If you're in Paris , go DULALA!

I had posted previously about a brilliant association here in Paris organizing language playgroups for multilingual families: it was called the Association des Familles Multilingues. It recently changed name, website and enlarged its scope: it's now called D'Une Langue A L'Autre (DULALA), if you are based in Paris or simply French-spoken, take a look at their sleek website! I recently joined their Research Committee and it's great fun to interact with the founder, Anna Stevanato, a fellow Italian woman who's a linguist and specialised on bilingualism, as well as the other members.

It's exciting to see how much has changed here in Paris in the last 5 years, that is ever since I started wondering about multilingualism: not only parents have now access to a plethora of information on the web as well as associations such as the Cafe Bilingue and DULALA, but the general media is also finally recognizing the changing demographics of France's capital and are investigating on the matter. If you understand French, listen to this (very French indeed!) podcast from Europe1, one the top French news radios, entitled: "Je veux que mon enfant soit bilingue!"

Learning through playing

One of the tools that we, as parents of multilingual children, have to foster and strenghten the minority language in our household, is to set up play groups with families who speak the language we need to reinforce.

Setting up a playgroup can greatly vary in difficulty depending upon the location: large, cosmopolitan cities might provide more opportunities than smaller urban centers, however on the internet we can find all sorts of websites helping us locating families near us with the same lingusitic needs.

Anna Stevanato Le Marchand, a fellow Italian mum here in Paris, has recently founded an organization to help multilingual parents in this direction: the Association des Familles Multilingues organizes playgroups in Italian, Spanish and English for kids aged 2 to 7.

German and Russian playgroups are also in the planning. The objective is to have kids strenghten and practice their second language in a playful atmosphere and outside the family environment. The results and the progress are often outstanding!