OPOL, ML@H, a bunch of (probably crappy) methods I invented, and questions for you more experienced folks from prospective parents

[acl1]

Hi!

My fiancée and I have always wanted our children to speak English and Spanish. She is the daughter of Mexican immigrants, I'm American, but lived in Central America for two years and picked up Spanish there.

She learned Spanish at home (she didn't speak any English till kindergarten but picked it up fluently). We both speak Spanish fluently or near-fluently in most aspects of the language, but we have our respective weaknesses. The thing is, learning the language in very different contexts means her strengths complement my weaknesses and vice versa.

In our talks about multilingual parenting, we initially settled on a ML@H approach (though I just learned this term today) where we would only speak to our kids in Spanish and let them learn English from school. However, in this community I see that OPOL is the most popular model. It also seems to have more research backing it than other methods (if anyone has a good synthesis of the research into different models, I'd love to see it).

I'm just wondering if anyone who was in a similar situation has any advice for an approach for us. OPOL seems great, but we/I've thought about other methods like:

1. TPTL v.1 (two parents, two languages)- I would speak Spanish one day, she would speak it the next. The hope being that our strengths cover for each other's weaknesses. Would this be confusing though?

2. TPTL v.2- we have an alternating schedule of English and Spanish. So, everyone speaks Spanish Mon-Wed-Fri-Sun-Tues-Thurs-Sat-Mon... My initial thoughts on the advantages of an approach like this would be that the whole family would be speaking the same language every day, so they overhear adult conversations in both languages too. Again, confusion could be a drawback?

3. OPOL, TPTL v.1, or TPTL v.2 till school then ML@H- English will be the dominant language, so this could be a way to maybe get the benefits of OPOL or the other two approaches but then reinforce the Spanish when they're getting exposed to more English.

4. Just going with OPOL or ML@H

Thoughts on the best approach for our circumstances? This might be getting a bit granular, but we want to pick an approach and stick with it before we have kids in the next couple of years. It's so important to us that they speak both languages/can interact well with both sides of their family.

Sorry this is so long lol.

 

[aldredian]

@acl1 OPOL is popular in this subreddit because most people here either has a spouse that doesn't speak the minority language, or both parents speak a different language that ISN'T the community language and has the desire to pass on both.

ML@H is a strategy that has worked for many immigrants. I mean, your wife is still fluent right? What strategy did she grow up with? I would hazard a guess it was ML@H.

I'm basically like your wife. I was born in Taiwan and my family moved to Australia when I was 6 years old. I picked up English relatively quickly and it's by far my strongest language and I consider it at this point as good as being my mother tongue.

But my parents stuck with ML@H. They insisted on Mandarin only and banned English effectively when interacting with family.

This was the same strategy my uncle used for his sons and the same for many of my parents' friends.

Not sure why you're saying there's no research backing. There should be because it's a very common tactic.

Anyways, ML@H worked for me. I am still fluent in Mandarin, so much so that most native speakers are very surprised when I tell them I grew up in Australia.

My personal advice is you do ML@H. Community exposure is strong. Just look at all the Asian Americans. Many have lost their heritage language because parents didn't stick to ML@H (often because they thought they need to worry about English). English will never be a worry for you.

Definitely don't do 3. There's a lot of pushback to switch language at 3. You'll regret it.

Why I advise against OPOL in your situation is because, many people who do OPOL usually have a spouse that only speaks community language and the headache for the minority speaking parent is constantly trying to to find ways to up exposure in the minority language. This is my headache. It's like playing whack a mole. I can tell my son is slowly but surely preferring English more and more but because our entire relationship is built on Mandarin, I can see he treats Mandarin a bit like a "comfort" language. But at the same time, I can see he is struggling more and more to express complex ideas in Mandarin. I'm really scared once he's at school and it's English most of the time and then he comes home to a dad that speaks English. It's just giving me a headache. I so wish my husband could speak Mandarin or at least understand enough so I can make the home environment only Mandarin.

So if you guys can do ML@H, do it. It is way more successful in my eyes because you just provide that much more exposure.

 

[godmadegorillas]

@acl1 It sounds to me like you're over complicating this whole thing haha why not have both of you speak to your kids in Spanish, and English/Spanish to each other? I think starting to speak to each other exclusively in Spanish would probably not feel natural so it may not last, but with kids you get to start fresh

 

[danielrobertson]

@acl1 For me and my (in)ability to be consistent at the least interruption of a schedule, any form of TPTL would be too complicated for me to ensure it would stick for more than a month, let alone several years.

