Introduction

As learning English became increasingly crucial to follow the global trend, neoliberal influences became powerful at all levels in education in the form of English immersion policies (Shim & Park, 2008). This neoliberal approach, which was initiated during Lee’s presidency, aimed to improve the quality of public English education while reducing private expenditures on supplementary private education (Lee, 2010). The growing influence of the English language in Korea has led to higher aspirations among Korean parents for their children’s English skills than ever before, resulting in increasing expenditures on private English education. One of the major concerns of the Korean government was a great amount of money privately spent on English learning, ranging from private lessons for young children, after-school classes for secondary students, to continued English learning efforts to qualify for a stable job even after graduation, all of which reflect Korean parents’ distrust of the quality of public education in the current education system.

Under the government policy, a large number of native-English-speaking teachers were employed in the schools. Also, to provide a rich English language environment for Korean students wishing to achieve native-like English proficiency but unable to afford to travel to English-speaking countries, “English-only zones” were created within school districts and supplied with English learning materials such as books and audio/video tools to simulate English-speaking environments (Byean, 2015). Another proposed government English immersion project was the policy of teaching English using only English (TEE), which was based on assumption that students would have sufficient communicative competence if well-prepared teachers equipped with native-like English proficiency and CLT methods delivered only in English (Byean, 2015).

In fact, the committee’s initial proposal was not actualized as planned because of overwhelming opposition by the public. Most Koreans thought that those educational policies are neither practical nor feasible. Despite the governmental efforts to improve Koreans’ English proficiency through promoting public education quality, this project had to be revised and eventually withdrawn as it failed to bridge the gap between the government’s policy and public opinion. Despite numerous English educational projects enacted by the government in the present century, however, Korean parents continue to believe that their children would not achieve sufficient competence in English to meet global trends in public schools alone (Byean, 2015). Moreover, the parents’ socioeconomic status often determines the amount they can invest financially in their children’s English education, regardless of their aspirations for their children’s achievements. This causes many lower middle class parents to feel ashamed of their financial limitations leading to their low self-esteem.

This policy failure is a good example of how globalization can be differently practiced within local contexts, often due to conflicts between a government’s language education policy and the public’s ideologies (Lee, 2010). Thus, the maternal English teaching approach emerged as a movement by Korean parents to pursue a more cost-effective way to provide an English-learning-friendly home environment for their children than investing in private English education. As one solution to the economic stratification of English learning opportunities and resulting in inequalities is the newly emerging global trend of bilingual parenting, called ‘maternal English education’ (Seo, 2021). Recently, the term ‘엄마표영어 (Eommapyo yeong-eo)’ (Maternal [Parental] English education) has been used to represent a newly emerging trends in Korea and has become popular all over the country (Joongangilbo, 12/24/2018). The main premise of parental English teaching is that English learning is intermingled with normal familial interactions and play with children in the home. Therefore, any activities can be a source of English learning such as singing, dancing, and playing games.

Despite the increasing popularity of teaching English through homeschooling, many Koreans still believe that parents should use their native language exclusively when speaking to their young children because of such negative effects of using a foreign language as children’s confusion regarding, choice of language, language delay, or the community’s disapproval of the practice. One of the most basic issues is whether or not teaching a child a language in which neither the mother nor father is a native speaker is a good idea. In spite of those concerns, some non-native speaking parents choose to raise bilingual children by providing a target language home environment with the help of ample tools to help children learn, such as books, music, cartoons, and other media in the target language. To meet those Korean parents’ needs, it is necessary to conduct empirical research with theoretical underpinnings for family guided bilingual education in Korean society.

Besides the high level of pressure exerted on children and their families, another concern about English obsession from an early age is the possibly negative impact on Koreans’ traditional national identity as a monolingual society based on history, ethnicity, and culture (Crystal, 2003). It is feared that learning English before attaining complete language mastery in Korean may hamper children’s L1 (Korean) literacy development (Nunan, 2003). Many scholars in the field of education have raised doubts about other possibly negative effects of the excessive focus on English learning from an early age, such as neglect of other educational subjects (Park, 2009), the widening educational gap between urban and rural areas, overheated growth of private English tutoring and early language training abroad, and the educational and economic inefficiency of emphasizing English education in an EFL environment (Byean, 2015).

