00:00:15 – 00:03:33
Sharon: Welcome to Kletsheads, the podcast about bilingual children. My name is Sharon Unsworth, linguist at Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, a mother of two bilingual children. Here we go, it’s the very last episode of Kletsheads. In this extra long episode, three parents who were previously guests on the podcast come back to tell us about how their family’s bilingual journey has gone since then. I look back over the past three years, reflect on the future, and as cherry on the cake, we finish with a poem written about bilingual children and dedicated to bilingual children and inspired by the podcast. Keep listening to find out more. When I started the English edition of Kletsheads back in 2020, I don’t think I imagined that I’d still be going strong three years later. But the feedback I’ve received over the years and still receive now has made it very clear to me that the podcast fulfills a need. I’m very proud that Kletsheads has been such a success, but all good things must come to an end. And after more than 50 episodes in Dutch and 35 in English, I’ve decided it’s time to call it a day. Why? Well, making the podcast takes a lot of time. Time which I now want to spend on other projects. And to be honest, I think that after so many episodes with more or less covered the most important topics. I’ve learnt a lot whilst making Kletsheads from research topics I wasn’t very familiar with, to learning how to edit audio files, build a website and conduct interviews. There’s a lot that goes into making a podcast, and I think that’s one of the reasons why I’ve enjoyed it so much. It’s been a great way to release my creative energy. But I think what I’ve enjoyed most over the past three years are the conversations I’ve had with fellow researchers, with parents, teachers, all kinds of other professionals working with bilingual children and bilingualism, and of course, the bilingual children themselves. And so for this episode, I have three new conversations for you. You’ll hear three new interviews, but my interviewees are not new. They are three parents of young children who were already guests on the podcast, either as part of let1s klets or as a kletshead of the week earlier in previous seasons. And they’ve been kind enough to drop by again to talk about how things are going now. We start in Canada with Liz. I first spoke to Liz in episode four of the first season of Kletsheads. Liz is originally from the Netherlands and now lives in Ontario in Canada with their Egyptian husband and their four year old son, Otis. When I spoke to Liz for the first time, Otis was just 18 months old. This was the situation back then.
00:03:33 – 00:04:39
Liz: So he hears Dutch mainly from me. Before the pandemic, we had a neighbor who who was Dutch, and she would sometimes babysit him. I remember now and so he would see her too, but otherwise he hears mainly English from my husband. My husband. He is Egyptian and he grew up with both Arabic and English as a child. And he has decided, to my discontent, to speak English to to our son. But sometimes he hears some Arabic words as well. And when he speaks with his grandparents over FaceTime, he hears some Arabic through that as well. And the environment he lives in Ontario is is mainly English, so everyone around him speaks English. And at home my husband and I speak English too. So yeah, it’s very English with me as a strong Dutch component for him.
00:04:39 – 00:04:48
Sharon: Yeah. You live in the English speaking part of Canada. How do the people around you react to the fact that you’re raising your child bilingually?
00:04:48 – 00:05:32
Liz: I think most people are very positive. Sometimes I just stand and look and listen. But Ontario has a large population of people from Dutch descent, so a lot of people recognize the language. Most people are from second or third generation and. Yeah. You notice as well that back in the days when people emigrated, they were more pushed towards speaking the language of the country instead of maintaining their heritage language. So most of these people understand some words but don’t really speak it. So they’re very positive. Hearing that Otis speaks it. It’s kind of nostalgia then.
00:05:32 – 00:05:38
Sharon: What do you think is the biggest challenge then for you as the parent who speaks the minority language?
00:05:38 – 00:05:54
Liz: Yeah, I think the biggest challenge is to for Otis to continue speaking to me in Dutch, even when he realizes that I understand English and that English may be easier for him through schooling and and his environment.
00:05:54 – 00:06:07
Sharon: I can imagine there are parents who are listening to this who, just like you, have got got a young child or maybe are about to start their journey with a child that they want to raise bilingually. Do you have a tip for those parents?
00:06:07 – 00:07:10
Liz: I would say to speak the language that comes most naturally. So you sometimes I hear someone say, oh yeah, I lived in Spanish and in Spain for two years. Maybe I should speak Spanish to my children, but I think unless you really. And you really feel the language. You you know how to express everything in that language. You express your emotions. It may not come as natural. So I would always speak the language that comes most natural. And in the beginning I was a little bit afraid that I would be excluding my partner in the conversations I had with my son because he didn’t speak Dutch. So another tip would be to just try, because I notice that my husband picks up a lot of Dutch from me speaking to him. So it’s it’s positive not only for my child, but also for him and for us as a family. So yeah, I guess just give it a try.
00:07:10 – 00:07:24
Sharon: Yeah, that’s a great tip because I think a lot of people do really worry about that, right? When they don’t, they know that their partner doesn’t understand their language, or they’re worried about what family conversations will look like. So, so far in your house, it’s all good.
00:07:24 – 00:07:26
Liz: Yeah, it’s been great.
00:07:28 – 00:07:32
Sharon: All right, Liz. It is so nice to see you again.
00:07:32 – 00:07:33
Liz: Thanks for having me again.
00:07:33 – 00:08:03
Sharon: Yeah, well, it’s been three years since we spoke, and I’m curious to know whether anything’s changed. I’m sure things have changed, but in particular, of course, about the languages that you and Ahmed, your husband, use when you’re speaking to Otis. So when we spoke back in 2020, you were speaking Dutch and your husband was speaking English with a bit of Arabic coming from the grandparents. What’s the situation like now that Otis is four?
00:08:03 – 00:09:07
Liz: Yeah. So what’s similar is that we still use the same languages, but his dominance has definitely shifted more towards English. When we spoke when he was about one years old. I had just a part time job, and so he was home with me 2 or 3 days during the week. And now I have a full time job. And so now he’s in daycare five days a week. So he’s definitely, yeah, more English. Yeah. But still his his Dutch has developed so much more in his in his understanding Arabic is it. It was never fully existent. Sometimes when I ask him, hey Otis, who’s who’s the person who says always, hey, is that you? Yeah, baby. You know, which means something like, hey, how are you, my love? And then he knows that’s data. That’s his Egyptian grammar. But other than that, he. He doesn’t really speak any or understand any Arabic, but his Dutch.
00:09:08 – 00:09:26
Sharon: Okay, so with so Arabic is a few words. And he said Dutch is understanding uh, a lot more. And how’s it going? Does he speak Dutch much or is he really speaks English to you? And you speak Dutch to him? A situation I think many bilingual parents will recognize across the world.
00:09:26 – 00:10:56
Liz: Yeah, that’s mostly the case. It’s me speaking in Dutch and he replying in English. I think also because it’s English and he knows everyone understands him. Like even my family, he doesn’t have like much of an incentive to actually speak. Yeah, but if I were to ask him a question like, hey Otis, well, you’ve been of both eight and you want to eat inside or outside? He would say, Benita, or do you want to chew the waters of committees in lunch where you want carrots or or cucumbers? He would say, I want voc touches. You know, he would use these words spontaneously only like there’s a couple of words that he only knows in Dutch, like when to use, like French toast. Oh, yeah. And and. Right. So he would tell me, mum, I put it on the hand. Right. Like that was the countertop. For some reason, I don’t think his dad ever used that word or something. And you don’t really learn that outside of out of the house. So yeah, these are, these are some words that he only uses in Dutch. But next week we’re going to the Netherlands and he’ll see his cousin for the second time. Last time when he saw her she was only 16 months. So not verbal. She’s almost three. So I’m curious if he is going to make more of an effort, because she’s basically the only one who doesn’t understand when he speaks English. So maybe I’ll let you know.
