Growing Up with Two Languages (A Practical Guide for Multilingual Families and Those Who Support Them)

Growing Up with Two Languages provides a highly accessible account of the stages of language development, describes and evaluates the various systems and strategies that can be adopted and looks at the problems that can occur when a child is exposed to two languages and cultures.

Combining research-informed advice and the experience of parents raising children as speakers of a wide range of languages in every populated continent in the world, this book and its associated web material will answer questions, offer tried and tested strategies to keep children speaking a minority language, and provide material to enlist the support of the extended family, teachers and others. The perspective of adults who were themselves raised speaking more than one language is included. New to this edition is a chapter focusing on families raising children as speakers of indigenous and threatened languages as well as chapters for teachers and health professionals who want to know more about multilingual child language development and how they can support parents to continue speaking their language with their children. With new and updated first-hand advice, Internet resources and examples throughout, this book also includes a chapter that introduces important recent research into multilingual children and further reading guides for those who want to know more.

This book is for parents who are raising or plan to raise children as speakers of more than one language, and for the teachers and healthcare workers who meet and can support them.