For these reasons, despite the fact that many Korean parents are extremely passionate about educating their children in the English language, very few of them achieve their goals through bilingual parenting for various reasons. Thus, those who do succeed have their stories published or feature on television programs as ideal models. One of the crucial reasons why most Korean parents easily give up within the first several months is due to a lack of informative guidelines, inconsistent parental attitudes toward the teaching English, or disappointment with the lack of immediately visible results. These are some reasons why the few successful experiences of Korean mothers are idealized as strategic models or guidelines among Korean parents who desire to raise their children as fluent English speakers. Therefore, it is necessary to examine challenges of the Korean parents in practicing bilingual education by themselves at home and micro- and macro-factors contributing to the difficulties in bilingual parenting in a monolingual context. Research questions are as follows:

  1. 1.

    What are the bilingual myths prevalent in Korean English education?

  2. 2.

    What are the challenges faced by the parents in the process of bilingual parenting as nonnative English-speaking parents and what parental strategies are evident in their family language policies?

Definitions of bilingualism in EFL contexts

In general, first language acquisition occurs naturally from birth because it is internally driven within an individual learner (Krashen, 1985). Second language acquisition (SLA), however, requires additional efforts or contextual motivation. Bloomfield (1933) defined bilingualism as “native-like control of two languages,” which may seem precise but is based on how we define a degree of perfection and so, apart from the high standard set, is too ambiguous to be realistic. Grosjean (1985) suggests a more reasonable view of bilinguals, saying that comparing the language proficiency of a monolingual with a bilingual’s dual language proficiency makes little sense. According to Grosjean (1982, 1985), bilinguals’ language proficiencies should be evaluated based not on their formal correctness, but on their general communicativeness. This emphasizes the functional aspect of language use for special purposes.

However, the meaning of the term bilingual differs among people depending on their criteria of proficiency in each language. Some people believe bilinguals should have approximately equal fluency in two languages across various contexts, but this view seems idealistic. It is hard to find bilinguals who are equally competent in all situations (Fishman, 1971). Moreover, measuring someone’s abilities in two languages is virtually impossible because of the lack of tools to compare different language proficiencies. More likely, bilinguals may use their two languages for different purposes and with different people (Baker, 2011). It is fully understandable why so many different definitions of bilingualism exist and why none of them is satisfactory to everyone (Harding & Riley, 2003). Therefore, a range of dimensions of bilingualism might be considered, including: age, language ability, balanced use of the two languages, development, and contexts of language acquired (or used) (Valdés & Figueroa, 1994). Depending on the social context in which an individual has acquired a second language, it can be classified into specific types of bilingualism, such as individual/societal bilingualism and elite/folk bilingualism.

Language cannot be separated from the context in which it is used, so an individual’s bilingual ability is changing and evolving over time (Baker, 2011). Some of the different definitions each scholar suggests show the importance of differentiating between “bilingual societies” (or “official bilingualism”) and “bilingual individuals” (or “individual bilingualism”) because not all of the individuals in officially bilingual societies, such as Canada or Finland, are bilingual, whereas there are great numbers of bilingual individuals in monolingual societies like France, Japan or Korea (Harding & Riley, 2003). In other words, many monolingual (not officially bilingual) countries have considerable numbers of speakers who can speak two or more languages (Grosjean, 1982), while there may be fewer bilinguals in the bilingual countries than there are in the monolingual countries (Mackey, 1967). Paulston (1975) claims that one more designation to be considered in studying bilingualism in monolingual societies is “elite bilingualism,” which refers to a small but well-educated minority for whom bilingualism is a marker of their privilege (Harding & Riley, 2003). For these groups of people, bilingualism has a very different significance than for ethnic groups who must be bilingual to survive under the control of the dominant majority in a monocultural society.

In sum, as it is hardly possible to define who is bilingual or not, some categorization is needed. It is necessary to understand how Koreans perceive ‘bilingual speakers’ and what bilingualism means to them in Korean society to examine the Korean–English bilingual parenting of Korean parents. Bilingualism in Korea is often referred as additive bilingualism which is also called ‘elective bilingualism’, ‘artificial bilingualism’, or ‘intentional bilingualism’ (Szramek-Karcz, 2014). The term additive bilingualism refers to the situation where a person has acquired the two languages in a balanced manner. Moreover, over several decades, bilingual education in South Korea has concentrated on English, which is the first foreign language learned although Japanese and Chinese are recently getting attention. In other words, the concept of bilingualism in Korea is closely related to the symbolic power of English, and achieving Korean–English bilingualism can be understood with several major English language ideologies in Korea: ‘Neoliberal Personhood’ (Park, 2010) and ‘The English Promise’ (Park, 2011).

