Kletsheads [English edition]

Sharon Unsworth
  • 4.6 (9)
  • PARENTING

The podcast about bilingual children

  1. 11/15/2023

    The last Kletsheads [Season 3, Episode 8]

    Transcript In this final – and therefore extra-long – episode, three parents who have previously been guests on the podcast talk about how their family’s bilingual journey has progressed since then. I look back over the past four years, reflect on the future and, to conclude, we hear a poem written about and dedicated to bilingual children, and inspired by the podcast. Our first guest is Liz. I first spoke to her in the first season of Kletsheads (in episode 4, about language mixing). Liz is originally from Limburg in the Netherlands but has lived in Canada for 10 years. Together with her Egyptian husband, she has a 4-year-old son, Otis. Next, we hear from Marjolein. Marjolein grew up monolingually in the Netherlands, studied English and then became an English teacher. When she became a mother in 2018, she decided to also speak English to her infant son Owen. She now has a second son, James. Marjolein was first featured in this episode 2 of the first season on how much input does a child need to hear to become bilingual. Finally, I speak to Christi. Christi was first on the podcast back in 2020 (in the same episode as Liz) as our Kletshead of the week. She spoke about her own upbringing as a trilingual child in Vienna, and about the choices she faced now that she had become her mother herself. In this episode she tells us how speaking German can sometimes be a challenge (especially when ‘life’ gets in the way) and how her eldest daughter has picked up Spanish from her mum. If you want to know how these three parents and their bilingual families are doing now, listen to the podcast! To conclude this episode and thus the entire podcast series, we hear a poem, Three words for squirrel. This poem was written and is performed by spoken word poet, Wieke Vink. You might recognise Wieke from the first episode of this final season, when she interviewed our Kletshead of the week. If you listen carefully to the poem, you will hear many references to conversations, topics and words that have passed by in the past four in the podcast. 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

    1h 15m

  2. 10/16/2023

    Bilingualism and dyslexia [Season 3, Episode 7]

    Transcript Learning to read does not come easily to all children. Some children experience serious problems with reading and spelling. They have difficulty recognising and learning letters, they mix up sounds or letters, or read very slowly. With proper help, this often passes, but in some children these issues remain. Persistent problems with reading and spelling are sometimes due to dyslexia. What exactly is dyslexia? If a bilingual child has dyslexia, will they succeed in learning to read in both languages? Does dyslexia work the same in all languages, e.g. also in languages with different scripts? What can you do as a parent, teacher or speech language therapist to support bilingual children with dyslexia? Researcher Ioulia Kovelman explains that being dyslexic means that you have long-term problems with reading. More often than not, these become clear when – after several years of schooling – children have persistent difficulties in connecting sounds and letters or sounds and characters but even before children start to read, there may be some signs that children will develop dyslexia, for example if they struggle to recognise which words rhyme with each other. We also learned that dyslexia works similarly across languages and so if your bilingual child has dyslexia in one language, they will have it in another. The tests used to diagnose dyslexia may however differ depending on whether sounds are matched to letters, as an in alphabetic languages such as English or Arabic, or to characters as in Chinese. One thing that Ioulia made very clear is that being bilingual does not make dyslexia any worse. In Let’s Klets, we spoke to Miriam de Oliveira from the International School Breda in the Netherlands. She told us about the Language Friendly School network. If you understand Dutch, you can hear me talk to the co-founder of this network, Ellen-Rose Kambel, in this episode of the (Dutch edition of the) podcast (Season 2, Episode 6). Ioulia Kovelman is Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan in the US. She a neuroscientist studying the bilingual brain and how children learn to speak and to read in more than one language. You can read more about her research at the Language & Literacy Lab here.

    58 min

  3. 09/15/2023

    The benefits of heritage language education (complementary schools) [Season 3, Episode 6]

