Tag: bilingualism

Mixing It Up: Why Cross-Cultural Parenting Is a Journey, Not a Checklist

This month we published The Cross-Cultural Parenting Playbook by Sangita Shresthova. In this post the author notes the challenges faced by cross-cultural parents and explains how her book can help families to explore what works best for them.

The Cross-Cultural Parenting PlaybookWhen Isabella’s daughters were little, she insisted on speaking Greek with them. She saw this as crucial to her cross-cultural parenting strategy. And until the age of four or five, her girls spoke Greek fluently. Then came school, English, and eventually Spanish and French. And then came the COVID-19 pandemic. During the lockdown and supporting two children through online schooling, Isabella made a decision that felt practical and temporary. Switching back and forth between Greek and English while helping with lessons was exhausting. “I thought it would be one month, maybe two,” she told me. “So I switched to English.” Weeks became months. Months became years, and she never fully switched back.

Today, her daughters still speak Greek with their grandmother during weekly video calls. But they are no longer fluent. They pause, search for words, ask for help. They manage. Still, Isabella feels the loss. “I’m losing that,” she shares not as a confession of failure, but as an honest description of what it means to parent across languages, countries, and competing circumstances.

Isabella’s story captures something I heard again and again as I interviewed more than thirty cross-cultural parents for my book, The Cross-Cultural Parenting Playbook: cross-cultural parenting rarely unfolds according to plan. It is shaped by circumstance, exhaustion, logistics, costs, global events, children’s personalities, and the limits of what any one family can sustain at a given moment. And yet, choosing to parent across cultures is still worth it for many parents.

As a media scholar (and as a Czech-Nepali mother raising a child across Czech, Nepali, Indian, and American contexts), I’ve come to believe that the work of cross-cultural parenting is less about reaching a fixed destination (perfect fluency, complete cultural immersion), and more about continuing to show up.

Across my research and my own family life, three practices surfaced repeatedly.

First, cross-cultural parents use media (old and new) intentionally. Media is not a distraction from culture; it is often the bridge. Songs from a parent’s childhood, bedtime stories on FaceTime, multilingual word games at dinner time, shared playlists on long car rides are all small, everyday moments that matter. Rather than asking how much media is too much, many families asked how media could support shared cross-cultural experiences.

Second, parents make room for cross-cultural experiences in ordinary spaces, including food, music, and ritual. Cooking a familiar dish, celebrating a holiday imperfectly, or letting children remix traditions on their own terms all keep cultural threads alive without demanding mastery.

Third, cross-cultural families play with languages. Many parents start with a commitment to taking a structured approach to bi- or multi-lingualism (one-parent-one-language, minority-language-at-home). Along the way, they discover that real life is messier. Languages blend. Children start to mix languages. Purists may worry, but families often find that playfulness sustains engagement better than more rigid approaches. Fluency may ebb and flow, but connection endures.

These insights form the heart of my book, The Cross-Cultural Parenting Playbook, which brings together research, lived experience, and stories from families navigating similar questions. My book doesn’t offer a single roadmap. If that is what you are looking for, I recommend you look elsewhere. Instead, my book invites parents to experiment, reflect, adapt and “mix it up” in ways that make sense for their lives.

Isabella didn’t lose Greek because she didn’t care enough. She made a loving, pragmatic choice in challenging circumstances. She continues to care, continues to try, continues to parent across cultures. In the end, cross-cultural parenting isn’t about a destination. It’s all about the journey.

Sangita Shresthova

For more information about this book please see our website.

If you found this interesting, you might also like Bilingual Families by Eowyn Crisfield.

30 Years of Our Bilingual Education and Bilingualism Series

We recently published Key Developments in Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, a reader celebrating 30 years of our Bilingual Education and Bilingualism series. In this post Rosie, the commissioning editor for the series, explains the book’s key features.

Key Developments in Bilingual Education and BilingualismKey Developments in Bilingual Education and Bilingualism rounds up a rich 30 years of our busy Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (BEB) series, founded by Colin Baker and now edited by Nancy H. Hornberger and Wayne E. Wright. While I have managed this series for only four of these years, I’ve overseen a number of exciting titles in that time and it was clear to me this is a series and milestone worth celebrating. With such a broad collection of research over three decades, it lends itself well to a reader showcasing the development and history of the field, offering an overview of bilingual education scholarship for students and early career researchers.