Non-native bilingual parenting

For children to be successful in early bilingualism, it is very important for them to be exposed to two languages in diverse settings from birth with the support of both parents, who play a crucial role in early language development, as they provide the children’s first exposure to the language(s) and chances to use both languages. In the past two decades, research on bilingual child development has focused on environmental factors, in particular the influence of the family and especially parents. To understand the interrelated factors affecting the child’s bilingual development, it is necessary to examine different types of bilingual families and their characteristics. Several typologies have been proposed in the past, each reflecting particular researchers’ interests, one of which is Harding and Riley’s (1986, 2003) model of five types of bilingual families, a modification of Romaine’s (1995) typology, which they used in multiple case studies of bilingual families.

The kinds of language strategies that the parents, either individually or together, apply to their children’s learning depends on the parents’ language skills in the native and/or target language, their attitudes towards the language(s), and the sociocultural contexts in which they live. Unlike other types of families of which it is easy to find examples, use of a foreign language (e.g. English) by non-native speaking parents (e.g. Korean parents) in a monolingual society (e.g. South Korea) is worthwhile to investigate because of the high social and economic value placed on the target language, especially with regard to children’s education, in a setting in which it is not commonly used for communication. Criticizing problems caused by vague or inconsistent terminology in research on interlingual families, Yamamoto (2001) proposed a taxonomy of four categories of interlingual families based on whether the parents have the same or different native languages and do or do not speak the community language.

Yamamoto (2001) refers to families who are raising their children to speak two or more languages as interlingual families, which include parents who intentionally do not address their children in their own native language(s) or speak to them in the language of the community in an effort to provide their children with a bilingual environment. Yamamoto (2001) describes such families as having “the potential to provide their children with a bilingual environment and, then, with the opportunity to become bilingual in their parents’ languages” (p. 1). Using the taxonomy of the interlingual families, Yamamoto (2001) examined the linguistic milieus of families, such as how languages are used in interlingual families in Japan. He investigated a large variety of families, including the factors affecting the children’s language use and levels of bilingual attainment, such as the role of parental language input, interactions with siblings, and parental perceptions of bilingualism.

Among the four types of interlingual families, Group C, which is similar to Type 5 (Non-native target language speaking parents) of Harding and Riley’s (2003) study, corresponds to the design of the present study in that the participant families were native Korean speakers living in a Korean-speaking community, but they spoke English as a major means of family communication. Both parents had learned English as a primary foreign language beginning in middle school and decided to use only English as a family language, with the aim of raising their two young children as successful Korean–English bilingual speakers from birth.

Szramek-Karcz (2014) defines Non-Native Bilingualism as “a condition where parents share the same native language living in the community where their native language is predominantly used and the child is always addressed by either parent or both in a language which is not their language” (p. 93). This practice can also be carried out by anyone who cares for the child, including grandparents, relatives, or nannies. However, considering the common family structure in South Korea, in early childhood children spend most of their time with their parents, particularly their mother, which builds a strong mother–child relationship. In this context, non-native bilingual parenting, in which children are raised using a language, which is foreign to the parent(s) and the community to develop as bilinguals, is a newly emerging trend among Korean families as mentioned earlier.

The concept of non-native bilingualism is discussed in numerous websites and personal blogs, along with several books published both scholarly and commercially. Raising bilingual children by speaking the parents’ foreign language is completely different from raising children in their native language. However, most recent studies on bilingual families have focused on either international families (by marriage) or immigrant families striving to maintain their heritage language (Curdt-Christiansen, 2009, 2016; Fishman, 1991; King & Fogle, 2006). Moreover, most non-native bilingual families have been investigated in different linguistic, social, and historical contexts, in many of which the community and target languages are in the same language family, as in European countries where fostering Spanish–English or French–English bilingualism is the main goal.

Research context

To examine this case family who speaks only English to their children to raise bilingual speakers in Korea, I will clarify which language is the first language of the children and what this means to their parents. Both parents in this case family learned to read and write in English in middle school, and they were offered informal language learning experiences such as reading children’s book in English or watching English movies by their parents. On the other hand, children in this study are in a completely different situation from other Korean children. Unlike Korean parents who send their children to private language schools or abroad for English learning, this family established a home language policy requiring children to speak only in English from birth. By providing only English input to their children, two young children have grown up native English speakers within the home domain prior to preschool. Moreover, the parents have provided artificial environments for improving speaking and listening skills. Through their parent–child interactions at home, the parents make a constant effort to support children’s balanced bilingualism that can hardly be achievable only in formal schooling. Debating whether English is the children’s first language is not the main focus of this argument. Rather, I would like to mention children in this family have grown up in highly supportive home language environments for English learning.

