I’m at that stage in life where my time is divided between work projects, retirement activities and grandparenting. The latter has taken up a lot of my time in the last few weeks, so this post is inevitably inspired by that preoccupation.
Last week, the night before her third birthday, I was putting my granddaughter to bed. We read one book and then she went to choose another. She rejected two of her favourites on the grounds that ‘They’re Italian’ as she knows I don’t speak much Italian and when I try it’s amusing to her. Her mother is Italian and she is bilingual, lucky lass. However, the third book she chose was also in Italian – it was a very simple one, with coloured dots and instructions like ‘shake the book to the right’ – resulting in the dots on the next page all being clustered at the right-hand side as if you’d shaken them there. We read the book together – me pronouncing the Italian and then trying out a translation and her watching proudly and prompting me when I couldn’t work out what a word meant.
Apart from the joy it brought us both, and the pride of this Nonna, the linguist in me wondered the following:
- What meta-awareness of languages and related issues (like translation) do young children have, and to what extent is it a reflection of their own life experience? Up to then, I had only noticed her code-switching to speak to her Mum and the Italian Nonni, though she also does adorable things mid-sentence like ‘It’s a bit aperto’ when there was a hole in the skin of her mandarin.
- What awareness of learning – and teaching – do they have? I felt that she was aware of teaching me and proud of my achievements!
- Can young children assess difficulty of language? I was struck by her rejection of two narrative books and choice of a simpler one, also in Italian.
That’s it – I said they’d be short posts! And this time they are mainly questions – each of which could provide the impetus for a research project or PhD. You’re welcome.
Lesley Jeffries 