00:10:57 – 00:11:23
Sharon: Yeah, let us know because that’s such a shame. Actually, we’re doing the recording now and not afterwards. Uh, because I’d be curious to know whether he does then spontaneously start speaking Dutch. And I guess, um, you know, we’ve also had the small matter of a pandemic, which I can imagine has also made things a bit harder for you. And the distance, of course, being in Canada to get back to, to see family. You speak Dutch?
00:11:23 – 00:11:23
Liz: Exactly.
00:11:24 – 00:11:25
Sharon: In the Netherlands.
00:11:25 – 00:12:07
Liz: We hadn’t been for two and a half years. So yeah, he hasn’t had any any other exposure to to Dutch. There’s one other family here in the neighborhood. Their dad is Dutch and their mom is French-Canadian. So he knows that other people speak Dutch too. And it’s very. This is a dad, right? Someone with a male voice. And the other day we were listening to something on Spotify and in Dutch, and there was a male voice or someone of a similar age. And Otis was like, is that Oscar’s dad? And I’m like, oh, he’s making this association with another person speaking Dutch. That is a male voice. Yeah.
00:12:07 – 00:12:08
Sharon: And how’s it?
00:12:08 – 00:12:52
Liz: Ahmed’s Dutch also pretty decent, but Otis is is much better. Yeah. Phew. Yeah. So, you know, there’s still, like, this age effect kids. Kids are picking up more, more quickly and and and Otis has it translate for for. But in context he does understand, and there are some words that the whole family uses only in Dutch, like kaneshie. I’ve never heard him say child or you know, I sometimes hear him say things like, Otis, you were very lief today. And yes, you know, it’s he’s he’s picking up, he’s understanding quite well.
00:12:53 – 00:13:19
Sharon: And so how is it for you then. Because you have English all around you. You’re the only person speaking Dutch to Otis. And quite frankly, you must have to have a lot of willpower and put a lot of energy into being able to speak Dutch to him. When, you know, I can imagine in certain circumstances it might just be easier to speak English. How do you experience that?
00:13:20 – 00:16:13
Liz: Yes, that’s definitely true. Sometimes. Sometimes I have a hard time finding the right words also. But but yeah, I’m very conscious about this that I need to give him as much input as possible. So like old books that we have Dutch books, but we have many more English books because we get regularly new books from the library. And I am like on the spot in bed, like translating them sentence for sentence. And sometimes that that is indeed tricky. And there was a time when I just started to be interested in Disney movies, and so I put them in Dutch and he would tell me, I don’t understand, I don’t want to watch it. And so I really consciously sat down with him and talked about basically made it like, you know, Dutch is your Netherlands is your superpower. And you know something, you know, it’s like, you know, does this child speak Netherlands? Does this child speak Netherlands? You know, in the know this is like your superpower. And if you listen more and you’re you, you know, you try to speak more, then you only get better at it. Right? And it really helped. And now he asks, can I watch Frozen Netherlands? Right. He wants to watch that movie in in Dutch. So yeah, I think maybe for some parents when child, when a child starts to reject wanting to speak that non-dominant language, maybe they’ll be like, yeah, screw it, we’re going to we’re going to switch to what’s easier. But I’m happy that I, that I kind of persisted and that he sees it as a positive thing. Yeah. So yeah, something else that has changed in his language input is that since three weeks ago he started French immersion in school. Yeah, yeah. And I think the reason why we put him in there is because we started to see that he was actually very interested in different languages and language systems. So when he would hear someone else speak another language, he was like, what is that? You know, mama, like he’s like the other day with that same with those same friends. The mom was speaking French and later he asks me, oh, what? Why does this person say, uh. And I said, well, you know what? That actually sounds like the French number for one. And then he asked me, can you teach me how to count? So then he learned to count the French in French. And now it’s always like, if we make a grocery list, he asks, can we write it in Dutch? Can we write it in French? Can we write? So I think this initial exposure to multiple languages made him more aware of of other cultures and therefore also interested. Yeah. So he doesn’t understand French yet, but he’s in French immersion.
00:16:13 – 00:16:39
Sharon: He will do soon. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But I love that tip of telling your child that they’re other languages, their superpower. I know that there will be many parents thinking that, oh, that’s a good idea. I’m going to try it. So that’s good. We can spread the superpowers across the across the globe. Um, are you happy with your family’s bilingual journey so far?
00:16:40 – 00:17:37
Liz: Yeah, I think I think it’s helps him also, like, identify more as Dutch. Of course, I would like it if he were to reply to me. But I’m also worried that it’s not not realistic for most kids, given the fact that he is exposed to so much English. Right? If my spouse will speak Dutch, it would be easier. Or even if my spouse were to speak a different language and it wouldn’t be so dominant in English, it would be easier. But yeah, I think I’m I’m happy with with how it is now. And and the translation that he does is also like, it’s like it’s just hilarious. Um, you know, and I think it’s just a cute element in the house. And if he wants to, if he wants to be more productive in his, in his Dutch, if he wants to speak it more than at least he has a good basis about in vocabulary and understanding and.
00:17:38 – 00:19:03
Sharon: Yeah, yeah. And I’m sure, you know, I know I don’t know whether you maybe heard that I once interviewed a actually a neighbor of mine who is, um, in the same situation, but actually for her, English is her language. She’s American. She lives well, obviously in the Netherlands, because she lives across the road from me. Um, and her partner speaks Dutch to the kids, and the kids are super dominant in Dutch, um, in the sense that they always speak Dutch to her. But she’s gone to the States, I think, a couple of times in the summer for like three weeks, and they come back and the kids are speaking English, and when they’re there, they’re speaking, they start speaking English. And she’s just like, whoa, you know, I didn’t even know. They’ve never spoken to me in English before in five years. And they can still do it. And I think that’s testament to, you know, the her persistence. And despite it being probably easier for her to switch to Dutch in her case because she speaks Dutch super. Well, um, you know, it’s testimony to her persistence on thinking, you know, I’m going to carry on speaking English because, as you said, it’s a great basis for which children can develop when the occasion arises that they have to speak that language in question. So what do you hope the future holds, then, for Otus and his bilingualism and multilingualism? We should say, actually, given that he’s going to French immersion.
00:19:03 – 00:19:47
Liz: I hope it helps him learn other languages in the future as well. Or if he ever wants to study in the Netherlands, then that definitely makes things easier for him to write to. Gives them the right basis because he already has this interest in in languages and who knows? You know, maybe he will he will speak to me in, in Dutch. But, you know, it’s like if you are Dutch and you go to America, for example, the kids, the people there don’t understand Dutch, right? So it gets are forced to then speak English. But in his case, people always understand him.
