The exogamous families page Parenthése COO SOEHHESOOHTOSEHHESO ESE HEHOHEEH OS SHHESHEEHHEEHOHEHEEOHEEEOSEHHEE OH EEHOHSH ESET SOOT OO EEH EEE OSEEHEEOHESHOTEOEOE ET OE HE EOE ECHR By Annie Bourret Developing Linguistic Bilingualism In 2007, the Féderation des parents francophones de Colombie-Britannique (FPFCB) invited me to conduct work- shops for the parents of francophone preschoolers in the province. This trial pro- gram proved to be exiremely worthwhile, since literature regarding the linguistic development of preschoolers in a bilin- gual environment is very scarce***. But the linguist that | am, armed with theoretical and practical knowledge gleaned from research into language acquisition among bilingual preschool- ers, usually learn even more from the parents attending the workshops. Experi- ences and methods vary, but the basic questions remain the same: 1. At what age should a preschooler be exposed to both languages? Would it be better to focus first on English, the language needed for survival? 2. Does bilingualism slow the child's linguistic development? 3. Should we be concerned when the preschooler combines the two lan- guages? For example, Moi va Rec maximizing French. This will be the topic of my next article. The pace of linguistic develop- ment of unilingual and bilingual preschoolers is essentially identical; however, the bilingual child must assimilate more information, since he is learning two linguistic systems, i.e., the 36 French sounds versus the 44 English sounds; two vocabulary systems (chat, cat; pain, main, bain and rub-a-dub-dub); and sentence aPds wwe the child is becoming bilingual. Before the age of seven, mix-ups are generally associated with the acquisition of vocabulary. Of course, the amount of exposure to both languages must also be taken into account. For a reminder of fhe “bank account” concept of 22,000 linguistic dollars, please re-read the first article in this series! See the article in February 2011. *“*By popular demand, these workshops are now offered yearly, thanks to a part- nership between the FPFCB and Réso- Santé Colombie-Britannique. Centre. structure (Mon chat noir versus My black cat). Before becoming bilin- My response: gual, the preschooler “combines” 1, The best way to ensure bilingual- ism is to begin at birth. Language acquisition is optimum up to the age of seven (some experts sug- gest age four). There is no need fo focus on English, not only because the environment promotes English, but because you will miss out on the optimum years for linguistic development, the period when preschoolers are like sponges, soak- ing it all in indiscriminately. More- over, in a minority environment, we need to “compensate” for the less frequently used language, therefore the two languages. This may give the impression that language de- velopment is delayed or that the child is confused. In reality, the child is in the process of WORKING HARD fo analyze and differentiate all of this information. By the way, the bilingual child has a significant advantage, since he learns to concentrate and analyze at a very young age. It is NORMAL to confuse languages during the early childhood bilingual development. In fact, it proves that Two Languages, One Child | A child may be aware that he is speaking two languages as early as age two (more often at about age three). Usually, she first notices that she is speaking to people in differ- ent ways (using different expressions and vocabulary). Next, begins a major effort fo analyze and differen- tiate (jus in French, juice in English).