Maximize Your Child's Bilingual Ability by Adam Beck

Author:Adam Beck [Beck, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9784908629006
Publisher: Bilingual Adventures
Published: 2016-04-15T22:00:00+00:00

Principle 7: Match Your Action to Your Aim

No matter how carefully you plan your goals, they will never be more than pipe dreams unless you pursue them with gusto. —W. Clement Stone

Occasionally I’m criticized about my efforts to raise bilingual children. I’m accused of pushing myself and my kids too hard. “Even if you didn’t work so hard at this,” goes the quick conclusion, “I bet your kids would still be bilingual.”

I understand what prompts such remarks, because, on the surface, this might seem to be true. But if we dig deeper, we’ll find a key principle that mustn’t be casually overlooked:

The level of your efforts must match the size of your challenges and the scale of your aim.

Let’s break this down, beginning with your aim.

Your aim

Your goal for your child’s minority language—from passive ability to full fluency in all skill areas, comparable to a monolingual child of that language—is completely up to you. I’m happy to support any realistic aim that suits your family, and I make no claim that your goal should be the same as mine.

My own aim happens to be high: Because I’m a writer, and literacy is at the heart of my life, my goal for my children’s ability in English is native-like proficiency in both oral communication and the written language.

Your challenges

Meanwhile, you must take a frank look at your challenges. Each family’s circumstances are distinctly different, and the level of difficulty you face in achieving your aim is inherently based on these particular conditions. For instance, if you have access to schooling in the minority language—let’s say your child is fortunate to attend a dual-language school in your two languages—well, this situation will naturally make it much easier to achieve a higher aim than if the child has little opportunity for exposure in the second language.

As I’ve mentioned, the fact that I’ve worked from home for much of my children’s young lives is a central advantage for me, presenting more opportunity to provide them with exposure in the minority language. At the same time, the basic challenges of my situation have been large and formidable throughout this journey.

Your efforts

Thus, the strength of your efforts must effectively meet the size of your challenges in order to reach the scale of your aim. If my challenges were smaller, or my goal was lower, then yes, I wouldn’t need to be so proactive. But that’s not the case. The hard reality is: Because my challenges are large, yet my aim is high, I must be very proactive, day after day, year after year, or this goal won’t be fulfilled to the degree I hope. This is the plain and unavoidable truth.

Unfortunately, it isn’t unusual for parents to hold a high aim, and face large challenges, but misjudge the level of effort required to produce the desired result. In such cases, there’s a mismatch between action and aim: The level of the action taken isn’t sufficient for fostering the level of the aim sought.

Higher odds of success

Of course, I empathize with the busy lives of minority language parents.

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