When parents ask me how to help their not verbal children start speaking I usually suggest techniques that involve music. The same goes with literacy skills. Musical notes and a free style of representing music and the spoken word can help our children understand how language works. How language can be “translated” into sounds, and […]
Continue readingCategory Archives: Multilingual
Infant Communication Baby Sign Language with Multilingual Children
When I first heard about baby sign language, my children were already verbal. Here in Europe it seems not as common to teach babies and infants signs if they are not deaf growing up with deaf parents. I have since read about this and met families who have taught their babies how to sign words […]
Continue reading
How to reactivate languages we have learned and we seem to have forgotten
Did you know that languages we acquired from infancy or learned later can be re-activated at any time? Even if we have the impression that we forgot all that we knew before, the process of reactivating them can be compared with muscle memory that allows us to ride a bike after years we didn’t practice, […]
Continue reading
How to articulate sounds
When we learn a new language as adults, we often struggle with articulating the sounds. What is relatively easy for children whose palate is still soft, becomes increasingly difficult the older we get. Usually, when children hit puberty, their palate hardens which makes it a bit more difficult for them to articulate new sounds. Against […]
Continue reading
When parents should NOT speak their L1 with their children
Against the common advice, backed up by countless research that states that parents should speak their L1 – first language – with their children, it is time to explain why this is not always the best solution for multilingual parents. I think there is an important misunderstanding leading to many parents doubting about the decisions […]
Continue reading