Conference moira::parenting

    Malin,
    
    My husband and I have friends who taught their son to speak both
    english and german.
    
    Here is what they would do and still do and their son is 9 yrs old. 
    The boys Mom speaks to him in German and his Dad talks to him in
    English thus using both English and German.  Their son understood both
    at a young age.  He knows he can't speak German at school cause no one
    would understand what he was saying. 
    
    I think it is a very good idea to teach your child to be bilingual.
    
    
    Liz

In addition to any replies that you get in here, you might want to read 
through topic 1283 in Parenting_V3, which covers a similar topic.

If you don't know how to access Parenting_V3, see note 9.21 of this 
notesfile.

Clay

    Small children are sponges, teach them everything and don't
    worry about confusion. We STILL use german prefixes to english
    words in my mother's house...
    I couldn't quite tell the difference between what was english 
    and what was german when I started school, but I soon sorted out
    what my classmates would understand and what they didn't.
    
    I thank my parents everyday for starting me off in german. What little
    english I had early on was brought into our household by my cousins
    next door.
    
    I have a friend who's Acadian and his wife is from Hong Kong. The 
    children are trilingual, but his mom confessed to me that when the 
    children speak chinese to her, she can't understand them 8-).
    
    Monica
    (who still has trouble with english in the kitchen)
    

  We also are trying to raise our children to be bilingual (Swedish/English).
My husband has read one book (Sa blir barn tvasprakiga).  Our children are
now 3 and 4 and we have had limited success.  

  We started by having a Swedish aupair who along with my husband only spoke
Swedish to the children.  I only spoke English.  My son seemed to understand
everything in both languages.  However at the age of two he pretty much
did not speak any words.  His pediatrician recommended speech therapy.

  The first speech therapist we saw was very against raising our son to be
bilingual so we switched to another therapist who was a bit more supportive.
We continued with both languages at home but English became the dominant
language.  At 2.5 our son still had very limited speech.  His 1.5 year
old sister was speaking much more in both languages.  At this point the
kids started at a daycare center.  Our son *blossomed* overnight.  I think
he was very relieved to be in an all English environment.  By the age of 3
he was talking very well but it was all in English.  Our daughter never
had any speech delay but as time went on English became her dominant
language.

  Now they both still understand Swedish but they prefer English.  My son
will say a few words in Swedish (all the words for sweets - taught by my
husband :^)  My daughter speaks an occasional sentence of Swedish.  When
Swedish relatives visit they speak only Swedish to the kids and they are
understood.  The kids always reply in English.

  Things we have done to try and keep the Swedish alive - 
    - visit Sweden once/year
    - read lots of books in Swedish
    - We don't allow very much TV viewing in our home.  However they are
      allowed to watch Swedish video tapes.  I learn a few new words
      everytime they watch The Little Mermaid in Swedish.

  One other comment, my kids expect me to speak only English. My father-in-law
visited for a month and I spoke mostly Swedish to him( not very good Swedish
mind you but my Swedish is better than his English).  This upset my daughter.
She kept saying speak English Mama.  I'm also not allowed to read any
Swedish stories to them - only Papa.

  Feel free to contact me off-line.  Maybe we could share Swedish books.

Elizabeth

My wife speaks to our kids in Hungarian, as they to her.  She and I 
also speak Hungarian to each other.

I speak to the kids in English, but they speak to me in Hungarian. 
Later I'll expect them to speak to me in English too (or I won't hear :�). 

This is in a French-language country, so their French -- after a few 
years in kindergarten and school -- is perfect for their age.  So you 
could say they speak 2� languages.

The main thing is that each language they hear they hear from a native 
speaker.  My Hungarian, like my wife's English, is not perfect, and 
neither of us speaks perfect French either.

I could go on for ever about this topic, but won't.  But one more
thing may be interesting: the elder ones are boy-girl fraternal twins
(about 7� years old now), and are a joint counter-example to the
frequent worry that multilingual kids will be slowed in their
acquisition of language as a whole.  They have been treated
identically, in identical circumstances, since their birth.  One of
them loves language and is making excellent progress in all three (as
well as the odd German or Spanish words etc.), being very far above
average, whereas the other is absolutely uninterested in words or
symbols, and is below average in each language.  To me it seems likely
that uni- or multi-lingualism makes no difference to language
acquisition, although of course the one with more difficulty might
possibly have made better progress with just one. 