00:19:47 – 00:19:49
Sharon: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:19:49 – 00:20:39
Liz: Sometimes I like I pretend that I didn’t understand. And then artist goes by mama. You do speak English? Sometimes. Sometimes, he said. And he’s very like also in the evenings when he’s in bed and he wants me to scare like to, to, you know, send away the scary dreams and like the animals in the room. And then I say back and then he says, my mama, they don’t understand Netherlands. You have to say in, in English. Right. So he knows exactly who speaks what. And I think you know. That awareness is already great, and maybe in the future he’ll use more. But I’ll definitely update you after next week. What he did with his cousin.
00:20:40 – 00:21:08
Sharon: Good. Excellent. I look forward to it. So to wrap up then, um, have you got any other tips for parents who are maybe like you, the one person providing input in a certain language quite a long way from from family and friends who speak that language. You’ve already given us the super the superpower tip, which I think is a really great tip. If you got any other tips you want to share with parents in similar situation.
00:21:08 – 00:21:46
Liz: Um, I mean, the super, the super power tip is, is the big one for sure. But some something else I do is I encourage my family members when they come to speak to him in Dutch. They tend to to want to reply in English because he speaks English. Yeah, something that I do and this is the only opportunity for another source of input. So please, you know, speak, speak in Dutch and yeah, just yeah, just keep on. It’s not you’re not losing anything. Right. You just keep on keep on talking even though you feel like they’ll never talk back in that language. They may, they may. Yeah.
00:21:46 – 00:21:52
Sharon: Yeah. And he understands what you say to him. Right. So yeah. He’s bilingual.
00:21:52 – 00:21:53
Liz: Everything. Yeah. For sure.
00:21:54 – 00:22:09
Sharon: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well thanks for sharing the tips and for coming on and telling us how things have gone over the past three years. And I’m looking forward to the update in a couple of weeks to see how it went with the with his cousin. Yeah.
00:22:09 – 00:22:11
Liz: Sounds good. I’ll let you know for sure.
00:22:12 – 00:22:50
Sharon: I heard back from Liz last week after her trip back to the Netherlands, and she told me that Otis had understood the conversations around him without any problems. He had started using more and more Dutch words, though he hadn’t yet produced many complex sentences. Still, after just one week being immersed in a Dutch speaking environment, that’s not bad. I hope that this gives Liz and many of you listening, hope that even when your child rarely speaks your language, they’re still busy learning the language. Or, as Liz explained to her son, working on their superpower.
00:22:50 – 00:25:22
Sharon: We’ll hear shortly from our second guest of the episode, Marjolijn. But first, I thought it would be nice to share some statistics with you about the podcast. I regularly get asked how many people listen. Here are some figures for you. There are in total 35 episodes of the podcast available in English, and these have been listened to or downloaded over 31,000 times. When we add the 50 plus episodes in Dutch into the mix, this number rises to almost 110,000 currently. So that’s October 2023. The English edition gets on average 45 listens per day, and across all episodes we see that three out of four listeners keep listening until at least 75% of the episode. That’s great news. And what’s also great is that the podcast is listened to all over the world. The majority of listeners come from the Netherlands, the US, the UK and Germany, but in total there are 116 countries where the podcast has ever been listened to or downloaded. From Australia to Poland, from Singapore to Saudi Arabia. The most popular episodes have been listened to around 2000 times, and these are mainly the episodes from the first season, so the episodes that have been available for the longest, and these are also episodes that deal with topics that many parents and professionals have questions about, such as planning for a bilingual child, identifying what a bilingual child has a language impairment, and raising a child trilingual. Of course, the reach of a podcast cannot be expressed in numbers alone. Kletsheads has won a National Award for Science Communication in Linguistics, received positive reviews on Apple Podcasts and other platforms, including a YouTube multilingual parenting channel and in the Dutch national newspaper. All very nice, of course, but for me, the biggest token of appreciation comes from the reactions from you, the listeners, for which I thank you. It’s always nice to hear when the content of the podcast has managed to help in one way or another. A few quotes from listeners can be found on the website.
00:25:22 – 00:25:59
Sharon: Back in the second episode of the podcast’s first season, we spoke to Marjolijn. Marjolijn wasn’t raised bilingually herself, but she really wanted her child and now children to grow up bilingually. Marjolijn studied English and has worked as an English teacher for many years. So when she became a mother in 2018, the decision to sometimes speak English to her son Owen was a natural one. Here’s what she told me when we spoke to each other back then. What made you decide to speak English to your child?
00:25:59 – 00:26:20
Marjolijn: Well, I’m an English teacher, and I love English, of course, but I’ve also studied a bit of linguistics at university, and I’m very aware that the earlier you start learning a language or acquiring a language, the more likely you are to become pretty good at it.
00:26:20 – 00:26:30
Sharon: So you wanted to like, give them the chance to be become bilingual, even though they’re not necessarily growing up in a so naturally bilingual context.
00:26:30 – 00:26:56
Marjolijn: Exactly. Yeah. I think primary schools do teach English more and more, but I think it’s not nearly enough. I think the attention paid to English starts too late at secondary school, so I’m worried. Um, well, I know from teaching at secondary schools how hard it is for some to reach an appropriate level of English. So I want it to be ahead of the game.
00:26:57 – 00:27:03
Sharon: Yeah. And so tell us about your your child. How old is he?
00:27:03 – 00:27:15
Marjolijn: Well, his name is Owen and he’s going to turn two in November of this year. So he’s one year and a bit over ten months at the moment. And he’s a little chatterbox.
00:27:16 – 00:27:21
Sharon: So. And a chatterbox in English, in Dutch and both in.
00:27:21 – 00:27:44
Marjolijn: Both actually for some for some objects and animals he only knows the English word because, well, I’m at home with him two days a week by myself. Those are the days that I speak English with him, and we read lots of books and we sing songs. So then while he only hears the English names for certain animals. Yeah.
00:27:44 – 00:27:51
Sharon: So what’s your approach then? So did I understand correctly that you speak English on certain days? Or do you always speak English with him or how?
00:27:51 – 00:28:24
Marjolijn: No, I speak English with him when we’re alone together. So as soon as his dad comes home, we switch to Dutch, because while his dad’s level of English is a bit lower. So it’s not bad by any means. But yeah, we just switched to Dutch then, and sometimes when I get a little embarrassed when we’re alone, but we go out and there’s other people around, I may switch to Dutch as well, just to avoid people staring at us, but sometimes I just don’t mind. So today we went to the playground and I’ll speak English to him even when people pass by.
00:28:24 – 00:28:31
Sharon: So how have people reacted to that in your environment about you making the decision to speak English to him? Some of the.
00:28:31 – 00:28:44
Marjolijn: Time most people are pretty supportive and they think it’s quite cool and brave. Um, and I think most people understand why I do it, and I think many of them wished they could.
00:28:44 – 00:28:47
Sharon: Yeah. What do you think the future looks like for him then?
00:28:47 – 00:29:26
Marjolijn: So I guess what I’m worried about is that I’m doing more harm than good in the long run because, well, you just can’t tell. And I’m often a bit worried about not being a native speaker myself. I know I’m quite proficient, but I do make occasional mistakes that a native speaker might not make. So I mean, believe in what I’m doing. That’s why I’m doing it. So I’m very hopeful that in the end he will benefit from speaking English with me. But there is this tiny part of me that worries that maybe he’ll fall behind because of what I’m doing. Or yeah, maybe I’m teaching in the wrong things, but I guess only time will tell.
