@Deborah-SSi you mentioned some research about how children benefit from speaking one language at home and one in school. Do you (or does anybody else on here) have a copy of the paper?
Diolch yn fawr 
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I think I know where I can find it. I’m pretty sure I read it when I was looking into Translanguaging, or it might be in one of the books I have by Colin Baker on bilingual education. I’ll see if I can get my hands on it.
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Here is a quote from Colin Baker’s book, A Parents’ and Teachers’ Guide to Bilingualism, p 124
I do not speak the same language of the school. How can I help my children with their homework?
This is one of the most frequently asked questions by parents who otherwise support bilingual education for their children, but do not speak the language of the school curriculum. They therefore fear their children will lose out. That parent believes (wrongly) that they cannot support the child with their homework and will not be able to monitor their child’s progress. The parent worries that the child will suffer from not having help from home.
The advice is this. Ask the child to explain their homework in the parent’s preferred language. If this is different from the school language there is a bonus. In translation, the child is often rethinking, reconceptualizing and digesting school learning. In translating for the parent, the child is valuably reprocessing, almost thinking out loud. If the child has understood it in two languages, they have really understood it. However, some specialist words (e.g. in Mathematics and Science) may need help from a dictionary.
Since understandings and explanations are being reconsidered and reprocessed, deeper learning may occur. The child is helping himself or herself; the parent is given the opportunity to advise, explain, correct and encourage. The outcomes can be remarkably enhancing for learning.
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I did read about parents who were successfully bringing up their child trilingually and they mentioned that research supports trilingualism as beneficial, but that when you get to four languages at the same time then problems begin.
The example is a German lady who married a Venezuelan who use English to communicate together, she doesn’t speak Spanish and he doesn’t speak German. So she talks German to their child, he speaks Spanish and they use English when they are all together.
The child has leant that Spanish is dads language, German is mums language and English is the language mum and dad use to communicate with each other. The child does mix the languages in sentences occasionally but apparently usually gets it right!
I know fluent Welsh speakers who spoke Welsh at school and English at home, but are fluent in both.
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My nephew is the same. His Dad speaks English, his mum Russian and he was born and lives in Munich.
English is our family language
Russian his mum’s
German for public use
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Diolch Dee!!
I met a lovely family on a train from Milan to Paris. Mama was Russian. Papa was Argentinian. Mama spoke Russian to the children, Papa Spanish. They spoke English to each other. His mother lived with them, speaking only Spanish. The children were born in Paris but were still quite young. The whole family now lives in Berlin.
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For the record, anecdotally I know the benefits of bilingualism, Dee and I had a conversation about some evidence to support it.
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