Last week, I posted a question to our Facebook page asking parents who use the mL@H method to raise their children bilingual to share some of the difficulties they’ve encountered with it. I wanted to write a post around those answers based on some of my own difficulties with the method. But then, one of the parents asked what mL@H stands for and I figured I needed to step back a bit.
Inadvertently, I assumed everyone who’s raising bilingual children knows what acronyms like mL@H, OPOL (one parent/one language) and T&P (time and place) stand for. Maybe it’s because we throw them around here all the time or because I’m so used to them ever since we started this journey nearly four years ago. But the truth is that it’s always good to go back to the basics.
If you’re new here, you might find this information useful. If you’re not, then maybe you can share your experiences using the particular method you use to raise your kids bilingual.
Minority Language at Home (mL@H)
It’s no secret that when I embarked in the journey of raising bilingual kids, I had no idea that the “method” I planned to use had a name. Making sure my children spoke both Spanish and English was not something I decided to do once I became a mom. No. For my husband and I, there was no other option but to raise our kids bilingual because we need to ensure they grow up speaking Spanish. Since Spanish is our first language, it seemed completely logical to us that we’d be speaking Spanish at home and we’d let them learn English in school.
In essence, that’s the definition of the mL@H method. Parents speak the minority language — the one that the community at large doesn’t speak — at home while their kids learn the majority language (in our case English) elsewhere, usually in school. The interesting thing about this method is that although it says that we use the minority language at home, the reality is that we actually use it everywhere whenever we are with our kids. In other words, it’s really has nothing to do with the place where you use the minority language.
Another amusing observation, at least in my case, is that because my kids spent the first three years of their lives strictly at home — as opposed to at a daycare setting — Spanish was actually their majority language until they were introduced to English in preschool.
Read: 3 Methods to Raise Bilingual Children
Either way, the mL@H method has worked extremely well for my family… so far. At 6 years old, Vanessa is bilingual and is doing great in her non-bilingual school. She has no problems going from one language to the other, but it seems to me like she has a preference for Spanish. At 3 years old, Santiago is just starting his bilingual journey and I see him following his sister’s progress.
It’s important to point out that neither you nor your partner have to be native speakers of the minority language you’ll be using to raise your children bilingual. In other words, as long as you are both fluent in the minority language – which in this country is anything other than English – this method will work for you.
Now that I’ve explained what the mL@H method is, soon I’ll be sharing some of the disadvantages or difficulties I’ve encountered with it. Can you share some of yours?
My parents raised me with the Minority Language at Home method (I didn’t even know this had a name!) and it worked well with me. I need to work with my husband and doing this in our own home before we plan to have a child. He’s not very fluent in Spanish and we could both use the practice.
Raquel, most people who use it don’t even know it has a name! If you know it worked well with you, then you have all the proof you need for when you have a child! It’s so awesome that you’re already thinking about that!
I think we would be mL@H since my husband and I each speak a minority language to the kids 100% of the time. The problem for me has been alienating our new neighbors. Our former neighbor (and still friend) had a bilingual family, and even though they spoke a different language from ours, everyone seemed okay with not understanding everything all the time. Maybe monolinguals are more uncomfortable with the different languages.
I think you are correct, we have friends who speak other minority languages at home and they have no problem being around while we speak Spanish to our son, but our monolingual friends squirm and try to guess at what we are saying to him, which is usually normal stuff like put your shoes on. Someone should do research on that…..Does being bilingual make you more open to or comfortable with people speaking other languages that you don’t know?
So interesting, Susan! I’ve never stopped to think about it, but I know it’s definitely true in my case. I’ve never been bothered by those who speak other languages. In fact, whenever I see that, especially if it’s a mom or dad with his kids, I get real happy because that means they’re most probably passing on their mother tongue to the little ones!
