Getting Started with the OPOL Approach

Consistent Language Use at Home

Children need to form a strong parent-language link and have the security of knowing who speaks what. Therefore consistent language use is important in the .rst three years. Most parents make a decision either before the birth or soon after.
In fact about 80% of the parents in my study stuck to the same language strategy from birth onwards. Consistent language use means a child needs can hear a good quantity of each language and he or she can bond with a parent through language. For many families it is a 'natural' choice to follow some kind of OPOL approach, where each parent speaks his or her own language. Parents do need to think ahead to how much input they can actually give – which means quality time talking, singing and communicating with the baby or young child. Ideally they should consider the amount of minority-language and majority-language input used within the family and whether they wish to increase one language by living in that country or speaking it together.
In an extensive study looking at the success of the OPOL approach, Bruce Bain and Agnes Yu (1980: 305) tested eight-eight young children and their parents from Alsace, Alberta, Canada and Hong Kong. They compared monolingual and bilingual families and gave some 'tutoring' to selected families on how to effectively apply the OPOL approach. They also asked the minority-language-speaking parent to spend at least one hour a day (more at weekends) and 'engage the child in playtalk activities'. Bain and Yu noted how '. . . the practice of each parent dialoguing with their child in a distinct language apparently sensitises the child to the system as a whole'. They conclude that the OPOL parents did achieve bilingualism in the first three years if only they put in enough effort. Recent studies on bilingual babies and toddlers, aged eight months to two-and-ahalf years, acquiring languages simultaneously showed that the amount of language exposure was correlated to the amount of active vocabulary the child produced. Pearson, Fernandez, Lewedeg and Oller (1997), found that with 20% language exposure some active words develop but to have a balanced bilingual development 40–60% exposure is needed in each language. As many parents are busy working and simply don't have so much time with their children, there is a risk that language exposure be reduced. This can be counteracted by employing a nanny or au pair in the home, who speaks one of the languages, like Jules Ronjat who hired a German nanny for his son, Louis, or Charlotte Hoffmann who employed Spanish and German au-pairs in her trilingual family. This should ideally be in the minority language as this one is going to get less input. Or if the father is not around as much as the mother then having someone whom speaks his language can be a bene.t too. Parents can also choose language-linked childcare, like a nursery or extra activities like dance classes to give extra exposure to one language or perhaps they could even.

Getting Advice and Increasing Exposure to One Language

I asked parents to about how they helped their children to be bilingual in practical ways. Many parents said they needed some advice when getting started and nearly all of the families read books or searched the internet. Some other practical ways they used to meet other parents in the same position and share advice were email lists, join or even set up minority-language playgroups and talking to other families in the same situation. The top ten ways to help a child become bilingual and increase input in one language were:

1. Reading books for bilingual families.
2. Surfing the internet and websites for information on bilingualism.
3. Subscribing to bilingual family email lists.
4. Subscribing to The Bilingual Family Newsletter or another newsletter for bilingual families.
5. Meeting other bilingual or minority-language families at local support groups where a parent can use his or her language socially (such as a mother-and-child playgroup).
6. Asking family and friends for advice.
7. Asking other bilingual families for advice.
8. Asking bilingual colleagues at work for advice.
9. Enrolling child for classes, such as sport or dance, where minority-language is used.
10. Having a subscription to a comic/book club for minority-language material. More information on relevant books, internet sites and newsletters can be found at the end of the book.