Just look at us.
The Husband and I are both fully committed and the kids are going along with it. With questions being asked (“Mama, why is German your language???”), but that’s legit I think, and can be quite interesting.
But then there is the outside world that may have other ideas. And I don’t even mean outside world as in larger society, I mean outside world as in fairly close to home, people whom we interact with more or less regularly. Our family and friends, that is. And really, mainly family since most of our friends are bilingual themselves, are raising their own kids to be bilingual, think positively about what we're doing, or are at least open-minded about it.
Over here then, we have the Canadian side of the family. At best, they don’t care that we are raising our kids to be bilingual, at worst they think that if you must be bilingual, learn French. However, the one thing that does bug me is that attempts have been and continue to be made to switch the kids to saying "Mommy" and "Daddy" rather than "Mama" and "Papa". It seems to be mainly innocent as in Grandma ‘forgetting’ to refer to us as "Mama" and "Papa" around the kids, but regardless of the intent, the kids have picked up on it and have begun to wonder. And I know this is only a small thing, but the first few times it still blew me away as I would have never expected anything like this. It strikes me as very wrong for a grand-parent, or anyone really, to be suggesting/telling kids what they should be calling their parents, especially if said kids are using the terms they’ve been taught by their parents.
On the other side we have the Germans who, of course, are much more invested in having the kids learn the minority language. You’d think this would make them more supportive of our efforts, but we have encountered some issues with them as well. Some don’t understand why we are asking for German books, CDs and DVDs whenever they ask us for gift suggestions or they don’t want to give those because “then [The Husband] can’t use them!!!” Some want to practice their own English or want to make it easier on the kids by speaking to them in English – not understanding that the kids need exposure to German and more motivation to speak it, which, if you think about it, happens pretty much automatically when they can use it with people. Others shower the kids with so much praise for uttering even a single German word that it’s not even funny, and since we’ve had issues with praise in the past, we are a bit leery. Then there are those who oooohhh and aaaahhh at the kids’ cutesy mistakes or, maybe even worse, try to correct every single mistake, also not exactly helping someone to feel more confident or motivated to speak another language.
So what do we do?
- We talk to people, gently, about how we are raising our kids to be bilingual, and why.
- We explain and model OPOL.
- We tell people what we have learned about childhood bilingualism, either findings from the research literature or observations about our own kids.
- We explain how important it is that the kids have opportunities to speak and hear German, and that they need to have reason to use it.
- We patiently answer questions, as most really don’t know much at all about raising bilingual children.
- We explain that code-switching and code-mixing are normal, rather than reasons to worry.
- We dispel myths about bilingualism – “No, they are not behind in English! In fact, S’s teacher said at the last parent-teacher interview that she is very articulate and actually ahead of most of her classmates!”
- We listen to and address their concerns.
- We point out the benefits of bilingualism.
- And, if all else fails (Hi Grandma!), we let things be. It’s a cop-out, I know, but we will not put bilingualism above family peace.
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This post is part of the Raising Bilingual Children Carnival, hosted over at Fab Mums.
6 comments:
"or, maybe even worse, try to correct every single mistake"
That's a very German thing to do, I think. My family does it to the Babelwife. I've never understood why.
Regarding the majority language: I think the UK is actually a good place to raise kids with more than one language, funny as it seems. People are mostly in awe or at least that's what they say.
Why must this be so hard! Why?! It's as if the whole world makes it difficult to raise bilingual children!
I’m a Spanish father of a 3 months old baby boy. I really want to raise my kid (or kids in case there are more to come) bilingual in English-Spanish. Mastering English in the Spanish labor market is a big deal, and gives you more opportunities to work here and also abroad. Among others, that´s the main reason I want my little man to speak English. My situation is as follows:
-Me: I´m not a native English speaker or even consider myself fully bilingual. I´ve spent my entire life studying English and also worked abroad (Ireland) for almost a year (that´s when I became fluent, at 23 years old). I mean that I´m perfectly capable of maintaining a conversation but I also find troubles sometimes looking for the right word to use. I also lack some slang or even commonly used expressions. Having said that, I feel “almost” comfortable enough with my level and I think I could do a good job.
- Partner, friends and family: My wife will be the one speaking Spanish at home, although she understands English (she speaks well but with some Spanish accent). That is good for me using English with the kid. Apart from that, nobody else speaks English in the family, we don´t have English-speaking relatives to visit in an English speaking country or anything like that. Although the family understands our project, they feel weird every time they hear me speaking English or singing Incey Wincey spider to my drooly.
- Exposure: I work full time at the office. Working hours in Spain are really stupid and clash with a family daily schedule. Typical hours of any normal office, monday to thursday 8:00 to 14:00 (lunch) and 15:00 to 19:30 or even 20:00 (you never know...), Fridays I´m off at 15:00. (Not everything is that horrible, July and august 8:00 to 15:00). But I mean on a regular basis, I could expose my kid to the language for bath, dinner, and bedtime story, 90 minutes a day as much, then Friday to Sunday the entire day.
- Education: There are several good schools with a full program in English and others with bilingual programs in Madrid, although some of the bilinguals are tricky, as they just put some more emphasis and more hours a week on the English subject, but that´s all. Full English programs are better but obviously more expensive and normally they are filled with posh kids who live in a bubble. I don’t want that for my kid, plus I don’t have that much money to buy a pony for his 3rd birthday. My plan is first taking him to an English nursery at age 1 and a half, for some hours during the morning, and the rest of the day his Spanish grandparents will take care of him until mum or/and dad comes to pick him up (mum and dad work both full time to make ends meet…)
My questions for you guys, since you have already run the part of the road ahead of me are:
1. Do you consider I should be either native or fully bilingual to pass my English to my kid? Do you know any case of non-fully bilinguals raising bilingual kids?
2. Do you think the time of exposure will be enough for him to catch something?
3. As I don’t have any English speaking relatives, would you recommend some playgroups? I’m not sure if I can find such a thing here.
Any advice on the issue will be highly appreciated.
Thanks so much for reading me. I follow your blog and others to know other people´s experiences. I think a second language is the best inheritance that I can give to my kids and we feel so alone and doubtful now that we are starting with this.
Thanks!
Great Blog! Sound exactly like my house... Love to read more and will subscribe!
http://transculturalthoughts.blogspot.com/
Dear Anonymous, your post struck a chord because Incey Wincey Spider is my son's favourite song, so it is the ONLY thing he hears me say in English! Otherwise, my husband and I are raising him in French and English in an anglophone country. English is my native language, I became bilingual as an adult, and the OPOL approach is working for us. Our son is only a toddler but he understands and uses both languages. His exposure to French is about the same as your child's exposre to English, because I work the same kinds of hours, so I do believe that with perseverance, your son can do as well. Don't think of your son as "learning" a language, because that's not what very young kids do; they GROW in the language. The language isn't outside of him, it's in him, it's just part of how he perceives the world.
What a pertinant post! I heard rumours it was the childcare/ education profesionals who were sticky about bilingualism, but by now, and where we live, it's so common that no-one even blinks. Family who are all monolingual on the other hand... I think we have a slight advantage tere though: the minority language family and friends can't speak to him in English, although they did comment on his accent.
Anonymous: I think there are some people who participate in this carnival who are raising their kids bilingually when they aren't native speakers, so it's certainly do-able and in any case your command over English is impressive!
As for the playgroup issue, I was having the same thoughts and then someone in my area started a playgroup for kids in our area who speak the minority language, so if you can't find what you are looking for... Ours is only a few hours every two weeks, and very informal, but it's not just the exposure, it's the fact that the kids know other people have the same family dynamic as us.
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