Lin is a colleague and friend of mine. Originally from China, she now lives in the United States with her husband and two children. As a PhD linguist and mom, Lin combines theoretical knowledge and practical experience in her approach to raising her children with Chinese and English. Her goal: she wants her children to be biliterate. Read here how she makes it work.
Location: USA
Parents: Mom=Chinese (Mandarin & Shanghai dialect); Dad=English
Children: Daughter =Mandarin & English; Son=Shanghai dialect, Mandarin & English
Veronika: To start off, can you tell me a little about your family? Who is part of your family and what languages do you speak at home?
From China to the United States
Lin: I grew up in China. I came to The United States when I was in my early 20s. My husband is from Minnesota. He is a monolingual English speaker. But he did take some Chinese classes in college and he went to study abroad for one summer in Beijing. So he has some basic skills in Chinese. We have two kids. My daughter, Marilyn, is 4½ now and my son, Edgar is 1½. They were both born here in the United States.
Veronika: And who speaks what at home; which languages do you use on a daily basis?
Lin: Maybe a little bit more about my background first. I was a Chinese as a second language teacher back in China as well as when I was in grad school at the University of Iowa. So I taught Chinese to foreigners living in China as well as American students who wanted to learn Chinese at a U.S. college. Back then, I noticed that it’s so much more difficult for college kids to learn a language. Many of my students were Chinese heritage learners who were born and raised in the United States. Some of them did speak Chinese fluently, but very few of them would have the literacy level that allows them to use Chinese academically or for career purposes. So because of that I was thinking that, when I raise my kids, I want to raise them bilingual from the start and the goal is not only to make them bilingual but bi-literate. That is my goal.
Veronika: Were most of your students, the heritage learners, eventually bi-literate?
The final goal = bilingual + biliterate
Lin: That’s hard to tell because I was teaching them during their first and second year of Chinese. At that level, they 
interact with very basic written and reading input. When they move into their fourth and fifth year, you might be able to see but I did not teach those higher grades. I would say the majority of them don’t have the level of literacy skills.
Veronika: Like those comparable to their Chinese peers?
Lin: Yeah. But that’s a pretty hefty goal I would say. I don’t know how I’m going to succeed with my children.
Veronika: I hear you! [laughs]. So you speak Chinese at home to your children then?
The need to have a supportive and informed partner
Lin: Yes. The goal is very clear that I only speak Chinese to my daughter. My husband was thinking that he could learn with my daughter, but he already fell behind. He’s out of the picture. But he has been very supportive. If I speak Chinese to my daughter, he won’t discourage it. He is very supportive and I think that is very important. If you want to raise bilingual children and one of the parents doesn’t speak the language, it’s really okay because as long as that parent keeps talking to the children, they’re still going to develop the minority language and the special bond; but you just need the other parent to be okay with it. Support is key.
Veronika: I hear you! We’re in the exact same situation! Before Ella was born, my husband also said that he would learn German with Ella. Now she is 2½ and way ahead of him. I think an important element here is that you have trust in your partner. It has to be clear that you are not using the language in order to take advantage. And you should not be talking about them without filling them in. So I think openness and trust are important aspects.
Lin: Yes. Well, another thing I learned just through talking to other parents is just the awareness of bilingualism and how that benefits a person’s development both intellectually as well as emotionally.
Veronika: By awareness, do you mean instilling an awareness in the children or being aware of the benefits of bilingualism as a parent so you would more likely support it even if you are monolingual?
Lin: The latter. If you as a parent are convinced of the benefits, you are more likely going to support it. So being aware that having the ability to speak multiple languages will benefit your kid not in terms of just language speaking, but in the long term. It has so many benefits. It will help them build a stronger character, be more nimble in this society, and be more flexible. A lot of cognitive studies support that.
It’s more than just speaking two languages: The benefits of being bilingual
So my point is that you don’t have to learn a popular language to reap the larger benefits of being bilingual, you know? I speak Chinese and people see great value in that. Chinese, yes, great; it’s a big country, you can use Chinese for study or work. But it’s not just about practical value of the language; it is about learning language, about the process itself. So if you happen to speak a language that less common than Chinese and is not spoken by many people, sometimes people don’t see the practical value. But learning the language itself is a very beneficial activity to do. So coming back to the awareness, as a parent you may not just want to consider the immediate practical value, but also think that language learning itself is a beneficial thing to do.
Veronika: Yeah, I agree. It has a lot of cognitive advantages that come with it: better ability to focus, enhanced executive control…
Lin: Every time I see an article in the New York Times about bilingualism and advantages of bilingualism, I try to show it to my husband. A lot of research support for bilingualism…
Veronika: Yeah, that’s right. So how do you support Chinese as your children’s minority language?
