Would you guess what are two core ingredients to becoming bilingual are? Need and EXPOSURE!
The first time I heard of it I really panicked! 30%?!
3 years ago, I was just about to come back to work full-time, and Adam started the nursery. I was so worried that his exposure to Polish won’t be sufficient! After panic mode, I started searching the Internet to find a Polish childminder, to allow him to be exposed to Polish more. Then, I’ve done my maths! And it wasn’t as bad as I thought! We are in this comfortable position that we speak Polish at home only, so I believe it must be a bit easier for us than in OPOL families, isn’t it?
The researches show that to become fluent bilingual, about 30% of exposure to the language is required which is about 25hours per week.
I encourage you to do your maths and see how much QUALITY time you actually spend together. Yes! The quality is as important as the exposure itself – watching TV for 1 hour won’t be as beneficial as 30 minutes reading aloud together!
Remember – it is YOU building your child’s bilingual ability, so use as many blocks as you can!
I’m really curious how do you manage to balance it all?
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