00:29:26 – 00:29:30
Sharon: What piece of advice would you give to other parents wanting to do the same?
00:29:30 – 00:30:14
Marjolijn: I think as long as you feel confident doing it most of the time, then you should consider it a gift to my child. The gift of being able to speak another language. In the future, I plan to to travel with my son because my husband doesn’t like to travel and I love traveling. So I plan to travel and then think, what better gift can I give him then for him to be able to communicate with the people he meets from different cultures and different countries? And I guess if you speak a second language that family members speak, maybe that’s the only language they speak, then what better gift can you give your children than to be able to communicate with their family members?
00:30:15 – 00:30:31
Sharon: I caught up with my a couple of weeks ago in my office in Namibia. You’ll hear some noises in the background there from my colleagues in the office next door. How are you and how have you been since we last spoke?
00:30:31 – 00:30:40
Marjolijn: I’m fine. Thanks. I’m now a mother of two. So last time we spoke just about my eldest, Owen. And now I have a two and a half year old James running around.
00:30:40 – 00:30:42
Sharon: So how’s that?
00:30:42 – 00:31:00
Marjolijn: Oh. It’s lovely. They’re two completely different children, so it’s wonderful. And they really like each other for some reason. So, yeah, no sibling rivalry at home or anything. So wonderful. Fingers crossed. Yes. Well, they’re only two and four, so who knows what’s to come. No.
00:31:00 – 00:31:13
Sharon: But anyway, good start. Yes. So when we spoke back in 2020, you were speaking English to your first born. What’s the situation now? You still speak in English when you’re alone with the children or as the tactic changed. It’s a bit more.
00:31:13 – 00:32:44
Marjolijn: Complicated now because back then it was just me and him two days a week. So that was quite easy. And then Covid came around. There were lockdowns, my husband was home all the time. And so then we always had this, I don’t know, unspoken rule that I would speak Dutch when he was around. And so during the lockdowns, Dutch was becoming the home language. And after that my husband wasn’t well. He had to stay home from work for well over a year, I think a bit under a year maybe, but yeah. So then we spoke more and more Dutch, and then the second baby came and I was busier, and it takes up lots more energy to not speak your native language. Yeah, so I’ve been slacking a bit, but I can tell that Owen really understands me because whenever I do speak English, I don’t have to explain anything. I don’t have to repeat anything. He just understands automatically. He just replies in Dutch. But with James, it’s a different story. I just he started speaking later too, so I was a bit worried that he wasn’t well. He didn’t understand what I was saying when I was speaking English. So now I try just short sentences, easy bits, but it’s not as automatic as with Owen. Yeah, yeah, but he speaks now, so I’m a bit more daring now to to attempt it and to pick up where I left off. But it’s two and a half now so yeah.
00:32:44 – 00:33:22
Sharon: Yeah, but it can be a bit worrying. Can’t if your child doesn’t say something. And when you’re raising them bilingually and you worry that maybe that’s got something to do with it. But I think what we often forget, and I’m not blaming you in any way, but I think what we often forget is there’s so much variation between children, even when they’re learning just one language, you know? So I same with getting teeth, right? You know, the one first, I guess the first two, three. Now I’m with the three months my daughter had a first tooth and a cousin who’s a day later, a day younger, nine and a half months before she had the first two. So it’s the.
00:33:22 – 00:33:23
Marjolijn: Same with first world.
00:33:23 – 00:33:24
Sharon: Difference. Yeah.
00:33:24 – 00:33:47
Marjolijn: Yeah. Well, I think I have to be a bit more confident in James’s abilities because whenever I do say a short sentence to him, very often he will understand even though I’m not expecting him to. And maybe that’s because I have been speaking a bit of English. We’ve been reading English books, and whenever I, when, whenever I do allow screen time, it’s always in English too. So he’s had lots of input from that as well.
00:33:47 – 00:33:52
Sharon: Yeah, yeah. And how about Owen then. Houses English.
00:33:52 – 00:34:25
Marjolijn: It’s really good. He doesn’t speak it on his own accord. He does throw a throw around the odd sentence here and there, but he understands everything. Yeah. And whenever I try to ask him, do you know what that is in English, he’ll know it. He just won’t volunteer it, so that’s fine. I’m really not. I’m worried that he’s not going to get a challenge in school whenever they do English. Yeah, so that’s a new worry. But I’m quite pleased with his understanding. His comprehension. Yeah.
00:34:25 – 00:34:57
Sharon: Yeah. So I had that as well with my kids because obviously they speak English. But we first we start we spoke about them getting extra work to do in English lessons or maybe even doing a different language, you know, say with a, I don’t know, with an app or something. Instead, in the end, we just let them do English and let that be one thing that they thought, oh, I can do this. And and that was okay. I think it depends on the kind of kids you have and the.
00:34:57 – 00:35:48
Marjolijn: Teacher program, doesn’t it? Because the primary school he’s in currently, I just went to this, I don’t know, informative evening there. And they showed us the program, the English program for nine year olds. And the vocab list was mother, father, sister, brother. I was like, okay, so this is what he’s going to be offered when he’s nine, when he’s even. More proficient than he is now, and he’s known these words ever since he was one. So yeah, I’m a bit worried about that. And I asked them questions about whether there was any sort of anything on offer for kids that were a bit further ahead. And they said, well, not really, but maybe then he doesn’t have to do it and we can offer him other things, just not other English things. So yeah, that’s a shame. But I guess they don’t really have to, do they. He’s an exception.
00:35:48 – 00:35:51
Sharon: Yeah. What a what a what are you worried about?
00:35:52 – 00:36:15
Marjolijn: Well, I’m worried that he’s going to be bored and, uh. Yeah, it’s not nice to have to do something different from what the other kids in class are doing. Is it? So whenever the rest of the group is doing English and he’s set apart and I don’t know what it’s going to look like, I’m probably far too worried about it now. But, yeah, you’re going to stand out, aren’t you?
00:36:15 – 00:36:21
Sharon: Yeah, maybe. Or you, you know, stand out can also be in a good way as well. Yeah.
00:36:21 – 00:36:25
Marjolijn: And I can’t imagine other nine year olds not knowing those particular words.
00:36:25 – 00:36:30
Sharon: I was going to say. I can’t imagine looking at the nine year olds that I know.
00:36:30 – 00:36:31
Liz: That.
00:36:31 – 00:36:34
Sharon: That’s the level of vocabulary that they’re going to need.
00:36:34 – 00:36:37
Marjolijn: Maybe this was just the very first lesson to build some confidence.
00:36:37 – 00:36:56
Sharon: Yeah, yeah. So but when we spoke, um, what, 2 or 3 years ago, you said you were worried that you might be doing a win. More harm than good. And the only time will tell. That’s clearly a long time to go. Yeah, I know there’s a long way to go still, but how do you feel about that now? Yeah.
00:36:56 – 00:37:18
Marjolijn: So recall why I said that. Probably because I’m not a native speaker and also, well, because maybe he wouldn’t learn certain Dutch words soon enough and others would have that vocabulary in place. And he was still learning. But his vocabulary is very big, both in Dutch and in English. So yeah, again, I was too worried.
00:37:19 – 00:37:30
Sharon: So we need to have another. Even though the podcast is stopping, we should have a definitely check back in in a few years and see what happens when he starts doing English at primary school. Yes, in.
