How can you teach a child?

2 OR 3 languages. What are the affects on the 1st language and the 2nd language? When I was living aboard, my mother spoke English to me and my step dad spoke Arabic to me, so I was learning 2 languages at the same time. It did affect my English because I’m not familiar with the high fluency words that some ESL teachers use...so I want to teach my child to speak 2 languages, but don't want the affect of what happened to me (not reading when I was younger didn't help me)