It’s eas­i­er to raise a mul­ti­lin­gual sec­ond child if your first child raised that way. Your first will end up doing a lot of the work for you by sim­ply being a blab­ber­mouth all the time!

It can feel a bit awk­ward at first if you intro­duce a new lan­guage into the fam­i­ly but rest assured , after a few weeks, it sim­ply becomes a part of your dai­ly rou­tine .

It will require extra effort on your part to pro­vide enough lan­guage expo­sure, extra encour­age­ment, keep­ing your lan­guage use con­sis­tent . At some points, you will need to change the lan­guage you are using dur­ing the dai­ly rou­tine at your home.

That is prob­a­bly the biggest issue . Rais­ing a mul­ti­lin­gual child is a com­mit­ment , and it is a long-term invest­ment in your child!

Bilingual education in Early age l Pros/Cons l Pros and Cons of Bilingual Education l pro and cons of learning a second language l early English education pro and cons

The truth is that there are only 10 poten­tial dis­ad­van­tages , and even those are not true in every case:

2- Speaking Later

no sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence that proves mul­ti­lin­gual begin many par­ents esti­mate that there is a three to six-month delay com­pared to mono­lin­gual chil­dren the same age. While there’sthat proves mul­ti­lin­gual begin speak­ing lat­er . How­ev­er,par­ents esti­mate that there is acom­pared to mono­lin­gual chil­dren the same age.

Even so, six months is a small price to pay for the abil­i­ty of your kid to speak two or three lan­guages!

3- Mixing languages

Bilingual education in Early age l Pros/Cons l Pros and Cons of Bilingual Education l pro and cons of learning a second language l early English education pro and cons

Mix­ing words are preva­lent in chil­dren learn­ing more than one lan­guage at a time. But this is a tem­po­rary phe­nom­e­non.

At the age of four or five, it has most­ly dis­ap­peared. Keep­ing in mind that chil­dren who are learn­ing only one lan­guage often use the wrong word until they learn the right one.

The best rem­e­dy is to be con­sis­tent when talk­ing to your child and nev­er for­get that prac­tice makes per­fect!

4. Education in a second language can be inconsistent

Some school dis­tricts stop their bilin­gual edu­ca­tion in high school. Some school dis­tricts don’t even offer a bilin­gual edu­ca­tion as an option.

Because of this incon­sis­ten­cy, some stu­dents may lose some of their sec­ond lan­guage abil­i­ties sim­ply because they aren’t using it every day.

5. Bilingual education is not cheap

Many schools are already cut­ting their cre­ative class­es for fund­ing issues. So, the cost of adding bilin­gual cours­es is some­thing that many schools don’t have on their plan­ning list.

Experts stat­ed that a sin­gle-lan­guage pro­gram is eas­i­er and cheap­er to oper­ate and can still pro­vide the essen­tial skills that the stu­dent may require by adding some art and cre­ative activ­i­ties to the lan­guage class­es!

6. Bilingual education can shift a student’s focus

If a bilin­gual edu­ca­tion pro­gram divid­ed into a stan­dard 50/50 split dur­ing the school day, stu­dents who do strug­gle with the new lan­guage may find them­selves focused on the sec­ond lan­guage only.

For the schools that pro­vide cre­ative or ath­let­ic class­es. If the stu­dent falls behind on the sec­ond lan­guage and strug­gles to keep up with his or her class­work, their only option is to try to catch up on the sec­ond lan­guage instead of learn­ing essen­tial life skills.

7. There may be a lack of qualified teachers and assistants

For a bilin­gual edu­ca­tion to be effec­tive, it must be immer­sive. We need to have teach­ers and teach­ing assis­tants who are flu­ent in both lan­guages.

With Mod­ern edu­ca­tion­al require­ments, many teach­ers are strug­gling to meet the min­i­mum require­ments in many sub­jects. There isn’t time to add anoth­er lan­guage to the mix.

Now, after we had a look at the Bilin­gual edu­ca­tion in Ear­ly age — Pros/Cons, we need to know what is the appro­pri­ate age to con­sid­er teach­ing your chil­dren a sec­ond lan­guage.

The Younger, The Better!

Stud­ies by cre­ativ­i­ty, crit­i­cal think­ing skills, and flex­i­bil­i­ty of the mind are sig­nif­i­cant­ly improved if chil­dren learn a sec­ond lan­guage at a younger age. by Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty con­firm that the, andof the mind are sig­nif­i­cant­lyif chil­dren learn a sec­ond lan­guage at a

Preschool years, espe­cial­ly the first 3 years of life, are believed to be a vital peri­od in a child’s life. That is when the foun­da­tions for atti­tudes, think­ing, and learn­ing, among oth­ers, are laid down.

