important for parents to join the efforts for heritage language preservation in public education, as well as democratic access to multilingualism.46 Based on their different abilities and talents,

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parents can choose a particular level to start their efforts: from classroom and school to community and government. Even the smallest step can make an important difference for bilingual and multilingual children. Together with others, parents can help create a more supportive social and academic environment for bilingual and multilingual children, and such action can be particularly helpful to economically underprivileged children who might not otherwise have access to multilingual education.

Summary Although considerable progress has been made in the study of trilingualism, there remains a huge gap between what we know about trilingual children and their developmental characteristics. What we do know, however, is that raising multilingual children has many potential advantages. In order to realize these potentials, many components in a child’s environment, such as the immediate and extended families, neighborhoods, schools, parents’ work places, mass media, community services, political systems and cultural beliefs must work together to provide the best support for our children’s development. Therefore, besides working with children at the family level, parents should try to advocate bilingualism and multilingualism of children in the larger world, to maximize their chances of success. More importantly, raising bilingual or multilingual children is a matter of raising happy children. Thus, parents need to put their children’s well-being before anything else and rank communication with their children as the top priority in heritage-language learning. At the same time, parents should also take care of their own needs to provide the best supportive environment for their children. Furthermore, to help children become competent heritage language users, parents may want to consider incorporating cultural factors such as customs, ritual, understandings, beliefs, values, conventional gestures and idioms into the language teaching and learning process. Parents need to help their children learn heritage languages by involving them in a variety of activities. Finally, children are active contributors to their own bilingual and multilingual development process; parents’ roles may also include attending to their children’s emotional and developmental needs and providing the support that best suits their development. When parents consider language learning as a life-long process, they will enjoy the process of raising children with more than one language. Best wishes for raising multilingual children! Notes and References 1. Cenoz, J. and Hoffman, C. (2003) Acquiring a third language: What role does bilingualism play? International Journal of Bilingualism 7 (1), 1
5. Cenoz, J. (2003) The additive effect of bilingualism on third language acquisition: A review. International Journal of Bilingualism 7 (1), 71
87.

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2. Lawson, S. and Sachdev, I. (2004) Identity, language use, and attitudes: Some SylhetiBangladeshi data from London. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 23 (1), 49
69. Maguire, M.H. (2005) Identity and agency in primary trilingual children’s multiple cultural worlds: Third space and heritage language. In J. Cohen, K.T. McAlister, K. Rolstad and J. MacSwan (eds) Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism (pp. 1423
1445). Someville, MA: Cascadilla Press. Koven, M. (2007) Selves in Two Languages: Bilinguals’ Verbal Enactments of Identity in French and Portuguese. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 3. Abu-Rabia, S. and Siegel, L.S. (2003) Reading skills in three orthographies: The case of trilingual Arabic-Hebrew-English-speaking Arab children. Reading and Writing 16 (7), 611
634. Li, G.F. (2006) Biliteracy and trilingual practices in the home context: Case studies of Chinese-Canadian children. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy 6 (3), 355
381. 4. Edwards, M. and Dewaele, J-M. (2007) Trilingual conversations: A window into multicompetence. International Journal of Bilingualism 11 (2), 221
242. Hoffmann, C. and Stavans, A. (2007) The evolution of trilingual codeswitching from infancy to school age: The shaping of trilingual competence through dynamic language dominance. International Journal of Bilingualism 11 (1), 55
72. 5. Klein, D., Milner, B. and Zatorre, R.J. (2002) Cerebral organization in a right-handed trilingual patient with right-hemisphere speech: A positron emission tomography study. Neurocase 8 (5), 369
375. 6. Ray, J. (2003) Treating phonological disorders in a multilingual child: A case study. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 11 (3), 305
315. 7. Goral, M.L., Erika, S. and Obler, L.K. (2006) Cross-language lexical connections in the mental lexicon: Evidence from a case of trilingual aphasia. Brain and Language 98 (2), 235
247. 8. Stavans, A. and Swisher, V. (2006) Language switching as a window on trilingual acquisition. International Journal of Multilingualism 3, 193
220. 9. Quay, S. (2001) Managing linguistic boundaries in early trilingual development. In J. Cenoz and F. Genesee (eds) Trends in Bilingual Acquisition (pp. 149
199). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 10. The child was reported to have acquired English, Dutch and French early from birth and had a passive knowledge of Urdu. However, her Urdu was lost later in her development. See Dewaele, J.M. (2000) Trilingual first language acquisition: Exploration of a linguistic ‘miracle’. La Chouette 31, 41
46. Dewaele, J-M. (2007) Still trilingual at ten: Livia’s multilingual journey. Multilingual Living Magazine (March/April), 68
71. 11. For example, see Hoffmann, C. (1985) Language acquisition in two trilingual children. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 6, 479
495. Hoffmann, C. and Stavans, A. (2007) The evolution of trilingual codeswitching from infancy to school age: The shaping of trilingual competence through dynamic language dominance. International Journal of Bilingualism 11 (1), 55
72. Quay, S. (2008) Dinner conversation with a trilingual two-year old: Language socialization in a multilingual context. First Language 28 (1), 5
23. 12. Hoffmann, C. and Stavans, A. (2007) The evolution of trilingual codeswitching from infancy to school age: The shaping of trilingual competence through dynamic language dominance. International Journal of Bilingualism 11 (1), 55
72. Hoffmann, C. (2001) Towards a description of trilingual competence. International Journal of Bilingualism 5 (1), 1
17. 13. Chomsky, N. (1957) Syntactic Structures. The Hague: Mouton.

