Raising daughters to be bilingual
Posted on: Friday, November 25th, 2005Comments: 0
I was raised in a household of five children within six years. We grew up in a 1200 square foot house with parents who were raised in even smaller houses. While life was probably just as complicated, looking back it seems to have been much simpler. We had no bike helmets, no car seats, no seatbelts, no racial diversity, powdered milk, and bulk everything. We walked over two miles to elementary school (regardless of the weather) and we played outside all day long (again, regardless of the weather). And, everyone we knew spoke one language; English (and not the British kind, the American kind). World travel was hard and expensive. Even international phone calls were expensive. In those days telling someone that you were on a “long distance call” meant something. For Americans, training children in multiple languages was an extremely low priority. Unlike places in Europe where a four hour drive could put you in a new country with a new language, a four hour drive here just put you in a place with different restaurants.
Things are different today. The world is much smaller than it was. Depending upon where you’re coming from, a flight to Chicago could be more expensive than a flight to Tokyo or London. Today, roughly one in seven Americans is Hispanic. Hispanics now constitute the largest minority group in the United States. As of July 1, 2004, Hispanics accounted for 14.1 percent of the population, around 41.3 million people. The Hispanic growth rate over the July 1, 2003 to July 1, 2004 period was 3.6 percent – higher than any other ethnic group in the United States, and in fact more than three times the rate of the nation’s total population (at 1.0 percent). The projected Hispanic population of the United States for July 1, 2050, is of 102.6 million people. According to this projection, Hispanics will constitute 24% of the nation’s total population on that date.
Today, Chinese American is the fastest growing segment of the US population (50%growth rate). And, China is the most populated country on earth. Their current population is approximately 1,306,313,812. As a frame of reference, the U.S. population is approximately 295,734,134. For an even more compelling frame of reference, the entire planet is inhabited by only around 6 Billion people. More than one out of every six people is Chinese. And their influence upon the world’s economy is growing fast.
Why am I spewing these statistics to you? Well, to demonstrate that while being bilingual in the U.S. may not have been important for my generation, it might be critical for our children; for our daughters in particular. Historically, the best communicators have dominated their careers. I’m often shocked to see really, really smart people trapped in jobs that will never go anywhere. It’s usually because they aren’t able to communicate their ideas. They aren’t able to build career relationships because their communication skills are so weak. In the U.S., for most careers, communication has only been in English. But things are changing.
It’s hard to read any news without seeing the impact of globalization. Business is international. And while English is still the international business language, as non-English speaking nations such as China become more and more influential with respect to the world’s economy, that will naturally change. Maybe in won’t be China. Maybe it will be India (with approximatley 1,080,264,388 people). Maybe it will be another country all together.
So, who will be the best communicators of the future? Who will have the power in business deals, in careers, even in relationships? There’s a lot of time from now until then for our girls to become bilingual. But, the earlier we begin, the better.
Beyond the benefit of being able to communicate in multiple languages, learning of a second language has tremendous educational benefits for children. Studies have shown that students who learn another language have improved overall school performance, increased creativity and are better at solving complex problems. In fact, students who averaged four or more years of foreign language study scored higher on the verbal section of the SAT than those who studied four or more years in any other subject.
While I hate to shamelessly promote A Girl Named Pants, I would be remiss if I didn’t mentioned that we have produced the first two books of the children’s book series in both English and Spanish. There is a narrow window to expose our daughters to second languages. There is no time like the present to begin.
Does anyone know of any good second language programs to help children to become bilingual?
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