Your kids: What will their language of eloquence be?

Taiwan Parenting
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Of course with all the bicultural families being formed in Taiwan, there will be a plethora of kids who will be fluent in English AND Mandarin - and maybe more. I am curious though, about what parents want their kids’ “language of eloquence” to be, and what they are doing/will do to ensure that.

A “language of eloquence” is a term I coined, because I believe that fluency alone doesn’t necessarily connote eloquence. In fact, many monolingual kids grow up without a language of eloquence just because their parents or the education system failed to provide them with the necessary skills. I believe that a language of eloquence is important. I also think that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to be eloquent in two different languages - no need to point out the exceptions - I’m sure there are many, but they would be scarce in number compared to those who have fluency in two languages but eloquence in only one.

I can communicate well in Mandarin, but eloquence is still a long ways off. In English, however, I can write a letter to the editor, I can whisper sweet nothings in my lover’s ear, I can edit a term paper, and I can argue at length why someone should vote for Candidate A instead of Candidate B. (Well, I could if I could find a candidate I gave a damn about.)

For my daughter, safe for another three months in her mother’s womb, I wish eloquence in English, and fluency in Mandarin, rather than the other way around. There are several reasons for this: First, English is my language of eloquence, and I hope to be able to talk deeply with my children about things as they are growing up. Second, English is one of Canada’s official languages, and my daughter will be Canadian. Third, English is still the international language, and while fluency in it is a prerequisite for many jobs, eloquence in it is often necessary for even greater opportunities. Fourth, eloquence in Taiwan doesn’t seem to be as highly valued as smart-ass remarks, grand-standing, or “putting on a show” seem to be. Fifth, eloquence in women doesn’t seem to be highly-valued in Taiwan. In fact, many Taiwanese men seem to be intimidated by a woman who speaks about a topic with any degree of intelligence.

How do I hope to give my children the gift of eloquence? Through reading, books, minimal tv time, and education in English, starting in the 3rd or 4th grade. I went to Taipei European School the other day to visit an old friend who works there, and I was mightily impressed with what’s going on there. They seem to be doing a phenomenal job. My former boss’s son attends TES also, and he can’t say enough good things about the place. Anyway, that’s my plan for now. Things may very well change for us yet. We’ll see.

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I assume your child will go to Chinese school as a primary base for education. Backed up with English school and the education you can provide at home.

I hate to say, but the surroundings will play a big role in what will happen in your child’s head. Being in Taiwan, I would assume that the easy path would be to have eloquence in Mandarin, and high fluency in English; given that the father’s mother tongue is English.

It’s a good topic you have here, IMO. At the risk of sounding critical, I think that you expect a lot of your child to excell in English while growing up in a country where people speak Mandarin and Taiwanese. Perhaps the best way to achieve this would be to live somewhere else for a decade or so.

I consider mysef almost bilingual. I say almost because I am still learning English, however I feel like I’m losing my French. The thing is, I have not lost my French, but it seems it’s on the back shelves of my memory and the words sometimes don’t come up when I need them.

It’s a matter of thought process, IMO. What language will your child think with? I thought in French for the first 20 years of my life. It took about 2 years for my thought process to change to English. I have not been thinking in French ever since except when needed, ie: phone calls or visits back to Quebec. I have had dreams in English where my mother talks to me in English, yet, in reality, she doesn’t know a word of English.

Living in Taiwan and going to a Chinese school, having a Mandarin speaking mother, your child will naturally develop a tendency to think in Chinese. And that’s my point. Your child will develop eloquence in the language that corresponds with his/her thought process.

To expect your child to become more eloquent in a language that neither coincide withs his/her surroundings and thought process is a lot to ask, IMO.

In brief, my opinion is that reaching eloquence in English isn’t impossible at all for your child given that you speak English yourself, but considering that your child will be living in Taiwan, you should expect eloquence in Mandarin first, either you like it, or not.