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14. Slobin, D.I. (1985) Crosslinguistic evidence for the language-making capacity. In D.I. Slobin (ed.) The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition (Vol. 2): Theoretical Issues (pp. 1157
1256). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 15. Hoffman, C. (2001) The status of trilingualism in bilingualism studies. In J. Cenoz, B. Hufeisen and U. Jessner (eds) Looking Beyond Second Language Acquisition: Studies in Tri- and Multilingualism (pp. 13
25). Tubingen: Stauffenburd Verlag. 16. Quay, S. (2008) Dinner conversation with a trilingual two-year old: Language socialization in a multilingual context. First Language 28 (1), 5
23. 17. Andreou, G. (2007) Phonological awareness in bilingual and trilingual school children. The Linguistic Journal 3 (3), 8
15. 18. See Endnote 9 in Chapter 4. 19. See Endnote 10 in Chapter 4. 20. See Endnote 11 in Chapter 4. 21. Jespersen, O. (1922) Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin. London: George Allen & Unwin. Saer, D. (1923) The effect of bilingualism on intelligence. British Journal of Psychology 14, 15
38. 22. Bialystok, E. (2001) Metalinguistic as part of bilingual processing. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 21, 169
181. 23. For more information about bilingual advantages, readers are encouraged to read the book by Kendall King and Alison Mackey (2007) The Bilingual Edge: Why, When, and How to Teach Your Child a Second Language. New York: Collins. 24. Lambert, W.E. (1978) Cognitive and socio-cultural consequences of bilingualism. Canadian Modern Language Review 34 (3), 537
547. 25. Bialystok, E. (2005) Consequences of bilingualism for cognitive development. In J.F. Kroll and A.M.B. de Groot (eds) Handbook of Bilingualism: Psycholinguistic Approaches (pp. 417
432). New York: Oxford University Press. 26. Stephens, M. (1997) Bilingualism, creativity, and social problem-solving. Dissertation Abstract International Section A: Humanities and Social Sciences 58 (94-A). 27. Kuo, L.J. (2007) Effects of bilingualism on development of facets of phonological competence (China). Dissertation Abstracts International Section A: Humanities and Social Sciences 67 (11-A). 28. Chan, K.T. (2005) Chinese-English bilinguals’ theory-of-mind development. Dissertation Abstracts International Section A: Humanities and Social Sciences 65 (10-A). Charkova, K.D. (2005) Early foreign language education and metalinguistic development: A study of monolingual, bilingual, and trilingual children on noun definition tasks. In J. Cohen, K.T. McAlister, K. Rolstad and J. MacSwan (eds) Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism (pp. 506
521). Someville, MA: Cascadilla Press. 29. Sheng, L., McGregor, K.K. and Marian, V. (2006) Lexical-semantic organization in bilingual children: Evidence from a repeated word association task. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 49 (3), 572
587. 30. Daller, H., van Hout, R. and Treffers-Daller, J. (2003) Lexical richness in the spontaneous speech of bilinguals. Applied Linguistics 24 (2), 197
222. 31. Bialystok, E., Luk, G. and Kwan, E. (2005) Bilingualism, biliteracy, and learning to read: Interactions among languages and writing systems. Scientific Studies of Reading 9 (1), 43
61. 32. Pandey, P. (1991) A psycholinguistic study of democratic values in relation to mono-, bi-, and trilingualism. Psycho-Lingua 21 (2), 111
113. Paradowski, M.B. (2008) The benefits of multilingualism. Multilingual Living Magazine 3 (2), 19
20.