The book’s four sections mirror four key strands of the series. Part 1 examines scholarship on bilingual children and multilingual families, which will be of particular interest to those pursuing research in family language policy. Parts 2 and 3 look at multilingualism in schools and bilingual immersion education, investigating inclusive classroom practices in a variety of settings, and the education policies and curriculum decisions involved. Finally, Part 4 focuses on language advocacy, exploring work with minoritized and Indigenous languages and multilingual communities.

As Consulting Editor, Kendall King did an expert job collating the chapters and providing introductions to each section in order to guide readers through the key themes of the book. The Series Editor Preface by Nancy and Wayne gives further context and explores the series aims, and Juan Freire’s Afterword looks ahead, considering future research directions. Together with chapters spread over three decades, the volume provides students with the perfect introduction to key themes in bilingualism research. Those using our textbook Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (now in its 8th Edition) will find a wealth of further reading here and a deeper understanding of the evolution of these research themes.

A huge thank you to Kendall, Colin, Nancy, Wayne and Juan, as well as all the authors and book editors behind these brilliant chapters! Keep an eye on our series page for more BEB books in the coming months, and get in touch if you have a proposal idea you’d like to discuss!

For more information about this book please see our website.

If you found this interesting, you might also enjoy Overcoming the Gentrification of Dual Language, Bilingual and Immersion Education edited by M. Garrett Delavan, Juan A. Freire and Kate Menken.

The 8th Edition of Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism

We recently published the brand new 8th edition of our international bestseller Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism by Wayne E. Wright and Colin Baker.

“For over 30 years I have been privileged to watch how this classic text has relied on its own foundations to build new and up-to-date understandings of bilingual/multilingual people and their education. This edition is not simply an update; it opens up new ways of perceiving different individual, sociolinguistic, sociopolitical and socioeducational realities marked by differences in power, status, race, gender, as well as language.”

Ofelia García, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, USA

Covers of all the editions of Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism to date
All the editions of Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism to date

The very first edition of Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism was the brainchild of Mike Grover, co-founder of Multilingual Matters (with his wife Marjukka), who had a vision for a comprehesive, international textbook on bilingualism and bilingual education and approached Colin Baker as the obvious person for the job! Wayne Wright joined Colin as co-author for the 6th edition, published in 2017, and the textbook has continued to go from strength to strength under their joint stewardship ever since, with new updates in every edition.

So what’s new in the 8th edition?

  • ImageUpdated chapters with over 500 new citations and the latest demographic and statistical information.
  • An expanded Chapter 16 on Deaf-Signing People, Bilingualism/Multilingualism and Bilingual Education, to give readers a thorough grounding in the history of Deaf bilingual education, and in the latest research.
  • Several new, or more thoroughly covered, topics including: national, local, family and individual language policy; dynamic bilingualism; multimodal communication; translanguaging and translanguaging pedagogy; raciolinguistics and anti-racist education; language revival and revitalization; translanguaging among Deaf-signing students; the hybrid, constructed, complex and fluid nature of identity; the gentrification of bilingual education; bilingualism and economic inequalities and advantages; mobile apps and social media; technology-enhanced language proficiency assessments; artificial intelligence (AI); recent developments in and limitations of brain imaging research; and multilingualism on the internet and in information technology.
  • Important policy developments in the US context are covered, including the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the Seal of Biliteracy, the Science of Reading (structured literacy), response to intervention, and state consortia for shared English language proficiency standards and assessments (WIDA, ELPA21), and for alternative assessments for disabled students (Dynamic Learning Maps), the US Census, Proposition 58 (California), the LOOK Act (Massachusetts), Arizona Senate Bill 1014 and the Native American Languages Preservation Act.
  • Expanded discussion of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages and its use across Europe and around the world. Efforts have also been made to update and diversify the global examples of research, policy and practice, with a particular focus on adding examples outside of Europe and North America.

Whether you started using Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism in 1993 with the very first edition, or are coming to it for the first time in 2025, we hope that you find it valuable and will continue to use it on your courses for many years to come.

Order your desk copy now!

For e-inspection copies:

Place your request here.

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Lecturers in the US and Canada, place your request online here.

Lecturers anywhere except the US and Canada, fill in the form here.

What are the Benefits of Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education Programs?