Back when I lived in Alberta, I lived with a bunch of Quebecers, still, the time I spent at home speaking French wasn’t enough to help my thought process from not slowly becoming English. Everywhere I went, people spoke English.

I am not a parent, but I have experienced going from one language to another. Once my thought process became English, that’s when I really started to learn the language. I’m not very eloquent just yet, and I unfortunetely couldn’t possibly go near eloquence in French anymore. :s

Using a different languages daily can really help your ability to gain eloquence, or to lose it. If your child is going to live in Taiwan, wouldn’t you want him/her to be eloquent in the local language anyways? On the other hand, if you plan to eventually move back to America, you child would soon begin to think English and from there the improvements in eloquence would be easily observable.

Either way, kids who can speak both English and Mandarin have a headstart in terms of opportunities. Lucky kids!

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bobepine brings up very good points. I’m in Canada and go to a Cantonese language church. I see plenty of parents who try to maintain their children’s Chinese language skills. But most kids simply do not even end up with fluency let alone eloquence. I would hazard a guess that only about 10% of immigrant kids end up being fluent in their parents’ tongues and obviously, much much less end up being eloquent, making them those exceptions that you point to.

English is my third language but also my best language. But ever since getting married and speaking no English at home, I’ve noticed that my English has taken a backslide despite living in an English speaking society. Words that used to come easily are now stuck at the tip of the tongue. This is similar to what is happening to bobepine and his French. However, my Chinese has gotten a lot better. :slight_smile: The point is that unless a language is used often in a variety of settings (meaning much more than just parent-child conversations), eloquence will be difficult to come by.

You can look at Hong Kong as an example of where English is the primary language in school yet Cantonese is the primary language of society. I don’t think anyone would argue that most HKers are lacking in English fluency and only an elite few reach eloquent stature.

For me personally, being still in Canada for now, I would consider myself to be extremely blessed if my sons could grow up being fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese, something that I’m still struggling with myself. English fluency is a given; English eloquence will really depend on themselves to a greater extent. A basic proficiency in French is hoped for since it’ll be part of their curriculum.

If I were you, I’d scale back those expectations on eloquence. It is a skill that is most eloquently summed up in a Chinese idiom – 可遇不可求 ke3yu4bu4ke3qiu2.

All the best with your soon-to-be brand new daughter.

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I had the pleasure of spending time with a customer from Utah last week and this story will relate, just give it a moment. He is a Mormon and did his time in Argentina where he did the Mormon language total involvment thing for 2 months in Spanish and then his 2 year stint.

He is 37 y.o. with an English speaking wife, the amazing thing is that he has talked to his 3 children in Spanish right from the start. They are in senior school now and don’t give their second language a second thought because they are completely fluent. Better than their Dad in fact.

Other side of the coin is my cousin in France who has a 5 y.o. She is from Sydney, Australia and moved to France some 10 years ago. She has made the terrible mistake of speaking French at home. The little blighter doesn’t understand a word of English. My daughter had to use her school French to communicate with him when they visited and we went to the Melbourne Zoo together.

What a contrast between these two families.

It is obviously essential that mixed language families strictly stick to a single language for each parent to give the children the gift of multiple languages. It may be possible for the parents to mix the languages but as far as I understand the situation the parents must stick to their chosen language when communicating with the children. Can anyone confirm this is correct?

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I believe this is correct. It certainly makes sense, in any event.

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I’ve read differeing opinons on the last point. Some say that you shouldn’t introduce a second language to a child until they are 3 or 4. Others, including the American Pediatrics Association, beleive that if you are a multi-lingual family you should use both languages regulaly in the home and the child will pick them both up eventually.

Not sure which one I buy, but our daughter is getting closer and closer to speaking and I keep wondering which language she iwll develop first, and how long it will take her to develop both fluently. My wife and I seak English in the home, thogh my wife will sopeak in Chinese sometimes to our daughter and sing to her in her native toungue too. However, our daughter also has a Taiwanese babysitter, which is all Chinese. When we are with the relatives it is all Taiwanese. I fear because her exposure will never match her exposure to Chinese or Taiwanese here, he English proficiency will lag. I have a student in one of my classes who is half American half Taiwanese, and her English level is no different, even worse than some of the native children in my classroom.