00:37:30 – 00:37:42
Marjolijn: Secondary school and whether or not he’s thankful for. Being brought up this way, or whether he doesn’t even notice and think thinks it’s normal. I don’t know, it would be interesting.
00:37:42 – 00:37:47
Sharon: Yeah, definitely. So he started school, now. Primary school? Yes. How has that gone?
00:37:48 – 00:38:25
Marjolijn: Oh, it’s it’s fine. He started last year in November when he turned four. He has to play a lot at school of course at that age. But he’s already he’s they put him in the first year again because the cutoff point is December. And he was very surprised about that. I was like, okay, but after the first year you go to the second year, so what’s going on? And now he’s he’s come home the other day and he said, I’m a bit bored. I’ve played everything that’s in the classroom already and I don’t want to play with that all year. I want to learn something. I was like, oh my goodness, he’s an academic already.
00:38:26 – 00:38:30
Sharon: Yeah. So he’s definitely keen to keen to learn, so keen to learn.
00:38:30 – 00:38:55
Marjolijn: And he’s very curious about language and maths. He can do like simple calculations already and he recognises all the letters of the alphabet and. Yeah. So yeah, but I think he needs to develop a social skills a bit more. So I don’t think they’ll be very keen on having him progress any faster than he should, according to the programme. So yeah.
00:38:55 – 00:39:07
Sharon: Well social skills are also important of course. Um, after teachers said anything about or have you had a conversation with them about the fact that you sometimes speak English with the children?
00:39:07 – 00:39:33
Marjolijn: Well, I put it in his application forms, but the teachers never asked about it. Whenever I met them, it would just be about his performance at the moment. And they’re not doing English in class yet. And since he doesn’t speak English when he doesn’t have to, then I don’t think they’ve noticed. They have said that he has a very large vocabulary, but that’s just based on his Dutch vocabulary. So that’s a relief.
00:39:34 – 00:39:44
Sharon: Yeah, so that’s a good message, at least in your case, that yes, speak in English to him some of the time earlier on hasn’t affected his.
00:39:44 – 00:39:46
Marjolijn: Mother in any negative way.
00:39:46 – 00:39:56
Sharon: Yeah. Um, you also mentioned when we spoke that the people around you were pretty positive about your decision to speak English. Is that still the case?
00:39:56 – 00:40:10
Marjolijn: Yes, I think so. People often ask me about it still, whether I still do that, and then they always have to confess. Well, I’ve been slacking a little bit, but I do try. And yes, I’ve never had any negative comments about this.
00:40:11 – 00:40:40
Sharon: And, um. Have you got any tips for parents in a similar situation who also would like to speak a second language, and it’s often English to their child? This is something actually that I’ve regularly get questions about, you know, how do I how do I do that? Yes, it’s one of those questions. Have you got any tips as somebody who’s done it or is doing it?
00:40:41 – 00:41:20
Marjolijn: Well, yes. It really helped me to pinpoint the moments where I would do it in a safe environment. For both me and Owen, it’s also helpful to find books that you can read out loud, because if I’d only had Dutch books, then that would have limited probably the words that I would choose to use. Yeah, so that would be a tip and to not be afraid to do it, but to be aware that it does take some energy and dedication. Yeah, I’ve noticed, yes. But please don’t. Don’t hesitate to try. I found out that it doesn’t hurt.
00:41:20 – 00:41:31
Sharon: Yeah, yeah. Good. Well, that’s a very positive, positive way to end this particular conversation. And thank you very much, my lane, for coming. Thanks for.
00:41:31 – 00:41:32
Marjolijn: Having me back.
00:41:32 – 00:41:36
Sharon: And telling us how things have gone with the bilingual journey in your family.
00:41:36 – 00:41:41
Marjolijn: Thank you. And thank you for doing this podcast all these years. Thanks. It’s my pleasure.
00:41:41 – 00:44:43
Sharon: Over the three seasons of Kletsheads, we’ve heard from many different people about their experiences with the bilingual children in their lives. From parents like Liz and Marjolijn and shortly Christi, to teachers and speech language therapists, from passionate promoters of heritage language education to bilingualism ambassadors, each with their own story, these real life experiences have been a valuable addition to the focus of the podcast, which has always been to convey key insights and findings from research in such a way that they can be understood by as many people as possible. More and more research is being conducted on bilingualism in all its facets, and there are more and more initiatives around this topic, at least here in the Netherlands, in schools, libraries, and here and there in public policy. Although we’ve still got a long way to go before everyone sees the added value of all forms of bilingualism, and the many misunderstandings about bilingual upbringing and bilingualism in education have been cleared up. I think that in 2023, we have enough reason to be cautiously optimistic when it comes to the future of our bilingual children. Though I’m stopping making the podcast, I will, of course, remain a committed supporter and agitator when it comes to promoting the importance of all forms of bilingualism. What am I going to do then with all that free time now that I’m not making the podcast? Well, I remain first and foremost, of course, a researcher and lecturer. But I will use this extra time to focus on my other big project: Kletskoppen. Kletskoppen is the Dutch word for chatter boxes, and it’s an initiative from the Radboud University and Max Planck Institute for psycholinguistics that organizes activities about language and science for children from diverse backgrounds. These include festivals in libraries and community centers, and lessons in primary schools. If you’re based in the Netherlands and you want to know more about this, feel free to get in touch. You can do that via LinkedIn, via the website, or just by dropping me an email. It’s sharonunsworth@ru. For the final conversation in today’s episode, we’re back off to Canada in the same episode as Liz. I also spoke to Christi. This was back in 2020. Christi told us then about her own upbringing as a trilingual child in Vienna, and about the choices that she now faced as a mother when it came to deciding which language or languages to speak to her child. Here’s what she told me back then.
00:44:43 – 00:45:00
Christi: I’m Christi, I’m in my mid 30s and I currently live in Golf Canada, and I grew up speaking German and Spanish and speak now English, German and Spanish fluently.
00:45:00 – 00:45:06
Sharon: So you were raised, you were raised bilingually. Where did you learn those two languages? German and Spanish.
00:45:06 – 00:45:23
Christi: Sure. So my dad is Austrian and I talked to him in German and to my brother in German as well. And my mother would always talk to us in Spanish, basically. And obviously I grew up in Vienna, so we would talk in German to our friends in school. So yeah.
00:45:24 – 00:45:30
Sharon: And how was that growing? Oh, bilingually with with Spanish as one of your home languages.
00:45:30 – 00:45:39
Christi: Huh? That’s a good question. It was interesting. It was good. But it was also strange because at the time Vienna was not very multicultural.
00:45:40 – 00:45:41
Sharon: How did you learn English?
00:45:41 – 00:45:58
Christi: Well, I started learning English when I was 15, in high school, but I had made up my mind that I wanted to do my higher education in North America. So when I was 18, I moved to North America.
00:45:58 – 00:46:04
Sharon: So three, three languages. Um, how much do you use each of those languages?
