What are some unique issues related to working with families of these children?
Page 3: Importance of Home Language Maintenance
Whether a family has been in the United States for only a few years or for generations, they speak and pass on their languages and cultural heritages to their children through conversations, stories, music, prayers, and more. When a child’s first language is not nurtured, they often lose opportunities to communicate with parents, family members, and others in their community. There are many reasons early childhood and special education professionals and families should work together to help maintain the children and families’ home languages.
- Second language development: A strong foundation in the home language facilitates the learning of a second language.
- Social-emotional development: Children who see that their home language is valued build a positive and healthy self-identity and stronger sense of pride in their cultural and linguistic heritage.
- Facilitates and deepens relationships: Professionals who ask families to only speak to their children in English should understand that family members who are not fluent in English cannot effectively engage and communicate with their children. More specifically:
- Children and parents who share the same language are able to interact with each other in more meaningful ways.
- Family and community members who only speak the home language (e.g., grandparents, friends, relatives in the home country) are able to contribute to the child’s cultural growth, increase their vocabulary and communication skills, and share valuable learning experiences.
- Home-school collaboration: When schools communicate with families in the home language:
- Families can better support their children using the strategies and techniques that early childhood and special education professionals share with them.
- Families can share important information that can in turn be used to enhance their children’s learning.
- Cognition: Bilingual students are generally flexible thinkers and problem solvers and have an easier time understanding math concepts and solving word problems.
- Future employability: There is a growing need for individuals who are proficient in two or more languages in today’s world economy and socio-political climate.
Listen as Robert Stechuk and Patsy Pierce discuss some of the reasons it is important to maintain a child and family’s home language.
Patsy Pierce, PhD
Consultant, National Center on Cultural
and Linguistic Responsiveness
(time: 1:46)
Transcript: Robert Stechuk, PhD
Some school systems may have dozens of languages, more than a hundred home languages. The key message for me is that programs can clearly state to families that their home language is important. Whether they’re children with disabilities or children who are developing typically, we want families to understand the importance of the child’s home language. The way to understand that importance is the recognition that all the developmental domains are connected. When the child grows up with a home language—whether it’s Arabic or Korean or Spanish or something else—all the other developmental domains are engaged with that home language. The child’s identity is rooted in that language. The child’s thinking skills are developing in that language. The child’s metalinguistic observations and understandings are developing in that language. If the message to families is, “Your language isn’t important” then it negates all those important connections, and it really prevents the child from continuing to develop their identity, their thinking skills, their metalinguistic awareness, et cetera.
We want families to recognize that by continuing to speak their home language, continuing to ask questions, have conversations, sing songs, tell stories, read books, the child is able to develop and continue expanding their identity, their thinking skills, their metalinguistic awareness. And that, as the child learns English over time, they can transfer that knowledge from the home language into English. But if the access to the child’s home language is interrupted then it seems inevitable that the child’s development in other domains will be negatively impacted. So schools can communicate clearly to families the importance of the family’s home language and encourage families to use those basic strategies of conversations, of book reading, of extended narratives, open-ended questions, et cetera, to support the child’s maximum overall development.
Transcript: Patsy Pierce, PhD
It’s so important for children who are dual language learners to continue to develop their home language while learning English, because we know that the home language is serving as the phonological basis and the semantic basis and the syntactical basis for language learning. Sometimes families think, “They won’t learn English unless I speak English to them, and I’m not going to use my home language anymore.” And we know from current research that’s just not true, because language always develops between people who share a positive relationship. So if families stop speaking the language they are strongest in then that could hinder the ongoing development of the relationship and would definitely hinder the home-language development of the child. So helping families to realize, for young dual language learners, with or without disabilities, they really should continue to talk with them in their home language to continue to build that language base. Then at school—if it’s primarily an English-speaking school or whatever the second language is—the academic language will build on the home language. They’re bringing that really strong base of language into school that then can translate and be the basis for further language learning. I think that’s just really important to help families realize that it’s essential to continue home-language development.
Keep in Mind
Many parents have experienced prejudice because of their lack of English proficiency. They are concerned that their children will not be as successful in school and in society if they continue to speak their home languages. Teachers can help parents understand the benefits of being proficient in multiple languages.
Early childhood and special education professionals can support the maintenance of home languages by collaborating with families. Some strategies to help families understand the value and benefits of maintaining the home language include:
- Sharing resources with families about the importance and value in maintaining the home language.
- Connecting families with experts, business owners, and others in the community to learn about the benefits of maintaining the home language. For example, a local business owner might explain her company’s need to hire workers who are multilingual speakers in order to stay competitive in today’s global economy.
