News

On this page you find a selection of items about our members, activities, bilingual development, and bilingualism.

Le Centre d'expertise sur le plurilinguisme au sein de l'Association des familles et partenariats binationaux en Allemagne

Depuis janvier 2022, le Centre d'expertise sur le plurilinguisme au sein de l'Association des familles et partenariats binationaux en Allemagne propose des informations, des conseils et des ateliers d'autonomisation aux parents qui élèvent leurs enfants dans plusieurs langues. En outre, le Centrecentre spécialisé informe et qualifie les professionnels sur les aspects de l'éducation linguistique dans le contexte de la migration et du plurilinguisme. Vous pouvez lire ici un bref rapport sur les activités du centre spécialisé en 2023.

Das Fachzentrum Mehrsprachigkeit im Verband binationaler Familien und Partnerschaften

Seit Januar 2022 bietet das Fachzentrum Mehrsprachigkeit im Verband binationaler Familien und Partnerschaften Information, Beratung und Empowerment-Workshops für Eltern, die ihre Kinder mehrsprachig erziehen. Darüber hinaus informiert und qualifiziert das Fachzentrum Fachkräfte zu Aspekten der sprachlichen Bildung im Kontext Migration und Mehrsprachigkeit. Lesen Sie hier einen kurzen Bericht zu den Aktivitäten aus der Arbeit des Fachzentrums im Jahr 2023.

Talk in Japan

HaBilNet Director Annick De Houwer will be giving several talks in Japan sponsored by HaBilNet. You may be interested in the hybrid event on Nov. 7 at Rikkyo University, at which Dr. De Houwer will be talking about: "Well-Being for Bilinguals: A Focus on Bilingual Language Development". Check out the details and how you can participate online (and in person) through this poster.

Familiensprachenstark!

Zum Europäischen Tag der Sprachen am 26.09.2023 fand in Berlin eine Transferveranstaltung mit dem Titel „Familiensprachenstark — Fragen & Antworten zu einer mehrsprachigen Gesellschaft" statt. HaBilNet und ein HaBilNet-Partner (der Verband binationaler Familien und Partnerschaften e.V.) waren auch dabei – vertreten von HaBilNet-Direktorin Annick De Houwer, HaBilNet-Mitarbeiterin Nina Schwöbel, und Marie Leroy und Maria Ringler vom Verband.
Im Rahmen der Transferveranstaltung gab es spannende Interviews und Diskussionsrunden mit Expert:innen aus der Politik, aus der pädagogischen und schulischen Praxis und Weiterbildung, aus Elternverbänden und der Mehrsprachigkeitsforschung. Unter anderem ging es darum, typische Missverständnisse auszuräumen, die sich immer noch um das Thema Mehrsprachigkeit ranken, und zu erörtern, wie wir das Potential von Herkunftssprachen in unseren Bildungsinstitutionen nutzen können.

Polish in the UK and Germany

In recent times, people of Polish descent have fanned out all over Europe and have settled in countries that use another language. What does this mean for Polish as a family language? In pre-Brexit UK, a survey found quite positive attitudes towards Polish as a family language amongst Polish immigrants. A majority of respondents with children reported that they spoke mainly Polish with their offspring. 2020 Census data in Germany show that people of Polish descent represent the second largest group of people with a migration background and Polish is widely spoken in Germany. Annick De Houwer had no problems finding Polish-speaking families for her study of early Polish-German bilingualism. And perhaps you'd be interested in viewing these videos (one in Polish, one in German) of parents in a Polish-German family in Germany reflecting on their family's bilingualism.

Family language loss

What happens when your parents did not speak their language to you? And how does it make you feel if you cannot speak your parents' language? Find out in this BBC article by Mithu Sanyal, who did not learn either her father's or her mother's language. Ms. Sanyal interviewed two scholars for this fascinating article, including HaBilNet Director Annick De Houwer. Read it here.

Migration and what it can mean for language use

In other posts on our website we refer a lot to intergenerational language loss, that is, to children not speaking their parents' language(s). Such loss can happen in all bilingual settings, but it is particularly challenging when parents who have moved to another country, often as a result of war, find that their children do not want to speak their language. Read about it in this moving blog article by Dr. Mehmedbegovic-Smith.

