Do you speak a second language to your kids?

[bcarp30]

At the Denver GTG @natariru mentioned how S speaks two languages and we had a a friend over on Sunday whose daughter speaks Spanish. I would love for DD to start speaking either French or Spanish but I'm not sure where to start. If we are going to do it, this is a great time since she's so young (2.5).

I do speak to her a little in French but not enough to make an impact, mostly because I don't speak it fluently. Any tips or ideas to start? I've noticed the Little Pim videos on Amazon Prime and we've watched some of those but again, not sure it's enough to make an impression.

[longtimenopost]

We do the one parent-one language approach. DH usually only speaks to DD in Danish (it's a little harder as she is getting older because when we have conversations as a family they are in English). We've been lucky that DH stays at home with DD so she gets lots of exposure. She also watches Danish kids shows, listens to Danish kids songs in the background while she's playing and with DH in the car, and skypes with DH's family weekly.

[anna7602]

I'm not a fan of the Little Pim videos, personally. We watched some of them before moving to France and I wasn't too impressed.

I am a big fan of the OPOL approach longtimenopost mentions, but I also know people who've had lots of success introducing a new language to their kids through a nanny and through a combination of classes and play groups and other activities. The key if you or your partner aren't native speakers yourselves is to find a community of native speakers and get "in" on that world to reinforce the language learning as much as possible through play groups and the like. The more exposure the child has to the second language, the better.

And make it a long-term commitment, because kids quickly forget skills they don't use very often. DD's French has really deteriorated since we moved back to the U.S. (But I speak to her in Spanish and she does still speak Spanish, in case you think I am crazy for coming in to answer this post.)

[mandapanda18]

We have C in a full-immersion daycare, he hears only spanish during the school-day and english at home. I am learning spanish, and already know a bit, so I identify items to him in both languages. It is funny, because water is always "aqua" and dog is "dog", cat is "gato"... so he picks and chooses what he wants to use

[SJ]

Yes. DD is in full-immersion Spanish daycare and I speak Spanish to her at daycare as well.

I wish I could commit to OPOL, but the reality is that my husband doesn't speak Spanish and so the majority of our at-home interactions are conducted in English.

She isn't speaking yet, so time will tell which she speaks first and how successful we are with all of this.

[longtimenopost]

Jun 24, 2015 14:39:37 GMT -5 SJ said:

Yes. DD is in full-immersion Spanish daycare and I speak Spanish to her at daycare as well.

I wish I could commit to OPOL, but the reality is that my husband doesn't speak Spanish and so the majority of our at-home interactions are conducted in English.

She isn't speaking yet, so time will tell which she speaks first and how successful we are with all of this.

It's actually amazing how DD can tell the difference even at 2. DH will often speak to me in English then DD in Danish and DD will the do the same. She'll ask me for something in English, but if I don't respond immediately she'll turn to DH to ask the same thing again in Danish. She also knows which of her books are "mommy books" and which are "daddy books"

[Deleted]

We speak 3 languages around dd. My parents speak an uncommon Chinese dialect (not Mandarin or Cantonese). We all speak Vietnamese because my H doesn't speak our Chinese dialect. I speak mostly English. lol She knows words in all 3 languages and can follow instructions. I've also been trying to throw in a few words in Mandarin. We hope that she can be fluent in 3 languages just by using them around her all the time.

[rootbeerfloat]

Jun 24, 2015 15:02:40 GMT -5 @vicmo said:

We use 4 Ukrainian words, lol. (Grandma, grandpa, father, belly button.)

We use the Hawaiian word for belly button

[pinotgrig]

Jun 24, 2015 14:52:35 GMT -5 @this said:

Her daycare starts Spanish lessons at 2. Which is more than the nothing I would do. lol

G has a daycare friend whose parents speak Portuguese. He's picked up a few words from him since the daycare people use some of his words.

Daycare ftw!

[rugbywife]

Was fully prepared to speak to DD only in French. Never do. I suck.

[gibbinator]

We have ds1 in a French daycare in addition to dh speaking French at home. I'm really jealous of his accent. He rolls his R's perfectly and easily switches between French and English depending on the environment.