Maybe you can write about this topic of alienation? I think it’s definitely worth exploring…
we are raising our child in brasil, my husband speaks french and i speak spanish… the most natural think to do was to talk to our daughter in our own languages… so… naturaly, she is five now, speaks spanish, french and portugues. no much work.
just being natural she got that naturally and now she’s learning english at home.
any time she meets someone she automatically changes the language or if the person has an accent she asks which language the other person speaks or would prefer to speak… and she is a translator for her grandparents!
but we didn’t do anything… no method at all.
and everybody finds that great about her but we don’t really mind about the other people… after all, half of the world is mixed up and it’s natural that more and more people speaks many diferent languages in their youth or at least, it should be!
Hi Natalia, this is great to know. I’m Portuguese and my husband is spanish and we are raising our 6months old in the UK. We speak spanish among us and I speak portuguese to the baby, so I always assumed she would be fluent in the 3 languages, but nowadays there are so many theories and methods that I had no idea what would be happening with her!
Good to know you did it naturally and that your kid is fluent in all 3 now!
Did you have any kind of trouble when she was starting to talk, as maybe she was using words in other language which you couldn’t recognize (baby talk is difficult in one language, I can’t even imagine in 3)? Is frequent to see things about bilingual kids but not trilingual. Any recommendation?
Isa, I think that if you stick to speaking Portuguese and your husband sticks to speaking Spanish to your daughter, she will do great! English she’ll get from her community and she’ll end up trilingual. In terms of baby language, you’ll figure it all out because you’re her mom and you’ll learn to figure out everything she’s saying regardless of the language, you’ll see!
Several SpanglishBaby parents are raising trilingual kids and I’m sure they can be of help. Susan, whose comment you see above, is one of our regular contributors and her kids are growing up with Spanish, German and English.
Boa sorte!
Congratulations, Natalia! And thanks for sharing your story! Most people raise their kids bilingual or trilingual and don’t give much thought to the “method” per say. The names exist just to differentiate the different ways of doing it. So, for example, in your case, you’ve been actually using the OPOL method (one parent/one language), since your husband speaks French and you speak Spanish. Knowing the name of the method is great because it makes it easier to find research and info specific to the method. Not to mention that you can find a lot of other people using your same method and get some support from them.
In the end, it doesn’t really matter. Your daughter is already trilingual and well on her way to being multilingual! How awesome!
I had always assumed I would use the OPOL method (I am American and my husband is Colombian). But I am actually wondering if it might be better to use the MLAH method while we are living in the United States. The only reason I say that is because English is such a strong language in the US and if Dad is at work, it might not be enough time with Spanish. Does anyone have experience switching methods after an extended period of time. (We plan on moving back to Colombia after 3-5 years in the US). It is a little hard for me to consider because I have always imagined speaking “my language” to my children, but having our children speak Spanish natively is REALLY important to my husband and I.
!!!)
(These are hypothetical children I am talking about
Super interesting question, Ali! Thanks for bringing that up. I think it’s a topic I’d definitely like to explore. And, I love that you’re already thinking about your future bilingual kids!
I think the idea of using the mL@H when in the U.S. because of English dominance is a great one and it’s right on target! You’re totally right, English is everywhere and if your child isn’t going to have enough exposure to Spanish from Dad during the day, then the mL@H method is the way to go.
I can totally understand what you mean about not speaking “your language” to your kids. In all honesty, I don’t know if I’d be able to do that. As I’ve said many times before, speaking Spanish to my kids is the only think that makes sense to me… but each situation is different. If we moved to a Spanish-speaking country, I can’t imagine them losing their English, so I guess I would have to switch!
I’m probably echoing other comments here, but I’m reading “Bilingual is Better” now and looking at the strategies. Great book! It says that both partners do not need to be native speakers, but should be fluent to use ML@H? My wife is fully spanish fluent, fully bilingual and a native speaker, whereas I’m not. I’ve been trying to learn for 3 years. She’s mexican, I’m african american, our baby is due in July. So even though I’m not fluent yet, and she doesn’t speak to me in the language that much at home, should we still try ML@H or would OPOL work better in our case? Confused….
Because of our unusual circumstances we combined MLaH with OPOL. Not that at the time she was born we had any idea of what we were doing. She now speaks all 3 languages at nearly the same level and is more advanced than her peers in at least 2.
We still don’t know what we are doing.
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