This month we published Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education in the Asia-Pacific Region edited by Suwilai Premsrirat and David Hirsh. In this post David explains the context for the research and the book’s aims.

ImageNot all children have the opportunity to experience education in their home language(s). Yet, a child’s mother tongue (or first language) is the ideal language to use in developing both oral and written proficiency. The home language is also a vast reservoir of cultural knowledge spanning generations that can provide children with a strong basis for the development of their individual and communal identities.

Once children have achieved a satisfactory level of literacy in their mother tongue, the skills they gained in that process can be transferred to other languages at the regional, national and international level. In this way, children can develop as bilingual or multilingual members of society, with capacity for greater mobility and engagement in educational, cultural, social and economic opportunities. By adding additional languages to a child’s linguistic repertoire, rather than replacing non-dominant languages with dominant languages, linguistic diversity is encouraged.

For many countries in the Asia-Pacific region which are characterized by sometimes extreme linguistic diversity, children from non-dominant language backgrounds may be denied this opportunity to experience the first years of schooling in their home language. The consequence can be the development of negative attitudes towards home languages (and the cultures which they reflect) from both within and outside language groups, as well as less-than-ideal educational outcomes for children from marginalized language communities. The disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic tended to exacerbate this problem by marginalizing even further children of non-dominant linage groups and, in many of the pandemic recovery programs put in place, by reinforcing the role of national languages in education. When communities turn their backs on their linguistic and cultural heritage, or when once available support disappears, the identity development of children can be compromised and fractured, with a complex array of implications arising as they traverse through life.

Yet, there are some promising and encouraging developments taking place in the region, through mother tongue-based multilingual education programs. This is occurring through both state-endorsed initiatives and localized activities. Female students have been particularly empowered educationally through participation in these programs.

The focus of this book is therefore on the positive experiences of those working in the field who use mother tongue-based multilingual education programs as a means to both promote linguistic diversity and improve educational outcomes for children from non-dominant language backgrounds. As the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-2032) enters its 4th year, this book supports the global movement striving to raise awareness on Indigenous language preservation, revitalization and promotion and its vital role in enhancing the current and future wellbeing of linguistically marginalized children and their communities.

David Hirsh, University of Sydney (david.hirsh@sydney.edu.au)

For more information about this book please see our website. 

If you found this interesting, you might also like Policy and Practice for Multilingual Educational Settings edited Siv Björklund and Mikaela Björklund.

School Language Speakers and Multilingual Teaching

This month we published Multilingual Teaching: The Missing Piece by Roma Chumak-Horbatsch. In this post the author explains the book’s aims and introduces us to “LAP+”.

ImageThe purpose of this book is three-fold:

  • To profile the language reality of school language speakers, newly identified as the missing piece in multilingual teaching;
  • To introduce a new multilingual teaching resource, and
  • To include school language speakers in the multilingual teaching agenda and advocate for fully inclusive, all-in multilingual teaching.

The never-before-available language profile of school language speakers shows two distinct groups. The first includes former school language learners who have added the school language to their linguistic repertoire, have reached some level of bi/multilingualism, and who continue to use one or more family languages in their homes and communities, while native speakers of the school language make up the second group of school language speakers. The language profile also reveals the richness of school language speakers’ language lives: their many diverse language experiences and skills, their organic interest in language, their high-level awareness of language similarities and differences and their unique language needs.

A new teaching resource called Linguistically Appropriate Practice Plus or LAP+1, especially developed to respond to the language needs of school language speakers and bring them into the multilingual teaching agenda is introduced and explained. The examples of LAP+ in action illustrate that attention to the missing piece in multilingual teaching, acknowledgement of the richness of school language speakers’ language lives and their inclusion in language activities can indeed extend multilingual teaching and transform it into pedagogy that is fully inclusive, linguistically fair and open to all learners.

1 LAP+ is the third and final part of the Linguistically Appropriate Practice series:

Chumak-Horbatsch, R. (2012) Linguistically Appropriate Practice: A Guide for Working with Young Immigrant Children. University of Toronto Press.

Chumak-Horbatsch, R. (2019) Using Linguistically Appropriate Practice: A Guide for Teaching in Multilingual Classrooms. Multilingual Matters.

Roma Chumak-Horbatsch PhD

rchumak@torontomu.ca

For more information about this book please see our website.