It’s important to sing with your children
Lin: I’m the main linguistic input. So every day, I try to give a lot of meaningful input through different kinds of the channels and activities: reading books, just talking to the kids, singing. So I had to relearn all of those Chinese songs. A lot of them I had forgotten, I had to learn them again. I had a little notebook and all the lyrics written in it. I carried it with me all the time and picked it up to sing a song with my daughter because I noticed if I just play audio and play a CD, I don’t think my daughter got that much out of it. It serves as the background. So the background music is different from when I actually sing to her and sing with her. So that’s just the various things I did. But just constant talking…
Veronika: Actually, I think the best way to learn a language is through interaction with other human beings. And, yes, there’s a bunch of research on how singing with children helps their language development. It’s a powerful and playful way for children to learn a language.
Chinese immersion school as a good way to provide exposure to the minority language
Lin: Yeah, true. But I was lucky. When my daughter was around 2½ years old, I started to realize that I needed to expose her to different speakers of Chinese, different vocabulary, different contexts, and different settings; because in each context and setting, you learn different kinds of vocabulary. I was searching online for Chinese immersion schools and I was lucky to find one in the Princeton area, that is the YingHua International School. I met with this curriculum coordinator. She is an educator herself. I really like her. And she believes in the same kind of philosophy and the benefits of bilingual education. She also understands a lot of the underlying theories about bilingualism,and also the challenges and benefits of doing that will be.
Veronika: So how is the Chinese immersion school working for you? Is that a bilingual school or a total immersion program?
Lin: They start at age 2. From age 2 to Kindergarten it is Chinese only. So Joy told me that she insisted on not introducing any English until first grade. Is it second or maybe only Kindergarten? I have to check on that. So it is either Kindergarten or one. But Joy said she insisted on delayed introduction of English.
Veronika: That makes sense.
Lin: One reason is because Chinese is so different from English and the writing system is so different from alphabetic language. So she just wants the students to have a really solid foundation before they move on to English. Then, as you know, a lot of the skills are transferable. So when we acquire a set of cognitive skills in one language, it can be transferred to another language. Even if English is a little slower at the beginning, kids start to pick it up.
Veronika: Yes, the input in English, the majority language for most kids here in the United States, will be immense down the road.
The sibling effect
Lin: Yeah, even now, when I go to my daughter’s school, a lot of the kids speak English with each other when they socialize outside of class.
Veronika: Yes? Well, I can see that…
Lin: Yeah, most of the time. But my daughter—I’m just very proud of her–she talks to her teachers in Chinese. Of course, there are other Chinese heritage students in the school and my daughter typically speaks Chinese with them too.
Veronika: That’s great! Oftentimes you see that children revert to the majority language when talking to one another. That is a phenomenon you see a lot among siblings. So they would speak Chinese to you as a parent, but then switch to English when they speak to one another. Do you have that situation that Marilyn and Edgar speak English to one another?
Introducing the Shanghai dialect
Lin: With Edgar, I have an experiment. I grew up in Shanghai and so I speak the Shanghai dialect. It’s very different from Mandarin and you can even call them two different languages because they have completely different phonetic systems. Writing is the same because we use the same writing symbols, but phonetically they’re very distant. So if I speak the Shanghai dialect, a person who is from other parts like the northern part of China will probably only understand maybe 20 to 30 percent of it. So with my daughter, I really wanted her to be able to speak the Shanghai dialect, but I was a little worried because I’m the only linguistic input. I got to make sure that she speaks one minority language well. So I picked Mandarin Chinese when she was born. So from birth, I have only been speaking Mandarin Chinese to her.
But now I realize that it doesn’t really matter. Kids will absorb any language and I kind of a regret that I did not talk to my daughter in the Shanghai dialect. Now at age 4, when I say some words to her and ask her to repeat, you can hear an accent. She can’t get some kind of phonemes (sounds) right. I’m sure she understands when I talk to my parents. We only talk in the Shanghai dialect, but she doesn’t have the confidence to speak it. So with Edgar, I think I’m going to do an experiment. I’m going to speak the Shanghai dialect to Edgar and see how it goes. Since we have the Chinese international school, I know that eventually, I will send him to that school and he will be immersed in Mandarin. So in a way it will be like it was for myself: “I grew up in Shanghai. I spoke the Shanghai dialect with relatives and families. But when I went to school, I learned Mandarin”. So I hope that for Edgar, this is what is going to happen to him too.
Veronika: So what is Marilyn speaking to Edgar?
Lin: Most of the time Chinese.
Veronika: That is great. Then he also has that additional Mandarin component.
Lin: Yeah. I sent her to daycare when she was three months old. So by the time she started at the Chinese immersion school she was 2 ½. Between 3 months and 2 ½, she was in an English speaking daycare. But I noticed that she felt more confident speaking Chinese than English even before she went to the Chinese school.
