Transcript Identity. It's a word you often hear when talking about children growing up in a bilingual family, but what does identity really mean? To what extent can you have multiple identities, belonging to different cultures or ethnic backgrounds? What are the consequences for children if they identify more in one way than the other? What role do parents, friends, school and wider society have in play? In this episode, we're answering these questions with Virginia Lam, researcher at Univeristy of Roehampton in London, herself a bilingual speaker of English and Mandarin and mother of two bilingual children. We learn that there's an important difference between 'identifying as'  and 'identifying with' something or someone. For example, children might consider themselves 'half Chinese, half English' because they have a Chinese and an English parent, but this doesn't necessarily mean that they will feel like they are Chinese. We also heard that children start to develop their identity from very early on and that identity continues to develop throughout childhood and the teenage years into adulthood. Research shows that children who identify with both their HL culture and the mainstream culture will grow up into healthier and happier individuals and that family life will benefit from these positive identities, too. Towards the end of our conversation, Virigina mentioned a resource called the Library 4 multilinguals developed by Yoshito Darmon-Shimamori. I also mentioned another episode of Kletsheads about well-being in bilingual families. In this episode I also shared another Kletsheads Quick and Easy, a concrete tip you put into practice straightaway to make the most of the bilingualism in your family, class or clinic: Find something from your own culture to share or do! Dr. Virginia Lam is senior lecturer at the University of Roehampton, London. She's a psychologist and her research focuses on identity, bilingual development, and complementary language schooling. In Let's Klets I spoke to Denise Amankwah. Denise is as a speech and language advisor (not therapist!) on a project called the London EAL project at Speech and Language UK, working with children learning English as an additional language and their families.  She has a Masters in Education, specialising in Language and Literac,y and also has an undergraduate degree in Linguistics, as well as years of experience as an Early Years Practitioner. As you'll hear in our conversation, Denise is passionate about supporting parents and teachers to encourage children to see bilingualism as a gift, and she's particularly interested in sharing the positive messages surrounding bilingualism to Black African families from ex-colonies where a European language tends to be the most superior. She grew up bilingually in the UK in a Ghanian family speaking Twi, a language which she understands completely but no longer speaks actively, making her what we call a "receptive bilingual".

Transcript Why do some bilingual children end up becoming more bilingual than others? That's the question we're answering in this episode of Kletsheads, the first in our third season of the English-language ediition. Most children become more proficient in one of their languages compared with the other(s). This is often the language spoken at school or the wider community. Some children actively use both languages, but many do not. And in much the same way as we see for learning to walk, or the age at which you lose your first tooth, we also see that some children are quicker to pick up their two languages than others. Sometimes there are seemingly obvious explanations for all this variation between children, but not always. Sometimes children growing up in apparently very similar circumstances have very different outcomes when it comes to how well or how much their use their two or more languages.  What exactly causes these differences? Why do some bilingual children end up being more bilingual than others? And as a parent or professional, is there anything we can do to maximise a child's chances of becoming as bilingual as possible? To answer these questions, I'm joined by Johanne Paradis, professor at the University of Alberta, Canada. We heard that there are a whole host of reasons why some bilingual children end up being more bilingual than others. Younger is not always better and that it's better in the early years to concentrate on the heritage language. Amount and type of input children hear at home is important, and - crucially - research suggests that this especially the case for the heritage language. Extra-curricular activities and friendships involving the heritage language are just two ways in which you can create richer input and increase your child's chances of becoming and remaining an active bilingual. These are some of the factors that you have (some) control over as a parent, or at least they are things you can change, but there are also factors that impact on children's bilingual outcomes that you can't change. Language aptitude is one example of this. In many instances, if not all, there's no one-size-fits-all, no one factor that wins out above all others - as Johanne said, it's often a trade-off. The choices parents make are personal and will depend on individual circumstances, individual children and even the languages in question. What's crucial, though, is that you're aware of the potential consequences of the choices you make as a parent or the advice you give as a teacher or parent. I hope this episode will help you make those choices. In this episode I also shared another Kletsheads Quick and Easy, a concrete tip you put into practice straightaway to make the most of the bilingualism in your family, class or clinic: Find someone to talk to about bilingualism in your family, classroom or practice. If you already know someone, send them a message or email now, or give them a call, and otherwise start thinking today about who you might be able to approach. Our Kletshead of the week was Rehan and he was interviewed by Wieke Vink.  Johanne Paradis is Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Adjunct Professor in Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Alberta. Her research focuses on bilingualism in children with typical development and in children with developmental disorders, in particular children learning English-as-a-second language from immigrant and refugee families. She is co-author of Dual Language Development & Disorders: A Handbook on Bilingualism and Second Language Learning and she recently wrote an amazing review paper on much of the research she discussed in the podcast. The article is entitled 'Sources of individual differences in the dual language development of heritage bilinguals' and is published in the Journal of Child Language. It's open access, which means that you don't need to pay to read it. Note, however,

