I’ve got a great friend in North Africa who wrote, this past week, to say, “As missionaries my wife and I are not only trying to learn the three languages that surround us daily, we’re hoping our kids will, too. We recently found this website:
http://www.multilingualchildren.org/
and thought it might help others. At the same time we wonder what advice you could give us (things to do, and not to do).” If you have advice on how to grow multilingual kids, please click the comment link below. Thanks!
I think that learning a language early is a blessing and tool that you give your kids for life. I caution, however, the idea of pushing the language on them “for missions” (I am not saying that the person starting this post is doing that). Let the languages be a part of them and let them enjoy the beauty and benefits of knowing multiple languages. We don’t know if God wants them “back here” as workers or not.
The hope of them learning the languages is that as they grow up they will feel at home (while abroad) rather than feeling like tourists/foreigners their whole lives.
We have two boys who grew up in the Middle East speaking three languages wth equal fluency. One key was to have on primary person speaking only his language to the boys; this physical stimuli helped them keep the languages straight. If we had spoken all three to them, it would have been confusing. I spoke English, My wife German, local friends the local language. There was no pressure, we just did it and they picked it up wonderfully. Although we put NO pressure on them to become workers like us, both ended up in the Middle East as workers and are very happy.