Multilingualism is not only good for our brain, our overall flexibility and open mindedness, it is also good for the economy. That countries like the UK with relatively “poor language skills” loses “the equivalent of 3,5% of its GDP every year” for exactly this reason whereas Switzerland, with its four national languages (German, French, Italian […]
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When the home language is not the dominant language
If you are a multilingual, is your home language your most dominant language? Something that surprises me when I read about language policies in schools and elsewhere is, that it is always assumed that people – children and adults – are most proficient, i.e. most fluent, in their home language. This might be correct for […]
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How to keep our languages alive while living abroad
At my kitchen table conversation– session I held at the 20th FIGT conference this year in The Hague I focused on the languages we collect during our life, and how we can keep them alive while living abroad, in different countries. Why kitchen table conversation? Because that’s where all began 20 years ago at Ruth van […]
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Myths about Bilingualism/Multilingualism
This is a short (!) overview of some common myths about bilingualism/multilingualism – I will be updating this list in May/June 2024, so, if you came across any myths you want me to include, please let me know in the comments. They are all assumptions based on old theories about bilingualism and bilinguals (and multilingualism), […]
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Language Assessments for Bilingual and Multilingual Children
Parents of multilingual children worry the most if their children will be able to keep up with all the languages and have a sufficient knowledge, proficiency, academically speaking, once they go to school. Schools do regular language and literacy assessments and even international schools tend to assess the school language only or at least also the dominant language – […]
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