Kletsheads is back! Season 3 is on its way. We'll have a new episode for you on the 15th of every month from now through November, eight episodes in total. In this short trailer, I'll tell you more about what we're going to be talking about. This season of Kletsheads was made possible thanks to funding from HaBilNet. The Harmonious Bilingualism Network HaBilNet aims to support and stimulate scientific research into harmonious bilingualism and to make sure the results of that research reach the general public. If you want to know more about this organisation, check out their website (habilnet.org) and follow them on Facebook and Twitter. Many thanks to Habilnet for making this season possible!

What do bilingual children think about being bilingual? Children - from 8 to 38 years old - talk about the fun and not so fun sides of being bilingual, their favourite words, the language they use with their pets, and what language they will speak when they become parents themselves. In the first two seasons of Kletsheads, I talked to children about what it is like to grow up with two or more languages, our Kletshead of the Week. In this special episode, I bring you the best of, a compilation of my favourite bits from 'Kletshead of the Week'. Want to listen to the whole conversation with one of our Kletsheads? You can. You can find the link to the relevant episodes below: You'll find brothers Aiden and Quinn in the very first episode of Kletsheads on How to plan for a bilingual child. Christie, who spoke about the different personalities associated with her languages is in Episode 4, Season 1 (Should you worry about language mixing?). French-English bilinguals Loïc and Ella are in Episode 2, Season 1 (How much language does a child need to hear to become bilingual?) and Episode 6, Season 1 (Bilingual siblings), respectively. Katriina tells us about her struggles with Finnish in Episode 9, Season 1 (How to make the use of bilingual children's home languages in the classroom: Translanguaging), and South African Rehoboth talks about swearing in Episode 4, Season 2 (Trilingual with Xitsonga and Hot off the press). You can find Japanese-English bilingual Naia in Episode 3, Season 1 (How do you know if a bilingual child has a language delay?), and Italian-English-Arabic trilingual Sara in Episode 8, Season 2 (Language mixing and bilingual secrets). Thorwen talks about how his parents persuaded him to attend heritage language school in Episode 7, Season 1 (Does it matter if a bilingual child only actively uses one language?).

Transcript It's over two years since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out and families across the globe were forced  into lockdown, with schools and childcare centres closed and many parents having to juggle working from home with caring for younger children and homeschooling older ones. Whilst this was a shared experience across many communities in many (if not most) countries around the world, individual families found themselves in many different circumstances, some more bearable than others.  In the second season of Kletsheads, we spoke about the impact of the pandemic of multilingual families in a special episode dedicated to the topic in early 2021. In that episode, I also told you about a research project which I was carrying out together with students following the MA in Linguistics programme at Radboud University, The Netherlands. Many listeners (and many others) took part in this project and in Hot off the Press (starts at 01:12), I tell you about our main findings. You can read all about them in the full report and infographic on the project's webpage, available in English and in Dutch. A publication in an academic journal will follow soon.  In Let's Klets (starts at 09:57), I talk to Dr. Francesca la Morgia is Founder and Director of the Mother Tongues, a social enterprise working to promote multilingualism and intercultural dialogue in Ireland. Co-incidentally, she also contributed to the earlier Kletsheads episode on bilingual families in lockdown. Francesca is a linguist, researcher and social entrepreneur based in Dublin. As she mentioned in our conversation, Francesca is also the creator of the Language Explorers Activitiy Book, which can be used by teachers and parents to help children explore their own bilingualism as well as bringing them into contact with 30 different languages in a fun and interactive way. Another great resource! Find out about all of Mother Tongues' various activities - including the Mother Tongues festival - on their website. This is the final episode of the season. Stay in touch via social media and thanks for listening!