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33. Baker, C. (2007) A Parents’ and Teachers’ Guide to Bilingualism (3rd edn, p. 2). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 34. Bialystok, E., Majumder, S. and Martin, M.M. (2003) Developing phonological awareness: Is there a bilingual advantage? Applied Psycholinguistics 24 (1), 27
44. Bialystok, E. (1999) Cognition and language: Cognitive complexity and intentional control in the bilingual mind. Child Development 70 (3), 636
644. 35. Bialystok, E. and Majumder, S. (1998) The relationship between bilingualism and the development of cognitive processes in problem solving. Applied Psycholinguistics 19 (1), 69
85. 36. Hoff, E. (2003) The specificity of environmental influences: Socioeconomic status affects early vocabulary development via maternal speech. Child Development 72, 1368
1378. 37. Baker, C. (2007) A Parents’ and Teachers’ Guide to Bilingualism (3rd edn., p. 29). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 38. Johnson, J.E., Christie, J.F. and Yawkey, T.D. (1999) Play and Early Childhood Development. New York: Addison Wesley Longman. 39. Dumka, L.E., Roosa, M.W. and Jackson, K.M. (1997) Risk, conflict, mothers’ parenting, and children’s adjustment in low-income, Mexican immigrant, and Mexican American families. Journal of Marriage and the Family 59(2), 309
323. Cummings, E.M. and Davies, P.T. (1994) Children and Marital Conflicts: The Impact of Family Dispute and Resolution. New York: Guilford Press. 40. Piaget, J. (1952) The Origins of Intelligence in Children. New York: International Universities Press. 41. Asher, J. and Garcı´a, G. (1969) The optimal age to learn a foreign language. Modern Language Journal 38, 334
341. Anderson, P.J. and Graham, S.M. (1994) Issues in second language phonological acquisition among children and adults. Topics in Language Disorders 14, 84
100. 42. Collier, V.P. (1987) Age and rate of acquisition of second language for academic purposes. TESOL Quarterly 21, 617
641. Cummins, J., Swain, M., Nakajima, K., Handscombe, J., Green, D. and Tran, C. (1984) Linguistic interdependence among Japanese and Vietnamese immigrant students. In C. Rivera (ed.) Communicative Competence Approaches to Language Proficiency Assessment: Research and Application (pp. 60
81). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Ervin-Tripp, S.M. (1974) Is second language learning like the first? TESOL Quarterly 8, 111
127. 43. McNeill, D. (1970) The Acquisition of Language: The Study of Developmental Psycholinguistics. New York: Harper & Row. 44. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979) The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments by Nature and Design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bronfenbrenner, U. (2005) Making Human Beings Human: Bioecological Perspectives on Human Development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 45. Harrison, B. (1998) The development of an indigenous language immersion school. Bilingual Research Journal 22, 297
316. 46. Piller, I. (2005) Book review ‘Language strategies for bilingual families: The one-parentone-language approach’ by Suzanne Barron-Hauwaert. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters (2004). International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 8 (6), 614
617.

Epilogue Since I finished writing this book about the trilingual development of Le´andre and Dominique, they have continued to thrive. They are healthy, happy, intelligent and I must say ‘loquacious’ human beings. We are pleased to hear their teachers say to us, ‘You’re lucky to have kids like them . . .’. We indeed feel lucky to have Le´andre and Dominique, and we are thrilled by the positive outcome of our continuous efforts to raise them as trilinguals. Meanwhile, a lot has changed since their elementary school years. Their trilingual and identity development has gone through a fascinating period. To respond to their changes, we have also adjusted many of our childrearing strategies. You will read more about Le´andre and Dominique’s trilingual development during their adolescent period in my next book.

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Appendix: Useful Websites for Parents Websites that provide support or information about raising children with more than one language: http://www.biculturalfamily.org/magazine.html. http://www.cal.org/about/index.html. http://www.linguistlist.org/ask-ling/biling.html. http://parents.berkeley.edu. http://www.bilingualbabies.org. http://www.multilingual-matters.com. http://www.multilingualfamily.co.uk. Websites that provide information about multilingual reading materials and interactive video and audiotapes: http://www.laukart.de/multisite/songbook/links.php. http://bookswithoutboarders.com. http://www.learningground.com. http://www.bilingual-supplies.co.uk. http://www.shop.com/-a-how tofind heritage languagebooks for children-p26434149-k36-st.shtml. Websites that provide information about heritage-language learning sites, schools and programs: http://languagesschool.net. http://www.lexlrf.org. http://www.casadejoanna.com/mirror. http://www.facecouncil.org/fhlp/index.html. http://www.cal.org/heritage/profiles/programs/spanish_CMS.html. http://www.cal.org/heritage/partners/partners.html. http://www.csaus.org/csaus02.

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Index Authors Abkarian, G.G., 101 Abu-Rabia, S., 206 Acredolo, L., 97, 107 Alibali, M., 106, 107 Allan, K., 170 Anderson, K.L., 55, 208 Andersson, S., 72, 101, 102, 104 Andreou, G, 207 Angier, N., 149, 170 Anicich, M., 193 Arnberg, L., 106, 135 Asher, J.J., 35, 208 Attardo, S., 25, 35, 37 Auerbach, A.B., 55 Axelsson, C.A., 169 Bain, B., 55 Baker, C., 12, 14, 35, 56, 104, 183, 198, 199, 208 Bandura, A., 193 Barron-Hauwaert, S., 38, 55 Bassok, M., 106 Bates, E., 103 Beals, D.E., 105 Belsky, J., 105 Benedict, H., 103 Berk, L.E., 102 Berman, C.R., 7, 12 Bernas, R., 36, 107 Bhatia, T.K., 20, 31, 32, 35, 36, 37, 38, 55, 102 Bialystok, E., 56, 74, 102, 103, 105, 207, 208 Biglan, A., 55 Black, J.B., 104, 106, 180 Blackledge, A., 102 Blake, J., 103 Block, J.H., 55 Bloom, K., 107 Bloom, P., 91, 105 Boehm, A., 106 Boeschoten, H., 134 Boggiano, A.K., 107 Booth, A., 105 Bornstein, M., 106 Bosemark, C., 51, 57 Bowerman, M., 36

