Clara Vaz Bauler, Adelphi University, USA

Bilinguals are not perfect. Empirical and theoretical research on bilingualism have emphasized over and over again that bilingual children do not speak their two (or more) languages “perfectly” (Cook, 2016; Grosjean, 2000). However, society is less lenient about this fact and demands perfection, especially concerning pronunciation, from bilingual children as if learning two or more languages were automatic. It is not uncommon to hear people say that “children learn languages so fast!” Or “children are like sponges; languages come so easily for them” (Lightbown, 2008). Yet, what I have studied, researched, and experienced is that bilingualism is a complex feat that cannot be under or over estimated (Shin, 2018). My recent trip to the country I grew up in with my two children has made me experience first-hand the struggle and successes my bilingual children went through to keep speaking their two languages. As a mother and researcher, fighting for my children to exercise their right to be bilingual, I am humbled by their strength. Thus, I felt the need to share the lessons I learned with teachers, researchers, and other parents interested and invested in sustaining and supporting bilingualism.

My husband and I moved to the U.S. in 2008 and 2007, respectively. We had our first son in California in 2013. We moved to New York in 2014, and our daughter was born in Brooklyn in 2016. Presently, they are six and three years old. We speak mostly Portuguese at home, but we do not limit ourselves to speaking Portuguese only with them. As both my husband and I are multilinguals and have researched language acquisition, we have a firm belief, based on the literature we have read and our life experiences, that multilinguals use all of their languages all the time, and that the separation of languages is an artificial one (Cook, 2016; García & Otheguy, 2019). This belief has framed our interactions with our children, so we code-switch or translanguage (Canagarajah, 2012; García & Wei, 2013) consciously and unconsciously constantly. In spite of New York City’s diversity, exposure to Portuguese is very limited. Because of that, we try to go to Brazil once a year. Observing, encouraging, and supporting my children interact in Portuguese, a language that was once their first, strong “mother tongue,” led me to confirm three lessons about bilingualism.

Lesson 1: Appreciate the Bilingual Accent

As a mother, I would always be puzzled: Why would my children have a “foreign” accent in their first language (Portuguese) as both I and my husband speak the variety of Portuguese we grew up with in Rio de Janeiro? When speaking Portuguese, my son tends to reproduce a retroflex “r” sound in words such as “trabalho,” which is pronounced by most people that live in Rio with a rolled “r.” Both my son and daughter add an aspiration to initial “t” sounds in words such as “tubarão” and “túnel,” showing the influence of English in their pronunciation of their initial “t” before “u” in Portuguese. There are many other examples that make my children’s “American” accent stand out when speaking to others in Brazil. Nevertheless, my son does not seem to care about how people find his accent “bonitinho” (cute) or when they laugh about it. My daughter, on the other hand, is not that understanding. She gets very upset when she is laughed at. Linguistic discrimination is one of the most hidden forms of bigotry (Lippi-Green, 2012). I am painfully aware of my son’s and daughter’s resilience when it comes to being laughed at when speaking Portuguese. What many people do not realize is that there is a tremendous amount of thinking, courage, and willingness to communicate behind every word a bilingual child says. Something to be celebrated, not taken for granted. We need to stop as a society to value “having a native-like accent” as the main feature of what is considered good language learning. The reason is because having an accent does not, most of the time, impede communication (Canagarajah, 2007). In contrast, what having an accent does is show that the person who has an accent is different. That difference is publicly displayed to everyone in a negative way when the person that has an accent is laughed at. Many children stop speaking one of their languages because of that humiliation. Instead of being tapped on the back for speaking up, they are often shut down for having an accent. If we, as a society, want multilingualism to thrive, we need to start appreciating accents as being the most visible proof of linguistic diversity.

Lesson 2: Foster Conceptual Thinking Through Multilingualism

Although there is still much controversy around this topic, the bilingual child seems to have one system that encompasses all of their vocabularies and grammars in all of their languages (García & Otheguy, 2019). This is the reason why bilingual children are constantly making choices, which can be an exhausting process. When it comes to academic language development, this task becomes even more complex as the language of the disciplines, such as Science and Mathematics, requires a different set of vocabulary, syntax, and discourse (Gottlieb & Ernst-Slavit, 2014). The types of connections we need to make when developing ideas using an academic register is better accomplished in the language(s) one feels more comfortable with because this process requires deeper understanding, inference, application, categorization, etc. (Gee, 2008). Conceptual understanding is facilitated when the child can engage in complex and analytical thinking through the positive use of their dynamic and multiple linguistic repertoires, making active use of their “bilingual powers.”

