bilingual education

[openoceans]

Hello mums! I'm new to mumsnet, so bare with me if I stumble along the way.

I'm a Canadian living in South Korea and trying to encourage Korean moms to speak English to their children from birth. I've developed a program that allows them to mimic dialogues directly to their babies. I am not encouraging them to use only English, but rather to speak two languages to their babies.

I'm also not encouraging them to diverge from the dialogues. There are strict guidelines and rules in place with this program to ensure that the mothers mimic only what they hear and not ad lib on their own.

I'm looking for your opinions on this issue. Do you think it's plausible to build a strong foundation in a language by having it spoken to you at home by your mom when that language isn't native to her?
I appreciate all of your comments in advance.

You both seem to have assumed a lack of sophistication in the OP's approach.

Obviously there would be no point in using phrases without knowing their meanings. How do you know they won't be watching videos of English parents using motherese at the changing mat and working out strategies to enable them to move between the two languages?

I just envision a much more academic approach that I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss. Also, we don't know the level of the Korean mums grasp of English.

OP?

Because any reasonable strategy would mean changing and adapting the English sentences they used- and that is precisely what the OP says they are not to do. If she had said, I want to offer support to Korean mothers to use English in a natural way, then I would have been all for it.

This is where the lack of sophistication comes in as far as I am concerned: "There are strict guidelines and rules in place with this program to ensure that the mothers mimic only what they hear and not ad lib on their own."

This quote suggests a very limited understanding of how linguistic development actually works.

Besides, if the mums do have a good grasp of English- why are they only allowed to "mimic what they hear"??

My French certainly isn't brilliant, but I'd still find it incredibly restrictive to only be allowed to repeat phrases out of a textbook. The best language support I have had has always been about teaching me to use the basic patterns provided to create new sentences of my own. Which is precisely what these mothers are told not to do.

Ah, I see. I took that phrase to be a safeguard against the acquisition of 'Korenglish'.

Well yes, I see what you mean. But surely if the only way to safeguard against that is to give them a sheet of paper and say "say what it says on here to your baby and nothing else", then that does seem to argue that their English can't be very good. In which case, their accent probably isn't very good either.

why would you do that?
And really, why would these mothers want to do that?

In my experience, immersion is the only way to go.
We speak 3 languages at home, my kids only ever really communicate in the dominant language in any given situation. No amount of forcefully or playfully enforcing ever worked.

Hello everyone. Thank you all so much for your responses. I'm sorry that I haven't responded sooner, but I'm very busy and didn't expect such a response. Wonderful.

Just to give you all a little more information about me. I am Canadian and my husband is Korean. I have three bilingual children and I myself am now bilingual. I have been working in the ESL/EFL business for almost fifteen years and I didn't provide full details regarding my program because it is currently being processed for international patents.

I will comment further on the responses I received when I have more time later in the day. I am the kindergarten director of a school here and I write and publish my own curriculum.

I do appreciate all of your comments. Thank you so much
Lorena

Am in singapore and the only pre-schoold that constistently deliver results are the ones that practice a kind of OPOL.
That is teacher who teach the curriculum in english only ever speak english to the children and same goes for mandarin.
Be it in a teaching situation or say taking the kids to the toilet.

The parents' input teaching the language that is not native to them is quasi irrelevent as the children think they are having a laugh when they "try" the other language unless of course like in your family everybody is completely bilingual.
hope it helps!

I would also echo that in a school situation what I term OTOL (one teacher one language!) is the only method that I have seen producing consistently good results.

There was an interesting thread on here a while age, I think an AIBU, about parents speaking to children in a non-native language that they themselves had only a limited grasp of - say a few phrases - and it didn't turn out well.

If you've been working in EFL did your CELTA (or other ESOL) course not cover the importance of speaking only English when teaching English? Or how the focus should be on students producing work and speaking, both spontaneously and as a drill? I understand you can't say much if you're waiting for patents but I must be completely missing something here.

OpenOceans
Interesting idea but I think you are going about this in the wrong way.

May I suggest that you have a look at Helen Doron teaching method. I know that there are others who teach in a similar way, this is the one I am familiar with.

I taught using this method while we were still in Germany and I believe it is a good way of introducing children to a second language at a young age.

The children go to 'class' once a week - I used to say English Playgroup as it implies that it is fun rather than work, which it is.

During the week the children (and my youngest student was 4mths old when he started) listen to a CD of music and stories in English. This gives an immersion at home. In the class we would play games that explained the vocabulary that they were learning.

Lots of repetition, lots of fun, using props, eg. a ball if we were learning the work 'ball'.

I had students from babies to 8yo and the aim was to introduce the English language in a fun manner. I know that some children went on to be very good English speakers.

You cannot pass on a language to your children that you do not master yourself. Any reasonable book on bilingualism is quite clear on this subject (if your own common sense doesn't tell you this).

I totally agree with Bonsoir on this (for once )

You can certainly encourage an interest - say with Mme Lindt's classes and sow the seeds, so to speak, but I do believe immersion is the only way to go to achieve bilingualism.

In Belgium where most educated people speak French, Dutch and English, I have come across very few who could be said to be "truly" bilingual. Most often it is because they had a parent from each camp. Most people can function very well in the other languages but always revert to their mother tongue when given the opportunity.

Kids are ruthless pragmatists when it comes to language. They are not going to start absorbing or speaking a language because you think it would be nice for them to be bilingual when they grow up. The best motivation is obviously because they need the language for communication - that's why OTOL works in nurseries and schools. The kids learn early on that in order to speak to that person, you just have to talk to them in that language.

Mme Lindt - The Helen Doron system works, I think, because it's fun for the kids (a friend of mine has a Helen Doron school), and fun provides the motivation to learn.

