Interviews are fun and effective

When your kids can engage in conversation in the minority language, I highly recommend carrying out some interviews on video--they're really fun and effective. My children and I interviewed one another recently in a series of videos that I posted at Bilingual Monkeys. If you haven't seen them yet, they're pretty entertaining (and provide a good glimpse of my crazy interactions with my kids)...

I interview my son (age 8)

I interview my daughter (age 10)

My kids interview me

As I describe at my blog...

• As I did, you can interview your kids and have them interview you. You could also have grandparents or other family members interview your kids, and your kids could interview them. (Grandparents interviewing their grandchildren, and grandchildren interviewing their grandparents would also make a wonderful memento of their time together, if recorded.)


• The interviews needn’t be taped, but by creating video or audio conversations, you’ll not only have a valuable recording for posterity, the impact of language exposure will be extended as you and your children watch them or listen to them.


• Your interviews can be silly or serious, or some blend of both. In fact, I have an archive of videotaped interviews I’ve conducted with each of my kids on their birthdays, year after year, which tend to be a combination of the two. (If your children are still small, you might put this idea into practice: annual “birthday interviews” are a marvelous way to gauge their growth.)


• Recorded interviews of your kids not only engage them in speaking the minority language, they enable you to assess their language ability more clearly. Aspects of their ability that you may not readily notice in daily life are highlighted in video or audio.


• When your children conduct an interview of you or others, they also practice literacy skills when preparing and posing the questions. Silly interviews, in particular, will also stretch their imagination and creative thinking.

If you create some interviews, come back to this thread and tell us about them!