Heather, a bilingual mother, shares her five tips for raising bilingual children. She emphasizes the importance of deciding on a language strategy, such as the "minority language at home" approach. Heather suggests seeking resources like books and apps in the minority language, and creating a community of support, both online and offline. She also shares creative strategies for maintaining the minority language, such as incorporating it into everyday activities and seeking encouragement from the community. Throughout the video, Heather interviews her husband, Jordan, who learned Spanish in school and supports their bilingual journey.
1. The speaker, Heather, is taking over Holly's channel and is sharing tips on raising bilingual children. She is raising three children and teaching them Spanish, her second language [Transcript].
2. Heather explains that raising bilingual children is a decision and is not an accident. It's more likely to happen in countries that have bilingualism at its core [Transcript].
3. Heather introduces three strategies for raising bilingual children: minority language at home, one person one language (OPOL), and time and place. In the minority language at home strategy, the minority language is spoken primarily at home. In OPOL, different adults in the child's life speak to the child exclusively in a specific language. In the time and place strategy, a specific context is chosen where the minority language is spoken exclusively [Transcript].
4. Heather emphasizes the importance of creating a need for the minority language and making sure the child knows that it's an important language spoken by other people in the world [Transcript].
5. The speaker, Heather, recommends resources such as books and apps aimed at home communication to expose children to the minority language [Transcript].
6. Heather also mentions online resources like wordreference.com, which helps in understanding how to say a word in a new language, and Google Translate for translating phrases [Transcript].
7. Building a community of support is another important tip shared by Heather. This includes having a strong team with your partner and other adults in your children's lives [Transcript].
8. Heather shares a few creative strategies for getting back on track if parents find themselves losing focus or not meeting their goals. These include minimizing English or fighting and teaching the minority language to a pet [Transcript].
9. Jordan, Heather's husband, took Spanish for five years throughout middle school and high school. He started speaking Spanish to their children after they got married [Transcript].
10. Heather discusses the challenges of speaking Spanish in the home, such as the complexity of command forms in Spanish, and how Jordan has had to adapt the minority-language-at-home model [Transcript].
11. Heather mentions that all three of their children have been a little bit later than normal in starting to speak, but now they don't stop [Transcript].
12. Heather concludes the video by discussing the benefits of being bilingual, including being able to talk to people from other countries and being able to travel more [Transcript].