A Parent's Guide
1
Preface
Dear parents,
Many languages are spoken worldwide, in your country, your neighbourhood, and perhaps also within your family. The language(s) used in kindergarten or school may differ from the one(s) spoken at home.
You may be unsure if you stress your child when you provide access to more languages than the language(s) spoken at home. Maybe you have questions about supporting your child in becoming a competent speaker in all the languages necessary to communicate within your family, the neighbourhood, kindergarten, and school. You may have questions about when to start bringing more than one language into your family or, if at all. You may even consider it a disadvantage for your child later on if they have to deal with more languages than the language used in school.
As you can imagine, there are many ideas and worries regarding multilingual upbringing. Parents frequently ask themselves what the potential advantages or disadvantages are regarding their child's success in school and later on in their professional life.
The role of (kindergarten) teachers and parents in this regard is also a topic of public discussion. (Kindergarten) teachers can support the child with an appreciative attitude towards all languages. No language should be considered and treated as more valuable, important, beautiful, or useful than another. All languages are valuable and beautiful! Furthermore, (kindergarten) teachers can use a lot of situations to speak with the children so that the language needed for school can evolve. As a parent, you can also support your child to understand, speak, and write the languages important to you and your child in your living context. Be proud of it!
Cooperation partners from different countries (Austria, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, and Slovenia) have joined their expertise in an Erasmus+-funded project to support you and your child regarding a multilingual upbringing. Therefore, we will introduce knowledge about the challenges, especially the chances of learning different languages. We will show you various ways to actively support your child on its way into our multilingual surroundings. We will also focus on broadening the child's knowledge of the basic language skills needed (e.g., words and expressions) of the language used in school before entering the school system.
We will base our approach on computer-assisted language learning (CALL). For this purpose, we have prepared the app "Dandelin Goes to School" for learning and training words and expressions that children need when entering school. The app is designed for 4-8-year-old kids and is free to download.
The app helps to support the learning process playfully, keeping the child motivated and curious. Simultaneously, you as a parent may also profit from exposure to the language used in school while following the proposed activities with your child (see Chapter 6 for the benefits of CALL in detail). Additionally, these guidelines include methods and activities for your child to get involved from early on with the language used in school. In addition, we will support you regarding the maintenance and empowerment of your language(s) spoken at home throughout these guidelines.
The following chapters will introduce you to some basic knowledge regarding language acquisition, multilingualism, and the benefits of computer-assisted language learning (CALL). They will include essential facts, some examples, some questions to reflect upon at home, and some proposals for activities you could pursue with your child to support both the language used in school and the language(s) spoken at home.
In the literature on the development of bi- or multilingualism, many terms refer to the language(s) spoken within families and the language used when entering school. Language(s) spoken within families, for example, have been referred to as mother tongue, language of heritage, or family language(s) and also as language(s) spoken at home. Depending on which language is acquired first, even more technical terms, such as L1 (language 1) and L2 (language 2), might be used. In the following chapters, we will use the terms "family language" and "school language." These terms differentiate the language(s) you speak with family and friends from the language you need when entering the educational system in the country you live in. Sometimes, it can be the same language, but for many bi-/multilinguals, we can assume that the language(s) spoken at home differ from the language the child will need at school. We are aware that several languages may be spoken at home and in school. However, to make reading these guidelines easier for you, we will use the singular form of "family language" and "school language" for either one or multiple languages from now on.
We hope you enjoy the reading!
