Growing up with Two Languages: A Practical Guide [Paperback]

Una Cunningham-Andersson (Author), Staffan Andersson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 041521257X | ISBN-13: 978-0415212571 | Publication Date: October 1999 | Edition: 1

This bestselling book is for anyone - parents, teachers and language professionals alike - who need advice on how children can get the most from a bilingual situation.

In Growing Up with Two Languages Una Cunningham-Andersson and Staffan Andersson provide a highly informative account of the stages of language development; describe and evaluate the various systems and strategies that can be adopted; and look at the problems that can occur when a child is exposed to two language and cultures.

Illustrated throughout with the real life experiences of fifty families around the world, this book concludes with clear practical advice on how to support and document a child's bilingual development, and how to make the most of the Internet.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Every family with two languages should have this book!' - Stephen Ryan, The Bilingual Family Newsletter

About the Author

Andersson is a teacher of computing and electronics.

Product Details

• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (October 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 041521257X
• ISBN-13: 978-0415212571
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,504,285 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

97 of 98 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's much more than teaching your kids language, June 15, 2001

By 

Heather Solheim (Regina, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Growing up with Two Languages: A Practical Guide (Paperback)

This book gives lots of examples of bilingual / bicultural parents doing raising their kids in different ways and how these different approaches work. The examples are taken from around the world (although the authors are Swedish / Irish, so many examples are from their own family.) But what I really like about the book is the emphasis they give to all of the 'related issues' of raising a bilingual child--not just what's the best way to get children to speak, read and write two languages (although that's part of what the book covers), but also issues like: how do you deal with a situation where you always speak to your child in a language your spouse or parents-in-law don't understand, and not make them feel left out? What about when your child has to take foreign language classes at school for a language he's already fluent in (and maybe speaks better than the teacher, or at least thinks he does)? If you're the parent who speaks the minority language, how do you maintain your fluency in that language when no one else near you speaks it? And does it bother you that when you speak to your child in a minority language when you're out in public, that you attract attention, or that other people perceive you as a foreigner who can't speak the majority language properly? How do you deal with cultural differences in "bringing up children properly" (British people may expect children to play quietly, Scandianvian children are expected to take off their shoes when they come into someone's home, in some cultures physical proximity is much less and people hug and stand close in a way that might be uncomfortable for other cultures, etc.) How do you change the rules of what's 'good behaviour' when you travel? What about when grandparents are visiting? Growing up in a family where the parents come from different countries or cultures is a whole lot more than learning to speak two languages, and this book explores a lot of those areas. The book doesn't tell you what to do--just makes you aware of a number of different issues that can come up and describes some of the things that other people have done in those situations.

60 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A practical Guide, July 10, 2000

By 

Julie A. Hager (Germany) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Growing up with Two Languages: A Practical Guide (Paperback)

I am raising my daughter in Germany. She will be growing up with two languages too. This book was informative. Among the topics were mixed language families and intercultural marriage, developing a language system, language development,advantages and disadvantages of two languages, practical parenting in a bilingual home, problems and motivation. This book also has an internet resources list too. I have this book and also "The Bilingual Family: A Handbook for Parents" in my library. Which I would recommend to all families going bilingual.

38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Lacks substance, January 28, 2004

By 

Justin Harris (Kansai, Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Growing up with Two Languages: A Practical Guide (Paperback)

I have to agree with the last reviewer, that this book is a bit of a disappointment. Perhaps that is due more to my expectations of the book than the actual content. What I was looking for was concrete techniques to assist in raising children bilingually, with information backed up by research from the field. There is a large amount of research on the topic of bilingualism, and it would be nice to find it summarized in a single volume. However, this is a series of excerpts taken from various parents in bilingual situations together with reasonably obvious statements, with little relation to linguistic research. While the various opinions from parents were interesting, this could be found online at a bilingual forum. The rest, you will probably already know by instinct.