If there is more than one language in the home, we can use the One Person, One Language (OPOL) approach. Each parent chooses their mother tongue when speaking with the baby, while the family uses one agreed-upon “family language.” We can also use an approach called Domains of Use. This is where we have agreed-upon times or places (temporal domains) when we use certain languages. For example, on the weekends the family chooses to speak English; out of the home they choose to speak the local language; and at home they speak the parents’ mother tongues. We need to spend around 30 percent of the
...more