Challenge #10: Travel to Your Minority Language Country

Joanna, thanks for adding the idea of "bringing the country to you." This is an excellent point and has been one of my aims as well, especially by serving as a host family for international visitors. Hiroshima, of course, gets a lot of visitors from abroad and we've been fortunate to host over 10 people for short-term stays, from a weekend to around two weeks, through our local YMCA and a homestay association. We don't have a big place, so it's not all that comfortable to have another person in the house, but it's well worth it for all the engaging exposure in English and the chance for my kids to interact with young people (generally, in high school or college) from a wide variety of countries.

However, our last homestay guest was a challenging surprise: a girl from Thailand who spoke no English and no Japanese! That whole weekend we were gesturing like mad, trying to communicate with her, even very simple things we just take for granted when there's shared language. As tough as it was (and I think my kids did better with her than I did!), this experience was also a strong reminder of how valuable language ability really is!

Hope you guys have tons of English-filled fun in Canada next summer!

Like Reina's family, we are very lucky to live close to our ml country and have family and friends with kids there. On our first longer trip (that is, longer than the annual week at Christmas), my daughter had just turned three and was speaking very little still in the ml. We stayed for 10 days in a hotel specifically geared to children, and another week with family. Two weeks after we came home to the ML country, there was a true explosion in her ml skills. I thought that was funny, because that was exactly what I had read, those two weeks.

We're also lucky in the regard that the ML family doesn't insist on a Christmas get-together, so we don't have to make compromises, or alternate, but can go to the ml country every Christmas. We catch up with the ML family around New Year's.

Christmas at my family's always involves a visit at my Dad's (my parents are divorced), several visits to our beautiful Christmas market (last year my daughter met Santa there and said a little self-made poem - maybe this year she'll sing him a Christmas carol?), meeting up with a school friend of mine who has two very talkative daughters, the family get-together with my aunts, uncles, some cousins and at least one of or two of their kids (depending who is in town), the whole time staying at my Mom's.

None of these people speaks more than a few words of the ML.

On the 12-hour drive, we usually make a stop at one or the other of my two cousins who live along the road and have kids not much older than my daughter.

And during the stay, I stock up on ml books and CDs, get recommendations for books, games, TV shows etc. from the other parents, and I let my daughter watch German children TV shows.

In addition to that annual trip, the last three summers we spent our three weeks of summer vacation in the ml country, part in children's hotels, part with family. And I also took my daughter on short trips to the ml country. The year we went elsewhere on holidays, I took her for two long weekends to see her ml Grandma, and this year, as a special treat, I took her for a day trip to a children's musical with a book character she is a huge fan of. (Yes, we're that close to the ml country.)

I think it is this forum which made me realise just how comparatively easy we have it, and I am very grateful.

I didn't even realize I managed to do a challenge, since I was... well... doing it! We just got back from a 2-week stay in the US for Thanksgiving. It was far too short, but we're fortunate that my husband works for an airline, so we are able to go once a year without it costing the moon.

My French mother-in-law came with us, so we spoke a little more French than usual so she would be comfortable, but the kids still got a lot of English exposure through family and friends, and I took advantage of the trip to stock up on English language books. I'm most excited for all the great series I found for my almost-10-year-old; I can't wait to see which ones he'll like so we can get more. I found it harder to find books for my 7.5-year-old, who seems sort of in-between Magic Treehouse type/easier chapter books and the harder ones, but I found some, so we'll see how I did there. I picked out some like Geronimo Stilton for him since he loves comic books.

This is a great idea Melissa! Quebec City is fun for Carnaval, or any time (I lived there for several years before moving to France, it's what helped me become bilingual). Going to Quebec City, or any other smaller town in Quebec is also a better idea than Montreal when possible as I'm sure you know, most people switch to English in Montreal when you're trying to practice your French. 

It could be interesting to meet up with other children or do school age activities (toy library, school visit...) while you visit, to try to emphasise the need for using French.

Example: www.quoifaireaquebec.com/c/famille/page/19

Over the summer I took this challenge with my family. Things were getting pretty 'bad' with my twin nearly-five-year olds, understanding ml (English) perfectly but only responding in ML (Russian) or very basic English.

So, taking advantage of my long summer holidays from university, we spent two months travelling round England and Wales visiting different relatives and friends.

The difference it has made has been enormous. The girls' fluency, language complexity, and confidence in English grew tremendously. Now they play together in English as much if not more than in Russian, even after two weeks back in Kazakhstan.

The worry is of course that under the massive pressure of Russian in their daily lives that the ML will prevail again, but my wife is now more committed to using English as a home language, and even speaks English to them when I am not at home. I also want to set up regular Google Hangouts with relatives in England, which will hopefully be more productive now that the girls know who they are talking to.

Just checking out some of these challenges. I didn't realize there were surveys attached to these! How fun!

Anyway, I wish I could travel with my children more. This is always a goal in the back of my mind though and keeps me motivated to continue pushing ml learning.

You are absolutely right. We should be thankful for these people. We were lucky enough to be able to host my parents here in Japan for 3 weeks around Christmas and New Years last year.  It's not exactly the same as the immersion of being in a completely different place, but it's the next best thing. In addition to the relationship-building between grandparents and grandchildren, having visits like these is a good way to refresh and remind me of a major reason why I'm stressing learning the ml in the first place-- so we can all communicate!

This is really interesting. Here English is the minority language. When my 5yo son was 2, we traveled to the USA, and it was an important moment for him to see that English was a real language, not something that was coming from just me and the TV. And as I don't like to travel just to be a tourist, I managed to meet friends and live the place, not just seeing it. It was wonderful. I went to playgrounds where my son could interact with other kids. At first he was addressing the other kids in Portuguese. After telling him sometimes he had to speak in English, he understood. We did the same when he was turning 4. Now every month he asks me when we're gonna do that again.

Dear Undraa,

Why do you consider this a crazy idea? Is it because of the distance?

There are an awful lot of people who do that.  In fact, I have often heard this from bilingual families.

As a matter of fact, my husband is looking into sending my eldest daughter to his ml country (okay it isn't as distant as Mongolia! ) for one week this Easter - though nothing is firmly worked out yet. And ever since she was born, he had his mind set on sending her over for 1 month of the summer vacation before we join her there...and Hubby is considering it for this summer too.

As a Mum, I do find it scary to send my little one off on her own. But last summer I saw the benefit of 2 weeks on her language development, so I can't even imagine 4 weeks. Let alone the benefit of nurturing her grandparent-grandchild relationship...