00:46:04 – 00:46:56
Christi: Now, that’s a really good question because I predominantly use English because it’s been such a huge part of my life academically, and my relationships are predominantly in English. So that has kind of become my dominant language at this point. And I speak to my mom on the phone occasionally, always in Spanish. But it’s not like we talk every day for hours. And then German has kind of been on the backburner. Mostly. My father and I don’t have the greatest relationship, so we don’t talk very often. My brother and I don’t really talk much either, but I had a baby a year ago and I decided to talk to her in German, so that’s kind of like I’m speaking more German now since I’ve become a mother, but it’s a very basic German.
00:46:57 – 00:47:04
Sharon: So I find that really interesting. And so what made you choose to speak German rather than, say, Spanish?
00:47:04 – 00:47:33
Christi: Because I went to school in Austria and I feel like I’m just grammatically better equipped to teach the language, and because Spanish, because it was like my second language, but it never came with the very thorough education that you get when you learn a language. And like primary school and high school, like we’re all the kind of the foundations are set. Since I didn’t have them with Spanish, I decided that German was the way I had to go.
00:47:33 – 00:47:37
Sharon: And what what other languages does she hear?
00:47:37 – 00:47:54
Christi: Well, she hears English. Yeah, yeah, yeah, my husband speaks to her in English and our babysitter speaks to her in English. So, yeah, she’s turning 15 months. Yeah. She says more German words at this point. Yeah, yeah. Yes. So yay for me? Yes.
00:47:54 – 00:47:56
Sharon: How does that make you feel, then?
00:47:56 – 00:48:25
Christi: It’s strange. It is strange. I hope my German will keep improving as she gets older. Yeah, it’s kind of like relearning the language again. It’s really strange because I’ve spoken English for so long now that I feel like at times German has become very passive, but I found myself kind of like accessing more vocabulary again as she ages. So it’s kind of weird how memory starts kicking in. Yeah.
00:48:28 – 00:48:30
Sharon: It’s been a while since we spoke.
00:48:30 – 00:48:31
Christi: Yeah. Two years.
00:48:31 – 00:48:43
Sharon: We’ve had a pandemic to deal with since then. Um, but apart from that, how are you and how have you been since we last spoke? I know that you have a second child now.
00:48:43 – 00:48:58
Christi: Yes, I do. I have two children, two girls. And it’s been wild. Like, you know, when I had my first baby, I was like, I need a second one. And then I had my second one. I was like, I’m done. I was.
00:48:58 – 00:48:58
Sharon: Like that too.
00:48:58 – 00:49:04
Christi: Actually. But yeah. Okay. So two girls. Yeah.
00:49:04 – 00:49:06
Sharon: And I’m curious.
00:49:06 – 00:49:08
Christi: To know whether.
00:49:08 – 00:49:22
Sharon: Anything has changed in the languages that you use when speaking to your now children. So in 2020 you were speaking German to your first born. After very thinking about it for a long time, what you wanted to do. What’s the situation like now?
00:49:22 – 00:51:23
Christi: Well, you know, I’ve been thinking about it a lot, especially because my mom just spent the summer with me and as I think I told you the first podcast that she always speaks to me in Spanish. And. Yeah. And I always wondered. I didn’t wonder until now. I was assumed that it’s easy to be successful. If you decide to talk to languages with your children, and I found out last year that it wasn’t that easy because a lot of things happen in my life. So I have, as I, we just talked about, I had a second baby, and when the baby, she was born very sick. So she spent many months in the hospital and, and then my husband had a bad car accident, and my other daughter was in the car accident too. And I felt that all these very huge moments in my life had happened, and language became so important, and I started out of a need to make sure she understood everything I was saying. I started to say more things in English, and then it kind of took over. And I still talk to her in German a lot, because I really want her to have the privilege of seeing the world through two lenses and having these two. How could I put it? Worlds that she can be part of. However, I found it quite hard once I made the switch out of necessity. I thought that was a necessity. I really wanted her to understand very important things, and because she was so small, I felt like this one opportunity to really make this stick. So I started talking to her more in English, and it kind of crept in more and more, and I found myself that it’s really hard. Once you start introducing a more dominant language into the relationship with your future, to kind of walk back that, that, that, that just walk it back. So yeah, it’s been it’s been interesting.
00:51:25 – 00:51:27
Sharon: Yeah, and it sounds tough. Is everybody okay?
00:51:27 – 00:51:29
Christi: Yeah. No. Everybody’s okay.
00:51:29 – 00:51:34
Sharon: It’s respective of what? Language this is. Everybody okay. That’s the the bottom line, right?
00:51:34 – 00:52:05
Christi: Yeah. No, everybody is okay now. It was like a very hard few months. My daughter was born with what they call hyper insulin. So she had extremely low blood sugars that they couldn’t control for two, two months in the hospital and then two more months in and out of hospitals. So. And then they had this huge car accident on the highway, which kind of put her whole life on pause. And everyone is okay. It’s just funny how life sometimes changes the plans you have, you know.
00:52:06 – 00:52:38
Sharon: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you’re not the first person to say that, actually, the other people who are guests on on this episode of said similar things as well, um, for, for, for different reasons. So how’s it going? How do you think it’s going then with your eldest daughter’s German now? I mean, you said, you know, out of necessity you you switch to English and it can be hard indeed to switch back if you, if you switch to the majority language. But how do you feel it’s going?
00:52:38 – 00:54:15
Christi: Well, I try to speak in German and in English. Sometimes English just becomes more dominant in our relationship. I think good things I would say are that she still understands everything I say she wants me when I read her book in German, she’s okay with that. And she asked me to read books in German. I try to do it now more slowly in making sure, kind of pointing out what things like. If I say a word that I don’t know if she knows it, I will point it out and try to explain it. Or I’ll use English for a moment just to say what the word means in English. The interesting thing is that my mom spent three months with us this summer, and she started speaking to my daughter in Spanish. And right. It was fascinating to see how quickly she started picking up the Spanish and how much fun she was having in it, because my mom was constantly showing her music in Spanish. And so this she started suddenly singing these songs in Spanish, and she had never really been spoken Spanish to prior to this year much. And then I realized how quickly she picked it up and how much fun it was. And my mom is a second language, so my mom teaches Spanish. She’s been teaching it for, what, like 50 years now. And she just gave me really good, good ideas about how to keep it going to always. She says, always have repeated. And it made such a huge difference in the way she was taking up the Spanish. So I started doing that more and more. And I do think she’s not refusing to do that. So I think that’s a good sign.
00:54:15 – 00:54:17
Sharon: What language do you speak to your mom?
00:54:17 – 00:54:17
Christi: Spanish.
00:54:17 – 00:54:55
Sharon: So she so you’re having a Spanish conversation. And I know we spoke about in the when you first came on the podcast, you know, about your decision to choose to speak German rather than Spanish with you child. So then, okay, so she’s you’re speaking Spanish to each other, your mom speaking Spanish to your daughter, you’re speaking English and German to your daughter. Um, and yet everybody’s communicating with each other. Yeah. And I guess, you know, it sounds like you’re having fun, right? I think that’s reassuring as well, for many parents listening that, you know, sometimes it is like a big multilingual mishmash. Yeah, but that’s just the way things work. Right.
