Colin Baker > Quotes

“When people talk about other cultures, they tend to describe the differences and not the similarities. • Differences between cultures are generally seen as threatening and described in negative terms. • Stereotyping is probably inevitable in the absence of frequent contact or study.”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism

“Parents who listen to their children read are engaging in a most valuable activity.”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism

“It is natural for a child or adult to have different identities in different contexts which change across time. Identities are about becoming rather than being. It is not only ‘who we are’ or ‘where we have come from’, but also ‘how we are represented’ and ‘what we might become’ and ‘what we cannot be’. Cultural, ethnic or language identity is often about making sense out of our past, present and future.”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism

“deriving from the research of Professor Jean-Marc Dewaele of Birkbeck College in the University of London, bilinguals and multilinguals appear in research to have higher levels of open-mindedness (being more receptive to new and different ideas and more broad-minded to the opinions of others), and of cognitive empathy (being able to understand another person's experiences and feelings and an ability to view the outside world from another person's perspective).”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism

“sayings, folk tales, family history, and funny and important incidents told by previous generations and the extended family. A self-made, treasured family book can be jointly produced. The past is celebrated in the present; the contemporary is engraved in the history of the child.”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism

“Vary what the child writes in the home: for example, helping to compose a shopping list, writing and rewriting a favourite family story together, writing a recipe to cook together later, keeping a diary, writing in a photo album that records family experiences, poetry, imaginative or personal stories, and writing jokes and cartoons.”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism

“It is often important that the anchor language is retained. The home language gives assurance and a feeling of security when there are stormy seas. Even if the child is slow in sailing in that language with progress delayed, it is the boat known to the child. Being forced to switch to the majority language will not make the journey faster or less problematic. It is more important to learn to sail in a familiar boat (the home language) in minority language situations.”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism

“The parent has been successful in providing the conditions for later growth. Not all flowers bloom early. Some flowers that bloom late in the summer, even in the autumn, retain all the beauty promised in the sowing of the seed.”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism

“Many reading skills (and attitudes) are simply transferred from one language to the next.”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism

“In the teenage years, ethnic differences may become increasingly conscious and considered. Overt and covert racial discrimination, racial abuse and harassment, colour, religion, dress and dietary differences surface to increasingly focus ethnic awareness, identity and inequity.”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism

“Children become socialized into the patterns of speaking that they hear others use. That includes both separating two (or more) languages and using both when this is acceptable.”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism

“Ethnic identity, for example, begins around three to five years of age.”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism

“When language is separated along divisions of different people, different contexts, even different times of the week or day, a child is learning that language compartmentalisation exists. Mixing may still occur early on, but boundaries enable a smooth transition to a stage where children keep their languages relatively separate.”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism

“C19: People make fun of our speaking a minority language. How should I react? It is often people who can't speak a second language who tend to poke fun at those who can speak two or three languages.”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism

“urge caution. Three areas of early literacy development are analyzed: experience with stories and book reading, concepts of print, and phonological”
― Colin Baker, Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism

“two”
― Colin Baker, Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism

“The advice too frequently given is that the home, minority language should be replaced by the majority language. Such an overnight switch may well have painful outcomes for the child. The mother tongue is denied, the language of the family is buried, and the child may feel as if thrown from a secure boat into strange waters. This solution is likely to exacerbate the problem.”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism

“Geographical isolation needs counteracting by creative means of communication to launch a language community. If there are self-doubts and derision by outsiders, there is strength to be gained from being part of a language community.”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism

“In teaching a child your native language, you are transmitting something about yourself, your heritage and the extended family.”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism

“It is important for speakers of a minority language to have high self-esteem. Minority speakers can form cohesive, self-confident networks which take pride in language vitality.”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism

“There may be occasional periods when the bilingual child seems a little behind the monolingual in learning a language. However, this lag is usually temporary. With sufficient exposure and practice, the bilingual child will go through the same language development stages as the monolingual child. Occasionally the speed of the journey may be slightly slower, but the route through the developmental stages is the same.”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism

