What’s best when it comes to teaching your little ones their first words? Maltese, English, or a mixture of both? Helen Raine investigates the language issue and finds some myths debunked.

Good news for Malta; bilingual babies are officially cleverer. Study after study has shown that learning two languages from birth stimulates the grey matter like nothing else and new research from Singapore has only underlined that conclusion.

However, scientists warn that bringing up a truly bilingual baby is not as simple as speaking Maltese at home then sticking your own little għajn tuffieħa in front of the English version of Thomas the Tank Engine for half an hour a day. It seems that parents in Malta could be squandering a unique linguistic opportunity for their little ones.

The Singaporean study showed babies familiar pictures, revealing the image bit by bit. Researchers found that the bilingual group of babies could recognise the images more quickly that monolingual children. Their conclusion is that there is a “generalised cognitive advantage in bilingual infants that is broad in scope, early to emerge, and not specific to language”.

Another Swedish study found that the size of the brain actually increases when language is studied intensively. Recruits who were trained in difficult languages such as Arabic and Russian from scratch had a measurably larger hippocampus after the teaching.

The advantages of being bilingual vastly outweigh short-term drawbacks.

You’d expect, then, that in Malta, a country with two official languages, children would have easy access to this kind of brain training. But one study by Helen Grech at the University of Malta suggests that fewer than 40 percent of Maltese families speak both languages at home, with the vast majority speaking only Maltese (97 percent identify Maltese as their mother tongue). Maltese students are still best at English overall in the EU (outside the UK) according to Eurostat and, on the streets of Malta, it’s rare to come across a Maltese person who speaks absolutely no English. So why aren’t we teaching our children to speak both from the cradle?

Myths have abounded since the 1970s that speaking two languages to an infant could confuse them or delay language in a way that could be permanently damaging. Those outdated ideas have now been roundly debunked. It’s very clear that not only is it much easier for children to learn a language if they do so from birth but that this actually helps a child’s cognitive development in a multitude of ways.

This isn’t happening in Malta as often as it could and should. Perhaps it’s part of Malta’s somewhat schizophrenic cultural approach to language in general. These days, it seems that Maltese is the conversational language of choice and most TV shows originating in the country are in Maltese. Yet, the best-selling newspapers and magazines are in English. University exams are in English but the ability to get into that same University in the first place is still dependent on passing Maltese. And the government really can’t make up its mind, with websites usually (but not always) being in both languages (but not all pages), official letters sometimes being sent out in Maltese only but occasionally in English or both and a general illogical linguistical hodgepodge for everything else in between.

That’s unfortunate, because a proficiency in both languages is good not only for children’s brains, but also for business. It gives Malta a competitive edge that there are so many very proficient English speakers and it helps with foreign investment because business owners feel that they will not have any difficulties with communication. It’s something the country needs to treasure.

Luckily there are some easy steps that parents can take to make both languages equally important at home, even if they feel less confident in one of them. It requires perseverance and patience but will make a huge difference to your children’s ability with language in the future.

Plan for exposure

Language learning needs to start early for maximum benefit. From birth, speak to your child in both languages. In families where one parent is better in one language, you can use an OPOL approach (one person, one language), whereby Dad might speak only English and Mum only Maltese. If both parents can speak both languages reasonably well, then try to split the language 50/50 and make a conscious decision to use both regularly in the home with the children (it’s not necessary to be word perfect).

Research suggests that a child needs to be exposed to a language at least 30 percent of their waking time to become properly bilingual; consider that statistic carefully, because if they spend all day with grandma, who only speaks Maltese, or most of their time at a mainly Maltese-speaking school, there’s a fair bit of catching up to do with English when they get home.

Persist

Once you have a plan, you need to persist. There will be ups and downs; people might criticise you and say that you’re confusing the child; your child might answer in the ‘wrong’ language; you might feel that hearing two languages means it’s taking longer for your toddler to talk or that they make mistakes in one language because they use the structure of the other. Research from the Linguistic Society of America (LSA) says that these problems will pass (unless your child has a genuine issue with all language learning, in which case you should seek specialist help).

Children are hardwired to learn languages and want to communicate, so remember to keep your approach light-hearted and fun

Bilingual children eventually learn to use the right language and not ‘code-switch’ (throw in a word or phrase from another language) when they are speaking to monolinguals. The advantages of being truly bilingual vastly outweigh any short-term drawbacks.

Show a need

It’s possible that children will sense that one language is dominant to the other, most likely Maltese over English. The LSA suggests that children have to see that the other language is necessary in order to persist with it. So although you may speak English as well as Maltese at home, if all your family interactions, your shopping, your TV watching and your schooling is in Maltese, English is not going so seem particularly important and children will subconsciously devalue this language.

Make an effort to spend time with people who speak English regularly (or vice versa if you are having trouble getting enough exposure to Maltese) so that children are exposed to the use of the language. You could also hire a babysitter who speaks one language only, or enroll your child in an activity where the instructor uses English only. Kids need to see that being fluent in both languages is going to be useful.

Think about school

If Maltese is the language that your kids mostly hear at home, consider sending them to a school where they will speak English during the day. Conversely, if they are weaker in Maltese, then having day-to-day instruction in this language will make a big difference. Talk to the teachers about your ambition to have a bilingual child – they should be able to help.

Be patient and keep talking

Language acquisition doesn’t happen overnight for children anymore than it does for adults (although it’s way easier to learn a language as an infant than it will be later). Give your child space to learn but keep talking to them in both languages as much as you can – they are taking it all in. Read to them every day in both languages and let them pick books that they really enjoy or subjects that captivate them in the language that you want to practise. Also, be aware that you need to avoid mixing the languages yourself when you converse if you want your children to speak well, as opposed to picking up a kind of Maltese-English ‘pidgin’.

Don’t make it a battle

Marjukka Grover runs www.multilingual-matters.com, a publishing firm specialising in books on multi-lingualism. She produces a newsletter for bi- and tri-lingual families worldwide. She told the The Guardian that as a rule she speaks only Finnish to her children, but if they become shy about it in front of their friends, she’ll bend the rules.

She says: “”Multi-lingualism is a wholly positive thing in any child’s life but it must not become a battleground.”

Her website is packed with helpful advice and books to help parents give their children the gift of language without waging world war over it.

Have fun

Children are hardwired to learn languages and want to communicate, so just remember to keep your approach light-hearted and fun. If you encounter resistance, play games, sing songs, get creative, find a friend that shares your goals and keep going. They’ll thank you for it in the end when their friends are cramming English or Maltese vocabulary, knowledge that they have acquired without even trying.