    Transcript Many bilingual children around the world attend heritage language education. Sometimes called complementary or supplementary schools, heritage language programs or mother tongue education, these schools offer children and young people a safe space where they can develop and maintain their HL and cultural identity. Classes take place at the weekend or after children are done for the day with their mainstream schooling, and in many cases include not only language but also a cultural and sometimes a religious component.   In this episode we hear more about the research on heritage language education. Do certain types of complementary schools work better than others? What effect does attending these schools have on children’s language development and their cultural identity? What other benefits are there, and are there benefits for parents as well as children?   Researcher Layal Husein tells us how complementary schools have indeed been found to support bilingual children’s heritage language development, especially when it comes to literacy. They also serve as safe spaces for children to explore their cultural heritage and identity. Complementary schools can also serve as community hubs for parents, and for newcomers, help them navigate their new surroundings.   In this episode we heard excerpts from two previous episodes of Kletsheads: this interview with Gisi Cannizzarro (starts at 22m17), director of the Heritage Language Education Network, and this interview with Thorwen, who attended complementary school in Dutch whilst living in Hong Kong as a child.   Another useful resource for anyone interested in this topic is the National Resource Centre for Supplementary Education in the UK. You can read more about mother tongue education being a human right here.   Dr. Layal Husein is a researcher the University of East London, UK. She recently completed her PhD on the effects of complementary schools bilingual children’s language and identity. You can read more about this work here (if you have access – unfortunately, like many academic articles, this paper is behind a paywall). Layal grew up bilingually, learning Arabic from her Bahraini father and English from her mother and at school.   Our Kletshead of the week is the Sybil Vachaudez. She grew up in Denmark and Portugal, learning (and then forgetting) Danish alongside Portuguese, French and English. Curious about the Portuguese music you heard during our conversation? That was Portugal’s 2022 entry for the Eurovision Song Contest, Saudade, Saudade by Maro.   In this episode, I also share our final Quick and Easy, a concrete tip you can put into practice straightaway to make the most out of the bilingualism in your family, class or practice: create a reading problem that your child will want to solve. Listen to the podcast to find out more!

    1h 2m

  4. 08/15/2023

    Bilingualism and autism [Season 3, Episode 5]

    Transcript According to WHO, 1 in 100 children have autism. Whilst exact numbers can vary depending on who’s reporting them, where in the world you live, and how autism is defined, this developmental disability is certainly not uncommon. In fact, in many places, the number of people living with autism is increasing. Autism is a spectrum which means that it’s different for everybody. It affects how people relate to others, how they make sense of the world around them, and how they communicate. And it’s likely these problems with communication that raise questions about bilingualism in autistic children. Should you raise an autistic child with more than one language? Can autistic children who don’t speak very much or at all become bilingual? What effect does being autistic have on a child’s language development and is this any different for bilingual children? Researcher Philippe Prévost tells us about this emerging field of research. He tells us that whilst there’s a lot that we still don’t know about autistic children growing up bilingually, there’s no reason to believe that autistic children cannot be raised with more than one language.   Philippe Prévost is Professor of Linguistics at University of Tours in France, and one of the few researchers working on the topic of bilingualism and autism. His research focuses on how different groups of bilingual children learn how to put sentences together, including children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and / or Developmental Language Disorder. To find out more about Developmental Language Disorder, listen to the previous episode of Kletsheads on ‘How do you know if a bilingual child has a language delay?’.   To find out more about bilingualism and autism, including hearing an autistic bilingual adult’s lived experience, listen to this episode of the podcast Much Language, Such Talk.   Our Kletshead of the week is the 30-year-old Gema Garcia from New York. Gema grew up in an Ecuadorian family learning Spanish and English, and she tells us how she uses both languages professionally as an aspiring translator. During our conversation, Gema talked about an essay she wrote, first in Spanish and then translated into English, about her coming out experience. Curious to take a look? You can access the essay here (p. 82 in Spanish and p. 86 in English). Find Gema on insta @fernanda.ecu.   This episode’s Quick & Easy is to have that conversation you’ve been meaning to have with your partner, parents or friends, colleague or child and to talk to them about that one topic that’s been bothering you for ages and make sure you can move forward together.

    1h 2m

  5. 07/15/2023

    Books about bilingual parenting [Season 3, Episode 4]

    Transcript In this episode we review two books about bilingual parenting: Bilingual success stories around the world by Adam Beck and Bilingual families. A practical language planning guide by Eowyn Crisfield. We get the parental perspective from Maria Papantoniou, a Greek-speaking mother raising her child bilingually in the UK together with her Greek-speaking husband, and Sam Timmermans, a Dutch-speaking father who until recently lived in the UK with his wife and two children. Language scientist Ludovica Serratrice joins me to evaluate the books from a research perspective. Ludovica is Professor of Bi-Multilingualism at the University of Reading in the UK, where she is also Director of the Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism and where she teaches on the BSc in Speech and Language Therapy. Read more about her research on the language development and processing of bilingual children and adults here. In Let’s Klets we speak to Daphne Vlachojannis, mother to three multilingual children, currently living in Greece. She tells us how she went about writing (and re-writing) her family language plan as her family expanded and moved countries. You can read more about Daphne and the work she is doing as a consultant at Raising Bilingual Children here. During this episode I referred to an earlier episode of the podcast with Eowyn. That was our very first episode How to plan for a bilingual child. I also mentioned the Planting Languages project. Their website shares materials in several languages which can be used by parents and professionals to think about which resources are available, the family goals, and many other factors which come into play when writing a family language plan.

