Saturday, October 14, 2006

Non-native speaking parents--No problem!

A common myth about raising children bilingually is that you must be a native speaker of the language you're teaching your child. However, this is untrue. Whether you are a second language speaker or native speaker, you can enrich your child's life by introducing him or her to another langauge.

In fact, the contributors to this blog are native English speakers; however, we've chosen to use second languages with our children as well. For example, I speak English as a native language, French as a second language, and live in Japan. My hope is to introduce my daughter to these three languages and cultures, although the exposure to each will vary.

There are many related issues and we intend to cover many of these in our upcoming posts. If you are raising your children bilingually, especially as a non-native speaker, we'd love to hear from you!