The Motivational Speaker

Inspiring Presentations by Ronit Baras

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Making Multilingual Super kids

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I met Elodie at one of my workshops. She had a French accent and was very curious about the concepts of first and second language. Her son was just a baby when she participated in my “Cross Cultural Awareness” course for public administrators in the Queensland government.

As a migrant, Elodie felt the gap at work between locals and migrants was widening. She came to my course to get some insights into possible ways to bridge this gap.

When she left, she said, “I’m so happy I met you when my son is just a baby. Everything so makes sense now and I have full confident about what I need to do”.

In the last two years, I’ve met Elodie a few of times when she was trying to organize a group at her workplace to support migrants and help locals and migrants communicate better with each other.

This week, she sent me this email:

Did I tell you my son can count to 15 in his 3 languages? Just turned 2… Speak to him in one language and he answers in another, never needs translation… It freaks some people, I find it fascinating. You gave me the best advice ever first time I spoke with you. Thanks, it really means a lot to me.

We speak English (all of us), French (me) and Italian (husband and my in-laws).

He spends 1 day/week with his Italian grandmother who only speaks Italian to him (with your recommendation, we asked and she is very happy to comply). I go home once a year where he baths in French and has no problem whatsoever communicating with other kids and adults.

It is the most amazing thing to observe, the non-translating part. For example, he learned face, lips, ears, eyes, etc in Italian and I was thinking oh I need to get him that in French too so we had a mummy/son moment and I was saying them in French and he already knew. Bizarre.

Life in a multilingual environment!

Thank you so much.

Elodie David-Quarta

A/Senior Administration Officer, Compliance Support Unit
Department of Environment and Resource Management

Yet another victory of one more family raising multilingual super kids.

Ronit

Housing for Migrants and Locals

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Mulsim kids prayingI have just run a cultural awareness workshop for government officers dealing with the provision of housing to low-income families. While I was telling them about cultures, languages and acceptance, they also told me some amazing things.

Low-cost housing is provided to many migrant and refugee families. In fact, as soon as people are recognized as refugees, they are immediately entitled to government housing until they can afford their own residence.

As humane as this may seem, the locals object to this privilege and protest against it as being discriminating against them. They say, “Why should someone come into the country and get something straight away, while others who grew up here don’t?”

The obvious answer, “Where would they go if they have no family and no friends here?” But this answer doesn’t satisfy some of the locals in government housing, who sometimes abuse the newcomers verbally and even by damaging their property.

If this is not bad enough, reports are that migrant families in government housing are polite, quiet and considerate. They take excellent care of their dwellings and carry out all of their obligations on time, despite the occasional harassment.

Another amazing fact is that in some migrant and refugee units, there are as many as 21 people living in 3 bedrooms! Compared to where they came from, they think it is better, because at least nobody is trying to kill them…

Now, equipped with their new cultural awareness, the housing officers can help refugees and migrants assimilate quicker into society, while making the locals feel a lot better about accepting them.

God, I love my work!
Ronit

Language of the Heart at Upper Mt Gravatt

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I’ve just returned from presenting Language of the Heart at Uppert Mount Gravatt State School. Today is a student-free day and I was part of the teachers’ professional training.

Teachers are usually more switched on than the general population and keep up with new trends in education and educational technology, so I wasn’t sure how familiar they were with the acquisition of multiple languages. Besides, Upper Mount Gravatt students come from nearly every country on Earth.

As it turns out, this school has its own share of multicultural challenges and the teachers were very excited to discover the link between academic achievement and speaking several languages. But what excited them even more was the connection between speaking another language at home with the parents.

The Upper Mount Gravatt parents find it difficult to influence their kids’ values and direct their morals in English, because they can’t express themselves well enough to convey complex and/or emotional ideas. The teachers found a good explanation for what goes on in their classes and for why parents shy away from being involved at school.

I was very happy to be able to provide some relief to a challenging situation and help parents and teachers come together for the benefit of the kids.

The teachers agreed in the end that Language of the Heart should be attended by many of the parents at the school and I was thrilled to be able to make a difference with my presentation.

Here’s what one person said about Language of the Heart today:

I have totally changed the way I think about parents speaking in their language to their kids

Lisa Conroy, Teacher

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