Participants

My participant family consists of four members. Father (Hyun) and mother (Jung) of the family share the same native language, Korean, which is the dominant language of local society, but both parents regularly and exclusively speak English to their children, which is neither their native nor the locally dominant language. Hyun and Jung were born, raised, and educated in regular schools in Korea, and they did not have enough English language-related backgrounds or experiences abroad. Hyun and Jung designated English as their family home language and established family language policies to promote early childhood bilingualism through homeschooling. Hyun worked as a high school English teacher since 2009. Jung, who had an academic background in the study of bilingualism (Master’s degree in TESOL), has been a housewife since her first child (Hoo) was born in 2013. When her second child (Jee) turned two, she started working as an English teacher at kindergarten. While mothers in traditional Asian families play an important role in children’s development from birth, the father in this case family was actively involved in bilingual parenting. For example, Hyun constantly sought good materials to provide sufficient language input to his children, and he spent much time with his son after work and devoted weekends and holidays to family interactions. Regarding their language skills, Hyun and Jung were competent English language speakers and had little trouble in communicating with each other in English. According to their self-evaluations of the English proficiency, Hyun showed relatively high English-learning aptitude and he could speak English more accurately and fluently compared to Jung.

Since Hoo’s birth in 2013, Hyun and Jung had been exclusively speaking English to him. Their relatives, particularly a grandfather and aunts, also spoke simple English to Hoo whenever they visited Hyun’s home. Thus, except for special occasions, Hoo’s parents had provided him with only English input within the home environment since his birth. In other words, the main tenet of their language policy was “English at home from the parents, Korean from outside the home.” Hoo was 18 months old when he started to get Korean input from his friends and teachers at the regular daycare to which Hyun and Jung sent him. Within a month, Hoo began to understand what other Korean children at the daycare were saying, and it took six months for him to become fully conversant in Korean outside the home.

The second child, Jee was born in July 2016, and Hyun and Jung have applied the same language policy and home language practice with her from her birth. Hoo had received language input from only Hyun and Jung until he went to the daycare. However, the Jee’s main language source was Hoo, not her parents. Moreover, Jung admitted to being more patient and accepting of Jee’s speaking Korean at home, which was a major change compared to the parents’ strictly forbidding Hoo’s use of Korean when he the age that Jee was now.

Data collection and analysis

In this study, I adopted an ethnographic approach in which I observed and interacted with participants in the research context to examine the parental language practice and their challenges in the family language practices. In order to establish trustworthiness in this qualitative study, I used data triangulation, with a combination of data gathering methods, including interviews, text messages, on-site recordings, and participant observation. I collected data over a 31-month period, December 2015 to June 2018. Among the multiple data sources, I mainly used interview data and parents’ self-reflections through text messages. The interview transcripts were particularly useful tools to show the parents’ beliefs and challenges during non-native bilingual parenting in their words. However, all other data methods helped me to understand participants’ home language practices and to confirm consistency between their thoughts and behaviors.

Parents were asked to begin by talking about their English learning experiences in Korea and their goals for their children’s language development. The conversation then moved to strategies to meet those expectations, their children’s language exposure and proficiencies, and the parents’ beliefs about bilingualism and the English language. Interviews were conducted in Korean by choice of the participants and mostly held in their home where one or both parents could talk in a relaxed and conversational manner. These formal interviews and informal interactions allowed me to elicit the parents’ ideologies concerning bilingual parenting and their perceived evaluation of the different languages in Korean society.

I conducted 10 open-ended interviews with the parents ranging from 60 to 90 min and additional occasional follow-up interviews. The topics included family background, parents’ language learning history, language and literacy policies at home, attitudes toward the bilingual education policy, parents’ educational expectations for their children, perceptions of the nature of language learning, and family members’ roles in the children’s successful bilingual development.

Additionally, I participated in the daily life of the family, including activities such as play times, meals, and various household tasks, which gave me many opportunities to observe and discuss family members’ individual language behaviors and English interaction patterns and discuss their beliefs with them. The family conversation data were collected with ethnographic tools of inquiry through two visits to the families during each of data collection phases during 2017 and 2018 depending on the family’s availability. These videos document naturally occurring family interactions, mealtimes and literacy events. Additionally, in the intervals between face-to-face interviews and on-site observations, I have occasionally maintained online communications with the parents using emails, messenger (KakaoTalk),Footnote 1 and Skype to get information about any changes or developments in their bilingual parenting.