If you found this interesting, you might also like Multilingual Classrooms for Young Children in the UK by Jieun Kiaer.

Dispelling the Myth of a Monolingual Japan

We recently published Plurilingual Education in a Monolingualised Nation by Daniel Roy Pearce. In this post the author delves into the notion of ‘Japan-as-monolingual.’ 

ImageIs Japan really a monolingual nation, or has it been ‘monolingualised?’ As recently as 2020, at-the-time deputy prime minister Aso Taro remarked that Japan was ‘the only country where one language, one people, and one dynasty has lasted for two thousand years’. The remark was widely panned for ignoring both the wealth of Japan’s dialects and its indigenous languages such as Ainu and the Ryukyuan languages, several of which have been undergoing revitalization processes. Even if we take a charitable view of Aso’s comment, in which he could have meant – (reality aside!) – dialects and other indigenous languages grouped under a broader ‘one language’ of Japanese, what does such a view mean for language teaching in Japan?

Setting aside, for now, the growing number of minority immigrant languages, the perception of Japan-as-monolingual has left a historical mark on language teaching in the country. Since the post-war era, double monolingualism has been a defining characteristic of the Japanese schooling system, in which (standardised) Japanese is the primary means of domestic communication, and English regarded as the only useful language for global communication. Within this context, recent headlines that suggest Japan’s English proficiency continues to fall in global rankings – doubt was cast on the usefulness of such metrics in a recent sit-down talk between the author and prominent YouTuber Chris Broad, both former assistant language teachers (ALTs) in Japan – further promote an outsider view of Japan as persistently monolingual.

From both an insider and outsider perspective, the ALT system, in which foreign nationals are invited en masse to assist with foreign language instruction (overwhelmingly English) at Japanese schools, may inadvertently perpetuate the notion of a ‘monolingual Japan’. Broader aims of the system aside, as such foreign nationals are invited into the classroom as ‘language experts’ to support Japanese teachers, it is perhaps not surprising that many learners view English as the language of the ‘other,’ (i.e. often of native, monolingual English speakers), and struggle to develop bi- (or pluri-) lingual identities of their own.

The monolingual native-speaker has often been held as the ‘goal’ for foreign language acquisition, and monolingual standards have traditionally been applied to (both internal and external) evaluations of language proficiency. This has long been pointed out as problematic for language learning, however, particularly as learners of a second or foreign language cannot become monolingual in these languages. It is here that plurilingualism becomes important. Based on decades of research into bilingualism and bilingual language use, the concept, explored in detail in the volume, entails a definition of language competence for education; Plurilingual and Pluricultural Competence, defined as:

the ability to use languages for the purposes of communication and to take part in intercultural interaction, where a person, viewed as a social actor has proficiency, of varying degrees, in several languages and experience of several cultures. This is not seen as the superposition or juxtaposition of distinct competences, but rather as the existence of a complex or even composite competence on which the social actor may draw. (Coste et al., 2009: 11)

The present volume explores innovations in language teaching in Japan, based upon this notion of plurilingual and pluricultural competence, essential for moving beyond the notion of Japan as a stubbornly ‘monolingual’ nation. To this end, grounded in the theory behind plurilingualism, the volume embarks on several ethnographical studies of practitioners in Japan. The studies in the volume include the author’s autoethnography, exploring his journey from ALT to teacher trainer, and from monolingualism to biculturalism. The central chapters of the volume focus on the personal histories and professional trajectories of two practitioners – an English language and a Japanese language specialist – and educational practices. The final two chapters address again the ALT system, exploring how ALTs often represented as monolinguals themselves are far more plurilingual than such representations might suggest.

A key strength of this volume is that it explores plurilingualism in Japan from an insider perspective – the practices explored were largely grassroots initiatives by the teachers themselves. The practices of the teachers within, and their professional identities, are strengthened by their cognizance of plurilingual language development both in the common mother tongue Japanese, the primary foreign language, English, and also their awareness of the growing prevalence of other-language minorities in their schools and in wider Japanese society.

It is hoped that the explorations in this volume will contribute further to dispelling the notion of a monolingual Japan, but also shed further light on the importance of plurilingualism in foreign language education in a way that is of relevance to scholars, teachers, and learners of language worldwide.

D.R. Pearce

For more information about this book please see our website.

If you found this interesting, you might also like Black Teachers of English(es) in Japan by Gregory Paul Glasgow.

