SOME GPs and teachers are discouraging immigrant parents in Ireland from speaking their native languages to their children.
According to Francesca La Morgia of Bilingual Forum Ireland, such discouragement has “no scientific basis” but is being communicated to immigrant parents by extended family members, neighbours, teachers and GPs.
La Morgia said she has come across a number of instances where family doctors had warned against bilingualism.
“Parents asked for advice from GPs, thinking they would also be familiar with language development,” she said. “In one case the GP heard the mother speak to the child in Spanish and told her that she was harming him and that she should stop doing that to her child.”
The language activist added that parents in Ireland may be discouraged from bringing up their children bilingually due to suggestions that the minority language is not as “useful” as English, or because they are afraid that speaking two or more languages to children may cause confusion.
But she said research has shown that children are “perfectly capable” of engaging in two or more languages simultaneously.
“Moreover, bilingualism gives children general cognitive advantages in the areas of memory and attention, as well as the ability to easily learn additional languages.”
La Morgia acknowledged that keeping the mother tongue alive – and transmitting it to children – requires parents to be “strongly motivated”, and that there is a lack of State support in this regard.
Presently, no nationally organised programmes support minority languages in Ireland, she pointed out.
However, she added that community-based initiatives such as language playgroups and Saturday schools have developed, allowing children to be exposed to the minority language by interacting with their peers.
Two new multilingual family support groups have recently been created in Cork and Dublin, she said.
“The emergence of these projects stresses the fact that there is need for more support for minority languages in Ireland and also for information on multilingualism. Other European countries already have established several projects to promote minority languages,” said La Morgia.
The language promoter added that while some newly-arrived children with poor English would need extra language support through specified professionals, linguistic diversity in schools can be “a great learning opportunity”.
Over 160 languages are believed to be spoken in Ireland.
For further information on Bilingual Forum Ireland, contact info@bilingualforumire-land.com
