Hello and welcome to the Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia. This week, we'll be looking at the factor of age when it comes to second language learning. Likewise, we'll investigate what advantages there are if any for children who speak two or more languages. And finally, we'll investigate pedagogical practices in primary education within the framework of multilingual and multicultural education. In this video, I'll be talking about bilingual parents, who bilingual parents are and what language or languages they choose or decide to choose to address their children. But let's take a look at the definition of the BFLA first. Simply put is the development of children who hear two languages from birth. And it's important to note that there is no chronological difference between the two languages. In her exciting book, on BFLA Annick de Houwer mentions language A and language Alpha instead of first language and second language. So, BFLA children hear language A and language Alpha from birth but this does not necessarily mean that they will end up speaking both languages equally well. Who are passive bilinguals? These are the BFLA children who understand two languages but speak only one. But let's take a closer look at the different patterns of language use in BFLA. The first pattern is the most frequent case. It happens when a child both understands and speaks language A and he or she understands and speaks language Alpha. The second case is also frequent but not as frequent as the first one. It happens when a child understands and speaks language A, he or she understands language Alpha but does not speak language Alpha. And the two other cases are less frequent or infrequent I'd say. So, it's not a secret that language assessment is very important. So, when it comes to language skills assessment, there is a difference between comprehension and production. It's important to mention that there were only a few studies that have been conducted on comprehension in BFLA. So, let's ask a question, is it possible that the child understands very little of one language even though he or she has been exposed to two languages from birth? The answer to this question you'll be able to find by the end of this presentation. So, there is a lot of variation when it comes to the amount of words children understand in each of their languages. Whereas some children are equally fluent in both language A and language Alpha at the end of the continuum, some children speak language A but do not speak language Alpha. And there is a general consensus in the field of BFLA that BFLA children, who actively speak two languages do not necessarily speak them equally well. And the question is, what could be the possible reason for this? In order to answer this question, we have to look at the family units. So, it's the family that functions as the primary unit of socialization. And the typical BFLA situation is when a child's parents are speakers of two different languages. So, let's take a look at the different scenarios when it comes to bilingual parents. Either the spouses have different language background but speak only one language between them, and after the birth of the baby, one of them switches to another language. Or parents are bilingual and speak both languages at home and this linguistic behavior just continues. Or bilingual parents decide to address the child just in one language. And in this way, they block the possibility of BFLA. And finally, monolingual families decide to hire a nanny to look after their child who speaks another language. In this way, child grows up in a bilingual environment. But it should be mentioned that all of these cases are quite relative precisely because we cannot exclude all other factors like speaking with relatives, the influence of different mass media, et cetera. Instead of a conclusion, I would like to ask you a question. So, if any of you have come in contact with bilingual or multilingual children, would you expect them to be equally good at reading, writing, and speaking? Write your comments, your thoughts, I'll be happy to read that. So, in the next video, we will be talking about the factor of age. Is there a particular age when it's better to start learning a second language? Don't miss that. That's all for now. Thanks for watching. See you later. Bye bye.