Working with multilingual families

Raising your Bilingual Child – parent workshops

In this 90-minute workshop, we will look at how a bilingual child ‘operates’ at a cognitive level with two or more languages and how parents can ensure that all languages are well developed, even when there is one language which might be dominating. Every family’s situation/context  is unique and we will spend time exploring how this might impact the child’s language and emotional development as well as their sense of identity.

We will talk about the common myths around bilingualism and answer many of the common questions parents have:

• Is it confusing for my child to have all these languages?
• Should I prioritise the language(s) of the school/community?
• Should I make my child respond to me in my language?
• Do bilinguals take longer to speak?
• How can I help my child with their (English) homework?
• When should they learn to read/write in the home language(s)?
• I don’t understand/speak my partner’s language. How should we use our languages in the home?

The workshop is interactive and practical, but is rooted in research around multilingualism and based on Susan Stewart’s experience in living and working in schools all over the world, was well as raising her own bilingual children.