Study of Polish-German preschoolers in Germany and Austria

This study by HabilNet Director Annick De Houwer is the first to report on monolingual Polish-speaking and bilingual Polish-German-speaking families with preschoolers in Germany and Austria. It shows how already at age 3.5 children's development of a non-societal language (Polish) is influenced by whether they hear the societal language (German) at home or not. Children do relatively better in the non-societal language if that is the only language parents usually speak to them. Read about it in this open access research article. You can also take a look at the questionnaires used for data collection on our science page.

Project PIM_Brugge: taalanalyse/taaladvies bij meertalige kinderen

HaBilNet is blij zijn steun te kunnen verlenen aan dit project van de ViVes Hogeschool in Brugge, België. Het project heeft tot doel om taalanalisten op te leiden zodat er nagegaan kan worden of meertalige kinderen eventueel een taalleerprobleem hebben. Hier vindt u meer informatie over het project.

Songs To Promote Home Languages

This website focuses on action songs that parents can use with their babies to promote their home languages. The website is run out of Japan by the Bilingual/Multilingual Child Network and its goals align very well with those of HaBilNet. The Bilingual/Multilingual Child Network wants to encourage non-Japanese parents in Japan to use their own languages with their children. Action songs can be a great help.
このウェブサイトは、バイリンガル・マルチリンガル子どもネットの啓発グループが集めた、手遊び歌の紹介サイトです。
手遊び歌は、親が赤ちゃんに話しかける絶好のチャンス。自信のあることばで赤ちゃんを育てる養育者のみなさんを応援します。

De cursus Taalanalist in een nieuw jasje

Taalanalisten zijn tolken die opgeleid zijn voor het uitvoeren van spontane taalanalyse in een andere taal dan het Nederlands. Ze ondersteunen logopedisten bij het beoordelen van de taalvaardigheid in de moedertaal van meertalige kinderen. Thomas More in Antwerpen biedt als enige een cursus aan voor tolken om taalanalist te worden. Met de steun van HaBilNet, en in samenwerking met HaBilNet partner Foyer v.z.w., past Thomas More de huidige cursus aan recent wetenschappelijke inzichten aan, rekening houdend met nieuwe werkvormen voor e-learning. Lees hier de samenvatting.

HaBilNet ondersteunt de advieswerking van Partners In Meertaligheid bij Foyer

Partners In Meertaligheid (PIM) is een werking van het integratiecentrum Foyer v.z.w. te Brussel, dat een partner is van HaBilNet. Als team willen PIM echt partners zijn in het samen nadenken met gezinnen en professionelen over de manier waarop kinderen optimaal meertalig opgroeien. Door de financiële steun van HaBilNet kan PIM meertalige gezinnen verder ondersteunen. De nieuwe projectsteun biedt meer ruimte voor het zo broodnodige taaladvies. Lees er hier meer over.

Ik breng mijn taal mee naar school

Het team PIM (Partners In Meertaligheid) van HaBilNet-partner Foyer v.z.w. biedt een ondersteunende werking voor meertalige ouders in het Brusselse. Met een nieuw project in samenwerking met Brusselse kleuterscholen wil het PIM-team ouders en kleuters ondersteunen in de thuistaal zodat ze een betere basis hebben om te beginnen met de schooltaal en hun thuistaal kunnen blijven ontwikkelen. HaBilNet is blij dit project financieel te kunnen ondersteunen.
Lees hier de projectbeschrijving.

Deutsch-Ukrainischer Sprachschatz für die Kita-Praxis

Aufgrund der ansteigenden Zahlen ukrainisch-sprachigen Kinder in deutschen Kitas hat die Landesstelle Nachbarsprachen den Deutsch-Ukrainischen Sprachschatz für die Kita-Praxis veröffentlicht. Der Sprachschatz enthält für die Alltagskommunikation in Kitas relevante Wörter und Redewendungen auf Deutsch und Ukrainisch (inklusive Aussprachehilfen), sowie Signalkarten, die die Kommunikation visuell unterstützen können. Die Print- und Audioinhalten stehen online kostenlos zum Download zur Verfügung.

Why Study Harmonious Bilingualism?

