Home Language Practices: One Person One Language (OPOL) or One Person Multiple Languages (OPML)?

Xiaofang Lainie Shang, Faculty of Education, Monash University, Australia

As a bilingual teacher, researcher, and mother, I have long been involved in children’s language education, both in theory and in practice. Over the past decade, I have worked with children aged six weeks to eight years. Since 2019, my research has focused on bilingual programs in early childhood education. In 2025, with the birth of my daughter, this professional interest became deeply personal as I began raising a child in three languages: Chinese, English, and Greek.

In many parts of the world, children grow up in environments where more than one language is used. The coexistence of multiple languages in our lives and in our children’s lives has become the norm. These languages may include dialects, regional or national languages, or international lingua francas. In my daughter’s case, three languages have been part of her daily life since birth: my first language (Chinese), her father’s first language (Greek), and the Australian de facto official language (English).

There is now little doubt among parents that learning more than one language benefits children. The key question, however, is how we as parents can best support our children’s multilingual development.

One commonly practised approach at home is One Person One Language (OPOL), which I frequently hear about through mothers’ groups, playgroups, and multilingual parents' networks. OPOL refers to each parent consistently using one language when speaking with their child. In my family’s case, where more than two languages are involved, this means that I speak only Chinese to my daughter, her father speaks Greek, and English, the societal language in Australia, is reserved for her future childcare or educational settings (e.g., kindergarten or primary school).

OPOL is often praised for several reasons. First, parents can use their strongest and most familiar languages, providing children with rich and authentic language input. Second, children are ensured exposure to each language. Third, OPOL is believed to support clear language separation, which some parents feel helps avoid confusion. Finally, it can clarify each parent’s role in supporting their child’s language learning. Academic literature has also discussed OPOL as an attempt to simplify complex multilingual environments for young children (Caporal-Ebersold & Young, 2016), and it is often described as a well-documented and effective route to bilingualism in early childhood education (Baker & Wright, 2017).

However, my own experiences and my research have led me to move away from OPOL and instead adopt a One Person Multiple Languages (OPML) model for our home language practice. OPML refers to one person using multiple languages when interacting with a child. In my daughter’s case, this means that both her father and I use all three languages: Chinese, Greek, and English, without separating who speaks which language or when.

There are several reasons behind my choice of OPML rather than OPOL. The first relates to parental availability. I spend more time and have more language interaction with my daughter than her father does. If I limited myself to speaking only Chinese, her exposure to Greek would be minimal. This raised concerns about whether OPOL was truly supporting balanced multilingual development in our particular family context.

Another challenge was emotional and practical. OPOL required constant awareness of language use, which often felt unnatural and restrictive, particularly for bilingual or multilingual parents who frequently switch or mix languages in everyday interactions. Our strict adherence to OPOL could create discomfort in daily routines. This experience aligns with research suggesting that many adults struggle to consistently maintain rigid OPOL policies in everyday interactions with children (Caporal-Ebersold & Young, 2016).

In this sense, OPML allows language use to feel more natural. During daily routines, such as feeding, playing, or reading books (as shown in the accompanying photo), I move fluidly between languages depending on the context, my daughter’s emerging language repertoire, or the presence of her caregivers. Grandparents play a vital role when they visit or video-call, naturally reinforcing Chinese and Greek in meaningful and relational ways. Rather than managing languages, we prioritise communication, connection, and responsiveness.

Research findings (e.g., Byers-Heinlein et al., 2017; Ferjan Ramírez et al., 2017) have consistently shown that children are not confused by exposure to multiple languages from a very young age. In addition, young children are capable of learning multiple languages simultaneously (Libersky et al., 2024), which challenges the assumption that strict language separation, as promoted in OPOL, is necessary. From this perspective, OPML may provide a more authentic language environment that reflects how multilingual adults actually use language in their daily lives.

OPML also allows for early exposure to the societal language. Rather than delaying the official language, English, until childcare or kindergarten, our daughter is becoming familiar with it at home. This early exposure can support smoother transitions into early childhood settings, help children understand routines, communicate their needs, and begin forming social relationships.

At this point, you may be wondering how I can speak Greek with my daughter when I am not fluent in the language myself. This is a question I encounter often, which connects to broader ideas about parents as language co-learners and role models. In my next blog entry, I will explore how parents can learn alongside their children and how embracing this role can become an influential part of multilingual family life.  

References

Baker, C., & Wright, W. E. (2017). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism (6th ed.). Multilingual Matters.

Byers-Heinlein K, Morin-Lessard E, & Lew-Williams C. (2017). Bilingual infants control their languages as they listen. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(34), 9032–9037. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2017839117 

Caporal-Ebersold, E., & Young, A. (2016). Negotiating and appropriating the "one person, one language" policy within the complex reality of a multilingual crèche in Strasbourg.

London Review of Education, 14(2), 122–133. https://doi.org/10.18546/LRE.14.2.09 

Ferjan Ramírez, N., Ramírez, R. R., Clarke, M., Taulu, S., & Kuhl, P. K. (2017). Speech discrimination in 11‐month‐old bilingual and monolingual infants: A magnetoencephalography study. Developmental Science, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12427 

Libersky E, Slawny C, & M., K. (2024). Effects of dual- and single-language exposure on children's word learning: Experimentally testing the role of competition. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 244(105953). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105953