“is important that such roles and resultant sub-identities integrate into a satisfactory harmonized whole. We need coherence and wholeness around those sub-identities.”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism

“If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn. If children live with hostility, they learn to fight. If children live with ridicule, they learn to be shy. If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty. If children live with tolerance, they learn to be patient. If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence. If children live with praise, they learn to appreciate. If children live with fairness, they learn justice. If children live with security, they learn to have faith. If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves. If children live with acceptance and friendship, they learn to find love in the world”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism

“C18: A child is autistic or has Asperger's syndrome. Should we use one language only with the child? Children diagnosed with a specific autism spectrum disorder have a greater or lesser degree of impairment in language and communication skills, as well as repetitive or restrictive patterns of thought and behaviour, with delays in social and emotional development. Such children use language in restricted ways, expecting much consistency in language and communication, and are less likely to learn through language. However, such children may experience the social and cultural benefits of bilingualism when living in a dual language environment. For example, such children may understand and speak two languages of the local community at their own level. Like many parents of children with language impairment, bilingualism was frequently blamed by teachers and other professionals for the early signs of Asperger's, and a move to monolingualism was frequently regarded as an essential relief from the challenges. There is almost no research on autism and bilingualism or on Asperger's syndrome and bilingualism. However, a study by Susan Rubinyi of her son, who has Asperger's syndrome, provides insights. Someone with the challenge of Asperger's also has gifts and exceptional talents, including in language. Her son, Ben, became bilingual in English and French using the one parent–one language approach (OPOL). Susan Rubinyi sees definite advantages for a child who has challenges with flexibility and understanding the existence of different perspectives. Merely the fact that there are two different ways to describe the same object or concept in each language, enlarges the perception of the possible. Since a bilingual learns culture as well as language, the child sees alternative ways of approaching multiple areas of life (eating, recreation, transportation etc.) (p. 20). She argues that, because of bilingualism, her son's brain had a chance to partly rewire itself even before Asperger's syndrome became obvious. Also, the intense focus of Asperger's meant that Ben absorbed vocabulary at a very fast rate, with almost perfect native speaker intonation. Further Reading: Rubinyi, S. (2006) Natural Genius: The Gifts of Asperger's Syndrome . Philadelphia & London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism

“The transmission of the parents’ heritage is best recounted in the mother tongue.”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism

“Parents can do three things to make reading active. (1) Elaborate and explain the text to the child. This extends and deepens the experience of the story. (2) Relate the story to the child's own experiences. An interest in reading and understanding the meaning of the text occur if there is ‘further information’ to personalize the text. (3) Ask questions to ensure the child understands the story, thinks about the characters and plot, and extends their imagination.”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism

“simply speaking the majority language will not cause a sudden change away from racism, discrimination and prejudice. Such negative attitudes by majority peoples tend to be based on anxieties about a different ethnic group, a fear of their economically privileged position being overturned, a fear of the unknown culture, and a fear about loss of political and economic power and status. Becoming monolingual majority language speakers does not change economic disadvantage nor racial prejudice. Bilingualism that includes a well-developed fluency and literacy in the majority language has the equal advantage of allowing potential access to different economic markets and employment, as well as retaining all that is good from the past. There is good reason for the family to become fluent in the majority language. This need not be at the cost of the first or minority language.”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism

“C18: A child is autistic or has Asperger's syndrome. Should we use one language only with the child?”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism

“When children come from language minority backgrounds, working towards integration between their two cultures and languages may require more emphasis on the minority language, particularly in the early years. To counterbalance the effect of the dominant majority language, there may need to be two objectives. First, ensuring the child feels secure and confident in the minority language and culture. Second, to ensure that the child is taught the advantages of biculturalism (see Glossary), the value of harmony between cultures and languages, and not taught that conflicting competition is the inevitable outcome of two languages and cultures in contact.”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism

“For example, there is transfer of: learning to recognize that letters mean sounds, making sense of words as parts and wholes, making sensible guesses at words given the storyline, understanding the meaning of sentences from a string of words and moving left to right (or right to left) across the page.”
― Colin Baker, A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism