2020
December 31, 2020 — A positive way to end 2020: Accepted to present a talk at SRCD
A talk authored by myself, Dr. Ana Maria Gonzalez-Barrero, and Dr. Krista Byers-Heinlein has been accepted for presentation at the 2021 Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) Biennial Meeting (to be held April 7-9 2021 virtually) as part of a symposium entitled From Text to Context: Storybooks as a Platform for Dual-Language Learning! I am excited to be part of this very promising symposium, and to be able to partner with "Effects of language dominance on home reading practices of bilingual families" co-author Dr. Gonzalez-Barrero once again to discuss the role of language dominance in word learning and family reading practices.
September 21, 2020 — In the news: Montreal Families (with link to newspaper article)
July 15, 2020 — Now published: "Effects of language dominance on home reading practices of bilingual families" paper (with links to paper & preprint)
I am happy to report that our paper on bilingual book reading within families is now published. (Can't access the paper? No problem, find the preprint here.)
A quick summary of our findings:
Families gave more emphasis to reading practices in the family’s dominant language: they owned more books, read more often, spent more time, and started reading to the child at an earlier age in the dominant than in the non-dominant language.
Dominance also affected parent reading behaviors: parents reported more often translating words and switching from their non-dominant to their dominant language. Parents reported that children enjoyed being read to and readily learned new words in both languages, but ratings were higher for the dominant language.
These findings are important given that family home reading practices may further exacerbate uneven development across children's two languages. This highlights the importance of identifying strategies to support the non-dominant language in the home.
July 6, 2020 — International Conference on Infant Studies, online edition (with link to poster & summary video)
I am happy that the International Conference of Infant Studies (ICIS) has reversed its decision to cancel and decided to host the conference online instead this year! It was great to meet and discuss with other infancy researchers, and even to discover a new conference format.
I presented an interactive poster (which you can find here) about the worries & concerns of parents raising bilingual children and created a YouTube video walking you through it (which you can find here, with subtitles available in English and French).
If you've never attended an online conference before, here is what I learned:
Prioritize networking. Unlike a regular conference, you can spend hours watching every talk and reading every poster in detail since they remain accessible outside designated talk/poster sessions. However, you cannot get back precious opportunities to network and discuss with other researchers, so this is what I learned to prioritize!
You can't see it all. Much like a regular conference, make a plan as to which talks you want to attend, and which posters you really want to see. Take regular breaks to avoid Zoom fatigue.
Happy conferencing!
April 15, 2020 — Now published: "Intersections of official and family language policy in Quebec" paper (with links to paper and preprint)
New paper alert: click here to read our newest paper about the beliefs, practices, and needs of parents living in Montreal, Quebec, who were raising their children bi/multilingually.
The parents (N = 27) participated in a total of nine focus group and individual interviews in which they discussed their family language policies (language ideologies, practices, and actions taken to maintain a language). Through rounds of deductive and inductive coding and analysis, family language policies regarding English and/or French were compared with policies regarding heritage languages. The participants’ family language policies were further examined in light of Quebec’s official language policy of interculturalism. Findings indicate a complex co-existence of family and official language policy in which parents both support Quebec’s official language policy by converging towards French as a common public language and questioning the policy’s stance on official institutional support for heritage languages.
Can't access the paper? No problem, find the preprint here.