What’s New in the Second Edition of “The Assessment of Multilingual Learners”?

We recently published the second edition of The Assessment of Multilingual Learners by Kate Mahoney. In this post the author explains what’s new in the second edition. 

ImageThe second edition of The Assessment of Multilingual Learners contains many updates, including a change in title from The Assessment of Emergent Bilinguals. The change from “Bilingual” to “Multilingual” reflects the shift in topics towards multilingual students (MLs), whereas the first edition focused mostly on the English/Spanish United States context. Since the first edition was published in 2017, I also updated research studies and policy changes regarding assessment of MLs that occurred between 2017 and 2025. The second edition also has more emphasis on translanguaging and assessment, along with summarizing new research studies in that field.

By using a framework called PUMI (Purpose-Use-Method-Instrument), this book has always emphasized the importance of the social consequences, or side effects, of assessing students in a language they are not yet proficient in (for example, English). PUMI calls attention to how we use the results of assessments and whether those uses are valid and appropriate. The second edition further explores how formative assessments, the assessments that teachers usually have more control over, can contribute to positive (and negative) school experiences for multilingual students. It also has a more in-depth look at formative assessments.

The second edition maintains the PUMI approach to understanding assessment for MLs. All assessment for MLs should consider the PUMI framework to provide better assessments and ask the right questions so teachers can advocate for better assessments. Teachers can use this framework to design assessments, evaluate current assessments, and advocate for better assessments.

For more information about this book please see our website. 

If you found this interesting, you might also like Lessons from a Dual Language Bilingual School edited by Tatyana Kleyn, Victoria Hunt, Alcira Jaar, Rebeca Madrigal and Consuelo Villegas.

Lessons from a Dual Language Bilingual School

This month we’re publishing Lessons from a Dual Language Bilingual School edited by Tatyana Kleyn, Victoria Hunt, Alcira Jaar, Rebeca Madrigal and Consuelo Villegas. In this post the editors introduce the school, Dos Puentes Elementary, that inspired the book.

ImageIn 2013 we had the privilege of co-founding a public bilingual school in New York City that we named Dos Puentes Elementary (translated as two bridges). We are Professor Tatyana Kleyn, Principal Victoria Hunt, Assistant Principal Alcira Jaar, Maestra Rebeca Madrigal and Parent Coordinator Consuelo Villegas. In 2023 we co-edited a book to share all that we had learned over a decade of growing this school, which is so close to our hearts. And in 2024, we are proud to share that the book is out and is written in a way that not only shares our experiences but includes 40 school-based experts and 20 scholars with connections to the school.

In order to anchor the school, we developed four pillars that have sustained and evolved with Dos Puentes over the past decade. They serve as the organizational structure for the book and are represented in the book’s cover art, which was created by Mar Erazo of Emulsify. The first pillar of bilingüismo, biliteracidad y multiculturalismo (upper right window) is grounded in a commitment to celebrate, grow and critically consider the cultural and linguistic diversity of the school and surrounding community. The second pillar, las familias son partners, leaders and advocates (lower right window) centers the experiences, knowledge and strength of families while supporting the bridge between home and school. The third pillar, investigaciones and hands-on learning (lower left window) is to ensure students engage in active inquiry, exploration and problem solving. Lastly, the partnerships with universities, organizations y la comunidad pillar (upper left window) is committed to building two-way collaborations to support and deepen the work of the school and learning by the adults. These pillars serve to unite everyone in working together to provide the foundation of what we do to support one another: students, teachers, staff, families, partners and the community.

The four sections of the book feature an overview of each pillar followed by chapters that take the readers into how they come to life. The chapters are written as composite cases by the people that know the school the best: the teachers, families and community partners. They share key moments from their time at Dos Puentes through vivid cases and images. Then we invited 20 scholars, one for each chapter, to provide a short commentary that connects these cases to the field and to offer larger implications. This decolonial approach to research puts families and educators at the center, rather than just including a few quotes from them. This mirrors the way Dos Puentes elementary has always valued and amplified the expertise of those who make it their educational home and work in community and collaboration with outside experts.

Our hope is that this book will offer a window into one example of a bilingual school that was intentionally created and sustained with a deep commitment to languages, cultures and community. We hope that it will inspire others to create or improve their own schools or programs to be firmly grounded in the values that work best for their students, families and community.