For data analysis of this study, I conducted thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) of the semi-structured interviews of the parents to understand their experiences, attitudes and concerns of parents regarding their Korean–English bilingual parenting strategy. As a very flexible method, it gives a considerable advantage given the diversity of work in learning and teaching. All audio/video-recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim. As data for case studies need to be recursively reviewed throughout the data analysis process (Creswell, 2013; Merriam, 1998) and the analytic cycles of a qualitative study do not follow a linear sequence but rather they are recursive and iterative (Yin, 2015), I read through the whole data repeatedly and cyclically.

I first read each interview transcript carefully, identified codes, and grouped them into categories following Yin’s (2015) analytic phases (compiling, disassembling, reassembling, interpreting, and concluding). I began by formally arranging all data in a useful order. Next, I broke the arrangement into smaller segments to which I assigned codes. Following Saldaña’s (2016) coding, categorizing, and interpreting processes, I identified major themes and labelled them. Then I used the scheme I developed to code the transcripts myself and identify salient themes while composing analytic memos.

Findings

In this study, I examined several challenges faced by Hyun and Jung in the process of raising two children through home language practice as bilinguals in a monolingual context of Korea, including language problems they faced as nonnative English-speaking parents and the lack of a supportive community of families and factors causing their problems and how Hyun and Jung confronted them. I also explored the strategies they applied to the bilingual parenting.

Lack of Korean parents’ English proficiency

Because neither of the parents spoke English as a native speaker, speaking English fluently and correctly all the time to provide authentic language input for their children required constant vigilance and enormous efforts, and these were not always enough. One of the greatest challenges the parents faced was the occasional inability to come up with proper words or expressions in English. Although both Hyun and Jung had studied English for more than 10 years and majored in English education in graduate school, there was a big gap between learning English at school and using English naturally in their daily lives. Hyun described several episodes related in which his lack of English vocabulary embarrassed him, as exemplified in the following:

I went through several trials and errors while speaking English to my children. Frustration and rewards always come together. The right expressions in particular. A few days ago, I wanted to say “무릎굽혀 (bend your knees)” to Hoo, but I couldn’t come up with the appropriate expression….I usually search Google or look something up in the dictionary. You know, it sometimes makes me discouraged, but it gives me satisfaction as well. (Hyun, Interview, 07/16/2017)

When Hyun faced difficult situations, he tried to solve the problem instead of giving up or avoiding the challenging situations. He understood that it was natural for nonnative speaking parents to have difficulties coming up with English expressions, particularly in relation to childcare. The more important thing for Hyun was to overcome the adversities and keep going further. Hyun shared another experience related to unfamiliar English vocabulary and strategies he used to get through such situations:

Whenever I don’t know how to express some words in English, I often use a dictionary, or ask a native speaker to learn the expression so we can use it in everyday life. Children’s books can also be a good reference because they have many useful expressions. Yesterday, I wanted to say “뽑기 (drawing)” and I wondered if the word can be used in daily life, so my wife and I searched Google by image or by situations. If we get to know the meaning of the word, we search news articles in which the words are included, such as UPI or LA times. (Hyun, Interview, 07/16/2017)

Because unexpected situations involving language and communications can arise any time, especially when caring for young children, Hyun and Jung coped by treating them as learning experiences. Rather than being bewildered or depressed, they tried to be patient and strive to cope with the problem together. They were accustomed to developing coping strategies since they had also learned English as a foreign language in a Korean language context and knew that it required much skill and determined efforts. The main difference from their previous language learning was that now as parents they benefitted from the multiple language learning tools and recently developed search engines on the Internet, which lessened their burden as both learners and parents.

Common myths about bilingualism

Considering the socio-cultural context of Korea as a monolingual society in which Korean is the dominant language and there is pressure to conform, parents must bear others’ attitudes toward their way of parenting. Jung had several experiences with others’ negative or doubtful responses to her use of English with her children:

People in my neighborhood, particularly seniors, have expressed strongly negative opinions about my use of English with my son. They thought English should not be learned until children have mastered Korean because of harmful effects of the foreign language on the mother tongue. In their perspectives, my way of parenting would backfire in the children’s process of learning Korean. At the beginning, I’ve tried to refute their myth, but I gave up. Now, they stopped expressing concerns after they saw my son has no problem in speaking Korean. (Jung, Interview, 07/16/2017)

It is not surprising that seniors have negative attitudes toward an emphasis on English or speaking it in public spaces as they, unlike the younger generations for whom learning English is a necessity, have lived their whole lives without knowing English and do not consider English proficiency a very important asset to their life and indeed may have a harmful effect on Korean language development. These biases towards bilingualism made Jung feel defensive about her family situation.

