Navigating the bilingual journey from 3yrs onwards
Mar 20, 2018 8:16:19 GMT 9
Post by Ellie on Mar 20, 2018 8:16:19 GMT 9
Hi everyone,
I joined this forum a couple of years ago, but at the time my almost 3yr old was only a baby, so I didn't get on here much then. He is now almost 3 and we also have 7mth old twins, so life is busy.
Anyway, I am Australian and my husband is Costa Rican. We speak Spanish 95% of the time at home and made the conscious decision to only speak in Spanish to our son for at least the first 3yrs of his life (based on this site and other resources etc). So far this has worked really well. Our son's first language was Spanish and up until just over the age of two, he really didn't know much English at all. It was when he was about 2.3 that his English just sky-rocketed. The twins were born then and he started spending more time with my mother and he started going to a family daycare once a week when he was about 2.1. For the first few months after the twins were born, he also watched quite a lot of TV and it was all in English, as I didn't have the time to go searching on Netflix for programs that have Spanish and are accessible to us here. He doesn't watch as much TV now (a bit just before dinner), but it's still in English unless we look up some Thomas on Youtube or something. We also used to attend a Spanish speaking playgroup, but we can no longer attend as it clashes with daycare (which I need for my sanity with 3 under 3).
So, our current situation is that he still only speaks Spanish to both me and my husband (though, he occasionally starts in English or uses a few English words here and there) and he easily switches between the two when my mum is around helping (saying something to her in English and then to me in Spanish). However, we have noticed that his Spanish is getting worse and as his vocabulary in English grows through all the exposure he's getting at daycare and from the TV, he's starting to use more words in English (when speaking Spanish), both when he does and doesn't know the word in Spanish. He's also started creating "Spanglish" words, such as using a English verb with a Spanish verb ending when speaking to us (e.g. fix + ar to say "fixar" instead of "arreglar" or "reparar"). I know this shows that his understanding of Spanish grammar is good, as he is applying Spanish grammatical rules to English (I am an ESL teacher and have a Master of Applied Linguistics), though it still concerns me a little (I worry he's losing his Spanish). We've also noticed that when he plays alone or with the babies, he speaks in English. This makes sense as all his playing occurs in English (either at daycare or on playdates). It made me realise that English is the language of 'play' for him and I'm concerned Spanish will become the language of 'routine/rules/parents/etc', which isn't very fun at all. I want Spanish to be fun and meaningful for him, otherwise we'll have no chance.
We read to him in Spanish (we have lots of books we've bought online, or we translate or create our own stories based on the pictures), but I guess at the moment we're not doing much playing with him (too busy keeping on top of the house and looking after the babies). He also rarely plays with other Spanish speaking children, as we can't go to the playgroup anymore and we only have a few Latin American friends who we see rarely. We do Skype my husband's family most Sundays though and he talks to them in Spanish.
I guess my concerns are then...where do we go from here? How can we try and maximise his chances of continuing to speak Spanish? How do you navigate the bilingual journey once they're in preschoool/school and being so exposed to the majority language? We've always assumed that once he gets to school, he'll likely only want to speak English and he'll end up understanding Spanish, but not speaking it. Though, we'd really love for that NOT to be the case. Also, what about the twins? I keep telling my toddler he can talk to them in Spanish, but he just naturally chooses English. We really want them to have a good chance at being bilingual too.
I'm planning on searching for some suitable TV programs for him which I can download onto a USB and have permanently attached to the TV, so when he wants to watch something, we only choose from there.
Thanks for reading my extremely long post and I look forward to hearing from some of you. I also hope to browse through this forum again, but to be honest I rarely get time to do such things these days!!
Bye
I joined this forum a couple of years ago, but at the time my almost 3yr old was only a baby, so I didn't get on here much then. He is now almost 3 and we also have 7mth old twins, so life is busy.
Anyway, I am Australian and my husband is Costa Rican. We speak Spanish 95% of the time at home and made the conscious decision to only speak in Spanish to our son for at least the first 3yrs of his life (based on this site and other resources etc). So far this has worked really well. Our son's first language was Spanish and up until just over the age of two, he really didn't know much English at all. It was when he was about 2.3 that his English just sky-rocketed. The twins were born then and he started spending more time with my mother and he started going to a family daycare once a week when he was about 2.1. For the first few months after the twins were born, he also watched quite a lot of TV and it was all in English, as I didn't have the time to go searching on Netflix for programs that have Spanish and are accessible to us here. He doesn't watch as much TV now (a bit just before dinner), but it's still in English unless we look up some Thomas on Youtube or something. We also used to attend a Spanish speaking playgroup, but we can no longer attend as it clashes with daycare (which I need for my sanity with 3 under 3).
So, our current situation is that he still only speaks Spanish to both me and my husband (though, he occasionally starts in English or uses a few English words here and there) and he easily switches between the two when my mum is around helping (saying something to her in English and then to me in Spanish). However, we have noticed that his Spanish is getting worse and as his vocabulary in English grows through all the exposure he's getting at daycare and from the TV, he's starting to use more words in English (when speaking Spanish), both when he does and doesn't know the word in Spanish. He's also started creating "Spanglish" words, such as using a English verb with a Spanish verb ending when speaking to us (e.g. fix + ar to say "fixar" instead of "arreglar" or "reparar"). I know this shows that his understanding of Spanish grammar is good, as he is applying Spanish grammatical rules to English (I am an ESL teacher and have a Master of Applied Linguistics), though it still concerns me a little (I worry he's losing his Spanish). We've also noticed that when he plays alone or with the babies, he speaks in English. This makes sense as all his playing occurs in English (either at daycare or on playdates). It made me realise that English is the language of 'play' for him and I'm concerned Spanish will become the language of 'routine/rules/parents/etc', which isn't very fun at all. I want Spanish to be fun and meaningful for him, otherwise we'll have no chance.
We read to him in Spanish (we have lots of books we've bought online, or we translate or create our own stories based on the pictures), but I guess at the moment we're not doing much playing with him (too busy keeping on top of the house and looking after the babies). He also rarely plays with other Spanish speaking children, as we can't go to the playgroup anymore and we only have a few Latin American friends who we see rarely. We do Skype my husband's family most Sundays though and he talks to them in Spanish.
I guess my concerns are then...where do we go from here? How can we try and maximise his chances of continuing to speak Spanish? How do you navigate the bilingual journey once they're in preschoool/school and being so exposed to the majority language? We've always assumed that once he gets to school, he'll likely only want to speak English and he'll end up understanding Spanish, but not speaking it. Though, we'd really love for that NOT to be the case. Also, what about the twins? I keep telling my toddler he can talk to them in Spanish, but he just naturally chooses English. We really want them to have a good chance at being bilingual too.
I'm planning on searching for some suitable TV programs for him which I can download onto a USB and have permanently attached to the TV, so when he wants to watch something, we only choose from there.
Thanks for reading my extremely long post and I look forward to hearing from some of you. I also hope to browse through this forum again, but to be honest I rarely get time to do such things these days!!
Bye