Brecht, R. D., 11 Bredekamp, S., 105, 106 Breton, A., 56 Broader, S.C., 107, 199 Brobst, K., 106 Brody, G., 106 Bronfenbrenner, U., 204, 208 Brown, R., 96, 103, 106 Brown, S., 25, 35, 37 Bruner, J., 134, 192 Brunsma, D. L., 11, 104 Bryk, A., 36, 101 Burridge, K., 170 Burstall, C., 169 Cabrera, N., 101 Caldas, S.J., 103, 170 Carliner, G., 56 Carrell, P.L., 170 Cenoz, J., 11, 17, 35, 38, 102, 105, 205, 206, 207 Cerbone, M.J., 106 Chan, K.T., 207 Charkova, K.D., 207 Chen, G.P., 104 Chen, H.C., 37 Chiang, C.P., 103, 105 Chien, Y.C., 103, 105 Cho, G., 11 Choi, S., 36, 37 Chomsky, N., 206 Christakis, D.A., 135 Christie, J.F., 208 Church, B., 106, 107 Clandinin, D.J., 192 Clark, E.V., 7, 12 Clarke, S., 81, 104 Clay, M.M., 102 Clyne, M., 12 Cohen, J., 206, 207 Collier, V.P., 35, 208 Comber, B., 170 Connelly, F.M., 192 Cook, S.W., 107 Cooper, P.S., 193

211

Growing up with Three Languages Index

212 Copple, C., 105 Corbett, L.H., 56 Cote, L.R., 102 Covington, M.V., 107 Crago, M.B., 12, 36 Crain-Thoreson, C., 170 Cruz-Ferreira, M., 22, 32, 33, 36, 38, 63, 72, 101, 102, 103, 104, 170 Crystal, D., 103 Cumming, A.H., 36 Cummings, E.M., 208 Cummins, J., 208 Cunningham-Andersson, U., 72, 101, 102, 104 Dale, P.S., 103, 170 Daller, H., 207 Dashiell, J.W., 11 Davies, P.T., 208 de Groot, A., 169, 207 De Houwer, A., 12, 37 Deci, E.L., 107 Delpit, L., 161, 170 Deng, C.Q., 170 DeTemple, J.M., 93, 102, 106 Dewaele, J.M., 11, 12, 19, 35, 37, 39, 134, 206 Dickinson, D.K., 102, 106 Dijkstra, T., 36 Döpke, S., 37 Dowdy, J.K., 161, 170 Dumka, L.E., 208 Durieux-Smith, A., 107 Dworkin, J.P., 101 Eberhard, P., 36, 107 Eder, R.A., 104 Edwards, M., 19, 35, 37, 39, 206 Edwards, S.A., 169 Elder, A.D., 106 Elkind, D., 167, 170 Ellis, N.C., 169 Engel, S., 171, 192 Erbaugh, M.S., 79, 103, 104, 134 Erika, S., 206 Erikson, E.H., 8, 135, 193 Ervin-Tripp, S.M., 185, 193, 208 Eviatar, Z., 56 Fang, F.X., 103 Farrar, M.J.,106 Fernald, A., 37 Fernandez, S.C., 38 Ferrerio, E., 134 Flecken, E., 106 Fletcher, P., 103 Foeman, A., 55

Growing up with Three Languages Foster, R.P., 135 Fung, H., 192 Galambos, S.J., 104 Galda, L., 106 Garber, P., 106 García, G., 208 Garvey, C., 106 Gelman, S.A., 37 Genesee, F., 8, 11, 12, 35, 37, 38, 102, 104, 105, 206 Gilmore, J., 169 Gleitman, A., 104 Gleitman, L., 104 Golden, J., 26, 192 Goldfield, B.A., 103 Goldin-Meadow, S., 36, 104, 106, 107 Goldstein, B.A., 56 Goodwyn, S., 97, 107 Goodz, N.S., 55, 102 Gopnik, A., 36, 37, 105, 106 Goral, M.I., 206 Gordon, N., 106 Gorosch, M., 169 Graham, S.M., 208 Green, D., 208 Grosjean, F., 11, 38 Guo, Y., 104 Haight, W., 36, 101 Halliwell, J., 56 Hamilton, M.L., 101 Handscombe, J., 208 Hansen-Strain, L., 21, 36 Harding-Esch, E., 20, 35, 49, 56, 63, 102, 107, 136, 169 Harley, B., 169 Harris, M., 105 Harrison, B., 208 Harter, S., 99, 104, 107 Herman, P.A., 105, 169 Hitlin, S., 193 Hocevar, T., 56 Hodges, J., 56 Hoefnagel-Hoehle, M., 35 Hoff, E., 36, 37, 102, 104, 208 Hoffmann, C., 11, 35, 37, 38, 56, 101, 103, 170, 194, 206 Holland, C., 11 Hoogstra, L., 192 Housen, A., 11, 12 Howard, M.R., 38, 55 Hu, Q., 103, 104, 117 Hufeisen, B., 38, 207 Hughes, D., 192 Hulit, L.M., 38

