Second Language Learning and Language Teaching

Bilingualism by choice
Some people speak two languages because their parents decided to bring them up
bilingually in the home. This so-called ‘elite’ bilingualism is not forced on the par-
ents by society or by the educational system, but is their free choice. Often one of
the languages involved is the central language of the country, the other a local
language spoken by one parent as a native. Sometimes both parents speak a
minority local language themselves, but feel the majority central language should
also be used at home. However, George Saunders (1982) describes how he and his
wife decided to bring up their children in German in Australia, though neither of
them was a native speaker. Others have three languages in the family; Philip
Riley’s children spoke English and Swedish at home and French at school
(Harding and Riley, 1986).
This parental choice also extends in some countries to educating their children
through a second language, for example in International Schools across the world,
in the ‘European Schools’ movement (Baetens Beardsmore, 1993), the French
Lycée in London or indeed in the English public schools that now educate large
numbers of children from non-English-speaking countries (for the benefit of the
non-Brit, a public school in the UK is an expensive private school, not part of the
state system). Choosing this type of bilingual education usually depends on hav-
ing money or on being an expatriate; it is mostly a preserve of the middle classes.
While a second language is often considered a ‘problem’ in the education of
lower-status people, it is seen as a mark of distinction in those of higher status. A
Chinese child in a state school in England is seen as having a language problem,
not helped by being ‘mainstreamed’ with all the other children; a Chinese child
in a public school has been recruited by the school from, say, Hong Kong, and
their bilingualism is seen as an asset, to be helped with special English classes.
So bilingualism by choice mostly takes place outside the main educational con-
texts of L2 teaching, and varies according to the parents’ wishes; accounts of these
will be found in the self-help manuals written for parents by Arnberg (1987) and
by Harding and Riley (1986). A useful source is the Bilingual Families mailing list
(www.nethelp.no/cindy/biling-fam.html).