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Harmonious Bilingualism: A Chat with Dr. Annick De Houwer

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Why do some children who grow up hearing two languages only use one? Our guest, Dr. Annick De Houwer, has been researching this question for years. De Houwer is a professor of language acquisition and multilingualism at the University of Erfurt in Germany and the founder of the Harmonious Bilingualism Network (HaBilNet). We spoke to her about her work, bilingual language development, and what she calls harmonious bilingualism.

© Nadia Frantsen, University of Oslo

De Houwer has conducted extensive research in the field of bilingual acquisition and language development. Her 1990 book “The acquisition of two languages from birth” is considered pioneering work in bilingual acquisition. In addition to her linguistic research, she also examines the socio-emotional aspects of early bilingualism. De Houwer introduced the concept of harmonious bilingual development in 2006.

Additional Resources

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A Conversation with Parenting Expert Maritere Bellas

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As mothers of relatively young children, a lot of the conversations we have are about what will become of our bilingual, bicultural children’s future. For this episode, we called on Maritere Bellas, an award-winning author and parenting expert, who raised bilingual and bicultural children in Los Angeles, to share with us her wisdom and experience.

Maritere R. Bellas

Maritere has written extensively about parenting for newspapers and online outlets, and is the author of the books “Raising Bilingual Children: A Practical Guide,” “Arroz con Pollo and Apple Pie,” and “Luisito’s Island.” After we recorded this episode, she also launched a multicultural parenting podcast in Spanish called Mamás 411.

Additional resources

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Bilingualism and Speech Delays: Dispelling Myths

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A common misconception or myth about bilingualism is that it causes speech language delays. In this episode, Claudia Serrano Johnson, a speech language pathologist (SLP) and founder of Laleo Therapy in Virginia breaks down these misconceptions and shares red flags parents should look out for in their child’s speech language development. You’ll also hear the experience of Zayra Marrero Burgos, an SLP who has a son with developmental delays.

Claudia Johnson (left); Zayra Marrero Burgos (right)

Mentioned in this episode

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) – this professional, scientific and credentialing association has a directory of certified professionals.

Additional Reading

Learning Two Languages, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association

How do you know when it’s a language delay versus a disorder?, Leader Live, April 14, 2015

Does Bilingualism Cause a Language Delay?, Multilingual Living, May 31, 2010

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The Bilingual Revolution, Part II

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In Part Two of our conversation with Fabrice Jaumont – a French educator, researcher and the author of the book The Bilingual Revolution – we talk about what drives parents to undertake the efforts needed to establish dual language education programs and what you can do to get started. We also discuss common misconceptions about dual language programs and the importance of having a long-term vision when establishing these initiatives.

Photo by Jonas Cuénin

If you haven’t listened to Part I, this is a good time to do so!

Further Reading

The Bilingual Revolution

“The Bilingual Revolution” is available in English, Spanish, French, German, and Russian.

Entre Dos listeners can download a free e-copy of the book by visiting tbr-books.org and entering the code Entre Dos Podcast at checkout.

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A Matter of Exposure

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If you’re raising bilingual children, you’ve likely heard the word exposure over and over again. We need to give our kids exposure to the target language, right? But what is exposure? How is it defined in the context of bilingualism? And more importantly, how much is enough? Does quality matter more than quantity?

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Our 2019 Bilingual Parenting Resolutions

Happy 2019! It’s the first full week of the year and we’re ready to get back to work. We’re also ready to continue traveling down this bilingual parenting path with our daughters and our small community of listeners and followers.

In our last episode, we shared the lessons we learned from seven months of recording the Entre Dos Podcast. It turns out that they also make good resolutions, so we wanted to share them with you here on the blog. We hope these five lessons will inspire you and motivate you in 2019.

Continue reading “Our 2019 Bilingual Parenting Resolutions”
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Music and Bilingualism

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Music is one of the easiest ways to start building a connection to language. Even if you’re not a musical person, there’s a universality to music that makes it an effective tool for transferring knowledge. We’ve seen it in our homes.

In this episode, we spoke to Dr. Susanne Reiterer, associate professor at the Faculty of Philology and Cultural Studies and the Center for Teacher Education in the University of Vienna, and to Will Stroet, an award-winning multilingual children’s music singer-songwriter and educator based in Vancouver.

 

You’ll hear about the connection between musicality and language learning and how music can be an effective tool to teach languages.

In preparation for this episode, we asked our listeners to share their favorite music and artists to listen to in their target language. See the full list of bilingual music recommendations. It’s a good one!