Hello from Israel, my name is Jonathan
Jul 17, 2017 4:14:46 GMT 9
Post by Jonathan on Jul 17, 2017 4:14:46 GMT 9
Hi all!
My name is Jonathan, and I'm a proud father of 2 lovely daughters ages 3.5 and 0.5. I was born in Russia and moved to Israel when I was about 9 years old myself.
I'm married to a Hebrew speaking wife, and I live quite away from my Russian speaking parents (single day visits every 2-3 weeks tops).
After reading "Raising a Bilingual Child" by Barbara Zurer Pearson which I got from a friend, I felt like I gathered a lot of academic information, which actually got me a bit frustrated, since I didn't feel like I was giving enough emphasis on the language (at the time I don't think I was anywhere near 25 hours a week of Russian language exposure).
I read Adam's book (which I found on Amazon and felt I had to try it due to it's high rating) and really really liked it (and also rated it on Amazon), and even though I don't think I manage to follow all the things Adam does with his kids, I really try to read at least 2 books every night to my older daughter (and about 5-6 books on the weekends), with the small one gradually joining us on the evening book readings.
I also speak only Russian with her for the last 1.5 years or so (since she was about 2 years old).
Even though I started pretty early with the Russian language with her, I feel like I didn't give enough emphasis on the language at the beginning, and since my older daughter goes to majority language kindergarten, and my wife barely speaks Russian (only a few words and sentences), I see myself as the only person in her life that actively speaks Russian to her.
Right now my main challenge is to make my older daughter start to answer back in Russian, and I'm not quite sure how to make this possible... I always answer in Russian and she always answers in Hebrew, she understands about 90% of the things I say (I think about 60%-70% of the books I read), but she actively refuses to answer in Russian.
I would love to learn some new methods to help her start talking Russian!
And I'm very glad to finally join this community!
Cheers,
Jonathan
My name is Jonathan, and I'm a proud father of 2 lovely daughters ages 3.5 and 0.5. I was born in Russia and moved to Israel when I was about 9 years old myself.
I'm married to a Hebrew speaking wife, and I live quite away from my Russian speaking parents (single day visits every 2-3 weeks tops).
After reading "Raising a Bilingual Child" by Barbara Zurer Pearson which I got from a friend, I felt like I gathered a lot of academic information, which actually got me a bit frustrated, since I didn't feel like I was giving enough emphasis on the language (at the time I don't think I was anywhere near 25 hours a week of Russian language exposure).
I read Adam's book (which I found on Amazon and felt I had to try it due to it's high rating) and really really liked it (and also rated it on Amazon), and even though I don't think I manage to follow all the things Adam does with his kids, I really try to read at least 2 books every night to my older daughter (and about 5-6 books on the weekends), with the small one gradually joining us on the evening book readings.
I also speak only Russian with her for the last 1.5 years or so (since she was about 2 years old).
Even though I started pretty early with the Russian language with her, I feel like I didn't give enough emphasis on the language at the beginning, and since my older daughter goes to majority language kindergarten, and my wife barely speaks Russian (only a few words and sentences), I see myself as the only person in her life that actively speaks Russian to her.
Right now my main challenge is to make my older daughter start to answer back in Russian, and I'm not quite sure how to make this possible... I always answer in Russian and she always answers in Hebrew, she understands about 90% of the things I say (I think about 60%-70% of the books I read), but she actively refuses to answer in Russian.
I would love to learn some new methods to help her start talking Russian!
And I'm very glad to finally join this community!
Cheers,
Jonathan