To get back on point, I, of course, hope for my daughter to become an “eloquent” speaker of English. I’ll accept fluency I suppose, but I would like her proficiency to go above that. Furthermore, I also want her to have the same language skills in Chinese. I feel both languages will be very important in the future economy, so raising her with one of these lagging behind would be a mistake in itself. I’m also a realist, and understand that learning Chinese is a very intense process, which she would have to go to a Taiwanese school to learn, so English language learning would be tough to keep up at the same time.

So, Maoman, to get what we want for our children is going to be a lot of work on our part. We are the teachers and the native speakers. Our kids, because they will be learning 2 languages simotaneously will have to work twice as hard. So will we. Days at public school, afterschool English school, and homeschooling with dad. The price of eleoquence I’m afraid. Man, parenting is hard.

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[quote=“jwbrunken”]I’ve read differeing opinons on the last point. Some say that you shouldn’t introduce a second language to a child until they are 3 or 4. Others, including the American Pediatrics Association, beleive that if you are a multi-lingual family you should use both languages regulaly in the home and the child will pick them both up eventually.

Not sure which one I buy…[/quote]

I read some studies back when our boy was an infant and we chose to speak to our boy in our respective first languages… right from the start. That is, we didn’t introduce one language first and then another later. My boy never had difficulty separating the two languages, and I have heard many mixed-race couples say the exact same about their children. Its uncanny, actually… my boy even when just a toddler never spoke Chinese to my parents and never spoke English to my wife’s parents. They understand.

Whatever the studies say, it makes clear sense to me that each parent speak his or her native language to the child from the start. Studies… blah… look at the empirical evidence around you… in homes where the family speaks both Mandarin and Taiwanese, the children grow up speaking both Mandarin and Taiwanese. Where only one language is spoken at home, the child speaks only one language.

Look at children in places like Belgium and Switzerland… where multiple languages are spoken, multiple languages are learned. Many Africans also speak multiple languages fluently.

I have read that one language should be primary and the other secondary in terms of sooner and later introductions… I have also read that where both languages are introduced from the start, the child will be a bit behind his/her monolingual peers… for a while… but, as an adult, he or she will be fluently bi-lingual.

My boy went to Taiwanese schools for the past 8 years (and kindy, too)… he just this semester transferred to one of the American (International) schools, and he is doing fine with the English. Sure, his English proficiency is a bit behind some of the other kids who have been going to the school since kindy… but not very far behind. His school also teaches Chinese (Mandarin), and he is by far the best speaker/reader/writer in the school (even though most of the kids are (foreign passport-holding) Taiwanese. He has to do independent study for his Mandarin because they don’t even have a text book that will challenge him.

I strongly suggest that you use both languages equally (as equally as possible) from the start, and that each parent speak only his/her native language to the child. The earlier the better, IMO… and not only IMO… just look around at the many examples here in Taiwan and think of the places where people are multilingual… they start learning very young and are exposed to multiple languages and are given opportunities to use the languages… they say a window of optimum language acquisition opens for humans… that window is open most widely from age 0 to 12… after that, language acquisition becomes more difficult as we are not “wired” neurologically for new languages after then.

Last point… we never sent our kid to any buxiban. I read and spoke English with him as a child and we sent him home to stay with my folks back in the USA for the summers. That was very helpful in keeping his English up.

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Good thread.

The little thai princess headed off to her first day of school here in HK this morning amid great anxiety from me about her relatively poor English. Amazing little kid though, she insists on using her albeit limited vocab with me to the full extent while mostly speaking Thai with her mother.

Here in Hk I’m not at all interested in her learning Cantonese, though I notice that among the kids here that happens. What I am determined for her is that she learn to write well in English and Thai, and if possible, Chinese. She’s attending an Enghlish school that offers mandarin, but the kids are a veritable UN with the playground lingua franca a mix of Canto and English. Most of the kids I’ve met are trilingual, but I do worry at just how eloquent they are in any one language, certainly I believe they’re writing suffers.

