The Montessori Approach to Bilingualism

3 min read

From birth to approximately six years of age, children are in their sensitive period (time of optimal learning) for language.

Because of this, it's the perfect time to expose them to multiple languages.

Not only will your child have the benefits of another language in adulthood (for work, travel, etc) but bilingual children have been shown to 1:

have a better understanding of others’ perspectives, thoughts, desires, and intentions
perform better at tasks that involve switching between activities
perform better at certain memory-related tasks
have enhanced sensitivity to certain features of communication

Introducing Multiple Languages in Infancy

Children are born with the capacity to rapidly acquire the language or languages of their environment.

So while it helps to have a plan when introducing a second language, it will also happen pretty naturally for most children (2).

Here's three ways you can easily support bilingualism at home:

1. Lots of Exposure to Conversations

Young children in bilingual households should have as much exposure to both languages as possible. Start as early as possible and create an environment where it is normal to speak and hear various languages.

If you are the only parent that speaks one of the languages at home, take every opportunity to include your child in conversations when you're speaking to another friend or family in that language.

This gives them an opportunity to observe and absorb how others use the language.

2. Create Order

A “one-person-one-language” strategy is often recommended to bilingual families. This is where one parent/caregiver speaks in only one language to a child, while another speaks exclusively in another language.

The initial thought was that this would prevent bilingual children from confusion and intellectual fatigue. While this is logical, there is no evidence that bilingual children are confused by early bilingualism (3).

However, even though the approach isn't necessary, it does provide your child with order and routine, i.e. they are learning the various languages from the same person and know what language to expect from each person.

Order and routine create ideal learning environments for a young child because they are predictable, which allows children to recognize patterns in the world around them.

With that being said, multilingual households typically have one language they use most often, one that both parents understand.

For example: One parent speaks German and English and the other parent speaks only English. This means the child will likely be hearing one parent speak two languages.

Rest assured that that is totally fine. Children whose parents speak to them in their first language and English typically manage just fine.

Rather than the “one-person-one-language” strategy, some families try to create order in other ways, i.e. certain times of day, certain activities, etc.

3. Practice Should Be Live

All communication in infancy and toddlerhood should be done live, either with you or another caregiver - talking, reading, singing, etc.

Practice should not be done using iPad apps or TV for at least the first two years of life. Just note that does not include online communication with caregivers/relatives.

Even More Reading (If You're Interested)

If this is something that's important to your family, you might also enjoy this article on the different approaches to introducing multiple languages: Raising Multilingual Children - Montessori Academy

And this article has some really interesting info about the affects of code mixing - the use of elements from two different languages in the same sentence or conversation: Bilingualism in the Early Years: What the Science Says - PMC (nih.gov)

The Montessori Approach to Bilingualism

Introducing Multiple Languages in Infancy

Even More Reading (If You're Interested)

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