The best of ‘Kletshead of the week’

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:13 — 27.7MB)

Subscribe Google Podcasts | RSS

What do bilingual children think about being bilingual? Children – from 8 to 38 years old – talk about the fun and not so fun sides of being bilingual, their favourite words, the language they...

Continue reading →

Bilingual families in lockdown and Mother Tongues [Season 2, Episode 10]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:14 — 31.4MB)

Subscribe Google Podcasts | RSS

It’s over two years since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out and families across the globe were forced  into lockdown, with schools and childcare centres closed and many parents having to juggle working from home with caring...

Continue reading →

How the bilingual mind handles words from two languages [Season 2, Episode 9]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:08 — )

Subscribe Google Podcasts | RSS

Bilingual children sometimes say things that their monolingual peers would never say. This is the same for adults, too. They don’t always know certain words in each of their two (or more) languages. And in...

Continue reading →

Language mixing and bilingual secrets [Season 2, Episode 8]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:40 — 25.3MB)

Subscribe Google Podcasts | RSS

Most bilingual children mix their two languages. Perhaps not all the time and not in all contexts, but as many parents will know, bilingual children regularly start a sentence in one language and finish it...

Continue reading →

Bilingualism and academic achievement [Season 2, Episode 7]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:10 — 34.0MB)

Subscribe Google Podcasts | RSS

Every three years, teenagers around the world are tested on their abilities in maths, science and reading, as part of PISA, the Programme for International Student Assessment. Basically, it’s a way of comparing how well...

Continue reading →

Multimedia resources for multilingual families [Season 2, Episode 6]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:43 — 29.0MB)

Subscribe Google Podcasts | RSS

When you’re raising a bilingual child and you’re the the only source of one of your child’s two or more languages, it can be a good idea to try and find other people or places...

Continue reading →

Learning to read in two languages [Season 2, Episode 5]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 46:05 — 42.2MB)

Subscribe Google Podcasts | RSS

Learning to read is an important step in your child’s development. When children start to learn to read depends on the country they live in. In some parts of the world, like the UK, children...

Continue reading →

Trilingual with Xitsonga and Hot off the Press [Season 2, Episode 4]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:06 — 24.8MB)

Subscribe Google Podcasts | RSS

In Hot off the Press (starts at 01:12), I tell you about a recently published study from Canada. This research deals with two important factors in bilingual language development, namely how early you start (age) and...

Continue reading →

Well-being in bilingual families [Season 2, Episode 3]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:46 — 34.6MB)

Subscribe Google Podcasts | RSS

Children who grow up hearing two or more languages do not always end up actively using all their languages as they get older. In such cases, it’s typically the heritage or minority language which suffers...

Continue reading →

Heritage language refusal & Hot off the press [Season 2, Episode 2]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:36 — 26.2MB)

Subscribe Google Podcasts | RSS

In this episode of Kletsheads we talk about one of the greatest frustrations faced by parents raising their children bilingually: you speak consistently to them in the heritage or home language and they consistently respond...

Continue reading →