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Path: utzoo!watmath!saquigley
From: saquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley)
Newsgroups: net.kids,net.nlang
Subject: Re: Teaching children to be bilingual
Message-ID: <9541@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 23-Oct-84 13:53:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: watmath.9541
Posted: Tue Oct 23 13:53:08 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 24-Oct-84 03:38:04 EDT
References: <1505@ucla-cs.ARPA>, <858@ihuxb.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 20

My parents unsuccessfully tried to raise me as bilingual.  My mother is
french, my father english and I grew up in a french environment.  Their
main mistake was not to try to get me to speak english from the start.
They decided I should be bilingual when I was 4 at which time my father
decided to speak only english to me (he had been speaking french before)
and i resisted all his attempts to teach me by refusing to speak english
(I don't know why, but I remember understanding what he told me).  He
eventually gave up.

Anyway, that was a complete failure.  I guess you are all wondering why
I am posting this in english if it was such a failure.  Well, we did
move to Canada eventually and I learned english in school as well as on
the streets.  I still speak to my father in french, except for his
birthday when he gets a special treat.

All this to say that one thing that MUST be done is to start as soon
as the child is learning otherwise s/he will probably not be interested.

Sophie Quigley
...!{clyde,ihnp4,decvax}!watmath!saquigley