Hello from the UK!
Aug 18, 2016 15:48:28 GMT 9
Post by Georgia on Aug 18, 2016 15:48:28 GMT 9
Hi,
I am a British mummy of a little boy of 40 months married to an equally English man! We decided whilst pregnant that we would bring our son up with both Spanish and English. My husband does not know Spanish so it's the one parent one language scenario as I am a Spanish teacher and have lived abroad in Spain both as a student and for work for brief windows of time. If I had known how hard this journey would be would I have still started it, absolutely, but I wish I had been more prepared for potential difficulties. So from birth he has always had me in Spanish and Daddy in English.
My son seemingly has a speech delay, we do not know yet as to whether it is a delay or impairment as he only started saying Mama at 2,5 years old and I would approximate that his language is currently at that of about a 2-2.5 year old. He started preschool at this age and has come on leaps and bounds in the last year since starting with almost no language to two word phrases despite his lack of oral communication ability (he is smart he understands EVERYTHING in both languages) with the other kids. He seems really popular and always seems to happily throw himself into social situations as he uses a lot of body language on top of his two word sentences to make himself understood. He uses vocabulary in both languages with both of us but seems dominant in English.
We have employed a speech therapist, but they are monolingual and want me to do the home exercises in English and obviously if I start conversing more with him in English this takes away not only my child time in Spanish but his need to converse with me in Spanish. We are seeing progress without question in both languages but my greatest fear is of him being well behind his peers at school when he starts. I created a log of his vocab and actually, he has a similar quantity of words in both languages but more nouns in Spanish and verbs in English which may account for why he is happier to put sentences together in English! Giving up on the bilingual dream is the last thing I want to do but I worry that the deficits in my language will effect his development and that I could be of greater benefit to support his English, if I could support both his English and Spanish that would be awesome. Any ideas???
I am a British mummy of a little boy of 40 months married to an equally English man! We decided whilst pregnant that we would bring our son up with both Spanish and English. My husband does not know Spanish so it's the one parent one language scenario as I am a Spanish teacher and have lived abroad in Spain both as a student and for work for brief windows of time. If I had known how hard this journey would be would I have still started it, absolutely, but I wish I had been more prepared for potential difficulties. So from birth he has always had me in Spanish and Daddy in English.
My son seemingly has a speech delay, we do not know yet as to whether it is a delay or impairment as he only started saying Mama at 2,5 years old and I would approximate that his language is currently at that of about a 2-2.5 year old. He started preschool at this age and has come on leaps and bounds in the last year since starting with almost no language to two word phrases despite his lack of oral communication ability (he is smart he understands EVERYTHING in both languages) with the other kids. He seems really popular and always seems to happily throw himself into social situations as he uses a lot of body language on top of his two word sentences to make himself understood. He uses vocabulary in both languages with both of us but seems dominant in English.
We have employed a speech therapist, but they are monolingual and want me to do the home exercises in English and obviously if I start conversing more with him in English this takes away not only my child time in Spanish but his need to converse with me in Spanish. We are seeing progress without question in both languages but my greatest fear is of him being well behind his peers at school when he starts. I created a log of his vocab and actually, he has a similar quantity of words in both languages but more nouns in Spanish and verbs in English which may account for why he is happier to put sentences together in English! Giving up on the bilingual dream is the last thing I want to do but I worry that the deficits in my language will effect his development and that I could be of greater benefit to support his English, if I could support both his English and Spanish that would be awesome. Any ideas???