    1h 4m

  6. 06/15/2023

    Bilingualism and aging: Can you lose a language?[Season 3, Episode 3]

    Transcript If we are lucky, we will all grow old. And if we are even luckier, we will stay healthy for as long as possible. But even if we stay healthy, it is inevitable that we slow down — both physically and mentally. We often don’t function as well as we used to, we become forgetful, and we may also develop problems like dementia. Research shows that being bilingual might help when it comes to slowing down these kinds of problems. Why is this the case ? And does this apply to all bilinguals? Researcher Merel Keijzer explains how being bilingual can potentially help when it comes to slowing down these kinds of problems. But not always. So when does it help and when doesn’t it? We learn that it’s especially important to continue using both languages throughout your life and to use the two languages in different contexts, i.e. one language at home and the other at school or work. We also talk about language loss. Quite a few children who grow up with two or more languages often prefer to use the language they use at school or the most widely spoken language in their community. In many cases, they no longer actively use their other language (the heritage language). What happens when these children get older? Do they lose this language altogether? And what happens to bilingual parents as they grow older? Can you also lose your first language (or parts of it at least) if you live in a different country than the one you grew up in, using another language day in and day out? In this episode, we learn that this is unlikely but that it is normal if sometimes you can’t find the right word. However, such problems are less likely to occur when it comes to grammar. And except where there is also trauma, children will also not lose a language they have learnt from an early age so easily. This episode’s Quick & Easy : stop, think and evaluate! It’s a good idea to every now and then reflect on how your child’s bilingualism is coming along. Questions you can ask are: is everyone happy, are things going well, are we achieving our goals by doing it this way? It’s important not to be afraid to change things, to choose a different route if needs be. And if things are going well, take a moment to think about why this is, and how you can make sure that this success will continue in the future. The two books we’ll be reviewing in the next episode (Bilingual families – A family language language planning guide by Eowyn Crisfield and Bilingual success stories around the world by Adam Beck) are useful sources of inspiration fo this. As a teacher, you can also do the same. Ask yourself – with or without colleagues – how the bilignual children at your school are getting on. Are there things that could be improved or changed? To help you do this, use the materials developed by the Language-Friendly School and the PEACH project’s guide for educators. Our Kletshead of the week is the 9-year-old Youjin. He’s growing up in the UK with Korean and French as his two heritage languages. Merel Keijzer is professor of English linguistics and English as a second language at the University of Groningen. She’s also a member of the KNAW Jonge Akademie. Merel’s research focuses on language loss and the effects ageing can have on language use and vice versa, using insights from neuroscience, applied linguistics, cognitive psychologi and medical sciences. Read more about Merel and her research group at the Bilingualism & Ageing Lab here.

    57 min

  7. 05/15/2023

    Multiple languages, multiple identities? Bilingualism and identity [Season 3, Episode 2]