However, the neighbors’ initial attitudes toward the family’s English-speaking practices started to change after they saw that Hoo spoke Korean fluently, which proved their prejudice against bilingualism to be groundless. But Jung also had to contend with the same attitudes toward early English-speaking for children among the teachers in Hoo’s kindergarten and other parents. One teacher, who was in charge of Hoo’s class the previous year expressed her view of common parental attitudes:

Some parents may think speaking English at home will make Hoo confused in acquiring Korean or correct manners. They tend to think Korean should be taught before learning English because Korean is our native language. Most Korean parents are not willing to teach English at the expense of Korean language. (Interview with a teacher of day care center, 08/09/2017)

From the teacher’s point of view, it’s no wonder she was concerning about Hoo’s inner anxiety since this teacher, who had taken care of many children, was understandably concerned about Hoo’s anxieties. Compared to Hoo’s parents, the teacher might have assessed Hoo’s behaviors and personality more objectively. Whereas focused only on Hoo’s Korean language development, his teachers worried about the stress that English might be causing him:

Some teachers in this center are dubious about Hoo’s exclusive English-speaking at home. Korean? We don’t worry about his Korean proficiency as his Korean is even much better than other students in the same age group. Rather, we used to talk about Hoo’s behavioral development. Hoo sometimes throws a tantrum or shows violent behavior. With regard to language, he seems to be confused speaking two languages. I assume cautiously that these particular behaviors might result from his psychological anxiety. Hoo seems to struggle with the language differences between Korean outside and English at home. (Jung, Interview, after talking with Hoo’s teacher, 08/09/2017)

At the same time, Jung and Hyun received some advice or support from other sources, such as a counselor in a child development center or a home teacher from kindergarten. Even though both parents had knowledge about English education, they were not child development experts. There are many things to be considered when a child shows unusual behaviors or behavior disorders. As Hoo was their first child, Hyun and Jung had difficulty determining what caused Hoo’s behavioral problems and tried to identify the factors that might be directly involved. After Jee was born, Jung observed her development carefully to compare it with Hoo’s. In addition to Jung’s consistent questioning about their way of parenting Hoo, Hyun was also worried about the high anxiety that Hoo had shown at around two years old, which Jee might also go through at the same age.

Whenever Hoo showed some problems, I partially attributed them to English-speaking at home. At the same time, I’ve decided to see what happen to Jee. Now that Jee seems to be okay without any problems, I feel assured that Hoo’s problems were not because of our English use, but because of his personal issues, maybe. What if we didn’t have Jee? I might have believed that English caused Hoo’s problem. (Hyun, Interview, 03/06/2018)

Like Jung, Hyun wondered whether Hoo’s symptoms arose from exclusive English use at home or were just Hoo’s personal traits. Recently, whenever Jee showed signs similar to Hoo’s, Hyun couldn’t help wondering if English-speaking was causing her to experience anxiety. This seemed not to be the case, though changes in Jee’s behavior reawakened her mother’s concern.

Spousal’s different perspectives toward children’s language development

Observing that Hoo tended to copy what he said, including mistakes, Hyun strived to provide error-free English input to his children in hopes of preventing transfer from Korean as much as possible, and he tried to enforce a similar meticulousness on the part of his wife. On the other hand, Jung was sometimes oppressed by Hyun’s desire to make their children perfect bilinguals because, as non-native speakers of English, they inevitably committed some errors unconsciously and could not meet his high standard. Hyun admitted his obsession with nativelike and authentic English use and explained that his aspirations came from his past and current experiences in the Korean educational system.

I know, I am so preoccupied with L1 transfer in English. The reason is very simple. It is important to speak English accurately to have a nativelike English-speaking skill. I think some simple mistakes can be easily avoided. One more important thing is that we cannot help considering the education system of Korea. You know, the English test in Korea requires the correct usage of sentence structure and grammatical knowledge. When I imagine Hoo’s school life in the future, I should consider this [speaking English accurately and fluently] (Hyun, Interview, 07/16/2017)

As an English teacher in a foreign language high school, Hyun saw many students who spoke English fluently thanks to their experience of living in English-speaking countries when they were young but made errors in their written English. In order to pursue the balanced English language skills required in Korean society, Hyun paid close attention to Hoo’s errors that were attributable to his Korean language use. Since Hyun and Jung did not have nativelike English skills and might therefore model imperfect English for their children, Hyun forced himself and tried to force his wife to speak accurate English or to self-correct or correct each other’s mistakes.