HaBilNet Director Annick De Houwer gave a talk at the May 2022 Second HaBilNet colloquium in which she traced her academic trajectory that led to the establishment of the Harmonious Bilingualism Network. The talk is entitled Why Study Harmonious Bilingualism? A Personal Account. The recording is now available on our VIMEO-channel!
The talk was part of a bilingual session honoring Dr. De Houwer's work in the context of her recent retirement from the University of Erfurt, Germany. This explains why the talk was in both German and English. When Annick spoke English, the accompanying slide was in German; when she spoke German, the relevant slide was in English. In case you do not understand German or just want to see the slides, find them here.
Annick takes this opportunity to once again thank the other speakers at the special session: Professors Jürgen Meisel and Lourdes Ortega, both HaBilNet members, and Csaba Földes of the University of Erfurt.

The Second HaBilNet Colloquium

The Second HaBilNet Colloquium (HaBilNet2) took place in Frankfurt, Germany, in May 2022. The colloquium theme was "Supporting well-being as it relates to growing up and living in a language contact setting". HaBilNet2 follows in the footsteps of the First HaBilNet Colloquium that took place in Belgium in May 2018. HaBilNet1 included practitioners working with bilingual populations as well as bilingualism researchers. HaBilNet2 aimed to strengthen this collaboration even more, and wanted to bring together insights as they are gained through working with bilingual populations in a variety of settings and from both research and day-to-day life perspectives. Read all about how it went in a blog article in two parts.

The role of language and multilingualism in custody cases

The role of language and multilingualism in custody cases: An interview with Bente Ailin Svendsen

Multilingualism scholars are sometimes asked to testify as expert witnesses in court. Dr. Bente Ailin Svendsen, Professor of Multilingualism and Second Language Studies at the University of Oslo, Norway, talks about her experiences in that role. Her testimonies have been crucial in getting social services to review their child custody decisions. Only with relentless outreach efforts can we as researchers help support families everywhere so they are not victimized because of issues relating to multilingualism. View a video interview that Dr. Annick De Houwer did with Dr. Svendsen here.

Onze partner Foyer vzw onthaalde Oekraïense gezinnen in Brussel

Tijdens de paasvakantie 2022 heeft Foyer met de steun van HaBilNet een 25-tal kinderen en ouders die kort voordien gevlucht waren voor de vreselijke oorlog in Oekraïne een week lang warm onthaald. U vindt hier een dagboek met impressies. Ook in de zomer van 2022 heeft Foyer een soortgelijk initiatief gelanceerd, weer met financiële steun van HaBilNet. Van de zomeractiviteiten vindt u
hier een leuk verslag. HaBilNet is heel dankbaar voor het initiatief van Foyer en blij dat het dit mee kon ondersteunen.

Dr. Meagan Driver's new Multilingual Lab

HaBilNet Follower Dr. Meagan Driver is Assistant Professor at Michigan State University and recently opened a new Multilingual Lab. The aim of the Lab is to study multilingualism from interdisciplinary perspectives on the one hand and to make the findings accessible to a wider audience by various forms of dissemination on the other. Amongst the topics are benefits of multilingualism, the challenges many multilingual and marginalized communities face, but also the support for multilingual initiatives across all fields of research. Read the full article here.

Ouders met een recente migratie-achtergrond: wat is er nodig om een kind tweetalig op te laten opgroeien?

HaBilNet directrice Annick De Houwer gaf deze lezing in januari 2022 voor het Online mini-symposium over "Meertaligheid in het gezin: wetenschap en praktijk", ter afsluiting van het project Erasmus+ project Planting Languages – Seeds of Success. Ze werd ingeleid door Carien Deutman van Onderwijsadvies, die samen met Marga van Mil het symposium organiseerde. Planting Languages wil o.a. professionals informatie en tools aanbieden om meertalige gezinnen te helpen. De lezing hoopt hiertoe bij te dragen, door te focusen op een specifieke groep van ouders die wellicht nog meer dan andere nood hebben aan wetenschappelijk onderbouwde ondersteuning die kan bijdragen tot Harmonische Tweetaligheid. Eerst belicht de lezing de grote variatie binnen gezinnen waarvan tenminste één ouder een migratie-achtergrond heeft, om daarna stil te staan bij belangrijke elementen van taalkeuze en taalwisseling in de dagelijkse omgang met kinderen.

Hoe kunnen leerkrachten bijdragen tot een succesvolle meertalige opvoeding?

Hoe kunnen leerkrachten bijdragen tot een succesvolle meertalige opvoeding – en dus Harmonische Tweetaligheid?

