When parents can't speak ML
Jul 13, 2016 19:23:08 GMT 9
Post by Patricia on Jul 13, 2016 19:23:08 GMT 9
I'm feeling a bit lost right now. While we raise our bilingual children, my husband and I are also struggling to learn the ML (German) at the same time. The only exposure my children have to the ML is through the outside world, which is limited as they are young. We are raising our children (ages 1.5 and 4) in Germany, but as we came here 3 years ago with no German skills and live in a very international city, it has been too easy to fall into an English speaking bubble. Although we plan to live here permanently, I can see that without proper planning, the children could end up staying in this ml bubble permanently (e.g. attending the international schools & activities available here and socializing with other English speaking peers).
So, I am struggling with how much of each language to emphasize with my children. My soon-to-be 4 year old is about to finish her first year of German kindergarten, but I want to help her reach the level of her monolingual peers so she can keep up once she starts school at age 6. My youngest is just starting to talk and so I have a chance to change my approach with her if there is a better way.
As my oldest is about to start her summer break from kindergarten, I was planning to start some 'homework' activities with her. She has enjoyed learning her letters in English and I will continue to work on English literacy with her (and also read to her daily of course). At the same time, as a non ML speaker, I am always focused on learning German and want her to maintain some exposure to it during the 6 weeks she is away from kindergarten. I was hoping we could watch a few minutes of some German children's videos together daily and focus on learning the alphabet and numbers and maybe some vocabulary words on a topic of her choosing. Now I'm questioning if I'm on the right track, or if I should just focus on English with her?
For my youngest, I was planning to put her in a German speaking activity (we have a few English groups we attend already) and possibly enroll her in kindergarten or pre-kindergarten a year earlier than I did with her sister. My thinking was to get her more exposure to German at a younger age. But now reading through some posts on this forum, I feel like the odd person out as everyone else is trying to get their children exposed more to the ml, while here I am trying to expose them to more ML. Does my approach make sense?
So, I am struggling with how much of each language to emphasize with my children. My soon-to-be 4 year old is about to finish her first year of German kindergarten, but I want to help her reach the level of her monolingual peers so she can keep up once she starts school at age 6. My youngest is just starting to talk and so I have a chance to change my approach with her if there is a better way.
As my oldest is about to start her summer break from kindergarten, I was planning to start some 'homework' activities with her. She has enjoyed learning her letters in English and I will continue to work on English literacy with her (and also read to her daily of course). At the same time, as a non ML speaker, I am always focused on learning German and want her to maintain some exposure to it during the 6 weeks she is away from kindergarten. I was hoping we could watch a few minutes of some German children's videos together daily and focus on learning the alphabet and numbers and maybe some vocabulary words on a topic of her choosing. Now I'm questioning if I'm on the right track, or if I should just focus on English with her?
For my youngest, I was planning to put her in a German speaking activity (we have a few English groups we attend already) and possibly enroll her in kindergarten or pre-kindergarten a year earlier than I did with her sister. My thinking was to get her more exposure to German at a younger age. But now reading through some posts on this forum, I feel like the odd person out as everyone else is trying to get their children exposed more to the ml, while here I am trying to expose them to more ML. Does my approach make sense?