... they are strictly forbidden to speak French at home.  It's much 
too tempting, as I know from many acquaintances who were also 
Hungarians growing up in England, and can easily lead to losing the 
language which is not native to where you're living.

Here's a bit of a twist on the subject. My just-about-three year old
deaf son is bilingual, using sign language as his primary mode and spoken
English as a secondary language. It is our intention to reverse this, and
have spoken English be the primary mode. It will not be easy, but with
enough work and dedication it can be sucessful.

My cousin speaks seven languages fluently. She learned the basics in a standard
classroom, but became fluent by immersion. That is, she spent time either
visiting the country, or interacting with people who spoke the language
fluently, on a regular basis.  She's always said that this was the key to full 
understanding of the kanguage.

My advice, FWIW, is to choose a primary language for the short term. Work on
that until the child is fluent. That is, age appropriate fluency. I wouldn't
expect the child to be able to recite the Gettysburg Address at age two. What
is important is that the child understands language in any form, and strives
to learn it. Then, you can start to introduce a second language. The best way
to do this is by immersion. Speaking it at home would be a wonderful way to
do this.

Have fun,

Chris

    I guess for every positive story there has to be just one "downsider",
    that's me.
    
    My nephew is 6.5, has been raised bilinqual because his mother is
    Philipino (correct term?), my husband's brother (the father) was in the
    US Navy, and out to sea a good deal of the time.  The mother then
    sponsored her sister into the US, who speaks no english at all, the
    mother inturn took a  job on the opposite coast of Florida which took
    her away from home for days at a time, back only briefly, and gone
    again. 
    
    This year the children, (my niece is 8.5 and very articulate and fluent
    in both languages) are with my inlaws here in MA.  My niece is an honor
    student, my nephew was CORE'd for learning disabilities.  Bottom line
    was the boy is intelligent, reading above grade level, but is very
    delayed socially and in basic language skills.  In fact he still has
    outburts of temper if he can't grasp the correct word to express
    himself.  His bilingual upbringing has exhibited itself with speech
    imperfections, best described as "dees, dems and does" type speech.  He
    pronounces his words in a "hard" type, where the sound ought to be
    "soft".  We hope the public school speech therapist can help him before
    he returns to Florida and their school system next summer.
    
    Just my .02 worth.
    
    Lyn
    

This topic doesn't concern me directly, but I find it interesting.  Several 
years ago, I worked with a French Canadian; his English had a decided French 
Canadian accent, and he and his wife spoke both French and English at home.  
He told me that his son had had difficulties in school, and that a speech 
therapist had recommended that they pick one language to use exclusively in 
the presence of the child.  They picked English, and eventually the childs 
speech difficulties disappeared.  From this I concluded that it was best to 
stick to one language at home.  But then I began to encounter, in this 
notesfile and elsewhere, many successful stories of children being exposed to 
more than one language.  So now I conclude that the effects of certain types 
of learning disabilities are exacerbated if a child is exposed to more than 
one language, but that many (most?) kids learn both languages with little 
difficulty. 

Clay

Hi, I'm the one who started this topic.

Thanks to all of you that have replied to this note!

Re: V3, I will go back and read those notes, thanks for 
the pointer!

Several people has mentioned/touched on that you should 
speak your native language (the one you know best) with
your child.

My husband has been speaking mostly Swedish to Jonathan
(although english is his native language, he spent ~12 yrs
in Sweden, we moved back to the States ~6 yrs ago)

Jim has said on occasion that he feels like his Swedish is 
"slipping away" and he does try to to use the Swedish as 
much as possible (when he remembers) in order to keep the 
language "active". 

Before Jonathan, I did not really think about language.
At home we spoke both, mixing and matching mid-sentence and
sometimes even within words! 
But since Jonathan was born I've become more consious and do 
make an effort to speak only Swedish with him. 

Jim wants to keep his Swedish too, but from what I've seen in
this notes file (and elsewhere) he should really speak English
to Jonthan since that is his native language. 

re: Au pair, I have thought about this as a way of getting
more Swedish into our lives. I'd just like to have the basement
redone to include another bedroom first. (Having a new person 
come to live with us for a year is a big step for me, but that 
is another discussion).

What about grand parents reactions? My mother has expressed some
concern/fear that she would not be able to talk to her grandson
when he grows up. (She does speak a little English). 

Once again thanks for all your stories. Its encouraging to know 
there are others out there who have been in the same situation 
and done well.