    Transcript Identity. It’s a word you often hear when talking about children growing up in a bilingual family, but what does identity really mean? To what extent can you have multiple identities, belonging to different cultures or ethnic backgrounds? What are the consequences for children if they identify more in one way than the other? What role do parents, friends, school and wider society have in play? In this episode, we’re answering these questions with Virginia Lam, researcher at Univeristy of Roehampton in London, herself a bilingual speaker of English and Mandarin and mother of two bilingual children. We learn that there’s an important difference between ‘identifying as’  and ‘identifying with’ something or someone. For example, children might consider themselves ‘half Chinese, half English’ because they have a Chinese and an English parent, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that they will feel like they are Chinese. We also heard that children start to develop their identity from very early on and that identity continues to develop throughout childhood and the teenage years into adulthood. Research shows that children who identify with both their HL culture and the mainstream culture will grow up into healthier and happier individuals and that family life will benefit from these positive identities, too. Towards the end of our conversation, Virigina mentioned a resource called the Library 4 multilinguals developed by Yoshito Darmon-Shimamori. I also mentioned another episode of Kletsheads about well-being in bilingual families. In this episode I also shared another Kletsheads Quick and Easy, a concrete tip you put into practice straightaway to make the most of the bilingualism in your family, class or clinic: Find something from your own culture to share or do! Dr. Virginia Lam is senior lecturer at the University of Roehampton, London. She’s a psychologist and her research focuses on identity, bilingual development, and complementary language schooling. In Let’s Klets I spoke to Denise Amankwah. Denise is as a speech and language advisor (not therapist!) on a project called the London EAL project at Speech and Language UK, working with children learning English as an additional language and their families.  She has a Masters in Education, specialising in Language and Literac,y and also has an undergraduate degree in Linguistics, as well as years of experience as an Early Years Practitioner. As you’ll hear in our conversation, Denise is passionate about supporting parents and teachers to encourage children to see bilingualism as a gift, and she’s particularly interested in sharing the positive messages surrounding bilingualism to Black African families from ex-colonies where a European language tends to be the most superior. She grew up bilingually in the UK in a Ghanian family speaking Twi, a language which she understands completely but no longer speaks actively, making her what we call a “receptive bilingual”.

    54 min

  8. 04/15/2023

    Why are some bilingual children more bilingual than others? [Season 3, Episode 1]

    Transcript Why do some bilingual children end up becoming more bilingual than others? That’s the question we’re answering in this episode of Kletsheads, the first in our third season of the English-language ediition. Most children become more proficient in one of their languages compared with the other(s). This is often the language spoken at school or the wider community. Some children actively use both languages, but many do not. And in much the same way as we see for learning to walk, or the age at which you lose your first tooth, we also see that some children are quicker to pick up their two languages than others. Sometimes there are seemingly obvious explanations for all this variation between children, but not always. Sometimes children growing up in apparently very similar circumstances have very different outcomes when it comes to how well or how much their use their two or more languages.  What exactly causes these differences? Why do some bilingual children end up being more bilingual than others? And as a parent or professional, is there anything we can do to maximise a child’s chances of becoming as bilingual as possible? To answer these questions, I’m joined by Johanne Paradis, professor at the University of Alberta, Canada. We heard that there are a whole host of reasons why some bilingual children end up being more bilingual than others. Younger is not always better and that it’s better in the early years to concentrate on the heritage language. Amount and type of input children hear at home is important, and – crucially – research suggests that this especially the case for the heritage language. Extra-curricular activities and friendships involving the heritage language are just two ways in which you can create richer input and increase your child’s chances of becoming and remaining an active bilingual. These are some of the factors that you have (some) control over as a parent, or at least they are things you can change, but there are also factors that impact on children’s bilingual outcomes that you can’t change. Language aptitude is one example of this. In many instances, if not all, there’s no one-size-fits-all, no one factor that wins out above all others – as Johanne said, it’s often a trade-off. The choices parents make are personal and will depend on individual circumstances, individual children and even the languages in question. What’s crucial, though, is that you’re aware of the potential consequences of the choices you make as a parent or the advice you give as a teacher or parent. I hope this episode will help you make those choices. In this episode I also shared another Kletsheads Quick and Easy, a concrete tip you put into practice straightaway to make the most of the bilingualism in your family, class or clinic: Find someone to talk to about bilingualism in your family, classroom or practice. If you already know someone, send them a message or email now, or give them a call, and otherwise start thinking today about who you might be able to approach. Our Kletshead of the week was Reyhan and he was interviewed by Wieke Vink.  Johanne Paradis is Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Adjunct Professor in Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Alberta. Her research focuses on bilingualism in children with typical development and in children with developmental disorders, in particular children learning English-as-a-second language from immigrant and refugee families. She is co-author of Dual Language Development & Disorders: A Handbook on Bilingualism and Second Language Learning and she recently wrote an amazing review paper on much of the research she discussed in the podcast. The article is entitled ‘Sources of individual differences in the dual language development of heritage bilinguals’ and is published in the Journal of Child Language. It’s open access, which means that you don’t need to pay to read it. Note, however, that it is an academic paper and hence written for other scholars rather than parents or teachers. You will find the article here.

    56 min
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The podcast about bilingual children

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