A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism (Bilingual Education and Bilingualism) [Paperback]

Colin Baker (Author), Ofelia Garcia (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1995 | ISBN-10: 1853592641 | ISBN-13: 978-1853592645

A practical introduction to questions of bilingualism for parents, many of which reflect central issues about bilingualism in the home. The book aims to raise awareness about the challenges often faced as bilingual family life develops and the decisions that have to be made. This book provides an introduction to questions of bilingualism of practical value to parents. It is for parents and teachers who are bilinguals themselves and also for monolinguals who want to know more; for those searching for answers to their questions and also for those who are just starting to think about the important questions; and for those with some intuitive understanding of bilingual situations, as well as for those who are starting from the very beginning. The style of the book is to pose questions that people most often ask about raising bilingual children. Straightforward answers follow, written in direct, plain language. The book deals with family questions, educational questions, language issues and particularly focuses on the problems that arise. Such questions reflect central issues that parents regularly meet in deciding about bilingualism in the home. The answers to the questions aim to raise awareness of what challenges may be faced as bilingual family life develops and what decisions have to be made.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Families around the world raising bilingual and multilingual children will breathe a sigh of relief to find Colin Baker’s third edition of A Parents’ and Teachers’ Guide to Bilingualism. With its expert answers and easy-to-read format, this book will be a touchstone for families just getting started as well as those needing guidance along the way. As the world changes quickly, Colin Baker has taken the initiative to seek out and answer the most pressing questions and concerns of today’s bilingual families including questions on dyslexia, multiliteracies and autism with the same ease and expertise that we have come to expect from him.
Corey Heller, Bilingual/Bicultural Family Network founder and publisher/editor of Multilingual Living Magazine --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

About the Author

Colin Baker is Professor of Education at the University of Wales, Bangor and a Fellow of the British Psychological Society. He has three bilingual children and frequently gives talks to parents and teachers on bilingualism. He is the author of 14 books and over 50 articles on bilingualism and bilingual education, with specific interests in bilingual development and bilingual education. His books include Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (4th edition 2006) which has been translated into Japanese, Spanish, Latvian, Greek and Mandarin. He is the Editor of the International Journal of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Multilingual Matters Limited (May 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1853592641
• ISBN-13: 978-1853592645
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,047,811 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exactly what the title says, November 28, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: A Parents' & Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism (Parents' & Teachers' Guides) (Paperback)

This is a great book that is exactly as the title says, a parent and teachers guide to bilingualism. It is set up in a Q&A format where every question you had about bilingualism answered from "My child refuses to use one of his/her languages. What should I do?" to "My child stutters. Is this caused by bilingualism." I work with a lot of bilingual families and I will be recommending this book a lot as it is fact- and research-based, yet written for lay people.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For All Parents with a Bad Bilingual Conscience, June 3, 2004

By 

Karla Schmidt (Hannover, Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Parents' & Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism (Parents' & Teachers' Guides) (Paperback)

Colin Baker's handbook is a help for which bilingual parents have waited for too long a time. In this new edition, Baker includes the most recent research results in a format which allows perpetually busy parents to read according to their current perception of their individual set of language parenting problems. Nearly anything that can go right or wrong is treated somewhere in the course of these myriad questions. For ready reference, the questions are listed in the table of contents.

What tends to happen to the reader is, however, the following: You begin by looking up "your" question and read the very readable answers Baker offers - and just do not stop there. Suddenly you realize that there are many thousands of other parents with concerns much like your own, who are also asking interesting questions - and the television stays turned off for the rest of the evening.

We have bought this book for the reference of the parents and teachers in our International School. Because bilingual and multilingual children are not simply monolingual children with two or more languages at their disposal, raising them means adjusting to a different mode of thinking. For monolingual parents and teachers this means learning that such children will experience specific phases in their development, encounter specific advantages and disadvantages in their learning progress, which the monolingual adults did not experience in this way. Parents and teachers must learn to monitor the advancement of their children's learning in a manner congruent with an unfamiliar, but not threatening, reality. Colin Baker's book is one of the best works for teachers and parents who want to be able to assist bilingual and multilingual children in making the best possible use of their developmental opportunities.

30 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Ad nauseam, April 12, 2005

By 

Jas Bro "pizzamargherita" (London) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Parents' & Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism (Parents' & Teachers' Guides) (Paperback)

The author clearly knows his stuff, but is guilty of making a book out of the following contents

- Favour using your native language with the child if you speak other languages weakly

- One parent one language, avoid mixing two languages in the same context

- It's mostly not true that bi- and multilingual children get "confused"

- If your children have problems, it's probably not bilingualism's fault

- Use common sense

- Aren't my analogies beautiful?

- Use some more common sense

Now copy and paste this 2000 times and there you have the book.