Dear parent, educator or linguist professional,
This is an important message. As long as you use more than one language, in whichever way or at whichever level, you are bilingual. And so are your children.
Why are we telling you this? Because we can give you access to a clear overview of children’s language development from a multilingual perspective, tips, ready-to-use activities and guidance on how to approach bilingual parenting.
This is an open call to get on board for the journey of bilingualism and broader your experience as a bilingual or a bilingual-to-be.
We are happy to introduce you to a multicultural educational project we have been part of as translators. It has opened our view on bilingualism and it will surely help you understand how bilingualism works and how it can be turned into a fun and rewarding experience for you and your child.
This info is for you if:
– you are a parent or an educator raising and educating children in a bilingual environment;
– you are not sure what the best approach is;
– you need to separate bilingual upbringing-facts from myths;
– you need user-friendly, age-appropriate advice to enable children to acquire their family languages;
– you instruct parents how to effectively pass on their native language to their children;
– you are just interested in this topic as linguist or educator and want to be part of a European Network of PEaCH Ambassadors.
PEaCH is an Erasmus+ project funded by the European Commission. The acronym PEaCH was derived from the main goal of the project: ‘preserving and promoting Europe’s cultural and linguistic heritage through empowerment of bilingual children and families’. Focusing on the 24 official EU languages, PEaCH wants to help both parents and educators of bilingual children to support their family languages. It is a project developed by the The Research Centre for Multilingual Practices and Language Learning in Society (MULTIPLES) at Ghent University (Universiteit Gent). PEaCH’s mission is to offer guidance for parents and educators on how to support, maintain and develop a child’s home language(s) after a family move to a different language environment. PEaCH also wants to raise educators’ awareness of the benefits of bilingualism and home languages.
The project supports European families raising bilingual and multilingual children. PEaCH will do this in the form of a handbook for parents, informative videos and an online collection of ready-to-use materials in 24 EU languages.
An open call to select 24 PEaCH ambassadors among educators and teachers interested in promoting bilingualism at local level is now available. The 24 winners will be trained through 4 webinars (each covering different important topics), direct conversations with partners and peers, and cloud-based documents. As the position for Romania is still open, and if you are interested in becoming a PEaCH ambassador, please click on the link bellow and follow the steps required for application:
https://bilingualfamily.eu/resources-for-educators-and-peach-ambassadors/.
We do hope that you will find this information useful, especially if you raise bilingual children. Your support for the PEaCH project is much appreciated! Please share this information with your friends, parents and teachers interested in educating the children of tomorrow.
