Empowering multilingual families: Introducing an app for talking about languages and emotions at home

In an increasingly diverse society, many multilingual families are looking for support in their endeavour of creating an optimal environment for managing their languages at home. They feel the need for an open atmosphere in which they may discuss decisions on language maintenance, in which there is mutual understanding between different generations and where they can also maintain a positive approach to language learning. This means that multilingual families have to become aware of language attitudes and emotions among the different family members and manage them according to the needs of the family.

Professionals working with multilingual families are confronted with family members who sometimes struggle with the multilingual context that they are living in which may influence their wellbeing. These professionals need tools to advise their clients about managing the family’s language situation and mediate between the family members.

The project TALES@home aims at empowering multilingual families in their language management by an interactive tool – an online application (app). This free app provides the possibility to family members to discuss their emotions and ideas concerning the language use at home. It was created in a "user-centered design"; this means that the stakeholders (families and professionals) have been strongly involved in the process of the development. In addition to this tool, special training for professionals will put the app in a broader framework. It will provide background information and aims at raising awareness in the group of professionals to take into account language attitudes and emotion in multilingual families.