Sharon Unsworth publiceerde een erg belangwekkend artikel waarin ze leerkrachten vertelt hoe ze ouders die thuis (ook) een andere taal dan het Nederlands praten kunnen adviseren. Het artikel bevat ook links naar enkele filmpjes in 4 talen waarin meertaligheid kort en krachtig wordt voorgesteld (Unsworth, S. & Kootstra, G.J. 2018. Meertaligheid in beeld. Drie informatieve animatieclips over meertaligheid voor basisschoolleerlingen). Lees het artikel via deze link.

Lourdes Ortega interviews Sharon Armon-Lotem

Sharon Armon-Lotem is well known for her tireless work on developmental language disorders in bilingual preschoolers and on the role of the input in early second language acquisition. In this engaged interview recorded at the occasion of the First HaBilNet colloquium in Belgium in May 2018, colloquium co-organizer and HaBilNet Member Lourdes Ortega asks her about her work and how she sees the role of age and exposure in early bilingualism. Dr. Ortega's question about what Dr. Armon-Lotem encourages in her staff allows the latter to stress that it is important to "understand about language", to understand the nature of children, and to have empathy for children. She stresses that parents are "an important part of the bilingual ecosystem" and a real asset for researchers because "parents know so much about their children". Dr. Ortega also asks about what would be Dr. Armon-Lotem's "dream study". Watch the video to find out!

The importance of language choice, input, and discourse strategies for Harmonious Bilingualism

The combined influence of parental language choice patterns, input characteristics, and discourse strategies used by parents can increase their children's chances of speaking two languages within the family and thus contribute to Harmonious Bilingualism. This talk by Annick De Houwer explains the research behind this finding.

HaBilNet feiert das neue Fachzentrum Mehrsprachigkeit des Verbandes binationaler Familien und Partnerschaften, iaf e.V.

Für viele Familien in Deutschland gehören mehrere Sprachen selbstverständlich zu ihrem Alltag. Diese gelebte Mehrsprachigkeit ist nicht nur eine besondere individuelle Fähigkeit, sondern auch eine wertvolle gesellschaftliche Ressource.
Es fehlt jedoch an Wissen und Informationen über Vorteile mehrsprachigen Aufwachsens, insbesondere in den Bildungseinrichtungen Kita und Schule, in Beratungsstellen, in Ämtern und Organisationen. Eltern werden verunsichert, ihre Sprache(n) und damit sie selbst werden mit ihrem sprachlich-kulturellem Hintergrund in Frage gestellt.
Mit der Einrichtung eines Fachzentrums Mehrsprachigkeit ab Januar 2022 will der Verband binationaler Familien und Partnerschaften, iaf e.V. unter Leitung von Chrysovalantou Vangeltziki, Bundesgeschäftsführerin, zum Ausdruck bringen, dass es in einem mehrsprachigen Lebensumfeld Anlaufstellen braucht, die zum Umgang mit sprachlicher Vielfalt informieren, qualifizieren und weiterhelfen.

Mehrsprachige Eltern, Kinder und Jugendliche finden hier einen „Raum" für den Austausch untereinander, für gemeinsames sprachliches Lernen und Reflektieren sowie für das eigene Empowerment. Beratung und begleitende Angebote informieren und qualifizieren sowohl Familien als auch Fachkräfte.

Das Fachzentrum Mehrsprachigkeit leistet einen Beitrag für das sprachbezogene Wohlbefinden von mehrsprachigen Familien und für ein sprachen-gerechteres gesellschaftliches Zusammenleben.
HaBilNet freut sich sehr darüber, dieses Vorhaben unterstützen zu können und steht dem Verband als starker Partner zur Seite.

Mehrsprachigkeit leben!

"Jeder Schritt zählt" – der 2. Praxistag im Modellprojekt „Mehrsprachigkeit leben!" wurde von HaBilNet und der Stadt Waren unterstützt und hat am 22.09.2021 in Waren (Müritz, MV) stattgefunden. Lesen Sie hier einen kleinen Bericht zur Veranstaltung, auf der HaBilNet Direktorin Annick De Houwer einen Vortrag gehalten hat.

Une conférence sur « Le bilinguisme au sein de la famille » par Annick De Houwer

Finalement c'était possible de donner une conférence « en vrai » ! La directrice de HaBilNet, Annick De Houwer, s'est rendue à Toulouse pour y donner une conférence sur les obstacles et opportunités que peuvent rencontrer les familles bilingues.