I would be really realistic with yourselves about what is the most consistent path you can maintain. Staying completely in Spanish in the home would probably strongest in English, there are times when you need to speak English for the rapidity or depth of communication. But it’s definitely possible to communicate always with the kiddo in Spanish.

Your particular personalities and strengths will be different from others. If you both are super type A and can stick to a schedule, switching off days of who is speaking in Spanish might work for you.

I think OPOL tends to be popular because it’s not often that you have a couple with the same language overlap in this sub. But many immigrant families (like my own) do ML@H out of necessity. We’re not proficient enough in the TL to push it, and when it’s the majority language, we know our kids will learn it in school.

I will say that I’ve never been strict ML@H, but I think that may be common for many parents who are actively learning the majority language with their kids. These days, we’re a big old Spanglish mix up, though the kiddo does tend to stick to English when talking to me unless I stay in Spanish.

 

[santiago1975]

@acl1 You stated your situation very clearly. If the environment language is English, then they will learn it anyways. In fact, it will most probably end up being their dominant language. As I see it, your target language is Spanish. If you are both comfortable speaking Spanish to a level where you can have meaningful conversations, then you could try to speak in Spanish at home. Switching languages depending on the day might not work out quite easily. We tend to speak to certain people in certain languages.

El inglés ya lo aprenderán sí o sí de la escuela, la calle y el ambiente en el que crezcan. Lo que sus hijos van a necesitar es el apoyo y refuerzo en español. Sería ideal si pudieran también encontrar gente que los apoye y anime a hablar en español. ¡Saludos!

 

[longroad]

@acl1 I would nix your first and second ideas. There are times when a very structured approach like this is a good idea, but it’s almost invariably when families are trying to ensure there’s enough input in three or more languages.

OPOL is popular because it fits best with the highest number of families, not because it’s better than any other models.

Relax, you have an ideal environment for raising a child bilingually with relative ease (both parents being fluent in both languages).

If I were in your shoes, I would probably do ML@H, but you shouldn’t feel a need to lock in your plans now.

P.s. T&P (time and place) deserves a mention, too. That’s somewhere between ML@H and your 1st/2nd ideas. It involves always speaking the same language when doing a certain activity or in a certain place. An example of this would be waking your kids and having breakfast in English, speaking Spanish while cooking, playing at the park and telling stories in English, reading bedtime stories in Spanish, and singing lullabies in English. I wouldn’t really recommend this for your situation, just letting you know about another model some families follow.

 

[jprice63]

@longroad I agree with this answer. OPOL is prevalent simply because it's rare that both parents overlap in their native languages. Almost all OPOL families I know personally, one of whose at-home languages is the community language, have kids who start only speaking the community language to both parents, especially after they enter schooling in the community language. Only one family I know who does OPOL has kids speaking the minority-language parent's language to her, and that's because they went out of their way to get a minority-language nanny and also have the minority-language parent stay at home with the kids while the community-language parent is not around quite as much.

ML@H gives kids much more exposure to the target language and has a better chance of maintaining that as the language that the kids actually speak rather than merely understand. If I were you, I would not only do ML@H but also try to have kids regularly interact with nearby Spanish-speaking family and friends or look for a Spanish-language daycare. Their English will flourish without any extra effort from you and soon enough you will feel like you will have to defend your at-home Spanish against English becoming the language of the household once the kids enter English-language schooling.

 

[longroad]

P.p.s. Just to be clear, I wouldn’t recommend your “TPTL” ideas because I think it’s unnecessarily complicated for your situation, not because I think it would confuse your child.

 

[perilla]

@acl1 How much time will the kids spend with other native speakers of either language? We live in a Spanish speaking community so we focus on English at home. If she wasn't going to a Spanish speaking daycare 5 days a week, we might have needed to worry who will speak it to her.

 

[avalosrose]

@acl1 Switch to Spanish for your relationship and then it will be easy to keep up when kids come. We tried and failed at some of the methods you mentioned, ended up defaulting to English, and now it feels weird speaking Spanish all the time.

 

[godfavorme]

@acl1 Which strategy you use doesn't matter to the kids. Kids who are just barely learning to talk will use the wrong language or mix languages just because their vocabulary is limited and they want to get their point across. As they get older and more fluent in each language, they'll naturally limit code-switching to conversations with other multilinguals, and speak only one language to monolinguals. Confusion isn't really a concern. They just need enough exposure in each language to gain fluency, it doesn't matter that much where, when and with who it happens.

Where these strategies matter is with you, not your kids. Would that strategy help cue you to use the language often enough and in varied enough ways to develop fluency? Would it be burdensome or result in consistently poor-quality language exposure for your child? Consider what works for you, and make your plan based on that.