213

Index Huttenlocher, J., 36, 101, 103 Ibraham, R., 56 Ingoglia, L., 11 Ingold, C.W., 11 Inhelder, B., 193 Inhoff, A.W., 37 Jackson, K.M., 128, 133, 208 Jespersen, O., 207 Jessner, U., 35, 38, 207 Jiao, F., 103 Jin, G.S., 169 Johnson, D., 192 Johnson, J.E., 104, 208 Johnston, J.C., 107 Josselson, R., 192 Kanno, Y., 171, 192 Kasuya, H., 104 Kavanaugh, R.D., 106 Keller, G.D., 12 Kelly, S.D., 107 Kensaku, Y., 192 King, K., 69, 98, 99, 143, 169, 207 Klee, T., 56 Klein, D., 206 Koven, M., 135, 185, 193, 206 Kroll, J.F., 169, 207 Kuhl, P.K., 105 Kuhn, D., 36 Kuo, L.J., 207 Kwan, E., 104, 207 Lamb, M.E., 101, 105 Lambert, W.E., 207 Laporte, N., 169 Lawson, S., 11, 206 Lee, S., 38 Lemhöfer, K., 36 Leopold, W.F., 8, 12, 55, 85, 101, 104 Levinson, S.C., 36 Lewedeg, V., 56 Li, G.F., 206 Li, S.L, 170 Lieblich, A., 192 Lieven, E.V.M., 36 Lindholm-Leary, K., 56 Liu, E., 22, 36, 188, 193 Loke, K.K., 104 Luk, G., 207 Lust, B., 103, 105 Lyon, T., 36, 101 MacIntyre, A., 192

Mackey, A., 207 MacSwan, J., 206, 207 MacWhinney, B., 103 Majumder, S., 208 Maloy, R.W., 169 Mangelsdorf, S.C., 104 Mar, J.B., 55 Maratsos, M., 36 Marcia, J.E., 171, 192 Marian, V., 207 Martin, M.M., 208 McAdams, D.P., 192 McAlister, K.T., 206, 207 McCabe, A., 36 McCallister, C., 192 McCardle, P., 37, 104 McDowell, T., 11 McGregor, K.K., 207 McNeill, D., 203, 208 McWhorter, J., 150, 170 Mechelli, A., 56 Mehrabian, A., 106 Meisel, J.M., 56 Meltzoff, A., 105, 106 Merriman, W., 37 Metzler, C.W., 55 Michel, M.C., 36 Miller, G.A., 169 Miller, J., 102 Miller, P., 192 Milner, B., 206 Milroy, L., 11 Minami, M., 36 Mintz, J., 192 Mitchell, Z, 107 Molony, C., 38 Moore, B., 107 Morikawa, H., 37 Morrison, A., 55 Nagy, W.E., 105, 169 Naigles, L., 36 Nakajima, K., 208 Nakazawa, D., 128, 133, 135 Nance, T., 55 Nelson, K., 101, 103 Neuman, S.B., 105 Newport, E., 104 NICHD (National Institute for Child Health and Development), 105 Nicoladis, E., 107 Nissim-Amitai, F., 20, 35 Norton, B., 135, 193 Obler, L.K., 206

214 Okita, T., 46, 56 Okoh, N., 56 Oller, D.K., 38 Olshtain, E., 20, 35 Onorati, S., 103 Osborne, M.P., 143, 169 Owens, R. E., 103 Pahl, K., 192 Paisley, M., 169 Pancsofar, N., 101 Pandey, P., 207 Paradis, J., 12 Paradowski, M.B., 207 Patterson, J.L., 56 Pavlenko, A., 102, 135 Pearson, B.Z., 38, 56, 103 Pease-Alvarez, L., 193 Pellegrini, A.D., 106 Perlmutter, J., 106 Perry, M., 106, 107 Piaget, J., 170, 193, 208 Piller, I., 204, 208 Pinar, W., 192 Pine, J.M., 36 Pittman, T.S., 107 Poplack, S., 38 Potts, R., 192 Poulin-Dubois, D., 102 Price, B.S., 20, 35 Prodromidis, M., 105 Qie, G.Q., 169 Quartaro, G., 103 Quay, S., 38, 39, 105, 194, 196, 206, 207 Ramey, C.T., 105 Ramey, S.L., 105 Ray, J., 206 Rea, K., 193 Reyes, A., 192 Reynolds, W.M., 192 Reznick, J.S., 103 Ricciardelli, L.A., 56 Riley, P., 20, 35, 49, 56, 63, 102, 107, 136, 169 Ritchie, W.C., 20, 31, 32, 35, 36, 37, 38, 55, 102 Rivera, C., 208 Robinson, D.W., 56 Robinson, N., 170 Rockquemore, K.A., 104 Rodrigues, J., 192 Rolstad, K., 206, 207 Romaine, S., 11, 38, 84, 104 Ronjat, J., 8, 12, 55, 85, 101, 104 Roosa, M.W., 208