Thanks,
/Malin

As to whether the family can use both languages at home and still pronounce
the words correctly, IMO these are two seperate issues. If the bilingual
child is having 'difficulties' with 'accents', then use speech therapy to
help 'correct' the 'deficiency' in that language. I do not believe that the
family has to choose one or the other to be spoken at home, once the child
has acquired a good command of one language. The risk is in the early years,
when the child is acquiring language at a phenomenal rate. I believe this is
what the basenoter is referring to. In that case I'd advocate choosing one
language as primary until the child has command of that language. At that
point, I would suspect that the child would be very curious as to what Mom 
and Dad were saying and would have an interest in acquiring a second language.

Chris
 

I am a school committee member in one of two 
Massachusetts communities where students are "immersed"
in second languages at a young age. We run two immersion
programs, one in French (K-12) and one in Spanish (5-12).
My youngest daughter is in 5th grade and is a member of
the French immersion program. We have now been running
this program for 14 years. 

In the French immersion program the students start in 
Kindergarten using only French in the classroom. They
are first taught the important useful phrases (Like
how to ask "how do you say" and "I need to go to the
bathroom" ) and by mid-year are expected not to use
English in the classroom. This follows through first
and second grade. In third grade English is introduced
into the classroom (50% class time). Students spend 50%
of their day with a French speaking teacher and 50%
with an English speaking teacher. Curriculum taught
in English (besides reading and language arts skills)
depends upon the strengths of the teachers. As the
students move to fourth grade the 50% scenario continues
and then in Fifth grade the French is reduced to 2
periods (about 90 minutes) a day. It remians this way
into high school. Our High school program focuses on
advanced language skills and culture. 

No one else in our home speaks French. We've learned 
some phrases (like "how do you say" ) in order to help
her with homework. She speaks French with kids in her
class and teachers (even outside the classroom) and 
can easily go back and forth between languages. 

A few years ago a Canadian report stated that a number
of children the reporter had encountered appeared to 
be behind their peers in language skill development.
Over the years we have tested our immersion students
in both French and English. What we have found is
that a small percentage fall below their peers in
the K-2 years but almost all of them catch up before
they reach the 5th grade level. 

The other area that this program supports is the theory
that younger children pick up and retain additional 
languages much better than older children and adults.
What we have also found is that immersion kids appear
to have much better listening and reasoning skills than
their peers. It appears that a key to both of these is
that immersion allows for the brain to think in either
(or both) languages. The traditional classroom method
for teaching languages to older children and adults 
relies on brain translation from the primary to 
secondary language (or vice-versa).

The students we have graduated with 13 years of French
each took the French ACT exam and all scored very 
highly. I have spoken to a couple of them and found
that, as college freshmen, they are all doing 3rd
year level work in French. One of this year's graduates
spent last summer in Switzerland as one of 2 US 
Girl Scout representatives to a world-wide gathering.
She was told that the deciding factor in being chosen 
was her French fluency.

Very interesting Mike, thanks for sharing this.  I have some questions.

>The other area that this program supports is the theory that younger 
>children pick up and retain additional languages much better than older 
>children and adults.  

>What we have also found is that immersion kids appear to have much better 
>listening and reasoning skills than their peers. 

Mike, is this observation, controlled experiment, or theory?  It occurs to me 
that it might be that parents of kids with better reasoning and listening 
skills might be inclined to enroll their children in an immersion program.  
Or perhaps is there some "Hawthorne effect" in which the uniqueness of the 
program "grabs" the interest of the children?

>It appears that a key to both of these is that immersion allows for the 
>brain to think in either (or both) languages. The traditional classroom 
>method for teaching languages to older children and adults relies on brain 
>translation from the primary to secondary language (or vice-versa).

Once again, is this observation, controlled experiment, or theory?  I haven't 
kept up on this, but I remember whether or not a person can "think" in more 
than one language as being somewhat controversial.  I also don't see how the 
fact that a brain can think it either or both languages would necessarily 
mean that the listening and reasoning skills would be better.

  Malin,

    You asked about grandparents.  I know it has been hard for my inlaws
to have the children always reply in English.  But it has not harmed their
relationship in any way. Farfar (grandfather) is their favorite person in
the whole world (except Mama and Papa of course).  He speaks Swedish to
them and they answer in English.  Sometimes we have to translate the English
for him but for the most part they understand each other.
  Does anyone have ideas for getting the children to speak the second language?
Since this topic came up I've been playing a game in the car with the kids.
I say the word in English and they have to say the Swedish word.  I've been
very pleased to hear that they KNOW the Swedish words. They'll be traveling
to Sweden soon.  We are really hoping that they'll try to speak Swedish
with their relatives.