I can't imagine a system with fixed dialogues working in any way. Songs, maybe, but that's not what you mean, is it OP?

I am bilingual. My mother tongue is English and I speak Korean. Thank you for asking.

Thank you all for commenting on my program; much appreciated. But, I also ask whether you think it is plausible for non-native English speaking mothers to use English at home with their children as a way to develop their children's English ability. No one seems to have responded to that question, but rather have focused solely on the program. As I'm new to blogging, or community to chatting, I may have made a mistake in my form? If you could address this question, it would be helpful.

Thank you so much for your thoughtful response. I am happy to see you saw a little beyond the information given. In fact, all Koreans go through years of English education in the school system, but unfortunately the programs are not that well developed and do little to produce effective English speakers. Koreans know hundreds, perhaps a thousand or more nouns and verbs, but not how to construct a sentence or put the vocabulary into use. Thank you again for not judging a book by its cover.

Gratefully,
Lorena

I don't think the issue is with your bilingualism (although it may have arisen somewhere further up) more the bilingualism (or not) of the mother's being targeted. Plus I'm fairly willing to bet you're bilingual as a result of living in Korea, having a Korean husband and speaking Korean on a daily basis not because your parents spoke a few phrases to you when you were a baby. I certainly didn't learn any of my languages like that, even as an adult, and all the children I've worked with who were bilingual or had a good foundation had that because they were able to experiment, interact with and be corrected by people with an excellent grasp of the target language. This was either in schools using OTOL, because parents followed OPOL at home or because their home language was not the language of the wider community and they needed to learn it. In every situation I've seen the two way contact was key.

I'm interested, did you raise your own children bilingually following your approach and not improvising with them in English?

And what is the desired outcome of this project? I feel we've moved on from your original question about non-native speakers to a wider issue about language acquisition.

Cory, thank you for your concern. The program I've developed in used in a step by step process. It begins at the simplest level and over a course of several months the mothers digest the dialogues; learn them like the back of their hand and use them with their children like it's second nature. I apologize, I cannot provide full details, I simply wanted a response to the question I posted at the bottom of my original thread. I apologize again for the confusion. I will, in the future, keep my threads concise and to the point.

I think that non-native speakers can teach a child a second language but there are dangers inherent.

Depending on the fluency of the mother, are they going to teach their child incorrect grammar and sentence structure?

I am about as close to bilingual English/German as is possible to be, but my grammar is sometimes wrong. DD now corrects my grammar, but then she has learned the correct form from my DH who is German.

The other problem is the accent. Learning from a native speaker means that the child is picking up the accent from them. A German speaking English for example often pronounces th as a z. This is very difficult to correct once it is ingrained. The German language does not have the 'th' so they do not learn it as babies/children.

x-post

We have addressed your question, best summed up by cory

By cory Wed 20-Jan-10 10:13:17
Doesn't have to be a native speaker, sowhatsit; there are success stories involving non-native but highly competent speakers. But it has to be somebody who is prepared to actually speak to the child, rather than repeating set phrases.

The point has been made many times (also external to this discussion) that it doesn't have to be a native speaker but they do need a good understanding of the language, fluency, spontaneity and a reasonable accent. I will find a thread on non-native bilingualism for you where this is discussed in quite some detail but the person in question has near native competency in the target language which it would seem most Koreans don't.

Also, a gentle word of advice as you're new to this whole forum 'thang' - you can't control the direction a discussion will take, people will take up ideas and run with them, go off on tangents, want more information before they can make a proper decision. It's not like presenting a research paper, a structured debate or any kind of face-to-face interaction. Perhaps your mistake was giving too much information in your first post rather than just posing the question 'can a non-native speaker equip their child with a strong foundation in a language?' to which the answer would have been yes but.......(insert all things discussed here).

Helpful thread

In fact that entire forum would probably be very interesting to you!

And now I shall go back to work although this is much more fun than preparing business english lesson plans.

Thank you for your response. There are roughly 50 million people in Korea. Almost all of the people over the age of four (not kidding!) have started some sort of English program. Hagwons are after school study academies, and over 95% of all Korean children attend them. The language academies are not effective in producing bilingual students, simply because the country is unilingual and Koreans have no one to communicate with outside of the hagwon system. It is getting better; the internet does provide an outlet in the way of chat rooms, etc.
Immersion is simple out of the question for the majority of Koreans, it's too costly, and there are not enough international schools for all Koreans. Also, private education is big business; it isn't in the interests of those making money to make bilingual education accessible to all Koreans, unfortunately.

I am aware of Helen Doron's approach and studied her methods myself several years ago. I can say I use her "style"-many do these days thankfully!
The reason I'm encouraging mothers to speak English is simply because babies from birth are more attentive at the sound of mother's voice. Listening to recordings, and videos without support from mom just isn't as effective-research proven.
Caregivers do not provide the emotional motivation babies need to learn a second language unless the caregivers are spending the majority of time with that particular child.

Please remember that I live in Korea where there is almost no English support outside of a study environment.

Thank you again for reminding me about Helen Doron.

I agree that immersion, while ideal, is simply not practical for many people. Not everyone can marry a foreigner or move to a county where the language is spoken.

Your concept is basically flawed in that it does not allow conversations to develop.

If one of your sentences is 'Look at the ball. Look at the yellow ball' and the child answers, 'The ball is not yellow, it is blue', how does your programme suggest that the mother replies?

Thank you for your kind response. If you look at my thread it states clearly that I am not trying to produce bilingual children, but rather to provide them with a strong foundation in the language as they enter the hagwon system. Thank you again for reading my thread and responding.