Unfortunately due to time constraints, the author is unable to help you with additional research. If the question is on-topic, you're invited to come along and ask it on biling-fam. Otherwise, good luck with your project!
My personal recommendation is to begin as early as possible. If you begin as soon as the child is born, he of course won't understand you, but you'll establish good habits and it will feel natural to you later on. Children are more likely to see being bilingual as natural and normal, and less likely to feel self-conscious or different about being bilingual, if life with two languages is what they've always known.
There is also some evidence that hearing language sounds at a very young age helps children to make and understand them later. Exactly how important this is remains a subject for debate, but it definitely can't hurt to let a baby hear all the sounds of her parents' and community's languages.
Some people worry that exposing a child to two languages at once may mean the child never really masters either language. This is generally an unfounded concern (see the answer on semilingualism below) and in my experience makes it harder for the family to become truly bilingual. Habits, once established, can be very difficult to change, and besides, the child may resist the new language because it seems unnecessary. It's also worth thinking about how this works when you have several children of different ages. Do you wait until they're all "old enough"? Do you speak the non-community language with only some of the children?
As your child grows, give her a rich linguistic environment - particularly in the non-community language(s). At its most basic level, this means talk to her a lot. Reading her books is also a beautiful way to encourage language abilities. Smart use of children's tapes or CDs, television, videos/DVDs, and computer games can also work for you.
Some bilingual children are significantly late starters when it comes to speaking, but so are some monolingual children. The difference is not related to the number of languages the child is hearing, and it rarely helps to cut back to one language.
Semilingualism is real, but it doesn't happen as often as some fear. Children will, if given the chance, learn the language (or languages) they need to survive. Unfortunately some children don't get that chance, because the environment they live in is filled with adults who don't speak the community language and too chaotic for them to fluently learn the family language (which likely has a very low status in the community, making the situation worse as the child may feel ashamed to speak it).
Unfortunately I've met many dedicated, resourceful parents who hesitate to start exposing their children to their second language until the child is fluent in the community language because of fear their children may become "only semilingual". This decision can make bilingualism hard to establish, because language habits are tough to change and because the child may resist the new language, and it really isn't necessary.
Most of the time when I get this question, the person asking it really wants to know if it's possible for a child to learn three languages. And the answer to that is emphatically yes! I have met children who have spoken three languages fluently. I've also met children who have spoken two of their languages fluently and one less fluently, of course. Usually that one that they speak less fluently is, alas, the native language of one parent who has to be away from home more than the other parent because of work (and sometimes other commitments too). Still, I think even that would be worth it!
I have heard of, but never met, children who manage four languages well. My instinct is that four languages is probably about the limit, without a lot of extra effort.
I can, however, follow that up with not one but two pieces of good news. First, nothing that you can buy will do the trick, but a person can be a great help. For instance, not everyone is lucky enough to have an immersion school or preschool nearby, or to be able to afford it if it exists, but if you need child care anyway, maybe you can find a nanny/child minder who can speak the language you want your child to learn? Someone outside the home won't be able to help her reach quite the same level of fluency as having a parent who speaks the language, but she could get a basic grasp of a second language and that in itself can be a great gift.
Second, while nothing short of using a language regularly really teaches anyone, adult or child, to speak it, there are some good materials out there that will expose a child to a second language and teach him basic grammar and vocabulary. That does a child good, too! The BBC's "Muzzy" series in particular is often warmly recommended for English-speaking children, just to give one of many examples; it's available to teach the basics of Spanish, French, Italian, or German.
Language exposure patterns that rely on time, for instance speaking English during the week and French on weekends, or German one week and Spanish the next, usually don't work over time - they are hard for young children to understand and remember, and arbitrary for older children and adults. That isn't to say that they never work, but that if you are choosing a pattern, go for one that is based on person or place rather than time.
Some families are very strict with the pattern, some less so.
When the languages are similar and use the same writing system, the process is fairly simple. Both of my children, for instance, learned to read Norwegian first, and English soon afterwards. Since Norwegian spelling is relatively phonetic, they needed some help from us to cope with the more unpredictable parts of written English, but not much. Learning to read and write in English flowed from the ability to read and write in Norwegian.
On the other hand, when the pair of languages are unrelated and use quite different writing systems - say, English and Japanese - parents must be prepared to put much more effort into helping the child become literate in the non-community language. In some cities in Europe and North America, for example, you will find private "Saturday schools" that teach literacy skills in Chinese, Japanese, and perhaps other languages.
Regardless of what your family's non-community language(s) may be, you can teach your children to read and write at home using the same sorts of materials they'd encounter at schools in that language's home country. One of the advantages bilingual parents have in the Age of the Internet is the ability to order books and other teaching materials on-line!
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Created 6 March 2006 * Last Updated 1 May 2008