Home Language/Mother Tongue

Home language brings cultural understanding and is an important aspect of one’s identity. To help children develop a strong family foundation, we encourage parents to speak their mother tongue to their children, even when this is not one of the two school languages. Having a strong foundation in one’s mother tongue helps a child build the confidence needed to tackle an additional language. 

In multilingual families, we recommend that parents choose a dominant language for each parent to help the child anchor the home languages of the parents. For example, in cases where the languages at home are English and Thai, we recommend that the Thai-speaking parent speak only Thai to the child, and the English-speaking parent keeps to English. Research shows that this is the most effective way to help children reach fluency in both languages. Supporting home language development may include speaking, reading, watching movies, and experiencing events outside of the home in the home languages.