00:54:55 – 00:56:10
Christi: And she was having fun. That was the best part. They know I was having a lot of fun speaking. I think that’s crucial. Right. And how my mom went about it always kind of funny and always playing music. And it was amazing to see that she was actually speaking more Spanish than German. After three months, I was like, hmm, okay. And I just think. It really takes a village to raise children. And I think the same applies to language. So my mom, she. Was a Spanish teacher, and she grew up in this kind of very solid Latin American community, not grew up, but was like living in this solid Latin American community in Vienna because she worked at the Latin American Institute. So all of her friends spoke Spanish. Every time we met people, they spoke Spanish. And I just realized that how important it is and how much easier it is to go follow through with your plan to talk, to kind of resist the urge to speak the dominant language if you have more people around you, if you really have a little village around you to keep it up and the occasions to speak it with other with others around you and not be like the outcast in a community where you don’t want anyone speaking German.
00:56:10 – 00:56:10
Liz: You.
00:56:10 – 00:56:11
Christi: Know?
00:56:11 – 00:57:08
Sharon: Yeah, yeah. No, I think that’s really important. Right. And I think you can look at it from two ways from the. Okay. So it is really important to try and go out and find that that village, as it were, to the extent that you can. Right. And it’s not always possible. And on and on the other hand that it’s okay to cut yourself some slack, that just because you’re the only person, if you’re the only person speaking a language with your child, you can’t expect that they’re instantaneously going to use it and learn it and start using it all the time, right? About expectation management as well. And I’m really curious now, Christy, so your daughter’s experience now learning and playing with Spanish, is that changed any way, how you feel or how you think you’re going to the languages that you’re going to use with her? Right. Mean does it make you more tempted to maybe use Spanish with it more than German or.
00:57:09 – 00:58:06
Christi: No it hasn’t. I do want to stick to the German because it’s the harder language to learn. Also because just because I want to leave that. Not to say I want to leave it to my mom, but I think it’s just a better she’s a better vehicle to do that than me because I do speak Spanish was my second language growing up, but it’s probably a lot of people will tell you who grew up bilingually. They have the dominant language, and then they have the other language that they’re fluent in, but they’re not perfect in either. So because I never went to Spanish speaking school and never learned how to write in Spanish, really, I will write. I will text my mom in Spanish. And thank God for autocorrect, because my grammar has gotten so much better since I since the smartphone was invented. But yeah, I just just because I was schooled in German, I, I trust myself more to do it the right way. Uh huh.
00:58:07 – 00:58:12
Sharon: And what about. So we talked about your eldest daughter. What about a daughter? Number two. How old is she?
00:58:13 – 00:58:20
Christi: She’s a year with 15 months. I speak to her in German exclusively right now. I’m trying it again. Take two.
00:58:21 – 00:58:30
Sharon: Yeah, yeah, well, you know, that’s it’s not only language that we try things out. Take two on with our second child, right? Um.
00:58:31 – 00:58:35
Christi: My one year old actually says words in Spanish, too. Oh, yeah. Yes.
00:58:36 – 00:58:41
Sharon: So it’s funny, isn’t it, to see what they pick up. And what about your husband? Does he understand German?
00:58:41 – 00:58:42
Christi: No, he doesn’t know.
00:58:43 – 00:58:46
Sharon: And how does he feel about the kids being raised multilingual?
00:58:46 – 00:59:10
Christi: He wants me to keep talking to them in German. He really wants them to have the ability to speak both languages. And, you know, it is just really. It is such a privilege to be able to speak two languages. It opens up the world in unexpected and unexpected ways. So to give them this gift, we really do want to give them the gift of a second language.
00:59:10 – 00:59:35
Sharon: So when we spoke, though, you said you hoped that because you hadn’t used your gym and for very long for very much right, that you hoped that your German would keep improving as your daughter got older. Now I know, do you think, as it come out of hibernation a bit more than what it was, or despite, you know, all the things that you’ve just told us about having out of necessity to switch to English. But how do you feel about your German?
00:59:35 – 00:59:36
Christi: That’s a.
00:59:36 – 00:59:37
Liz: Good question.
00:59:37 – 00:59:58
Christi: Well, like I was 18 when I left Austria. That’s a long time ago now. And it it’s it’s gotten better, I would say a bit better for sure. I’m sure it’s worthy of a four year old, but probably not worthy of an eight year old yet. Well, you’ve got four.
00:59:58 – 00:59:59
Sharon: Years to go, right?
00:59:59 – 01:00:02
Christi: No, that gives me hope to.
01:00:06 – 01:00:17
Sharon: And, um, I think I know what you’re going to say. The answer is to this, but I’m going to ask you the question anyway. What do you find the most challenging about reason? Bilingual kids?
01:00:17 – 01:01:12
Christi: I think if I’m completely honest, it’s not really about speaking the languages. I think it’s more how I feel about being a foreigner in a country and speaking a language. I think it’s more social thing really, where I feel self-conscious. If I’m at a park and I speak to my kid in German and we’re the only one speaking in German. I think it’s just fear had growing up to about being looked at a weird way or, you know, like for my whole life. And so I was like, what’s your accent? Like, where are you from? And it’s always been I know people are showing interest, but sometimes it’s also a way of saying like, well, you’re. You’re different. There is. You don’t quite fit the bill here. And I think it’s been more that that the social aspect. Yeah.
01:01:12 – 01:01:45
Sharon: It’s funny. That’s not what I expected you were going to say, but it’s a far more interesting answer. Um, so what could people do now? I don’t know if there’s anybody listening who is not raising a bilingual child. Um, but if there was someone listening or, you know, maybe there are teachers listening who work with bilingual children and maybe see things like this going on in the playground. What can people do to help parents like you? Um, feel more comfortable, for example, speaking your language with your child out in public?
01:01:46 – 01:02:30
Christi: I don’t really know, but I think a key thing is to. Just seeing it when my own kid learns new things, how much excitement she takes out of me, showing excitement and taking joy in what she’s doing and showing pride. I think it would be really good if I think about like maybe a teaching environment or whatnot where these things become more normalized, but also normalized and kind of an exciting thing like, oh, why don’t you share with us this is so wonderful. Like, you know, it’s showing interest and excitement and, and, and making them feel proud of this thing they have. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:02:30 – 01:02:41
Sharon: I think that’s a think that’s a great tip. So that’s the most challenging. What’s the thing that’s most exciting to you about raising a bilingual child or children.
01:02:41 – 01:02:41
Liz: Sorry.
01:02:43 – 01:03:54
Christi: What’s the most exciting part? Um, to hear her sometimes use the language to enjoy it at times and to to know that I think it makes her a better person. To be honest, I think it. I think it. It gives you a it allows you a different degree of empathy at times to. Because when you speak to languages, you know that the world functions into different registers almost. You know it’s the same world. But there are two different lenses. There are two different worlds of ways of connecting it through language, because languages are different. You know, the way I speak. Yeah, two different perspectives. Yeah. The way I speak German is not the way I speak English. So in already having this understanding of difference, I think it gives you an understanding of difference in the broader spectrum. And it, it, it increases your ability to feel empathy. I truly believe that.
01:03:55 – 01:04:13
Sharon: Yeah. And there is there is some research along those lines that would back that up. Not much research on that topic, but there is some um, so wrapping it up then, what do you think? What do you what do you hope that the future holds for your bilingual daughter’s multilingual.
01:04:14 – 01:04:20
Christi: I hope it it it holds for them a world in which German exists in some shape or other.
