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Originally Posted by rinabean
I was wondering if anyone out there that adopted a child from a foreign country tried to raise their children bilingual.
I am from Italy and my family still lives in Italy. I would like my baby to speak English and Italian so she can interact with her Grandparents and the rest of my extended Italian family.
I know that babies are very resilient and will adapt soon to new environments, but I am concerned of delaying my baby's speech even more.
I am in the process of adopting a baby girl from China and I am guessing that she'll be less than one year old by the time we bring her home.
I have found material that talk about how to raise biological children bilingual but nothing that applies to an older child that has been already exposed to a different language.
Can anyone give me any advice or suggest books that talk about this?
Thank you!
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Rineabean, many families raise their children in bilingual or even trilingual homes. My husband, for example, was educated and raised in Sri Lanka where in the home and community, three languages were used. The research on bilingual or multilingual development is positive, especially for a child or children who are older whereby they already have language skills in the first language. The difficulties or caution come to play for children who are language impaired (speech language pathologist diagnoses this). These are children who have difficulties with language in their first language, thus have difficulties acquiring and understanding any language, even their first language. These children would have great difficulties learning a second language. Also, children with learning disabilities or dyslexia in reading will have difficulties learning a second language, particularly the reading/writing portion of the language. For most other children, what happens is that it takes several years to learn the Basic Interpersonal Communications Skills (BICS) of a language, which is necessary for social communication. Children who are raised in multilingual homes will have good BICS in the languages they are exposed to; however, their vocabulary will be narrowly applied to the situations and settings where they are using the language. This means that vocabulary might be limited to the home setting if they do not use the language with friends outside the home or in school. The Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) form of language only comes with direct instruction in reading, writing, and academic vocabulary language use, primarily found in schools. There are schools that offer dual language programs. For example, in border states in the USA, there might be a dual language school program for Spanish and English. These are not bilingual education programs to teach English. These are programs whereby the students are proficient in both languages yet are being educated in both languages to read, write, and use the language in an academic manner. In Seattle, Washington, I understand there are dual language programs in the school for Chinese. Check in your area. If a child goes to school and does not receive serious academic instruction in one of the languages spoken in the home, there will be a deficit in that language in the CALP type of language. This typically happens for children who are able to speak two languages, yet only read, write, and do academic work in one of the languages. For some immigrant communities, you might find that there are weekend schools for the children to teach and educate the child in the other language not available at the public school. I have seen this for many different languages; however, you have to live near a large community for that language. In the USA, for example, Italian language classes are offered at some universities, at various Italian cultural centers in the USA (like Los Angeles, CA), and in some public high schools in select areas. Taking a language as if an American learning the language for the first time is not the same as serious studying of the language to be able to read, write, and use the language in an academic context like one might do in Italy. Foreign language departments and classes in a junior high or high school are not always given the same respect or status as the English department, classes, and teachers in the USA. Living in the USA, it might be very difficult for most to really develop true CALP in a language other than English. There may be some possibilities for Spanish due to the influx of Spanish immigrants and resources. You will find that immigrants who come to the USA to study at the universities and then do not return back home often find that their confidence level for CALP level use of their first language diminished since they did not receive their university education in their first language and they are not using their first language in their professional work. Thus, they do not know the vocabulary needed or have the university level of proficiency of the language to work and study at a level necessary in their profession. So, my brother-in-law who came to the USA to study at the university in 1993 and is now finishing his doctorate degree by December 2006 and wants to be a professor... told me that he does not have the confidence to teach and write journal articles at a university using his first language. He is more confident using English, his second language. I imagine that if you are Italian living in USA adopting from China that you might even consider your child learning three languages: Chinese, English, and Italian. I imagine that if living in the USA, the child will be most proficient in English, Italian second (you're fluent), and Chinese last (weekend school maybe). The other suggestion is that you might also start researching Chinese communities in Italy. After all, Marco Polo is famous for his travels between Venice and China. These communities might help you with the three languages. I used to live in Italy myself for several years while growing up and my husband has a cousin who married a Sri Lankan-Tamil-Italian. Their children speak English, Italian, and Tamil. Their best language is Italian. They speak Tamil in the home, yet learned English as a second language at school. The eldest is now studying at the university in Italy studying electronic engineering. I have another friend who was raised in Lebanon with a mother with first language of English (family was Lebanese immigrated to USA during WWII) and a father with Arabic as first language. In the home, they spoke both languages. They were educated at school in French language. The children attended university in the USA in English. My friend later went to Italy to medical school where she learned Italian while at medical school in Ancona. She is now married to a Dutch professor and has just passed her Dutch language proficiency exam and is a Dutch citizen now. She is finishing up her medical license in the country so she can practice as a doctor there. Many people speak multiple languages, many of them while growing up, some while as a child or teenager, and others learn as adults. It's possible, just a bit of instruction, practice, and hard work... The only people who cannot do it are those who have difficulties with language acquisition of their first language (e.g., language impairments, learning disabilities).