HG

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After suffering thru 2+ years of me in the household the young cowboy (just started 6th grade) has become amazingly adept at my fractured English/HillBilly/Texican/gibberish/Spanish/Viet babblings.
He started out in Mando with his Mother and now he can argue with both of us simultaneously in which ever language gives him the upper hand.
Fascinating to hear him tell me - “Sin Loi Tio mio…that dog juss won’t hunt.”

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[quote=“TainanCowboy”]
Fascinating to hear him tell me - “Sin Loi Tio mio…that dog juss won’t hunt.”[/quote]

Sin loi, GI! :laughing:

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[quote=“Doctor Evil”][quote=“TainanCowboy”]
Fascinating to hear him tell me - “Sin Loi Tio mio…that dog juss won’t hunt.”[/quote]Sin loi, GI! :laughing:[/quote]There it is… :sunglasses:

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I believe this is correct. It certainly makes sense, in any event.[/quote]

My wife (Taiwanese) and I (English) use our native languages to talk to our 2.5yo daughter, she gets on just fine and talks to me in mostly English and the wife Chinese. As my wife stays at home and takes care of our daughter at this point her Chinese is better. Introducing both languages right from the start is best in my opinion.

As much as you want to select the stronger language, I feel the environment will mainly determine which that is, although as a family we speak English, while I am not at home our daughter is exposed to a Chinese environment. Reading at bedtime helps balance things somewhat…

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I see this discussion taking a turn towards fluency, which was not my intention.

Tigerman, which language do you see your son becoming eloquent in? What language would he be more comfortable writing a 7 page book report in? What language would he use to best effect to describe his anger, love, confusion, or any other emotion?

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[quote=“Connel”]
As much as you want to select the stronger language, I feel the environment will mainly determine which that is,…[/quote]That’s what I think, too.

I’m not sure I agree that it’s important for both parents to speak their native language when speaking to the child. That has implications, and sometimes drawbacks as well.

Which parent will spend the most time with the child is a big implication. If for example dad spends the day at work and mom stays at home for the first few years, then it’s clear that the mother’s language will be acquired quicker. The other implication is what language is used by the parents when they talk to each other. This brings us back to Tigerman’s point when he strongly insists that balance between both languages in terms of exposure is very important. This said, there is the exposure at home which as mentioned varies depending which parent spends the most time with the child, and then there’s the environment which IMO is the biggest exposure for the child.

In other words, if you want your child to become bilingual, it’s a matter of trying to balance the child’s exposure to both languages.

I think that for a child growing up in Taiwan, the exposure to Mandarin and Taiwanese is very strong and in order to balance that, both parents would have to speak English at home or else you may be disapointed when your child’s ability in Chinese quickly evolve to being far better than his/her ability in English.

By doing so, the drawback is that the child may not have the same level of fluency in Chinese as other native children when comes time to go to school. Not to worry IMO, since children learn fast and once completely immersed in a Chinese environment(school), they will pick it up very quickly.

There is also a drawback to exposing a young infant to two languages. This drawback is common, yet doesn’t apply to every child as some learn faster than others. What it is is that your child may be retarded in his/her ability to speak. It may take up to a year longer before the child is able to say complete sentences. This can be worrisome for a while and may even involve visits to specialists to make sure that the child is developping normally. Aside from the worries a parent may have when a young child is late in his/her language development, it’s not a big deal. Once the child starts speaking, then he/she catches up quickly. In other words, it takes more time for the child to seperate both languages and understand that they are different, but once the child figures that out, the learning process levels off to a normal pace, yet with two languages at once.

To conclude, I think that if you are going to live in Taiwan, best is to speak English only at home. Something that may be difficult to accept for the Chinese speaking parent. However, with patience and determination, I think that the child would greatly benefit from this balance in terms of exposure. Chinese everywhere, but English at home. Yet, I don’t think that’s enough for your child to maintain an English thought process, especially as he/she becomes older. Chinese high school buddies, Chinese music, Chinese school, Chinese family, Chinese everything!

