Since 2009, researchers from Utrecht Institute of Linguistics, Sharon Unsworth, Manuela Pinto and Ivana Brasilero, have been holding regular workshops on the topic of bilingualism and bilingual children. At the moment, the next event is planned for January 2012.

Ever wondered whether learning two languages confuses children? When learning a second language, does an early start always guarantee success? How early is early enough? These are just some of the questions touched upon in this first of a series of public lectures from a team of researchers at Utrecht University. In three short talks, Ivana Brasileiro, Manuela Pinto and Sharon Unsworth provide a whistle-stop tour of some of the most recent research results on bilingual language acquisition, including from the Utrecht institute of Linguistics lab.

Learning how to speak is a very complicated task. Imagine landing in an alien country and finding yourself among speakers of a completely unfamiliar language. You can’t even tell what is a word, let along understand what they are saying! This is exactly the situation for babies when they start learning to speak. Luckily, babies are equipped with a set of very sophisticated tools that enables them to master their language within a short time span. Recent studies have shown that infants are able to acquire detailed information about their language’s properties only by listening to speech. As a matter of fact, the language learning process starts in the womb! This means that even immediately after birth, infants already have some knowledge of the language spoken by their mother during pregnancy. They will even prefer to listen to this language as opposed to others. What about bilingual babies? Will they have to do the same thing twice (or three times), for each of their languages? And will this take them twice the time? Why (not)? In the first talk, Ivana Brasileiro briefly explains the steps taken by bilingual infants when learning how to speak their native languages, the importance of speech perception in language acquisition, and the consequences of this for bilingual acquisition.

“Don’t bother with two languages – you’ll confuse your child!” This response is heard all too often when parents ask whether they should raise their children bilingually. It is often thought that children may become confused with two different languages and end up not speaking either of them properly with serious consequences for their language development and how they function at school. Concern about confusion in children growing up with two languages isn’t a recent development. In fact, whether or not children develop their two languages separately was one of the first issues addressed by research into the linguistic development of bilingual children. In the second talk of the evening, Manuela Pinto guides us through some of the research on this topic, answering questions such as: How do bilingual children deal with their two languages? Are they able to keep them apart in their brain? And if they occasionally mix them, should we worry? This talk gives an overview of what research has discovered so far in order to sort out what are just myths and what are the facts.

Ask someone when the best time is to start learning a second language and they’ll inevitably say the earlier the better, but while this might be true when it comes to comparing children with adults, it’s not clear whether starting earlier to learn a second language earlier in childhood will inevitably lead to better results than starting later on in childhood. In the final talk, Sharon Unsworth presents results from the Early Child Bilingualism project (http://ecb.childbilingualism.org) addressing exactly this question. In a large-scale study of over 200 bilingual English/Dutch children, she shows that how much contact a child has with the language can matter just as much – and sometimes more – than the age at which you start learning that language.

The event concludes with the launch of our new website, growingupbilingual.org, a new resource bringing together the best of the internet for parents raising their children with two or more languages in the Netherlands and beyond.


When?  January 31 2012, from 19:00 to 22:00 
Where? Utrecht, Academiegebouw, Maskeradezaal

Who? This session is intended for parents, educators, expats, speech language therapists, trainee teachers and anyone with a general interest in bilingualism and bilingual children.

If you attended one of our previous workshops, we want to draw your attention to the fact that the presentation content will be different from previous events, so do please come along!