Growing up with Three Languages Roth, W.M., 107 Ryan, R.M., 107 Sachdev, I., 11, 206 Saer, D., 207 Sakamoto, M., 4, 12, 57 Sapir, E., 96, 106 Saunders, G., 56, 85, 101, 102, 104 Schlichting, K., 106 Schwartz, D.L., 106 Selinker, L.,169 Seltzer, M., 36, 101 Serizawa, T., 11 Shannon, C.S., 101 Shannon, S., 193 Shao, W.M., 104 Sheeber, L., 55 Sheng, L., 207 Sherriff, N., 193 Shi, L., 151, 170 Siegel, L.S., 206 Siegler, R.S., 36 Simpson, A., 170 Singer, M.A., 107 Skutnabb-Kangas, T., 12 Slattery, P., 192 Slobin, D.I., 7, 12, 38, 103, 104, 134, 207 Smiley, P., 103 Smith, E., 192 Snow, C.E., 35, 104 Solomon, K.O., 106 Søndergaard, B., 188, 193 Song, Z.G., 104 Söter, A., 170 Sperry, L., 192 Srivastava, B., 56 Stavans, A., 35, 37, 39, 103, 194, 206 Steele, R., 12 Stephens, M., 207 Stern, H.H., 169 Sternberg, K.J., 105 Stevens, C., 11 Stevenson, H., 192 Swain, M., 208 Swisher, V., 35, 37, 39, 206 Syc, S.E., 106 Tabors, P.O., 102, 105, 106 Taeschner, T., 104 Tamis-LeMonda, C.S., 101, 106 Tan, A., 118, 161, 170 Tardif, T., 37 Taubman, P.M., 192 Teberosky, A., 134 Terrazas, P., 36

215

Index Terrel, T.D., 169 Teschner, R.V., 12 Thal, D.J., 103 Threadgold, T., 12 Titone, R., 56 Tomasello, M., 37, 106 Tran, C., 208 Treffers-Daller, J., 207 Tsai, C.C., 165, 170 Tse, L., 193 Tucker, G.R., 11 Uphoff, J.K., 169 US Census Bureau, 1, 11 Uszy½sk-Jarmoc, J., 192 van Hout, R., 207 Vasquez, O.A., 183, 193 Verhoeven, L., 134 Vernon-Feagans, L., 101 Verock-O’Loughlin, R.E., 169 Viera, S., 12 Vigil, D.C., 56

Wang, J., 37 Wang, X.L., 35, 36, 107, 134 Wei, L., 11, 12, 38 Welzel, M., 107 Whittington, S., 106 Wiley, T.G., 35, 36, 55 Wolters, C.A., 107 Wu, C.E., 169 Xu, F., 37 Yamamoto, M., 104 Yawkey, T.D., 208 Yep, L., 143, 169 Ying, H.C., 104 Ytsma, J., 35, 38, 170 Yu, A., 55 Yu, B.H., 169 Zatorre, R.J., 206 Zhu, H., 103, 134 Zierer, E., 107 Zimmerman, J.A., 135 Zobl, H., 169

Wagenberg, L., 106

Subjects accents, 9, 18, 75, 82, 83, 127, 160, 184 acquisition, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 33, 35, 36, 37, 39, 44, 56, 74, 86, 88, 97, 100, 101, 103, 104, 105, 107, 109, 121, 128, 130, 134, 136, 137, 144, 145, 169, 194, 195, 196, 197, 205, 206, 208 activities, 47, 50, 62, 67, 94, 95, 100, 113, 116, 120, 122, 133, 137, 141, 144, 147, 153, 154, 156, 157, 166, 167, 168, 169, 183, 200, 201, 202, 203, 205 adult talk, 80 advocate, 204, 205 attachments, 128, 161, 162 audibility, 72 babbling, 73, 74, 102, 195 baby talk, 80 beginning, 31, 41, 54, 63, 72, 76, 117, 121, 130, 140, 152, 153, 203 beliefs, 6, 11, 21, 25, 34, 50, 122, 130, 154, 171, 200, 203, 204, 205 benefits of multilingualism, 43, 207 bias, 7, 45, 47, 84, 123, 154, 155, 156 bilingual, 6, 8, 11, 12, 14, 15, 20, 21, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 41, 44, 55, 56, 57, 74, 85, 88, 102, 104, 107, 111, 130, 132, 135, 137, 153, 165, 192, 193, 196, 198, 199, 202, 203, 204, 205, 207, 208 biracial, 1, 10, 83, 84, 104, 127, 128, 155, 181

Brain potential, 43 childrearing, 3, 5, 6, 21, 25, 34, 40, 45, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 80, 86, 166, 168, 187, 189, 197, 198, 200, 201 choice, 4, 26, 41, 42, 51, 53, 61, 62, 63, 72, 104, 126, 128, 141, 160, 161, 181 classifiers, 22, 38, 78, 79, 88, 89, 91, 103, 104, 105, 195 code-switching, 38 cognates, 23, 182, 197 cognitive, 27, 36, 37, 56, 66, 68, 89, 96, 99, 101, 106, 137, 150, 164, 200, 207, 208 coining words, 70 colloquial, 126 communication, 8, 15, 18, 22, 24, 29, 31, 32, 34, 38, 40, 41, 42, 50, 51, 52, 55, 58, 59, 60, 61, 63, 64, 68, 70, 71, 72, 76, 80, 84, 86, 87, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 111, 112, 119, 130, 133, 144, 146, 149, 153, 154, 158, 162, 183, 191, 198, 199, 202, 205 communicative effects, 29, 34, 111, 191 competence, 11, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 34, 36, 37, 38, 44, 50, 54, 73, 89, 94, 103, 131, 169, 206, 207 complexity, 10, 11, 14, 19, 77, 103, 194, 195, 208 comprehension, 15, 16, 17, 18, 37, 72, 75, 103, 105, 165, 170

