Bilingual Story Time

When you are a parent doing your best to raise your child in two (or more!) languages, you find yourself creating some unorthodox activities to strengthen the input in the target language. I found myself in France, largely a monolingual country, and really wanted to find other English-speaking children in the local area. I discovered the idea of a bilingual story time via this article in Multilingual Living and thought – that’s a great idea!

Put simply, bilingual story time consists of two readers of the same book – one reader for each language. With this idea in mind, I visited the local library and discovered they already had a popular regular story hour in French for a number of years, so I knew they saw the value in sharing books in this way. When I approached the library about the bilingual story time idea, it was helpful to share the Multilingual Living article, which includes a video demonstrating how it works. The story hour takes place about once a month. Both French- and English-speaking families attend the bilingual story time, as well as families speaking other languages. The tri-country area, including France, Germany and Switzerland, is home to a very international population from many different countries, such as Spain, Morocco, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, and many other countries further away.

A typical session might go something like this: we welcome the group in both languages, and then I lead an action song (“Wheels on the Bus” or “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes,” for example); my partner then leads a French version of the same song (there are often multilingual versions for popular children’s songs), and next we read a book. We usually take turns: I read one page in English, then my partner reads the same page in her book – in French. We do our best to find books with similar translations and the same format (illustrations, even size) for continuity. We also add action songs and finger games in between the stories in both languages, and the children really enjoy it! We repeat this with two or three books, depending on the length of the stories and the ages or attention spans of the children, usually lasting about 30 to 45 minutes.

The stories may follow a seasonal theme (The Mitten makes a great choice for winter, for example) or an idea from the activities going on in the library (which had an “Insects” theme for May, so we used The Very Hungry Caterpillar). The children really enjoy the “exotic” language experience – English is a high status language, which helps to interest the children. Even if a child does not understand English, the exchange time between when I read the English portion and my partner reads the French is kept short, so no one has to wait long to understand the story.

Recently we had gorgeous weather, so we took our group outside, allowing more room for a round (or two) of the Hokey-Pokey – it was a big hit!

I highly recommend bilingual story time. Easy to implement in language pairs with lots of available stories, it may take more effort for languages without as many available translations. However, a few props with an oral story can also work side-by-side with an English book. If you are an engaging storyteller, the children will love hearing the tales. In addition, my own children have developed a pride in their ability with their second language, which is an unexpected benefit and a boost to confidence!

Text and photo by Joy Pénard

Joy Pénard, MS, CCC-SLP is an American-trained speech-language pathologist living in the Alsace region with her family, after time in Ireland as well as Germany. After presenting on multilingualism in Paris for colleagues, she will be conducting a workshop on multilinguism with Foundations for Learning in Zurich (click on link for more information).

Illustration by Albina Nogueira

Albina Nogueira has been a primary school teacher since 1992, and a writer and illustrator since 2006. She currently lives in Switzerland, but her homeland is Portugal. She is also the author of Letters to Grandparents  and Hairdresser. To find out more, like her on Facebook or see her books in Amazon.