01:04:20 – 01:04:36
Sharon: Very nice. Well, maybe I’ll get back into the podcast. Won’t be around, but maybe I’ll get back in touch with you and ask you in a few years, or you’ll drop me a line and tell me how things are going. And thank you, Christy, for taking the time.
01:04:36 – 01:04:37
Christi: Thank you for having.
01:04:37 – 01:04:52
Sharon: Me out of the bedlam that is young motherhood and everything else going on in the world. Uh, then it’s been really nice to hear what you’ve what you’ve experienced in your bilingual journey with your family.
01:04:52 – 01:04:54
Christi: Well, thank you so much. It’s been such a pleasure.
01:04:55 – 01:08:23
Sharon: What’s clear from my conversations with Christie, Marilyn and Liz is that it’s important to have realistic expectations about what is or is not feasible, given your family’s circumstances. Raising a bilingual child does not happen automatically, and sometimes it can take quite a lot of hard work and effort. Sometimes things happen in life that are simply more important, and things that you hadn’t expected could turn out to have positive and sometimes less positive consequences. What emerges clearly from all these three conversations is how important it is to talk and keep talking to your child, your partner, the wider family and the people around you, and also how staying positive is key. Bilingual parenting really is a journey. It takes a long time. You don’t always know where you’re going, where your final destination lies, and it’s almost certain that you are going to encounter several twists in the road along the way. But that journey can also be a lot of fun. Along the way, you discover all sorts of things about yourself, about your partner, about the society you live in, and of course, about your child. Enjoy that journey, I’d say, and cherish the superpower you are giving your child as a gift. Dear listeners, we are almost at the end of this last episode. So I’d like to take the opportunity to thank you. Thank you for listening and for your enthusiastic messages and joining me over these past three years. This final season of sets was brought to you with funding from Herbal Nets The Harmonious Bilingualism Network. I’d also like to thank Anita Hauer for this funding. It’s been really nice to be able to make the podcast during working hours this year, instead of on my day off. Fortunately, the fact that this is the last episode doesn’t mean that the podcast will disappear altogether. Not at all. All episodes will remain available on the website and in your podcast app. So if you’ve only recently discovered clacks heads and would like to listen to more episodes from the past three years or share it with friends and family, you can do just that. And nothing stops a loyal flatheads fans from enjoying their favourite episodes once again. As I mentioned at the beginning, we’re going to end this episode and thus the podcast with a poem. The poem is written and performed by spoken word poet Vika Fink. In her words, a gift to the podcast. And it’s a gift that makes me very happy and hopefully you too. If you want to read along, you’ll find the text on the head’s website. The poem takes us on a veritable journey through the podcast, and listeners will, I think, recognize many words, topics and conversations from the past three years. It’s quite long, about five minutes, so get yourself comfortable. Enjoy, and thanks for listening.
Wieke:
This poem is called “Three words for squirrel”.
This poem is for the little ones
Whose mother tongue
Is more than one
With words in different flavours
On the tip of your tongue
Or flowing out of your fingertips
This is for the children
For whom the crossroads of thoughts in your head
Could be spread out
Into at least two different languages
With womb-held babies
Bathing in sound
Following the rhythmic patterns
That are with them – all around
Emerging
Out into the world
A holder of knowledge
Growing up
You already know
How to be gentle with yourself and with others
How to wobble on the table of conventions
How to take it slow
When a word doesn’t immediately come to mind
When in search for the right ‘mmm’
The nuance that you might know
From the flow of past conversations
Not yet fully interpretated
But held onto brightly
In the library of your mind
Your shelves full of boxes
With vocab and grammar
Tu sais que somewhere
Between the Malayalam, French and Finnish
there will be a great find
This is for you
As you’ve felt
How language is part of connection
For all our neurodiverse minds
Language as a connector
For all things funny and wise, silly and kind
Dear multilingual child
You might not be able to speak it all
You might not be able to read it all
Yet you are able to hold it all
In a map of the world
That’s unique to you
And the communities that you belong to
Your cultures sometimes resonating
In the tones of your skin
The rhythms of your sentences
The sounds of your name
You know, language is part of identity
Yet our schools may be
So monolingual or full of variety
With the need for heritage language education
And intercultural communication
Within and across our different nations
With all these languages holding the world in their embrace
And a dialect in every corner
And when seasons seem out of order
You are asked to braze both our physical and our cultural landscapes
As three seasons of a podcast dropped
From the northern hemisphere
Covering all things bilingual – its difficulties, its grace and its flair
Listened to long after the last episode went on air
With stories from children and researchers
Parents, educators and practitioners
So much to share
For as all small and adult translators know
Switching between contexts
Is more than just finding the right words to connect
It’s being receptive to the realms of resonance
As the edges of each soundscape
Warrant different worlds of understanding
For we summon worlds with our words
Words for the moments that make life worth sharing
Words to express our concerns and our caring
And sometimes, when words are not what’s needed
There is gestures and the willingness to sit together
And listen to the whispers of the evening sun
With multilingualism looking different for everyone
Some being asked to sit down
And study some grammar
Others being showered with word clouds
In a more day-to-day manner
And seeking it out
In comics and fairy-tales and everyday sounds
With all of us
When we are young
Holding an innate understanding of universality
And you were born open to the idea
that one thing has multiple meanings
As you know there are at least three words for squirrel
Perspective-taking a skill
Tangled up in your linguistical landscapes
In the sounds of your childhood
The letters of your alphabets
In what is shared when you are happy or sad
And language control?
Let’s rock and roll
In Twi, Arabic and Español
For it’s hard work, being bilingual
With word recognition, false friends and learning to read
Brains building lyrical nodes with lightning speed
As heritage languages need attention and input
And words with less clues might leave us clue-less
Yet diversity of resources is positively correlated to language richness
Plucking the fruits of hard labour
Some of the peaches
That taste so sweet
To be able to communicate with grandparents and peers
And the fun of having a secret language to speak
For you know there is magic in words
Beyond the words on the page
When the name of your language
Is itself a palindrome
Bringing up worlds of jokes with friends and parental aspirations
And if poetry is about making connections
Then multilingualism is creating the spark
That brings new things together
Creativity being part and parcel of the bilingual mind
The paint brush that creates beauty
In multiple styles and a triangulation of techniques
When words stick together in new compositions
When Elsa from Frozen gets crowned in Italian
And joy might be written differently
In different scripts
But it’s unstoppable
When it bubbles up
High towards our cheeks
Bubbling out, so to speak
In that deep physicality of belly laughter
So dear multilingual children, hold onto the songs of your linguistical mosaic
Each piece fitting together
As you are navigating its currents and graduations
No thing ever as one-dimensional as its written representation
Never as plain on the page as it might seem
For you, dear child
Have multiple languages in which to dream
01:13:01 – 01:13:40
Sharon: If you want to know more about Kletsheads, go to our website at kletsheadspodcast.org. That’s where you’ll also find more information about this episode. If you want to make sure you don’t miss an episode, subscribe to Kletsheads using your favorite podcast app. If you know someone else who might enjoy the podcast, then I’d really appreciate it if you would share it with them. You can do this via the website or in your podcast app. And if you’re on social media, we’d love it if you followed us. Our handle is @kletsheads. Thanks for listening. And until the next time, or as we say, tot de volgende keer.
This transcript was generated using amberscript.com.