I think we should support each other to make our home an English-only zone. For example, I try to make corrections when I see some errors in my wife’s English. However, my wife doesn’t like error correction. When I tried to correct her errors, she threatened me saying that she would stop speaking English.… She has been under the pressure…Thus, speaking English at home makes me motivated rather than stressed, but it’s not the same with my wife. To be a nativelike English speaker is not her goal, and English may not be practical for her current life. (Hyun, Interview, 12/27/2015)

Jung agreed with Hyun’s opinion on the need for cooperation, but she found it difficult to speak perfect English all the time because of her workload as a mother. Even though Jung and Hyun had planned to raise their children as bilingual speakers through a home language environment, there was a large gap between them in terms of their ultimate goals for their children’s bilingual development and eventual careers. Given their different points of view on speaking English and aspirations for the children’s future careers, Jung might have been experiencing considerable stress due to Hyun’s monitoring, particularly because, as time went by after their initial agreement on the family language policy, their basic philosophical views on the purpose of language learning diverged:

Whenever he corrected my English, I let him know my personal opinions. There would be no problem at all even if I made any mistakes in speaking English. Because the main purpose of this is for communication, not error correction. However, he strives to correct my English as well as his to keep them from becoming fossilized. Speaking English accurately all the time is so tough for me. Different opinions between him and me make it worse. (Jung, Interview, 07/16/2017)

Jung conjectured that their different ways of thinking might reflect her husband’s superior cognitive abilities for language learning. In spite of her English major in college, Jung did not have the same language learning aptitude as her husband, who have special interest and abilities in this area. In other words, she agreed that having better English skills would help to her raise bilingual children, but making time for improving her English was harder than she had expected at the start of the project.

Along with an opinion gap between Hyun and Jung about error corrections in using English, another issue caused disagreement between the spouses. Hyun and Jung hadn’t seriously thought about the order of learning the Korean and English alphabets until Hoo went to the kindergarten because their priority in learning English had been on natural communication within the home environment. However, now that Hoo was encountering conventional school-based learning in kindergarten, in particular literacy development. A particularly difficult decision was the order in which Hoo should learn the Korean (Hangeul) and the English alphabets. Considering learning how to read and write as completely different from speaking a language and requiring more effort, Jung tried to start with Hangeul, in which Hoo showed more interest:

Now it’s time to teach Korean and English [alphabets] to Hoo at the same time. So, I’m worried about the order of learning, Korean (Hangeul: 한글) first or English first or both…My husband wants Hoo to learn the English alphabet before Hangeul because he believes Hoo can acquire the Korean alphabet outside home without much difficulties. But, I think we should teach Hangeul first because Hoo shows his interest in it. Isn’t it better to teach something my son likes? I am also wondering whether the Korean alphabet should be taught in English or not… (because we are maintaining the “English-only” rule among the family). (Jung, Interview, 03/06/2018)

The structure of Hangeul is different from that of the English alphabet, so Jung thought different teaching methods and textbooks should be adopted for learning the writing system of each language. Moreover, in Jung’s perspective, having interest is the most crucial factor that contributes to successful language learning and achievement. She assumed that Hoo’s greater in learning the Korean alphabet reflected the impact of Hoo’s kindergarten curriculum. However, she felt conflicted because the basic principle of the family language policy was the absolutely exclusive use of English. Therefore, Jung and Hyun struggled with how to handle their bilingual parenting with regard to this issue, and they wondered which way would be better for Hoo’s balanced bilingual development.

It should be noted that Korean parents commonly gage their own children’s development by comparing them with other children at the same age. It is not surprising then that Hyun compared Hoo’s Korean language development with that of his neighbors’ even though they weren’t being raised as bilinguals. Hoo was growing up in an unusual home linguistic environment, but there were not many ways to evaluate Hoo’s language development in both Korean and English or his cognitive skills other than comparing him with others. The following is one example of Hyun’s evolving views of his parenting.

I have changed my mind over the past six years. Compared to Hoo’s friend, who can count to 99, Hoo cannot count over 10. I’ve heard that he learned counting from his mother in Korean. Literacy education is very important, so I’m concerned it is okay to delay teaching Korean to my son. (Hyun, Interview, 01/10/2018)

Hyun didn’t think learning English was more important than learning Korean. Rather, he strongly believed children could learn two languages simultaneously and with equal fluency at an early age, so he didn’t expect Hoo to have any difficulties learning Korean. In spite of his certainty, however, when he witnessed how Hoo’s friends spoke Korean, he often fell into self-doubt and self-questioning, which would continue until Hoo had grown up as a perfect bilingual speaker.

Discussion and conclusion

Hyun and Jung encountered relatively few difficulties at the beginning of their bilingual parenting because of their similar English educational backgrounds, such as majoring in English education, and the mutual agreement to raise their children as fluent English speakers through home schooling. However, as the first child, Hoo, grew, the situation changed, and Hyun and Jung encountered many challenges in implementing the English-only rule to the family due to different perspectives on home language practices.

