New book helps families make multilingualism work in real life

HELSINKI - Dec. 13, 2013 - PRLog -- Helsinki, Dec. 12, 2013 – Children may be like sponges when it comes to language learning, but the key to having them develop into active bilinguals in all their languages is to make it fun and useful in daily life. Struggling at first to raise her daughters bilingually, Annika Bourgogne, MA and language teacher, decided to write the book that she herself would have liked to read when embarking on her family's bilingual journey. Her book Be Bilingual- Practical Ideas for Multilingual Families is full of creative and fun ideas, backed up by the latest research, that show families how juggle two or more languages and still make it enjoyable.

”The key is to make bilingualism a priority, but not a source of stress,” says Annika who knows firsthand the challenges that multilingual families face in everyday life. ”My aim with this book is to provide useful advice and resources for families across a range of different multilingual situations: mixed-language marriages, expats, international adoption, single-parent, and trilingual families, and parents who speak a non-native language with their children.”

About the author: Annika Bourgogne holds a Master of Arts degree in French and English from the University of Helsinki. She has written her master's thesis on bilingualism, and is mother to two bilingual daughters. Passionate about family bilingualism, she is constantly looking for new ways to combine real-life parenting with the latest research on the subject. She teaches French, English, and Swedish in Helsinki, Finland.

For more information about Be Bilingual, please visit: www.be-bilingual.net. (http://www.be-bilingual.net)