Overview

1. OPOL – ML (majority-language is strongest)
2. OPOL – mL (support for minority-language)
3. Minority-Language at Home (mL@H)
4. Trilingual or multilingual strategy
5. Mixed strategy
6. Time and Place strategy
7. Artificial or ‘Non-Native’ strategy

As we can see there are several strategies to follow. In general most parents
choose one that is suitable and stick with it, although it may be adapted along the
way. No one strategy guarantees successful bilingualism and the strategies depend
very much on other factors such as the motivation of the parents and the language
of school and friendships.

The two OPOL approaches: OPOL – ML and OPOL –mL certainly both work and have their own advantages and disadvantages. Parents preferring using the country language together will be more integrated in their community and more able to cope with the school and homework. Parents using the minority-language together will support it more, which can be important with a rarer language that lacks input. Both approaches demand one bilingual parent, but usually those in OPOL – mL families are both bilingual.

The decision to follow a mL@H approach is a protective one and can be very effective, but it needs full co-operation of all the family and strict boundaries of language use inside and outside the home. This is more applicable to younger children as a way to boost early appreciation of one language before the community/
school language takes over.

Trilingual families are faced with the decision of which language to support, and being a bilingual couple they can alternate, but need to keep some language boundaries, especially with younger children. A mixed approach is probably better in the long run for trilingual families.

Mixed language use seems to be suitable for older children, able to keep up with rapid switches. The parental language of communication is hard to change from using a majority to minority-language too. So if it is not possible to communicate fully in the minority-language then a more mixed approach may be more suitable.

Finally, the strategies of Time and Place and Non-Native are more unusual. Time and Place can supplement other strategies effectively, but cannot work alone, or the language acquisition will be more like a foreign language and children can be confused by frequent changes of language. The Non-Native approach is a challenge and requires a great love of a language to work. It will never be the child’s first language, but can be successfully taught as a second one.