Elizabeth

>  Does anyone have ideas for getting the children to speak the second language?

Unlike most Americans, I'm afraid I'm in favour of coercion until 
children reach an age when they have some judgment AND can influence 
their own behaviour on the basis of that judgment.  My two 7-year-olds 
and my 5-year-old haven't reached that stage.  So my only, unsatisfactory 
answer to your question is that, if in your opinion it is ESSENTIAL
that they speak the second language, you should FORCE them to.  If it
is not essential, just desirable, then just make sure that they know
you think it's desirable (e.g. for Farfar's sake).  It probably won't 
work, at least not for years.

Re .8:

> my nephew was CORE'd for learning disabilities.  Bottom line was
> the boy is intelligent, reading above grade level, but is very delayed
> socially and in basic language skills.  In fact he still has outburts
> of temper if he can't grasp the correct word to express himself.  His
> bilingual upbringing has exhibited itself with speech imperfections,
> best described as "dees, dems and does" type speech. 

Re .9:

> He told me that his son had had difficulties in school, and that a speech 
> therapist had recommended that they pick one language to use exclusively in 
> the presence of the child.  They picked English, and eventually the child's 
> speech difficulties disappeared.  From this I concluded that it was best to 
> stick to one language at home.

As I suggested in .5, my experience with my twins suggests that 
bilingualism is not the cause of such difficulties.  They would have 
happened to those same children in the same way even with just one
language, including the later improvement.

RE: .13

	In both cases the conclusions are through 
observation and the study of test results. This isn't a
"controlled" group and there are no special criteria
used for student eligibility. I don't think that it's
too likely that listening and reasoning skills are 
all that readily identifiable (nor that fully developed)
at the pre-school level. We have never made 
recommendations based on pre-K screening either. It's
simply a first come first serve basis. We have, on
occasion, had what we call "debutantes" enter the 
program at later intervals (first and second grade). 
Some have been succesful some haven't - we haven't 
really found any single factor that caused either. We
do have a small number who drop back into the 
traditional program over the first few years. 

As to the thinking in both languages, I can understand 
the controversy. It's a little tough to get into a brain
and quantify what's really going on. My own observation
is that my child clearly thinks in French when she's
conversing in it. Her responses are simply reflex and
you won't find that in someone who has to take a complex
sentence, break it down, translate to English, build
a complex response, translate to French, and spit it out.

The listening and reasoning skills appear to have 
seperate causes. The listening skills appear to be
enhanced due to the emphasis placed on utilizing the
new language all of the time in the classroom. If a
child knows that he won't be acknowledged if doesn't
respond in the correct fashion he has a stronger 
tendency to pay better attention to both what's being
said and to how it is being said. Also, by the simple
fact that most of what's taught in the first few years
involves verbal exchange these kids become auditory
learners just to survive. 

The reasoning skills of these kids shows up in problem
solving exercises on tests. This aspect does rely on
the dual thinking capability. We think it has to do 
with the fact that these kids have to solve somewhat
unique problems at an early age. Since there's a greater
challenge to what their doing (remember that they're
not only learning a new language but they're also 
learning their regular curriculum in that language!) we
believe there is an effect. 

RE: .8 .9 .16

We have had students with language disorders in our 
program. Some have done well while others needed to
return to an English based environment. 

One other interesting point. Since we know that the
size of the immersion classes will shrink over time we
usually start the Kindergarten classes oversized. The
typical K French Immersion class will have 5-7 more
students than the traditional classroom. By fourth
grade they are about average (20-22). Over the last
few years the K class has been 28-32. This year we
have 2 K classes because we had 52 students request
the program. 

    Ever since our oldest, now 9, was able to understand spoken English,
    we've spoken German when we didn't want the kids to understand what we
    were talking about. They quickly figured out how to read intonation,
    because the subjects of German conversation were either disagreements
    over how to handle a disciplinary issue or plans on doing something
    nice for the kids.
    
    Both of our daughters (6 and 9) understand quite a lot more German than
    we thought. We recently had a rather involved conversation about one of
    the girls' activities, and they both broke into the conversation in
    English to express *their* opinions on the subject.
    
