Czeslaw, Poland
Jul 10, 2014 7:21:34 GMT 9
Post by Czeslaw Liebert on Jul 10, 2014 7:21:34 GMT 9
Hi,
My wife and I are both Polish living in Poland, yet we decided to bring up our children bilingually with English as a second language. Why? The reasons behind our decision can be traced back to year 1992 when I was fourteen. Due to some weird family decisions I was sent to Perth, Australia to spend a year at my grandma’s. It was then that I met Guillaume, a teenager who spoke three languages: French with his dad, Punjab with his mum and English with everyone else. I remember my first visit at his place when he introduced me to his parents using those languages – I stood there speechless thinking of my poor English listening to him switching back and forth between THREE languages. I was so amazed I immediately knew that bringing up in more than one language is the only way.
That short friendship has had a huge impact on my future life. I’ve done everything to improve my second language ever since: I read books and watched TV exclusively in English, attended private lessons, studied English linguistics. Long before we got married I explained to my wife-to-be what are my plans as for future children and she agreed that this is a very good idea.
We have three children, Maja (8), Tony (5) and Timmy (2). We follow OPOL with my wife speaking Polish and me using English all the time. It does raise eyebrows here and there since we live in a small town. Fortunately bilingualism per se is not perceived as something out of this world, instead what kind of surprises people is the choice of the second language. Silesian region of Poland is known for its Polish/German bilingualism and so our English seems a bizarre choice to some. On the other hand many Poles have immigrated to Great Britain and, what always makes me laugh, many people think we are preparing our family for that big step.
My wife and I are both Polish living in Poland, yet we decided to bring up our children bilingually with English as a second language. Why? The reasons behind our decision can be traced back to year 1992 when I was fourteen. Due to some weird family decisions I was sent to Perth, Australia to spend a year at my grandma’s. It was then that I met Guillaume, a teenager who spoke three languages: French with his dad, Punjab with his mum and English with everyone else. I remember my first visit at his place when he introduced me to his parents using those languages – I stood there speechless thinking of my poor English listening to him switching back and forth between THREE languages. I was so amazed I immediately knew that bringing up in more than one language is the only way.
That short friendship has had a huge impact on my future life. I’ve done everything to improve my second language ever since: I read books and watched TV exclusively in English, attended private lessons, studied English linguistics. Long before we got married I explained to my wife-to-be what are my plans as for future children and she agreed that this is a very good idea.
We have three children, Maja (8), Tony (5) and Timmy (2). We follow OPOL with my wife speaking Polish and me using English all the time. It does raise eyebrows here and there since we live in a small town. Fortunately bilingualism per se is not perceived as something out of this world, instead what kind of surprises people is the choice of the second language. Silesian region of Poland is known for its Polish/German bilingualism and so our English seems a bizarre choice to some. On the other hand many Poles have immigrated to Great Britain and, what always makes me laugh, many people think we are preparing our family for that big step.