In other words, you have a lot of work maximising your child’s exposure to English to balance things out in a predominently Chinese environment. Summer holidays with some folks back in America/England, etc, is a great way to help that, IMO.

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[quote=“Maoman”]I see this discussion taking a turn towards fluency, which was not my intention.
[/quote]All the same no? Fluency comes before eloquence. So if a certain approach favors fluency, it also favors eloquence, I think.

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I’d have to guess English, because he has just left the Chinese school system and the remaining years of his schooling will each be in English. Moreover, once he goes to high school in the US, his environment will be virtually an all English one, with the only exceptions being the couple of Chinese restaurants in town.

At this point in time, definitely Chinese.

Again, at this point in time and stage of development, he would be more comfortable and competent expressing these feelings in Chinese, especially if he were writing. If he were speaking, however, he would only be a bit less comfortable expressing these feelings in English. I think that in time his English writing and speaking competency will improve and surpass his competency in Chinese.

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Children learn languages by imitating. Why would I want my child to imitate my poor Chinese or my wife’s poor English?

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[quote=“bobepine”][quote=“Maoman”]I see this discussion taking a turn towards fluency, which was not my intention.
[/quote]
All the same no? Fluency comes before eloquence. So if a certain approach favors fluency, it also favors eloquence, I think.[/quote]
No, it’s not all the same. As I stated in my original post, I believe that fluency in two languages is common and non-remarkable in bicultural families. Eloquence in two languages is, in my experience, a very rare occurrence. I understand that some parents are concerned with establishing fluency in two different languages, but that is not the topic of my discussion. I’m interested in how parents are determing the language of eloquence, why they chose the language they did, and what steps they are taking to get their kids there.

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[quote=“Maoman”]I see this discussion taking a turn towards fluency, which was not my intention.
[/quote]

Yeah, I gone and done it. I just figured it was slightly off topic and still relevant to the overall discussion. I have a slight passion on the subject after seeing it stuffed up by a few people.

I guess its time for the old tied up with barb wire and staked out on the anthill thing again.

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To clarify, it isn’t necessary that the child be exposed to equal amounts of each language. It is important, however, that whenever the child is exposed to either language, in whatever amounts, that he/she be exposed to correctly spoken language.

That’s if you want the language acquisition to develop at the same rate. That might be ideal, but, I don’t think its practical, due to the strong influence of environment.

I disagree. The goal, IMO, should be for both languages to be developed (learned) correctly, rather than at the same rate. Having both parents speak Chinese (or English) when one parent is not proficient in the spoken language gives the child an incorrect model to imitate.

There is nothing wrong with the child being stronger in one language than in another. Most of us adults here only began learning Chinese at a late age, relative to our children. My son’s Chinese is already better than mine ever will be, and his foundation in English is strong enough that he will be able to develop his proficiency in the years to come.

Yes. And its even better the other way. That is, when going from Chinese school to a school that uses English as the language of instruction, children quickly become more proficient in English… I believe that because English is not based on rote memorization of tones and writing, English is easier to learn than is Chinese. I’m happy that my son had the opportunity to learn correct tones and to write and recognize characters… English will be easier.

It may be worrisome, but, it will not be very important when at the age of 25 the child is fluent in two languages, even if he/she was slower in both than monolingual children were during their time of language development.

Yes.

Yes. Except, I have seen little, if any evidence that children mix up the languages.

I disagree, because the Chinese speaking parent should not be speaking poor English to the child.

If the balance is really weighted one way, yes, it will be difficult. But, if the English speaking parent makes a point of conversing only in English at home and out with the child, a good foundation in English will be obtained. It isn’t necessary for the non-English speaking parent to provide an incorrect model for the child to imitate.

Yes, summers back home with grandparents and cousins are invaluable in this regard.