Elle y était invitée par Mme la professeure Barbara Köpke du Laboratoire de NeuroPsychoLinguistique de l'Université de Toulouse, elle-même membre de soutien de HaBilNet.

Visionnez la vidéo ici.

Mehrsprachige Kinder in unseren Einrichtungen: Hürden, Bedürfnisse und Chancen

Ein Vortrag beim Kita-Verbund in Kleinmachnow

HaBilNet Direktorin Annick De Houwer hat Ende September 2021 einen Vortrag in Kleinmachnow, Brandenburg, beim Kita-Verbund gehalten. Der Verbund hat einen kleinen Rückblick zur Veranstaltung auf seiner Internetseite veröffentlicht, der wichtige inhaltliche Punkte und Impressionen teilt. Lesen Sie selbst!

HaBiLNet hat einen neuen Partner!

HaBilNet freut sich einen Kooperationsvertrag mit dem Verband Binationaler Familien und Patnerschaften unterzeichnet zu haben.
Als interkultureller Familienverband bietet er Workshops, Beratungen und Mitmachprojekte für Paare und Familien mit und ohne Migrationsgeschichte an. Die Angebote und ebenso die Lobbyarbeit des Verbandes liegen an den Schnittstellen Familien-, Bildungs- und Migrationspolitik.
Lesen Sie mehr über den Verband im HaBilNet Interview oder auf deren Webseite.

Adam Beck's New Book is Out

Congratulations!

Bilingual Success Stories Around the World: Parents Raising Multilingual Kids Share Their Experiences and Encouragement is a real-life roadmap to greater success and joy for any parent raising bilingual or multilingual children. Written by Adam Beck, in the same empowering spirit as his influential first book Maximize Your Child's Bilingual Ability, this practical, worldly-wise guide features the success stories of a wide range of families and details the kinds of attitudes and actions that can enable your family to enjoy the same sort of rewarding success. The focus of this book is on the actual practice of raising children to acquire active ability in more than one language, conveyed through the revealing experiences of parents who are now succeeding admirably at their bilingual or multilingual aim. Read this book for ideas and inspiration to help you realize your own family's joyful success story!

Bilingual Success Stories Around the World is 252 reader-friendly pages and is available worldwide, in both paperback and Kindle e-book, at Amazon, the global Amazon sites, and other booksellers.

Why Speaking a Foreign Language to Your Child May Not Be a Good Idea

Many parents want their children to know English and start exposing them to English at home from a young age. Many even start speaking English to their children, even if English is a foreign language for the family. HaBilNet member Janice Nakamura has written about this issue, with special reference to parents in Japan. Read her article here.

Online Connections with Young Children

Grandparents can be of great support to young bilingual children, even if they cannot be physically present. This article gives some very useful tips on how to effectively communicate with very young children through digital means. Parents need to lend a helping hand, of course, but the benefits for language learning and human closeness will make up for this extra "work"!

New Book on Bilingual Children

HaBilNet is delighted and proud to announce the publication of Bilingual Development in Childhood, a new book by HaBilNet Director Annick De Houwer. It covers the first decade of life and, of course, pays plenty of attention to harmonious bilingualism. Read more about it in this blog article.

Entre Dos Podcast: a Great Resource for Bilingual Parenting

New episode with Annick De Houwer

Entre Dos Podcast brings stories of real bilingual families, conversations with experts, important research and resources on bilingual parenting. The two founders, Monika Leal and Paula Niño Kehr, journalists and moms of young bilingual daughters, started Entre Dos Podcast to help dispel myths and misinformation around bilingualism that may discourage parents or make them feel lonely in their pursuit.

The latest episode of Entre Dos Podcast focuses on why some children who grow up hearing two languages only use one. HaBilNet Director Annick De Houwer has done research on this question for decades. In this episode, you can hear about her findings and about ways to foster harmonious bilingualism in the family. You also find out about how Dr. De Houwer came to be interested in the question.

Bilingual Teaching Materials for Schools

Wouldn't it be amazing to have bilingual teaching materials? Now schools and parents have free access to bilingual teaching materials through AVIOR.

AVIOR is an Erasmus+ project carried out by a number of European partners that aims at improving the basic numeracy and literacy skills of children in Europe who have an immigration background.

