Post by Angela on Jun 29, 2014 17:21:38 GMT 9
Hi! My name is Angela and I am an American living in Italy with my Italian husband and our two children, Maria (8) and Vincent (5, in August). We actually are all dual citizens now! Our language situation is different than most in that we are struggling with the community language more than the minority language at the moment!
We have been in our current location in northern Italy for 2 years now, but this journey started about 16 years ago! I first met my now husband in 1998, but it wasn't until 2001 that I up and moved to Italy. We spent those first 7+ years together in Turin, where our daughter was born in 2006. We always spoke English to each other (more because my Italian is horrendous and my husband's English is incredible than for any other reasons!) so when Maria was born, we both stuck with English thinking that she would get Italian from the community (and from my mother-in-law, who lived with us!).
This was a good idea until our situation changed in 2008 and we moved to the US when our daughter was 2. My husband tried to change to speaking Italian with her, but it was just too hard for him - the relationship was established in English, and there it would stay! Our son, Vincent, was born in the US in 2009, and my husband tried again with Italian, but just couldn't stick with it.
Then, things changed yet again for us, and we found ourselves moving back to Italy in early 2012...but now we had 2 kids, neither of which spoke Italian, but would be starting in Italian public schools in less than 5 months! We had our daughter join a kids' summer program (a very popular summer activity for young kids in Italy) where she would be surrounded by the language every morning 5 days a weeks, because she would be starting the 1st grade in the fall and it was essential she have some degree of Italian when she started (we live in a small community and there doesn't seem to exist any type of special help for students not native in the language).
Our son was too young for the summer programs, but he would also be starting in the public preschool in the fall. We assumed it would be fairly easy for him to acclimate to the language since he was only 3 years old. Unfortunately, this was not the case. While our daughter caught onto the language very quickly, our son was having loads of problems in school. Nearing the end of that first school year, it was brought to our attention by his teachers that he was having a lot of trouble communicating and following basic instructions. We, following the advice of our pediatrician, had him evaluated and he was diagnosed with Asperger's (ASD). This may have been part of the reason why he was having trouble adapting to the new language (or maybe not, we'll never really know!). He's been in therapy for the past year now and he has made tremendous progress with his Italian as well as other areas where he has had some difficulties! His teachers (they are same ones he had last year) are very happy and impressed with his improvement this year. He'll have one more year of preschool before he starts 1st grade ("official", "real" school!) and I'm hopeful that he will have the language abilities to handle it.
And going back to our daughter, she has successfully completed the 2nd grade and she is 10x more fluent in Italian now than I will ever be! Her vocabulary in Italian isn't quite where an average 8-year-old Italian child's is, but she's getting there!
While our problems now are more with helping the kids learn the community language successfully, I know that the time will come, as they get older, when I will probably be struggling to keep them speaking English with me. That's why, even though the odd doctor/teacher/therapist here has encouraged me to speak Italian with my son, I have refused to do so. I'm working with my daughter on her reading in English a lot this summer - she can read very well in Italian and does so happily, but realizes that English is more difficult because it's not such a phonetic language as Italian! She been lazy and hasn't wanted to try and read in English...but she has recently started to read stories in English to her brother at bedtime - she likes playing Mommy with him.
Facts about me:
*I'm a Midwesterner - Indiana to be exact. I lived in Indianapolis for a total of more than 14 years and never once went to the famous Indy Race Track!
*I'm currently an English language teacher, but my university and professional background is in food microbiology.
*I met my husband when I was 27 when I came to Italy to visit a penpal that I'd written to since I was 16 years old!
Just last week, I was on a holiday with the children while my husband had to stay at home. My son was telling me about his fears. I comforted him and helped him problem solve. But that night on the phone my husband and I were ecstatic! He was afraid and he was able to communicate it to us!!!!!! 
