Bilingual families: the mother’s language choices are twice as important

Children wave Quebec flags during the Quebec National Holiday on June 23, 2024. (The Canadian Press/Graham Hughes)

For a child to be bilingual, the mother’s language choices are much more important than the strategy used. This is according to a study from Concordia University conducted with Montreal families.

In fact, regardless of the strategy used, the mother has twice the influence on language learning compared to the father, explains Andrea Sander-Montant, a PhD candidate at Concordia’s Child Research Lab.

There wasn’t “really one strategy that was better than the others for ensuring a balanced amount of both languages for the child.”

The “one parent, one language” strategy, which is generally the most recommended, is not necessarily more effective, according to the study’s findings.

Sander-Montant is nonetheless surprised that it is rarely used in Montreal families, who prefer a model where both parents speak both languages.

Generally, a child needs to communicate in each language at least 25 per cent of the time every day in order to learn it, the researcher notes.

“We observed that none of these strategies told us much about what children were actually hearing at home,” says Professor Krista Byers-Heinlein from the university’s Department of Psychology, the study’s lead supervisor.

The researchers hypothesize that mothers spend more time with their children, which gives them more opportunities to pass on their language. They also believe the traditionally closer relationship between mothers and their children plays a role.

Among the 300 families studied, 60 spoke a language other than French or English at home. Whether or not that language was shared by both parents, the mother’s influence on the child’s learning of it was even more significant in these families.

In addition to time spent with the child, the study suggests that cultural factors may also play a role, including the fact that language transmission is often seen by mothers as their responsibility.

The data used in the study was collected from parents who came to the lab for various reasons between 2013 and 2020.

A questionnaire was systematically given to them, with no specific objective other than gathering information.

Sander-Montant believes it would be important to include single-parent families and families with same-sex parents in a follow-up study.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on April 5, 2025.