For example, when my mother tried to make a thorough account of how “digestão” (digestion) happened in our bodies in Portuguese, my son verbalized his understanding in English, translating the explanation of the phenomenon to his most dominant and comfortable language, even though he had heard the concept and account in Portuguese first. The same happened when my son and I tried to figure out how a “pedalinho” (pedal boat) worked. We jumbled our two systems of language together using a mix of English and Portuguese to understand the Physics involved in putting the boat in motion. Indeed, recent classroom-based research says that engaging bilingual children in translanguaging in the classroom, tapping into all of their linguistic resources actively, helped foster greater metalinguistic awareness while empowering bilingual identities (García, Sylvan, & Witt, 2011; García-Mateus & Palmer, 2017). This finding directly contradicts what is popularly recommended in bilingual rearing - the stark separation of languages to better assimilate them. Allowing bilingual children to make sense of the world intentionally using all of their linguistic assets propels their ability to advance their knowledge and understanding of complex disciplinary ideas (Kang, Swanson, & Bauler, 2017).

Lesson 3: Focus on Fluency Rather Than Mistakes

One of the greatest lessons I have learned during our trip was to be very patient with my son’s and daughter’s grammatical abilities in Portuguese. Knowing how to skillfully manipulate morphological and syntactic structures in both languages seamlessly proved to be a slow process, requiring much trial and error. As Portuguese entails multiple verb conjugations and the distinction between feminine and masculine nouns, my children have grappled to internalize and produce these morphological requirements. When they speak Portuguese, they say things such as “eu sabe” and “uma macaco,” which are perceived as gross mistakes by native speakers of Portuguese that cannot seem to understand why they do not say “eu sei” (I know) and “um macaco” (a monkey). No matter how much I or anyone else corrected their errors. They continued to make those same grammatical mistakes. I even tried to play a game with my son, awarding him points whenever he would use the indefinite article “um” or “uma” accurately with the masculine or feminine nouns respectively. Regardless to say that the game did not work, and he got irritated after playing it twice. At the end of our trip, my children were making a lot fewer grammatical mistakes, and I, for once, decided to stop correcting them and letting them speak freely to develop fluency. There is something magical about bilingualism. We need to have faith that children will get it eventually, but, for that to happen, we need to give them time. If we keep correcting them from the beginning, halting their self-expression, they, too, will focus on the mistakes instead of the purpose of communicating ideas.

Conclusion

I always tell my son that the most real and concrete superpower is to be bilingual. This superpower enables an individual to navigate different worlds, making connections across cultures and perspectives. This superpower is not about perfection, though. In order to be recognized, the bilingual superhero needs to be able to exercise his or her super powers free of judgement. The super bilinguals need to be recognized for their strengths, not their weaknesses. When that happens, bilinguals will finally be able to save the day!

References

Canagarajah, S. (2012). Translingual practice: Global Englishes and cosmopolitan relations. Routledge.

Canagarajah, S. (2007). Lingua franca English, multilingual communities, and language acquisition. The modern language journal, 91, 923-939.

Cook, V. (2016). Second language learning and language teaching. London: Routledge.

García, O., & Otheguy, R. (2019). Plurilingualism and translanguaging: Commonalities and divergences. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 1-19.

García, O., Sylvan, C. E., & Witt, D. (2011). Pedagogies and practices in multilingual classrooms: Singularities in pluralities, The Modern Language Journal, 95(3), 385-400.

García, O., & Wei, L. (2013). Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism and education. Springer.

García-Mateus, S., & Palmer, D. (2017). Translanguaging pedagogies for positive identities in two-way dual language bilingual education. Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 16(4), 245-255.

Gee, J. (2008). What is Academic Language? In A. S. Rosebery & B. Warren (Eds.) Teaching Science to English language learners: Building on strengths. USA: National Teachers Association Press. pp. 57-70.

Gottlieb, M. & Ernst-Slavit, G. (2014). Academic Language in Diverse Classrooms: Definitions and Contexts. USA: Corwin Press.

Grosjean, F. (2000). Myths about bilingualism. Retrieved from https://www.francoisgrosjean.ch/myths_en.ht

Kang, J. S., Swanson, L., & Bauler, C. V. (2017). “Explicame”: Examining emergent bilinguals’ ability to construct arguments and explanations during a unit on plate tectonics. Electronic Journal of Science Education,21(6), 12-45. Retrieved from http://ejse.southwestern.edu/issue/view/1429

Lightbown, P. (2008). Easy as pie? Children learning languages.Concordia Working Papers in Applied Linguistics, 1, 5-29.

Lippi-Green, R. (2012). The myth of a non-accent (pp. 44-54). In English with an accent. London: Routledge.

Shin, Sarah J. (2018). Bilingualism in schools and in society: language, identity, and policy. London: Routledge.