Research has shown that 50% of our abil­i­ty to learn devel­oped by age 4 and anoth­er 30% by age 8. That is why three-year-olds are encour­aged to learn a sec­ond lan­guage.

How­ev­er, this doesn’t mean that 80% of one’s knowl­edge or intel­li­gence formed until they are eight years old. It sim­ply means that chil­dren devel­op their main learn­ing path­ways dur­ing their first few years of life.

Although chil­dren’s minds are known for being “like a sponge,” which absorbs every­thing.

It is rec­om­mend­ed to give them enough time to acquire and ful­ly under­stand one lan­guage before intro­duc­ing anoth­er one.

Oth­er­wise, they might go through a con­fus­ing time in which they won’t know how to express them­selves.

Some tips for beginning the Bilingual education in Early age

1- Surround the child with more than one language through conversations and social groups

Bilingual education in Early age l Pros/Cons l Pros and Cons of Bilingual Education l pro and cons of learning a second language l early English education pro and cons

Expose chil­dren to mul­ti­lin­gual expo­sures and give them lots of oppor­tu­ni­ties to play and chat with chil­dren who speak the sec­ond lan­guage. Main­tain home (her­itage) lan­guage when a sec­ond lan­guage learned out­side the home.

Pro­vide fun and enter­tain­ment lan­guage-learn­ing resources ( music, dance and sim­i­lar age. fun and enter­tain­ment lan­guage-learn­ing( music, dance and DVDs ) in both lan­guages, and often with chil­dren of

Always pro­mote read­ing and sto­ry­telling in mul­ti­ple lan­guages, try to find out a favourite sto­ry for your kid in mul­ti­ple lan­guages and start to read and see how they will be so excit­ed about that!

2- Do not create false expectations

Chil­dren who are in con­tact with a sec­ond lan­guage, with­out the inten­si­ty of tru­ly bilin­gual edu­ca­tion, can­not reach results as bilin­gual chil­dren.

Par­ents must be clear and not hav­ing false expec­ta­tions, like, for exam­ple, think­ing that the chil­dren with a few hours of Eng­lish a week will be able to speak this lan­guage flu­id­ly after a month or even ten!

3. A second language is best learned in close contact with a native speaker

For suc­cess­ful antic­i­pa­tion of a sec­ond lan­guage at an ear­ly age, it is vital to have your kid in direct con­tact with a native speak­er.

Such con­tact can be through the fam­i­ly, day­care, or a pri­vate teacher.

4. Take advantage of varied materials to intensify and to motivate the learning

Bilingual education in Early age l Pros/Cons l Pros and Cons of Bilingual Education l pro and cons of learning a second language l early English education pro and cons

vari­ety of prod­ucts in the mar­ket, like There are aof prod­ucts in the mar­ket, like books , CDs, DVDs , and games that can help with learn­ing a sec­ond lan­guage.

All these mate­ri­als are ide­al for main­tain­ing the inter­est of the child for a lan­guage because they rein­force the learn­ing play­ful­ly.

5. Start as soon as possible

The best moment to start is before the child begins to speak. In this way, the child can hear the sec­ond lan­guage and its rhythms for a long peri­od, like a bilin­gual child before they can start to speak.

6. Do not interfere directly

It is of most impor­tance that the par­ents do not com­mit the error to speak to their chil­dren a lit­tle bit in the sec­ond lan­guage, as this only con­fus­es the child.

7. Do not press your children too much

Bilingual education in Early age l Pros/Cons l Pros and Cons of Bilingual Education l pro and cons of learning a second language l early English education pro and cons

Do not force your child too much, as such pres­sure will only lead your child to reject the sec­ond lan­guage. let them pick up lan­guages in a play­ful way (15 Lan­guage Games and Activ­i­ties for Fam­i­ly Fun at Home) your child too much, as such pres­sure will only lead your child tothe sec­ond lan­guage. let them pick up lan­guages in a

8. Be consistent

The impuls­es for a sec­ond lan­guage must be con­sis­tent and con­stant­ly since chil­dren learn fast, but they also for­get very quick­ly.

The sec­ond lan­guage must be present in the rou­tine of a child in the same form in which it accom­pa­nies bilin­gual chil­dren.

A trip to a for­eign coun­try, a lan­guage course, class­es in school or a cul­tur­al meet­ing can acti­vate the pas­sive vocab­u­lary that the child has acquired through the years.

Final thought!

Yes, it is incred­i­ble as it may sound when you have your kid speak­ing a new lan­guage, learn­ing is indeed a sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ment, and chil­dren don’t even real­ize they are learn­ing not one but three for­eign lan­guages!

So, Don’t Hes­i­tate, Go for Two, or even Three, you are going to be reward­ed with a smarter kid!