Andrea Sander-Montant completed her PhD degree in Psychology at Concordia University in 2025. She is currently a post-doctoral fellow at the Université de Sherbrooke. Originally from Mexico City, her research interests focus on the variation in language acquisition across diverse populations, particularly multilingual and neurodiverse children. Her clinical experience in early intervention across multiple diagnoses has deepened her appreciation for high-quality research, which can lead to better clinical interventions.
Preserving Minority and Heritage Languages: The Importance for Families’ Wellbeing
Recorded at a QUESCREN Lunch & Learn webinar on January 23, 2025
Context
Andrea Sander delves into how current research on infant language development can inform recommendations for families raising a multilingual child in a minority language setting. She covers family language strategies, including the famous one-parent-one-language approach, debunked common myths about raising multilingual children, and explores the unique linguistic landscape of Montreal.
Key takeaways
- Time exposure to each language is one of the strongest predictors of how well children understand and speak it, especially for heritage (minority) languages. Bilingual children typically need to hear a language for about 25% of their waking hours to understand it, and more exposure to become active speakers. For children learning multiple languages, this threshold may be lower.
- Sticking to parent language strategies like the “one-parent-one-language” is less relevant than ensuring that children get enough exposure to their heritage language.
- Heritage languages are most at risk of being lost but are rarely supported through public education or services. These languages benefit the most from seemingly small changes like both parents using the language at home instead of a single parent, or reading books in this language.
- Bilingual children typically show uneven development across their languages, but many educators and clinicians misinterpret this as a delay. For an accurate assessment, educators and clinicians should look at a child’s total vocabulary across all their languages and not just one language compared to monolingual children.
- Children who preserve their heritage language alongside a dominant language are more likely to develop stronger emotional bonds, higher self-esteem, and a clearer sense of identity.
Strategic implications
Andrea recommends that decision-makers:
- Expand and equalize parental leave to support both caregivers—especially fathers—in transmitting heritage languages.
- Invest in community-based heritage language programming, such as cultural events, library story times, or weekend classes.
- Train educators and clinicians on bilingual development norms to reduce stigma and prevent unnecessary language loss.
Useful links
Additional resources shared during the event
- Concordia Infant Research Lab (website)
- The youngest bilingual Canadians: Insights from the 2016 Census regarding children aged 0-9 (study)
- Interactive map – Home bilingualism among children aged 0-9 in Canada (NOTE: this site will take 1-2 minutes to load)
- The Harmonious Bilingual Network (HabiNet) (YouTube page)
- Kotoboo language development comics for parents (Instagram page)
- Resource for Quebec educators (website)
- Andrea's professional Facebook page
Speaker bio
How to cite this video: Sander-Montant, Andrea. “Preserving Minority and Heritage Languages: The Importance for Families’ Wellbeing” Lunch & Learn webinar produced by the Quebec English-Speaking Communities Research Network (QUESCREN), Concordia University, Montreal, January 24, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvGMMIzFCMs
Terms of Use: This Lunch & Learn recording is made available to the public under the terms of Creative Commons Licence Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International.
- The material can be copied and distributed in its original form only and for non-commercial purposes.
- Users must give appropriate credit to the creator(s) of the material and link to the original source.
About QUESCREN Lunch & Learns
QUESCREN is a collaborative network of researchers, community members and institutions that provides opportunities to promote the understanding and vitality of English-speaking Quebec. Our Lunch & Learn series consists of one-hour webinars on research topics related to English-speaking Quebec.
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This event was made possible through the financial support of the Secrétariat aux relations avec les Québécois d'expression anglaise. QUESCREN also received funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage, and Concordia University.
