Highlights
- Language learning helps families pass on cultural knowledge to the younger ones.
- Growing up in an environment where exposure to multiple languages helps build self-worth and identity.
- In raising bilingual speakers, experts' advice is to keep expectations realistic, and adapting language education to the child’s lived reality is key to avoid language and culture being felt like a burden.
Listen to the audio:
Census data reveals that over a fifth of Australian households speaks a language other than English.
And while any parent raising bilingual children knows that language education can be a big task, research suggests it is worth the trouble.
John Hajek, a Linguist Professor at Melbourne University explains why.
“We know that over the longer term, bilingual children do better at NAPLAN. But actually, there's more to it. It's about broader personal development; children understanding difference, understanding people around them, understanding themselves. The research shows that small children, four/five-year-olds, who have another language or learning another language that they try harder to be empathetic towards people they're interacting with, they try harder to understand what people around them want. So, you know, really much broader benefits to an individual child. And that, of course, has great benefits to society in general.”