    So, there *is* another way to get them to understand another language.
    <g>
    
    John H-C

    re: .19
    
    My parents also used to switch languages when they didn't want us kids
    to understand them.  In our case, it was Spanish, which they both spoke
    fluently.  I think we probably understood basically what (usually WHO) 
    they were talking about, but not much more.
    
    Now, about the only thing I can do in Spanish is count from one to ten
    (and probably not even with a very good accent).  I always wished I'd
    paid a little more attention, and tried to learn it when it I had the 
    opportunity.  But, they never pushed and, as a kid, I had better things
    to spend my time on!
    
    Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that by just 'hearing' the 
    language, they will probably pick up some understanding while they're
    young.  But, unless there is some effort made, I doubt they'll remember 
    much.

Hi.

I started this topic back in January. Some observations I'd like to
share with you, I'm sure some of these observeations for all kids. 

- Jonathan (now 2 years old) speaks mostly english to his american
babysitter, But the instant I show up at the sitters and he sees me, 
he switches to swedish. I am curious to know all the things he tells her,
I guess I'll  never find out. 

- Jonathan speaks mostly swedish to me and my husband but will answer
my husband in english if Jims uses english.

- For a few days a couple of weeks back when he was not feeling quite
well (the whole family was struck by an ugly stomach bug), he stopped 
using the English while at the sitters, and used only swedish also with
her. Made the sitter quite unhappy to see him not feeling well and not
being able to understand all of what he was saying. As soon as he was
feeling better the english came back.

- Some words have "disappeared" from his languge. For instance window,
lid and door are now all called 'door' whereas before he used the
appropriate word for each thing. For example "open the door", "open
the window" "take the lid of this contaier", "open you mouth" - for all 
these things he uses the phrase "open the door".

- He is experimenting with endings on words. As he learns a new (swedish) 
ending on a word he puts it on all the words, even english words.

- He speaks swedish words with an american intonation. Dont know where he
got this, I think that I still speak pretty good swedish. But it sounds
cute. Wonder if 3 weeks with grandma in Sweden this summer will cure this?


/Malin

Hi,

I'm the author of the base note.

I read through all the replies to this string again and
did not see any discussion or comments on reading or learning
to read.

Jonathan (now 3.5) is interested in letters and has a few that
he recognizes and points out with joy when he sees them (on
cereal boxes, magazines etc) "M is mommys letter, J is Jonathans
letter, H is Hannahs letter" etc.
This is a game for us, as we think of words that start with
the letters that he knows.
I've done this mostly in Swedish sofar, I wonder if adding 
english with the different spelling will be all too confusing?
	C-> cat (english) but k-> katt (swedish)
	O-> orange            A-> apelsin

I'd love to hear from others who have children of
a reading age. How did you support your childs interest in
letters, did you start with one or both languages?

what did/did not work for you?

/Malin

    re: .22
    
    See notes 733 and 734
    

re 23.

Thanks for the pointers to the reading notes. 733 and 734

I'd still like to hear from parents with experience
from a multi-language family on how you helped your
bi-lingual child with reading (one language first, then
the other or both languages at the same time), and what if
anything you would do differently if you could do it over
again. 

Thanks

/Malin

    Malin,
    
    I know how difficult it is to know what is the "right" way to teach a
    child in a bilingual environment.  I guess it comes down to whatever
    works.
    
    We are raising our 15 month old daughter to be bilingual
    (English/Spanish).  It is unfortunate that we cannot immerse her in
    Spanish at home yet (I do not know the language well enough to speak
    it).  We have found and have heard from friends/relatives that have
    older bilingual children, that being consistent is THE most important
    thing.
    
    My husband speaks only Spanish to our daughter, and as a result she
    understands both languages equally well.  As she is now repeating
    words, I try to encourage her no matter what language she speaks them
    in.  My husband's family will ONLY speak Spanish to her at our request
    and soon I think we will begin to look for other Spanish speaking
    children for her to interact with.We will always try to purchase 
    books/videos/cds in both languages.  It is very important to us that
    our children be bilingual and we will do whatever we can to ensure that
    they learn to speak/read/write both languages.
    
    I would think that if your child knows the difference between the
    languages, that you could introduce them both at the same time without
    confusion.  If the child learned to speak both at the same time without
    a problem, then why not teach them to read/write both at the same time?  
    
    Those are my thoughts, but I don't speak from experience yet,
    Kristen