[bcarp30]

This is all so helpful, thank you!! We are considering hiring a Spanish speaking nanny for ~3 or 4 hours a week who would speak to her only in Spanish. We live in CO so it's pretty easy to find Spanish speakers as opposed to French or other nationalities. Although there is a significant Russian population here. There was an Alliance Français close to our old house but with traffic it would be 30+ minutes at a minimum. Same with an immersion school but I'll keep digging! At the very least I would love to have a high school student teach her colors and numbers.

[Brie]

C's daycare teachers this year are both fluent in Spanish.

He has picked up some Spanish, but mostly he just says certain things in English with a sassy sounding Spanish accent.

[lilles]

We use the OPOL approach. I speak to them in Spanish all the time and DH speaks to them in English. My older two are five and seven and completely fluent in both languages and the older one can read and write in Spanish. The five year old is learning. We are visiting Puerto Rico right now and they have been able to speak to everyone in Spanish. I have bought them a ton of books and learning materials in Spanish during this trip which I am excited about.

The baby can only says two words so far: Mama and Papa but the goal is for him to be fluent in both languages as well.

[Dumbledork]

No, but she's in a full-immersion Mandarin Chinese elementary school. She loves it and her teachers are awesome.

We don't really like the Little Pim videos, but we have Little Pim flash cards that we sometimes use for labeling, matching or games. We do have a game on my phone that her teacher recommended and she loves it. It's called Fun Chinese, but they also have a Fun Spanish, etc.

We also have a YouTube playlist with all the songs her teacher has introduced over the year and most of them include the text karaoke-style. She puts those on when she plays and sings along.

[rupertpenny]

Neither H or I are fluent in another language, but I'm really hoping B learns something else. In August she is starting a preschool thats 50% Mandarin immersion. She also hears a lot of Cantonese and Tagalog, and somehow all of her play ground friends are French so I hope something sticks, even if it is just the ability to hear sound differences in other languages.

[rupertpenny]

Jun 24, 2015 20:43:59 GMT -5 Dumbledork said:

No, but she's in a full-immersion Mandarin Chinese elementary school. She loves it and her teachers are awesome.

We don't really like the Little Pim videos, but we have Little Pim flash cards that we sometimes use for labeling, matching or games. We do have a game on my phone that her teacher recommended and she loves it. It's called Fun Chinese, but they also have a Fun Spanish, etc.

We also have a YouTube playlist with all the songs her teacher has introduced over the year and most of them include the text karaoke-style. She puts those on when she plays and sings along.

I'm curious about full Mandarin immersion as it is an option for us in the future. Do the kids have any instruction in English writing and reading? If so when does that start? I would love for B to be fully literate in Chinese, but not at the expense of her English writing skills. 

[Dumbledork]

Jun 24, 2015 20:51:04 GMT -5 rupertpenny said:

Jun 24, 2015 20:43:59 GMT -5 Dumbledork said:

No, but she's in a full-immersion Mandarin Chinese elementary school. She loves it and her teachers are awesome.

We don't really like the Little Pim videos, but we have Little Pim flash cards that we sometimes use for labeling, matching or games. We do have a game on my phone that her teacher recommended and she loves it. It's called Fun Chinese, but they also have a Fun Spanish, etc.

We also have a YouTube playlist with all the songs her teacher has introduced over the year and most of them include the text karaoke-style. She puts those on when she plays and sings along.

I'm curious about full Mandarin immersion as it is an option for us in the future. Do the kids have any instruction in English writing and reading? If so when does that start? I would love for B to be fully literate in Chinese, but not at the expense of her English writing skills. 

They have English class, but it's taught in a different classroom by another teacher and it's only 30ish minutes long. Still, according to them, she's on track to read and write in English by state standards.

They do warn that the class might seem a little behind a class operating just in English, but assure us that most kids generally catch up and are on the same level by third.

It's a public school operating a choice program. DD just finished K. Again, we love it. She hated preschool so I was nervous for kindy, but she did awesome and loved every minute. I know there's at least three other kids in her class who have teacher parents and they all love the program too.