For more information about this book please see our website. 

If you found this interesting, you might also like Overcoming the Gentrification of Dual Language, Bilingual and Immersion Education edited by M. Garrett Delavan, Juan A. Freire and Kate Menken.

Celebrating the Impact of Guadalupe Valdés’ Work

This month we published Equity in Multilingual Schools and Communities edited by Amanda K. Kibler, Aída Walqui, George C. Bunch and Christian J. Faltis. In this post the editors explain how the book came together.

ImageProfessor Guadalupe Valdés is well known across the fields of education, bilingualism, applied linguistics, and world languages, among others, where her research, teaching, and mentoring have made enormous impacts. Her recent retirement – after nearly five decades of groundbreaking work – provided a unique opportunity for some of her many students and colleagues to pay tribute to the ways she has influenced their thinking and their lives.

We (Amanda, Aída, George, and Chris) all learned from Professor Valdés as doctoral students at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education and in the years since. Although none of us were in graduate school together, our paths have crossed many times in the past, and we enjoyed this first opportunity to all work together as a team of “intergenerational” scholars connected by Guadalupe and her influence.

Separate conversations over time coalesced into a tentative plan for this volume. As we reviewed other such festschrifts and reflected on Professor Valdés’ work, we realized how important it would be to emphasize the ways in which her scholarship challenged boundaries and expectations, reflecting the interrelated ecologies in which Latino and other multilingual students live, learn, and develop. Such complexities defy expectations for a neat and orderly table of contents for any volume, but we have done our best to highlight key areas of Professor Valdés’ work while also highlighting the many connections among them.

Although the volume includes more than 25 chapters from almost 50 contributors, we also acknowledge that it leaves many stories untold, and we hope this tribute sparks new and ongoing conversations about bilingualism, teaching and learning, and equity for multilingual students.

Although Guadalupe was hesitant for us to take time away from our own scholarship to undertake this project, she eventually agreed, under one condition: that contributors use this opportunity to “look forward” to their own work rather than to only look back at hers. We are particularly excited about the ways in which the chapters in the volume both heed and resist this call, sharing new insights and findings while also celebrating and offering tributes to the ways in which Professor Valdés’ tremendous work has made these innovations possible.

For more information about this book please see our website.

If you found this interesting, you might also like Overcoming the Gentrification of Dual Language, Bilingual and Immersion Education edited by M. Garrett Delavan, Juan A. Freire and Kate Menken.

The Language Journey of Korean-English Bilingual Children

This month we published Korean-English Bilingualism in Early Childhood by Sunny K. Park-Johnson. In this post the author explains the importance of the longitudinal nature of the study.

ImageWhen studying bilingual language development in early childhood, we often rely heavily on snapshots: these data come from just a day or two of their lives. Sometimes we see children in labs for a study, and then we never hear from them again. That is why a longitudinal study is so important. Following children’s language development across time gives us a perspective that is both expansive and specific, capturing moments in development that we sometimes miss in snapshots.

This book does just that. We get to see two-and-a-half years’ worth of data, observed monthly, that provides a rich picture of four Korean-English bilingual children’s language journey. The children in this book are acquiring both Korean and English during early childhood, a rich time of language development that has many nuances, small changes, and subtle shifts. And because the data is collected in the child’s home, we’re able to capture naturalistic, spontaneous language “in the wild”.

The longitudinal study is also important because it compares children to themselves over time. We know there is much individual variation between children; by observing children’s development longitudinally, the comparisons are within the child’s own self. This inherent consistency is immensely valuable when studying the picture of children’s language development.

The book takes readers through the development of morphology and syntax of Korean and English separately, then discusses code-switching and interplay between the two languages. Then, as an epilogue of sorts, there is a chapter that reports on an interview with two of the children, who are now young adults. It is a unique experience to hear from the very same participants a decade later as they reflect back on their bilingualism and language journey.

Perhaps most importantly, as a Korean-English bilingual myself, I was welcomed into the lives of these families: not just as a researcher, but as an extended family member. Thus, the book has an insight, context, and weight that goes beyond grammar; it is imbued with the responsibility and care of an insider that understands and loves the community. The value of those relationships cannot be understated.

For more information about this book please see our website.

If you found this interesting, you might also like Multimodal Communication in Young Multilingual Children by Jieun Kiaer.