Article: Parents Look for Best Ways To Raise Bilingual Kids

From http://www.ocala.com/article/20110801/APL/1108010811?p=1&tc=pg

Parents look for best ways to raise bilingual kids
By RASHA MADKOUR
August 1, 2011

Miami toddler Alice Di Giovanni is one of an increasing number of Americans living in homes where a language other than English is spoken, and her parents want her to learn as many languages as she can. So her Polish-Canadian mother speaks to her in French, her father in Italian and her Honduran nanny in Spanish.

According to the U.S. Census, in 1980, just 11 percent of Americans lived in homes where languages other than English were spoken. By 2007, the percentage had nearly doubled to 20 percent.

In some of these homes, immigrant parents may not know English well enough to teach it to their children. But the issues are different for parents who speak several languages well. While past generations of Americans sometimes encouraged children to abandon mother tongues in order to assimilate faster, today's parents see the benefits of being fluent in more than one language, and they look for ways to encourage it.

Parents intent on raising multilingual children often cite methods like OPOL (one parent, one language) and mL(at)H (minority language at home). OPOL was coined by French linguist Maurice Grammont in 1902. The term mL(at)H is newer, but the concept has been discussed by linguists since the early 20th century. The benefits and drawbacks of each method are a hot topic of debate by parents and educators in blogs and online forums.

Read the full article at http://www.ocala.com/article/20110801/APL/1108010811?p=1&tc=pg