[potatopie]

Jun 24, 2015 14:57:55 GMT -5 @natariru said:

OPOL is fucking hard. My brain hurts from trying sometimes, lol.

Agreed. I'm not being strict about it particularly because DS gets so much more exposure to English. So i've been trying to use a lot more Italian words with him. And DH slips into English easily, so it's never perfect.

[starburst]

I really want to try and speak as much Chinese as possible with my baby. Unfortunately, my Chinese isn't the greatest because I don't have the opportunity to speak it very much. I wish my parents lived closer so they could see him and interact with him using Chinese on a more regular basis. My H only speaks English.

[holly116]

DH had high hopes of OPOL. He's fluent in German and speaks a lot of German at work. It really is hard because I don't speak it. Recently he's tried for German Wednesdays but still lol. We have plenty of books, consciously buy the German version of Disney movies and the older two probably have a vocabulary of 50 words. They love watching German cartoons on YouTube. They understands lot and have a pretty good accent but are nowhere near fluent.

Luckily our area has a Saturday morning German school and it's really cheap, like $100 a school year. We're starting DD this fall. Maybe DS1, we'll see.

[anna7602]

Oh, holly116 reminded me of the magic of Disney. Most Disney movies sold in the US come with Spanish or French options, or both. But you have to get the DVDs, not the iTunes or Netflix or Amazon Prime versions that go straight to your TV or device.

Disney's foreign language versions are excellent. For a long time, DD didn't even know they made movies in English!

[holly116]

Jun 25, 2015 9:05:11 GMT -5 anna7602 said:

Oh, holly116 reminded me of the magic of Disney. Most Disney movies sold in the US come with Spanish or French options, or both. But you have to get the DVDs, not the iTunes or Netflix or Amazon Prime versions that go straight to your TV or device.

Disney's foreign language versions are excellent. For a long time, DD didn't even know they made movies in English!

Yup! And I'm pretty sure most if not all foreign ones come with English as an option. So when we buy German, we also get French and English.

[WillabyWallabyWu]

No, but I wish I knew enough Spanish to really do it. I can do phrases and object labeling, but not enough for it to mean much to him. I did teach in a Spanish immersion program (I was one of the English foundational teachers) so I've seen immersion programs at work, and they are amazing.

[stacyb1983]

No, but we are considering sending DS to an immersion school. HISD has multiple options including a mandarin immersion school pk through 8th grade.

[Dumbledork]

Jun 25, 2015 10:13:46 GMT -5 @littlemoxie said:

Jun 24, 2015 20:43:59 GMT -5 Dumbledork said:

No, but she's in a full-immersion Mandarin Chinese elementary school. She loves it and her teachers are awesome.

We don't really like the Little Pim videos, but we have Little Pim flash cards that we sometimes use for labeling, matching or games. We do have a game on my phone that her teacher recommended and she loves it. It's called Fun Chinese, but they also have a Fun Spanish, etc.

We also have a YouTube playlist with all the songs her teacher has introduced over the year and most of them include the text karaoke-style. She puts those on when she plays and sings along.

What city is this in?  Houston ISD has one of these, and I think is opening up a second, and I'd love to hear experiences.

We're in North Carolina. I think our teachers hosted a visit from an immersion school in Texas and said our program was slightly different, but I could be wrong.

Her lead teacher is from Taiwain and her assistant teacher is from China. The school requires at least a three year commitment to the program. You also have to start the program in kindy. You're not allowed to transfer into it at later grades.

All of her main subjects (math, science, social studies, Chinese reading and writing) are in Chinese, while her secondary subjects are in English (PE, art, music, computer lab, library, and English reading and writing) and taught by other teachers in other rooms.

She spends about 1.5 hours total in English instruction every day, about an hour in "free time" with lunch and recess, and the remaining 4.5 hours in Chinese.

They work their way up to 100% Chinese in the class to get the kids comfortable with it. I don't know if this is an every grade level thing or just kindy though. I would think just kindy.

They were at 100% by beginning of second semester though. By the end of the year the kids are expected to communicate in full sentences and know how to read, write, and speak at least 100 words.