Raising a Truly Bilingual Child
>But if a child grows up speaking that second language — Korean, say — with cousins and grandparents, attending a “Saturday School” that emphasizes the language and the culture, listening to music and even reading books in that language, and visits Korea along the way, that child will end up with a much stronger sense of the language.Did this from Kindergarten through 10th grade. "Saturday School" was a full program that followed the Japanese Ministry of Education's requirements for accreditation (since in my era, most students went back to Japan after their parents' 4-6 year stint in the US office). I do notice that my Japanese is stronger than that of my peers who stopped going to these schools at a much earlier age.>“A child who is learning two languages will have a smaller vocabulary in each than a child who is only learning one; there are only so many hours in the day, and you’re either hearing English or Spanish,” Dr. Hoff said.For me, this was a big problem since my English vocabulary remained quite weak compared to my peers all the way through high school (mainly because I had a strong preference for reading Japanese material at home). The general lack of confidence in a broad range of English skills is a long lasting effect that is orthogonal to my actual knowledge or skills.I'm a "true bilingual" but I don't know if I'd want my imaginary children to be the same. If you're committed to living in the States, maximizing your English skill is imo a better investment of finite cognitive resources. My personal feeling is that being highly proficient at English and being "okay" at a second language works out well, but at the same time I know many friends of Asian descent who are self conscious of their "child-like" use of their second language. A conundrum.