"The Importance of the Mother Tongue Maintenance
for Immigrant Children"
Anthony Chan is a seven-year-old Chinese boy. He was born in China but raised in Canada. As he grew older, his parents noticed that he spoke 'Chinglish,' which is a mixture of English and Chinese and sometimes considered undesirable. His parents felt unpleasant with him picking up Chinese accents and strongly wanted him to acquire proper English, so they stopped using Chinese; instead they started speaking English to him at...