Vera in Sydney, Australia
Jul 16, 2014 20:05:57 GMT 9
Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2014 20:05:57 GMT 9
G'Day everyone,
Firstly thank you Adam for adding me to the forum. I have been following your Bilingual Monkey blog for a couple years now.
I am originally from Cologne, Germany but have been living in Sydney, Australia since 2007.
I became bilingual the hard way by being forced to study English in high school from year 5 onward. In the beginning I really hated the subject, as I was scared of my teacher. However in later years I really enjoyed English lessons and it soon became both my favourite and best subject in school.
By the time I was in college, studying Early Childhood Education, I had read my first novel (Message in a Bottle by Nicholas Sparks) in English. Once I got a hang of it I soon got hooked on reading books in English. At the same time I also started switching DVDs to English when watching movies (in Germany all movies are dubbed).
In my career as Early Childhood Educator I have worked as bilingual teacher. In Germany as English speaking teacher and in Australia as German native speaker in a bilingual German-English centre. Throughout my work bilingual education soon became a passion of mine. I have seen both success stories and not-so-successful attempts of parents raising their kids bilingual.
Now I am a new mother with a baby boy, Benjamin, who is 11 weeks old. As my partner is German as well, German obviously is our majority language spoken at home and English currently the minority language spoken in the community.
Reading Adam's blog has encouraged me to already start a little library for my son, Benjamin. I have a collection of books that I remember from my own childhood as well as new stories. One of my favourite authors of children's books is Julia Donaldson who wrote The Gruffalo, The Gruffalo's Child, etc.
I also have loaded my old iPod with German music only for my son. It mainly plays children's music (obviously) but also some of my favourite German bands.
While I am new to raising my own bilingual child, I have been blessed to be able to work as a bilingual Early Childhood Educator and creating my passion for bilingualism.
I am looking forward to exchanging ideas with you all.
Firstly thank you Adam for adding me to the forum. I have been following your Bilingual Monkey blog for a couple years now.
I am originally from Cologne, Germany but have been living in Sydney, Australia since 2007.
I became bilingual the hard way by being forced to study English in high school from year 5 onward. In the beginning I really hated the subject, as I was scared of my teacher. However in later years I really enjoyed English lessons and it soon became both my favourite and best subject in school.
By the time I was in college, studying Early Childhood Education, I had read my first novel (Message in a Bottle by Nicholas Sparks) in English. Once I got a hang of it I soon got hooked on reading books in English. At the same time I also started switching DVDs to English when watching movies (in Germany all movies are dubbed).
In my career as Early Childhood Educator I have worked as bilingual teacher. In Germany as English speaking teacher and in Australia as German native speaker in a bilingual German-English centre. Throughout my work bilingual education soon became a passion of mine. I have seen both success stories and not-so-successful attempts of parents raising their kids bilingual.
Now I am a new mother with a baby boy, Benjamin, who is 11 weeks old. As my partner is German as well, German obviously is our majority language spoken at home and English currently the minority language spoken in the community.
Reading Adam's blog has encouraged me to already start a little library for my son, Benjamin. I have a collection of books that I remember from my own childhood as well as new stories. One of my favourite authors of children's books is Julia Donaldson who wrote The Gruffalo, The Gruffalo's Child, etc.
I also have loaded my old iPod with German music only for my son. It mainly plays children's music (obviously) but also some of my favourite German bands.
While I am new to raising my own bilingual child, I have been blessed to be able to work as a bilingual Early Childhood Educator and creating my passion for bilingualism.
I am looking forward to exchanging ideas with you all.
Very positive podcast review of my book Bilingual Success Stories Around the World at Kletsheads 