Veronika: That’s very interesting.
Talk, talk, talk: Interaction is key!
Lin: I think one reason for that was probably because I spent more time with her than her dad. And also I think it’s because at the daycare, the teacher did not talk to her directly. English seemed to be more in the background. But when I speak with her, I’m always talking to her. So the direct interaction I think makes a big difference.
Veronika: I agree! That makes a huge difference if you take the time—quality time (!)—to interact with the child.
Lin: Yeah. But I was always worried during these early years that I’m the only one speaking Chinese. So I spoke as much as I could while I was awake and she was still awake.
Veronika: I have also started to narrate what I’m doing—even when it seems trivial “I’m taking a pot out of the cabinet.” Something I would have never done before, but I feel that my talking provides her with German input.
Lin: So monologuing, right?
Veronika: Yes, monologuing—pretty much narrating what I was doing on a regular basis.
Lin: Yes, that is what I did. I’m just afraid of not enough language at play.
Veronika: Yes, I hear you. One thing I have been struggling with as the only speaker of German around Ella is to provide enough instances of the different verb endings. German has different endings of the verb—inflections—so the word changes whether it’s I, you, we, he, she or it. Since most of the time I’m the only one talking in German to her, I’m a little worried that she doesn’t get enough exposure to the different verb forms. So if she’s talking about herself, she should be using the first person singular. So what I’m also sometimes doing is I’m deliberately adding something to the conversation where I’m switching the perspectives and I say, “Oh, I like X, Y, and Z. What do you like X, Y, and Z? Oh really, we both like X, Y, and Z.” So in a playful, conversational way, I’m trying to bring in the different personal pronouns.
Lin: Yeah. But later on when you introduce her to more books especially books developed for older learners, she will have the chance to be more exposed.
Veronika: Yes, that’s right. Books are golden!
Your family can be a tremendous support network!
Lin: And another thing is to just interact with family and get their support. But again I feel facetiming for younger kids especially 1 or 2 year olds is challenging. They don’t really grasp the idea of the person on the screen not physically being there. So I find it a little difficult to facetime with my parents in China. But now she’s doing better.
Veronika: Huh, interesting. Ella has been doing okay with that; it took her—I want to say—a year but then she understood that grandma was not behind the screen. She sometimes checked behind the IPad during the first year. But now she seems okay. She chats regularly with my mom and sister via Facetime. So, have you encountered any particular challenges to keep up the minority language with your children?
Potential challenges down the road
Lin: I think I was pretty lucky I found that Chinese school. If we didn’t have a school within our neighborhood, then I think at this point I would have to take on more responsibilities to expose my kids to different languages; especially, academic or school language. And I think it would be a very daunting task for parents without much community support living in the US. So I just feel lucky. I didn’t really face many challenges raising Marilyn bilingual. But I know that moving on, some of her subjects will be taught in English in higher grades.
So I’ll see how I’m going to deal with that when she’s going to talk to me in English about certain subject areas. I’m not sure I’m prepared to converse with her in all those academic subjects in Chinese because I just cannot do the online translation so quickly. So I envision I will face more challenges when she goes through grade school. So far it’s been okay because they’re doing very simple subjects, very personal content like emotions, feelings, and surroundings. Those daily languages, I think I can easily do a translation in my mind, in my head and talk to her and I’ll provide some linguistic support. But when she starts coming back and starts talking about physics or chemistry, then I’m…
Veronika: You may have to stick with English.
Lin: Yeah. So that will be a true challenge.
Veronika: That’s right. That’s a good point. Any advice you would give to other parents who think about embarking on a bilingual journey or who are already on it? What would you give them as a piece of advice?
Raise your children in a language that you feel comfortable with
Lin: Hmm, so for first or second generation immigrants in the United States, I would say that you have to speak the language that you’re most comfortable with. You never speak the language that is second or third to you regardless of how important a status of the language is in the society; because it won’t give you the richest linguistic environment to build that special bond with your kids.
Veronika: That’s a good point; you build and maintain the relationship through language so you transport love and emotion with a language too.
Lin: Yeah, I know that migrant communities are always facing a certain “pressure to fit in”. I think this concept has changed recently, but in the past they always had that pressure to fit in.
Veronika: Well, there might still be conceptions that they have to do that.
Lin: Yes, that’s true. I guess my main point is: you have to speak with your kids in the language that you are most comfortable with, you are most literate in. That is the best thing for them. And for American parents who don’t speak the target language but want to raise their kids bilingual; like most of my daughter’s classmates come from families that have no Chinese heritage and the kids are learning it. I’ve been to their classroom. I talk to the kids and they talk to me in perfect Chinese. So it can work. But in that case, you need to find a good school or you get tutoring—a good support network.
Veronika: Yes. Well, thank you so much for taking the time and sharing your experiences!