216 consistent, 42, 52, 59, 61, 86, 87, 100, 134 context, 6, 7, 14, 21, 23, 24, 27, 28, 33, 36, 37, 38, 39, 64, 68, 72, 78, 80, 81, 89, 91, 92, 99, 101, 105, 116, 119, 131, 137, 144, 153, 155, 156, 165, 168, 171, 180, 185, 193, 197, 203, 206, 207 contextualized language, 116 conventions, 21, 47, 145, 183 conversation, 1, 3, 7, 13, 15, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 35, 36, 38, 39, 63, 64, 66, 71, 72, 77, 79, 82, 85, 91, 92, 98, 99, 105, 109, 111, 112, 115, 120, 121, 132, 140, 180, 184, 196, 202, 206, 207 cooing, 73, 102, 195 country tongue, 6 creativity, 56, 131, 199, 207 cultural, 1, 3, 5, 8, 18, 21, 22, 24, 28, 32, 34, 36, 37, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45, 46, 47, 53, 54, 55, 69, 79, 80, 84, 88, 99, 121, 122, 128, 129, 130, 132, 133, 145, 146, 147, 149, 150, 154, 155, 165, 168, 169, 172, 176, 177, 179, 181, 183, 189, 191, 192, 198, 200, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207 customs, 11, 121, 122, 146, 147, 169, 203, 205 decontextualized language, 116 effective strategies, 4, 6, 10, 109, 129, 134, 168 emergent literacy, 95 emotion, 31, 125, 201 ethnic-racial, 1, 5, 172, 179, 180, 181, 191, 192 evaluating, 50 family, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 11, 13, 16, 20, 21, 40, 41, 42, 45, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 55, 60, 63, 64, 71, 72, 86, 87, 98, 99, 112, 123, 130, 138, 160, 164, 178, 186, 190, 191, 199, 203, 204, 205 father tongue, 6, 58, 59, 62, 161 foul language, 149, 150, 152, 169 gendered-language, 72 gestures, 72, 74, 96, 97, 98, 101, 107, 145, 146, 169, 203, 205 goals, 41, 46, 52, 55, 100, 107, 119, 137 grammar, 21, 36, 68, 73, 78, 80, 85, 124, 145, 158, 169 handwriting, 118, 119, 136 heritage, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 18, 23, 24, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 48, 50, 51, 52, 54, 55, 59, 64, 68, 69, 70, 71, 73, 86, 87, 88, 89, 91, 95, 96, 98, 100, 101, 109, 121, 122, 124, 128, 129, 133, 134, 139, 145, 146, 149, 152, 154, 161, 162, 164, 165, 167, 168, 175, 176, 177, 179, 181, 185, 187, 188, 191, 194, 195, 196, 197, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206 home, 4, 11, 15, 29, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 68, 69, 70, 71, 76, 77, 78, 83, 84, 86,

Growing up with Three Languages 87, 88, 93, 101, 105, 106, 108, 109, 111, 112, 113, 115, 116, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 143, 144, 145, 146, 149, 150, 152, 153, 154, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 166, 167, 168, 169, 173, 174, 181, 183, 189, 191, 194, 197, 198, 200, 201, 202, 206 homework, 138, 141, 150, 153, 154, 157, 201 humorous, 129, 182, 183, 185 identity, 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 22, 32, 34, 42, 53, 54, 55, 58, 83, 84, 86, 99, 101, 104, 108, 127, 131, 133, 134, 136, 155, 156, 171, 172, 174, 175, 176, 177, 179, 180, 181, 186, 187, 188, 189, 191, 192, 193, 194, 199, 200 idioms, 28, 152, 169, 203, 205 ignorance, 47, 122 immediate talk, 65, 94 immigrant, 3, 4, 8, 9, 12, 50, 54, 57, 132, 208 incentives, 140, 145, 168 input, 1, 4, 5, 21, 23, 36, 44, 46, 50, 51, 54, 56, 58, 59, 64, 68, 72, 77, 87, 88, 89, 91, 93, 100, 101, 109, 126, 132, 196, 197 instruction, 88, 105, 118, 119, 145, 147, 149, 169 invisible work, 46 irregular verbs, 78, 79, 195 judgmental, 185 language acquisition device, 195 language awareness, 73, 83, 124, 127 language experimentation, 131, 195 language-making capacity, 12, 38, 195, 207 lexical, 56, 103, 106, 198, 206 linear, 129, 185 literacy, 36, 68, 93, 94, 95, 115, 116, 133, 136, 137, 138, 139, 143, 154, 164, 165, 166, 168, 194, 198 longitudinal, 3, 6, 11, 194 main characters, 1 media, 4, 119, 120, 132, 133, 154, 155, 168, 204, 205 metalinguistic, 12, 56, 73, 104, 196, 198, 207 mixing, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31, 32, 34, 37, 38, 55, 76, 111, 125, 131, 158, 194, 196, 204 mother tongue, 6, 16, 58, 59, 155, 161, 204 motherese, 80 multilingualism, 3, 5, 11, 43, 204, 205 multimedia, 119, 120, 132, 145, 154 naming, 47, 53, 54 narratives, 8, 95, 171, 193 nationality, 128, 175 negotiation, 189 nonimmediate talk, 65, 66, 94, 100, 116