From the study, three main themes emerged. First of all, the parents, particularly Hyun, were concerned that his nonnative English proficiency because it might negatively impact their children’s balanced bilingualism, particularly as they were the children’s only source of language input until they started school. For example, Hoo could imitate the parents’ L1 transfer or Konglish (Korean English). Related to this issue, differences in expectations of the outcomes of their bilingual parenting sometimes caused spousal conflicts, which is related to the third theme in the findings.

In addition, Hyun and Jung had little support for their English-only policy in the Korean context, either from surrounding communities or information in the literature. As virtual pioneers, the parents could find few guidelines for their venture, in addition to which they were criticized by some who relied on prevalent language mythology and blamed Hoo’s misbehavior on the family’s insistence on using English in the home, even though there was no research or anecdotal evidence that using English at home would affect his behavior. The greatest challenge for Hyun and Jung was combatting negative attitudes toward their use of only English with their children, which was a novel situation in their community. Koreans often believe that dual language use in early childhood would cause confusion between the two languages, a myth entertained by Hoo’s teachers and other parents. Along with their concerns about Korean language delay, they tended to attribute Hoo’s disruptive behavior to his dual language use. Hyun and Jung were themselves concerned about Hoo’s language and behavior development until Hoo could speak Korean fluently and their second child didn’t develop the same problems.

Other than the continuing need to dispel myths about young children’s dual language use in Korea, Hyun and Jung experienced spousal conflicts about their different roles and perspective on bilingual parenting, largely due to Hyun’s superior English skills and his stubborn attitudes about child-rearing. Hyun and Jung had opinion gaps in several issues with regard to teaching English to their children such as whether to teach the Korean alphabet (Hangeul) at home, either in Korean or in English and whether to correct errors in using English. Considering the paucity of extra support from outside the home, Hyun put much effort into providing his children with sufficient high-quality language input by compelling his wife to speak correct English all the time at home. However, his obsession with the children’s language education often discouraged Jung as she struggled with her dual roles at home as both the mother and a language provider for the two children. As De Houwer (1999) argues, parental linguistic behaviors result from parental language ideologies; in this case, Hyun’s aspiration for Hoo to have native speaking proficiency led to conflicts with his wife about home language patterns and practices. Hyun believed that only high-quality English input should be given to their children while Jung has seemingly similar but actually quite different ideas about bilingual parenting from her husband’s.

Thus, while ostensibly sharing ideas and practicing home language policy together, Hyun and Jung constructed quite different ideologies. Despite their differing opinions about family language policy and home language use, Jung supported Hyun’s decisions for the following reasons. First, Jung respected her husband’s dedication to the children’s English learning. Moreover, Jung completely agreed with Hyun’s emphasis on the importance of consistency in bilingual parenting. Also, Jung wanted to create a harmonious home environment in which her children experienced parental warmth and affection. Consequently, the spouses negotiated ways to compromise and to honor each other’s position.

In this study, multiple factors were found in causing challenges in bilingual parenting in a monolingual context. Hoo’s English development was directly guided by parent–child partnerships, spousal collaborations, and children’s active participation. Additionally, mutual respect among all family members and parental cognizance of the stages of child development were also crucial factors in raising children as fluent English speakers in the Korean context.

As this family situation was uncommon, Hyun and Jung tried not to ascribe to the conventional wisdom that their bilingual parenting might negatively impact other aspects of child development, such as putting pressure on Hoo because of language confusion between Korean and English. In their final reflections on their bilingual home practices over the years, Hyun and Jung put considerable weight on consistent parental efforts and shared beliefs about child caring. Jung, particularly, stressed parents’ sincerity in their support of and engagement in their children’s bilingual development, saying that consistent parental attitudes and patience with their children without concern for others’ judgments were important.

The findings of this research suggest that bilingual parenting requires consistent familial cooperation, especially if the parents are not native speakers of the target language. At least one of parents must necessarily dedicate major time and efforts to creating a language-friendly home environment. At the same time, parents must remain vigilant concerning the overall development of the children including their needs, developmental stages, and language development to provide balanced child caring. All of this requires ongoing parental self-reflection on the whole process of bilingual parenting, from planning to evaluation. Aside from bilingual development, there are many things to be considered in parenting such as physical health, behavior, emotional changes, and cognitive development. Learning another language during this period of development cannot be separated from other processes. If necessary, parents should seek support from outside the family for improving the quality of language use or developing parental strategies.