Children mirror parents' use of language

Parents who have a poor command of English should not talk to their children in that language because the children might end up speaking it just as badly, a study suggests.

The study, carried out by a university student, confirmed previous research which found that a child's use of language tends to mirror that of the parent. So in households where English is not spoken properly, rather than a misguided attempt to bring the children up as 'bilinguals', it would be better to allow them to learn the language well from school, private lessons or other sources, according to the study.

The researcher, Lisa Bonnici, who conducted the study for a B.A. (Hons.) degree in English, wrote: "What parents fail to realise is that a decision to expose a child to a particular language requires a certain degree of competence on their part in that language.

"In cases where parents insist on exposing their children to a mixture of two separate codes, literal translations, a faulty grammatical structure and a very limited vocabulary in the language, the child suffers.

"In fact, one can safely say that this approach is more injurious than simply exposing a child to the parents' native language, and allowing him to acquire the second language through some other domains."

There were two parts to Ms Bonnici's study: a survey of more than 200 eight-year-old pupils carried out in a mixture of state, Church and independent schools; and an in-depth analysis of the conversations of eight children, all living in Sliema, with their parents.

In the survey, four in 10 of the children said Maltese was the main language spoken at home. Only two in 10 said it was English. Another four in 10 said both languages were spoken.

The children were asked how long they spent in conversation with their parents every day, in whichever language. Although roughly four in 10 spent a healthy two, three or more hours a day in interaction, an alarming three in 10 said they spent only a few minutes.

Some of the children who marked "a few minutes" said they spent most of their time watching television or playing PlayStation, while others said their parents had demanding jobs, so finding a few minutes was impossible.

More important to the researcher than quantity, however, was the quality of the interaction and the children's resultant grasp of language, in this case English. This was gauged by a series of exercises that asked them to pick the grammatically correct sentence from two sentences meaning the same thing, the other one being a literal translation from the Maltese.

"The results proved quite perturbing, because in every single exercise there was a percentage of respondents who chose the wrong answer. This also applied to the simplest sentences," wrote Ms Bonnici.

In the worst cases, 39 per cent chose "Now I tell you" instead of "Now I'll tell you", and 34 per cent chose "Pass me on the water please" instead of "Pass the water please".

"...much of the sentence selection reflected the main language spoken by children in their home domains... proving the quality of language children are exposed to at home is crucial to linguistic competence and performance," wrote Ms Bonnici.

The case studies held similar insights into this relationship. Ms Bonnici looked at children such as Thomas, whose parents, despite their poor English, spoke to him in both languages. Even though he attends a private school, his English speech was as a result littered with Maltese interferences and literal translations.

On the other hand there was Clara, who speaks and is spoken to only in Maltese at home. Clara attends a Church school where the majority of her friends and teachers speak to her in English, and speaks very good English herself. Her parents, who do not, appeared to play no part in her acquisition of the language, noted Ms Bonnici.

The researcher singles Clara out as representing a potential "fluent bilingual" because she uses a different language in her two main domains - at school and at home - which means she does not get confused, especially with any "negative input" from parents.

Ms Bonnici suggests that in order for this quality of "simultaneous childhood bilingualism" to be possible, parents must either be masters of both languages, or each should be master of one of them. In the latter scenario, each parent would speak a separate language to the child, and many studies have claimed this method to be very effective.

"In cases where both parents are only proficient in one language, then they must... encourage the child to acquire the second language through some other domain."