Index one-parent-one-language, 42, 59, 63, 86, 98, 125, 158, 189 opportune moments, 143, 168 output, 196 parental observation, 7 patience, 168, 169 peer, 45, 167, 175, 188 performance, 4, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28, 154 peripheral interaction, 62 perseverance, 136, 168 personal story, 100 personality, 1, 3, 6, 11, 34, 40, 45, 50, 54, 55, 104, 171, 181, 183, 186, 187, 188, 189, 191, 192, 200 phonology, 73 planning, 10, 12, 40, 45, 51, 55, 106, 141 play, 29, 54, 56, 59, 62, 69, 72, 82, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 99, 100, 101, 106, 109, 110, 120, 124, 129, 132, 143, 146, 148, 150, 153, 169, 171, 183, 187, 188, 189, 190, 192, 200, 205 positive, 44, 62, 63, 100, 101, 122, 131, 138, 176, 177, 187, 188, 189, 191, 199, 200 pragmatics, 73 print-rich, 68, 69 private language, 162 prospective parents, 10, 54 quality, 44, 56, 62, 87, 88, 105, 132, 187, 196, 197, 201 quantity, 78, 87, 88, 197 quiz-style, 79, 80, 196 reading, 1, 4, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 23, 34, 37, 46, 50, 52, 64, 65, 66, 68, 86, 93, 94, 100, 102, 106, 116, 118, 119, 122, 123, 130, 132, 133, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 143, 144, 145, 154, 156, 157, 158, 164, 165, 166, 168, 170, 192, 201 reflective parenting, 5 resources, 52, 55, 140, 181, 182, 183, 191 rituals, 203 rules, 18, 24, 70, 73, 78, 79, 89, 103, 106, 127, 131, 145, 147, 195 sample, 1, 7, 8, 101 self, 11, 44, 52, 53, 78, 83, 84, 89, 99, 100, 101, 104, 107, 127, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 138, 139, 158, 161, 162, 167, 171, 185,

217 187, 192, 193, 199 self-correcting, 161 semantic, 36, 37, 104, 106, 198, 207 sensitive, 9, 43, 81, 82, 84, 128, 160, 161, 167, 177, 185, 196 sibling, 61, 62, 63, 123, 167, 200 simultaneous, 5, 12, 15, 17, 38, 41, 63, 74, 111, 153 social, 5, 11, 27, 32, 34, 43, 63, 86, 87, 99, 108, 127, 128, 131, 134, 137, 154, 164, 175, 183, 186, 192, 193, 198, 200, 205, 207 socialization, 21, 22, 34, 38, 39, 95, 105, 132, 192, 193, 206, 207 speech, 7, 21, 22, 32, 36, 37, 59, 73, 75, 80, 97, 98, 101, 103, 104, 106, 107, 124, 126, 137, 152, 206, 207, 208 static, 19, 24, 25 support, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 36, 40, 42, 44, 45, 48, 50, 51, 53, 55, 57, 58, 69, 86, 88, 101, 108, 129, 130, 134, 136, 169, 189, 191, 195, 203, 204, 205 syntactic, 79, 198 thought, 25, 27, 47, 48, 54, 85, 95, 123, 124, 130, 155, 164, 179, 180, 183, 185 tone, 72, 74, 124, 157, 158, 197 transition, 105, 106, 108, 111, 127, 129, 133, 134 trilingual first language acquisition, 11, 12, 194, 195 trilingualism, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 33, 34, 38, 46, 122, 127, 171, 175, 194, 205, 207 types of trilinguals, 34 values, 154, 193, 203, 205, 207 visibility, 72 vocabulary, 15, 25, 28, 34, 36, 64, 65, 68, 69, 70, 75, 76, 81, 93, 95, 96, 101, 103, 105, 111, 113, 114, 115, 120, 121, 125, 130, 131, 132, 133, 140, 159, 169, 198, 202, 203, 208 voices, 8, 10, 135, 171, 181, 189, 191 well-being, 198, 200, 205 word, 7, 12, 18, 19, 25, 27, 28, 29, 31, 36, 53, 71, 74, 75, 76, 78, 83, 91, 96, 97, 103, 105, 106, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 121, 124, 125, 126, 127, 132, 140, 142, 150, 151, 152, 154, 158, 159, 160, 161, 165, 181, 186, 195, 196, 198, 207 word spurt, 76 writing, 1, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 23, 34, 46, 50, 82, 118, 119, 136, 137, 138, 139, 144, 145, 156, 157, 159, 162, 164, 165, 166, 168, 201, 207