The Benefits and Challenges of Bilingualism
Adapted from: Meredith Price, The Jerusalem Post
1. Yarden Dvir, like many children in Israel, is growing up in a bilingual home, where two
languages are spoken interchangeably. A few years ago, it seemed odd to her that some
people in Israel only speak Hebrew, while her family speaks both Hebrew and English.
"When our daughter Yarden spoke to her Israeli cousins in English, she didn't realize that
they wouldn't understand her," explains her mother. Now, at the age of nearly four and a half,
Yarden has learned how to navigate between the languages and fully understands when to
speak Hebrew and when to speak English. And she is not alone. After the age of two, most
bilingual children are capable not only of clearly distinguishing between their two languages,
but also of knowing who speaks what languages and under what circumstances.
2. The experts unanimously agree that keeping things in a multilingual home as natural as
possible is the best way for children to acquire language. "People should raise their children
how they feel comfortable," advises Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem, a language-acquisition
specialist and a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University. Perhaps one reason why parents are so
concerned about using more than one language at home is because for many years,
bilinguals were considered to be at a disadvantage rather than at an advantage.
3. In the past, unfounded urban legends about bilinguals being confused, slow to speak and
weaker in both languages than monolinguals were widely circulated. Today, thanks to
innovative research and migration trends, things are changing. Over the past 10 years,
serious linguistic studies have revealed that many bilingual phenomena, such as mixing
languages, are not random or unusual. Every multilingual family is accustomed to hearing a
mixture of languages. Things like "that's my sefer" or "ani rotsa olives" or "not on the
shulhan!" are commonplace in Hebrew-English bilingual households, and the same
mishmashes also appear in other language combinations. When she was younger, Yarden
Dvir even made up a word of her own using a combination of both languages. "Chickicolet"
was her personal name for both a chicken and a tarnegolet.
4. Aside from creating humor, recent studies have shown that children who speak more than
one language from an early age also show cognitive advantages over monolinguals in
problem-solving tasks. These advantages seem to relate to the fact that bilinguals have
different ways of analyzing problems and extra faculties for storing concepts.
5. So while bilinguals do differ from monolinguals, for many families in Israel, being different
is a good thing. "My children are not afraid of situations in which they don't know the
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language since they have a lot of cognitive flexibility and adapt easily to multilingual
situations," says Susie Russak, the coordinator for the support services in English at Beit
Berl College and the mother of three bilingual children.
6. Having two languages is also closely tied to identity and family life. Often, bilingual
children need their second language to communicate with close family members who either
live in Israel but do not speak Hebrew, or who live abroad. "We chose to speak to our girls in
English so that they can communicate with their grandparents who only speak English," says
Gold. "They understood from an early age that they could only speak English to their
grandparents and have never had any trouble with confusion."
7. But raising bilingual children also involves challenges. Because social identity is closely
linked to language, children sometimes rebel against anything that makes them different from
their peers, including the use of another language. If their home language, be it English,
Russian, German, Arabic or something else, differs from the dominant language of society,
they might decide that the language of their peers is more important for social adjustment.
Parents should be prepared to deal with those situations without being bullied into either
relinquishing their own language by language clinicians or forcing their children to use only
one language. Until three months ago, Yair Geri, the four-and-a-half-year-old son of Danielle
and Dan Geri, spoke mostly English to his bilingual mother. He recently decided to speak
Hebrew to her too. "I got good advice from Jack Moore, the director of his kindergarten (Kids'
Gan in Ra'anana) about how to handle this change," explains Geri. "When I tried to force Yair
to speak English, he rebelled, but now that I let him express himself in whatever language
comes easier, he has naturally gone back to using more English."
8. One little Japanese boy who also attends Kids' Gan refused to respond to a Japanese
greeting. "That's for my mother," he said emphatically, hands on hips and brow furrowed. For
him, Japanese is not acceptable in the public domain. It is a special tongue he only uses with
his mother. It is important to accept what children choose to do with their language because
it relates closely to their feelings and sense of identity.
9. One additional challenge for bilingual children arises when difficulties with language do
occur. Many speech therapists, who are trained to deal with monolingual difficulties, do not
consider the fact that bilinguals with language problems need to be treated differently.
Armon-Lotem claims that there are two types of speech therapists in Israel: those who
recommend waiting out a problem and those who diagnose the problem but give the wrong
advice, such as foregoing one of the languages.
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10. Although many language clinicians in Israel recommend dropping one language if
bilinguals encounter problems, according to Armon-Lotem, the more exposure to the two
languages, the better. "If a child has problems with their first language, they will most likely
also have problems with their second language," she explains. "The problems are underlying
and are not caused by the bilingualism. If problems exist anyway, more exposure can only
help and not hurt."
11. So what can parents who are raising bilingual children do to improve their children's
language other than speak to them? Start as early as possible, keep things natural and
provide an exciting learning atmosphere. "Try to maintain a language-rich environment with
lots of stimuli like songs, films, literature, videos and conversations," recommends Russak,
who is also the author of a series of books aimed at helping people with language difficulties.
At the same time, the second language needs to be presented as more than a song or a
rhyme. In order to ensure successful language acquisition, children need to be exposed to it
in a setting where it will be natural and spontaneous to speak and use the language.
12. As each situation is unique, no general rules and regulations apply to everyone for
raising bilingual children. Some linguists recommend the "one parent-one language"
approach to avoid confusing the child. However, it has not been proven that mixing
languages at home creates any more problems for the bilingual child than strictly separating
each language. And if the division between languages is unnatural, it might do more harm
than good. So forget trying to stop children from saying, "I want mitz" or "buba is hurt." Mixed
speech is part of a natural process. At the end of the day, raising bilingual children might be
more demanding than raising monolingual children, but the multilingual families in Israel
seem to unanimously agree that the challenges are well worth meeting.
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