This lovely video shows how parents, teachers and students can benefit from the AVIOR materials and how the use of children's home languages makes them excited to learn.

NIE Excellence in Research Award

Awarded to Sun He

HaBilNet Supporting Member He Sun has been conferred the NIE Excellence in Research Award in 2020. This award accords the highest recognition within Singapore's National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, to individuals or teams who have made outstanding contributions in extending the frontiers of research and knowledge. Big congratulations to Dr. He Sun for this well deserved recognition!

Bilingual Children in Early Childhood Education and Care

HaBilNet Director Annick De Houwer and HaBilNet Active Member Mareen Pascall published a new article on challenges and chances for bilingual children in early childhood education and care.

The article explains how bilingual children's well-being in early education can be enhanced if staff embraces all children's languages and their developing bilingualism. Openness towards the languages children bring to the classroom can be shown through a pedagogical approach that actively recognizes and thus values all children's languages.

The article gives several concrete tips for early education staff that will help create such a language friendly pedagogical approach and can be found in the online handbook Das Kita-Handbuch (in German).

Four Decades of Service

A Publishing House Dedicated to Bilingualism

Imagine, a publishing house founded because pediatricians told a family to speak only a single language to children rather than two! For 4 decades now, Multilingual Matters has served bilingual families, educators of bilingual children, and bilingualism scholars. Discover its story through this video.

The Journal of Home Language Research has a New Website!

The Journal of Home Language Research is an open access international journal that focuses on home languages. These are languages that are not used in local public life.

Wilhelm von Humboldt Prize 2020

Awarded to Jürgen M. Meisel

The German Society for Linguistics has awarded HaBilNet Advisory Board Member Professor Jürgen M. Meisel the prestigious Wilhelm von Humboldt Prize 2020 for his lifetime achievement. The award ceremony took place on March 4, 2020, as part of the annual DGfS conference at the University of Hamburg. HaBilnet congratulates Dr. Meisel on this well deserved recognition.

Gerald M. Mara Faculty Mentoring Award

Awarded to Lourdes Ortega

HaBilNet Advisory Board Member Lourdes Ortega was awarded the 2019-2020 Gerald M. Mara Faculty Mentoring Award by Georgetown University Graduate students. HaBilNet congratulates Dr. Ortega with this well deserved recognition!

Harmonious Bilingualism in Bilingual Families

A Talk in Two Parts

In this talk Dr. Annick De Houwer offers the framework of bilingual well-being and its associated Harmonious Bilingualism as a window into understanding the experiences of young families who find themselves in bilingual settings in today's diversified world.

In this first part she defines what she means by Harmonious Bilingualism and outlines its two main hallmarks.

In this second part she explains some of the possible ill effects that can occur when children do not speak the language their parents speak with them. She discusses what happens when young children's home languages are ignored at (pre)school and explains the importance of actively valuing all children's languages at (pre)school.

Intergenerational Language Transmission and Social Identity

Not only Love at First Sight but also Love at First Sounds

Why do some parents decide to speak their own language(s) to their children, and other parents don't? Find out about it in this recent blog by Dr. Ruth Kircher.

only online

Georgetown University Round Table colloquium

March 13-15, 2020

HaBilNet was proud to sponsor an invited colloquium at this year's Georgetown University
Round Table (GURT), a prestigious linguistics conference.
This year's GURT was co-hosted by the IMS and MultiLing.

HaBilNet director Annick De Houwer is a member of MultiLing's Scientific Advisory Board.

Unfortunately we heard on March 6 2020 that due to the international crisis in response to the new coronavirus this year's GURT had to be cancelled.
We are sad and disappointed, but thank the organizers for their tremendous work in preparing the conference.

Only virtual GURT this year

by Dr. Annick De Houwer

en,https://www.habilnet.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Habilnet-Podcast-Virtual-Gurt-01.mp3

Unfortunately, the global COVID-19 crisis led to the "live" GURT 2020, scheduled for March 13-15, to be cancelled. Instead, the GURT 2020 organizers set up a closed FaceBook page, GURT 2020 Virtual, to allow registered participants to post their contributions. HaBilNet and the speakers who were invited for the HaBilNet FLP colloquium on Finding Universal Patterns in Family Language Policies and Their Effects on Children: Evidence from Different World Regions and Different Disciplines are grateful to the organizers for this enormous effort.

March 13, 2020

If you have any questions or contributions, please use the contact form.

Supporting Bilingualism in Families, Day Care Centers and Schools

by Mareen Pascall | 17/02/2021 | Uncategorized | 0 Comments

Bilingualism is one of four major themes that the Association for Binational Families and Partnerships deals with. In this inspiring interview, Maria Ringler speaks from the Association's headquarters about supporting multilingual families, an exciting reading project for day care centers, and about her experiences with political lobbying for bilingual education.

Emergent multilingual literacy in early childhood education and care

by Mareen Pascall | 04/01/2022 | Uncategorized | 0 Comments

This article is part of a series by HaBilNet, the Harmonious Bilingualism Network.
It considers research results about young children's bilingual language development and discusses how these results can be applied in early childhood education and care so that all children may benefit from harmonious bilingual development.

Supporting bilingual children's socio-emotional wellbeing

by Theresa Bloder | 14/10/2022 | Uncategorized, Uncategorized | 0 Comments

Read an interview with supporting HaBilNet member Dr. He Sun on how bilingual children's socio-emotional wellbeing can be supported in the home and school contexts.

Learning how to Read and Write in Two Languages

by Janice Nakamura | 27/08/2020 | Uncategorized | 0 Comments

Yes, it is important to talk a lot to children in two languages to support their bilingualism. But what about reading and writing in two languages? Find out in this blog by HaBilNet member and consultant Janice Nakamura.

HaBilNet2 – HaBilNet's Second Colloquium Part II

by Nina Schwöbel | 04/08/2022 | Uncategorized | 0 Comments

This is Part II of the Blog post about HaBilNet's second Colloquium which was held in May (2022) in Frankfurt, Germany. 55 participants from around the world had a great time and found the colloquium truly inspiring. Here, you can read all about the posters which early career professionals showed at the colloquium.

HaBilNet Travel Awards to attend GURT

by Annick De Houwer | 26/03/2020 | Uncategorized | 0 Comments

Congratulations to Sally Rachel Cook and Nishita Grace Isaac for receiving HaBilNet Travel Awards to attend the 2020 Georgetown University Round Table, even though it ended up taking place virtually.

Multilingualism fact check

by Till Woerfel | 07/03/2023 | Uncategorized | 0 Comments

In education, language competencies are undoubtedly key. However, multilingualism is repeatedly and erroneously cited as a risk factor for educational achievement.
In a "Fact check", Dr. Till Woerfel therefore attempted to compare established international research with current scientific findings from German-speaking countries in order to answer the most frequently and controversially discussed questions on this topic.

HaBilNet2 – HaBilNet's Second Colloquium Part I

by Nina Schwöbel | 04/08/2022 | Uncategorized | 0 Comments

This past May (2022) HaBilNet organized its second Colloquium in Frankfurt, Germany. The 55 participants from around the world had a great time and found the colloquium truly inspiring. Read all about it in our blog article, divided into two parts: this first one about the colloquium as a whole.

Bilingual children do not start speaking later than monolingual ones

by Annick De Houwer & Mareen Pascall | 28/06/2023 | Uncategorized | 0 Comments

This article is part of a series by HaBilNet, the Harmonious Bilingualism Network. It considers research results about young children's bilingual language development and discusses how these results can be applied in early childhood education and care so that all children may benefit from harmonious bilingual development.

The HaBilNet Family Language Policies colloquium at GURT 2020

by Annick De Houwer | 25/03/2020 | Uncategorized | 0 Comments

This colloquium brings together perspectives on family language policies from different parts of the world and from different disciplines. Check out its virtual format here (featuring Annick De Houwer, Michelle Mingyue Gu, Simona Montanari, Janice Nakamura, and Nikolay Slavkov).

HaBilNet2 – HaBilNet's Second Colloquium Part I

The HaBilNet Family Language Policies colloquium at GURT 2020

Taking advantage of staying at home with your children during the COVID-19 crisis

Like so many other parents world wide, you are probably stuck at home with your children during the current COVID-19 crisis. It is a difficult time for everyone. Check out this blog article to learn how this may be also be a time of opportunity for your bilingual family.

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This article is part of a series by HaBilNet, the Harmonious Bilingualism Network. It considers research results about young children's bilingual language development and discusses how these results can be applied in early childhood education and care so that all children may benefit from harmonious bilingual development.

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