Maybe it's because I miss the classroom sometimes, or maybe it's because I'm still figuring out how to interact with a toddler, but at times when I'm with Carl I revert to being Sarah the Teacher, rather than Sarah the Tatie. I've started deliberately trying to help him acquire certain words in French, rather than just saying what comes naturally in the context, and I tend to use a lot of the same approaches that I would with my former college students in beginning French classes!
With those classes, I referred rarely to the textbook or the written word at first. Instead, I brought in pictures and props and used actions to illustrate the words, repeating them over and over and over, especially via questions (e.g. "Is this X or Y? Do you like X? Do you like Y? Can you see X at school? Can you see Y at school? Can you see X at the mall? Can you see Y at the mall? Is X big or small? Is X happy or sad? Etc.). The students didn't have to make entire sentences--but they did have to understand all the words in the sentence to respond correctly.
And that's what I find myself doing with my nephew now. I pick out a couple of contrasting words to try to "teach" him each time, for example "vite" (quickly) and "lentement" (slowly). For those two, we played with trains, cars, and stuffed animals, pushing them at different speeds. I held Carl in my arms and ran around the room saying "vite," and "Tatie court vite," and then walked in slow motion, saying "lentement" and "Tatie marche lentement." Then we jumped up and down quickly and slowly. (Carl's always loved bouncing.) If we heard a car drive by the house, I pointed out whether it was going "vite" or "lentement." After that, I put Carl on the floor and gave him directions--walk fast, walk slowly, push the car fast, push the car slowly. Finally, I pushed a toy either fast or slowly, asking him if it was moving "vite" or "lentement." And he was usually right! Now I'm trying to keep track of which words I've made a conscious effort to teach him so that I can remember to recycle them later in other situations, like commenting "Carl mange vite!" when he eagerly shoves strawberries into his mouth at snacktime, and I want to find stories that use these key words so he can hear them in a larger context and see the illustrations.
All of this comes straight out of the foreign language methodology training I received in grad school. Give the learners lots and lots of exposure to the new words (different studies cite different numbers, all over 30-some repetitions, some as many as 75+) in several contexts. Don't translate the new words into English--illustrate them clearly in several different ways. Engage the learners--make them do more than sit at their desks and repeat the words after the teacher (thus appealing to many different learning styles or multiple intelligences). Move from passive knowledge (being able to recognize the words) to active knowledge (being able to produce the words). Have the students practice the new vocabulary at home in different ways and then bring the words back during later lessons in different contexts combined with other new words.
And while this approach seems to work with my nephew, I don't know if it's too didactic for a 19-month-old! On the one hand, it seems reminiscent of some Sesame Street episodes that introduce new words and ideas; on the other hand, if I am planning ahead what I'm going to say, I'm no longer exposing him to 100% natural, communicative French. But then I remind myself that I only take care of him one afternoon a week--and it almost always involves a nap--which doesn't make for a lot of immersion in French over the course of his waking life. So shouldn't I be trying to squeeze as much focused language use into our time together?
I'd love to hear from other parents--both monolingual and bilingual--about whether or not they set out to help their toddlers acquire certain words, and how it seems to work best, and if it feels comfortable or teacherly. Please let me know by clicking on "comments" and sharing your experiences!
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Carl and song
To our delight, Carl is now starting to sing bits of songs--in English and in French! He cracked me up last week when he stated "Monkey chase weasel. Pop goes weasel," as calmly as if he were asking for more yogurt. And since I couldn't stop laughing, he repeated it and laughed and said "Funny!" He probably "sang" the song six times and identified it as "Funny!" before my giggles subsided.
For a while now, Carl has been chiming in with three of the songs on Muriel's World, a gentle album of short songs in French that I usually play for him at naptime. I can tell that he pays attention to the songs, because when he doesn't go to sleep right away, he calls out "Atchoum!" during the song about sneezing, "Boum!" in the song about an elephant that goes "Ba-da-boum," and "Non non non!" during the song about "Monsieur Oui" and "Monsieur Non" who say "Oui oui oui" and "Non non non" to each other. It's just about the cutest thing ever--you think he's finally fallen asleep, but then you hear this teeny tiny voice happily calling out "Non non non!" from the nursery.
He's heard Muriel's songs regularly, so I'm not surprised that he has identified some of the words he likes to say and can join in when he hears her sing them. What astonished me this week, though, is when he said words from a comptine that I've only played or sang for him a handful of times, "Pomme de reinette et pomme d'api." It's basically a nonsense rhyme about different types of apples, concluding with "tapis, tapis gris" (gray rug). But it's cheerful and it's traditional and it's in an illustrated book of comptines that I like a lot (Les plus belles comptines des petits lascars), so Carl's heard it occasionally. Anyway, I was eating an apple, and he was saying "Pomme!" and "Tatie mange pomme." And then he followed up with "Pomme 'nette tapis tapis"! Clearly, he had recalled the words from the song (even though he almost certainly doesn't even know what a reinette or a tapis is), associated them with the pomme I was eating and said the lines as if it were the most natural thing in the world!
Why he's singing this particular pomme rhyme instead of the three or four others about pommes from the same book, and why he's not singing the songs I've been singing to him ever since I started babysitting him, I have no idea! But I'm thrilled that he's starting to sing in French. Encore, Carl, encore!
For a while now, Carl has been chiming in with three of the songs on Muriel's World, a gentle album of short songs in French that I usually play for him at naptime. I can tell that he pays attention to the songs, because when he doesn't go to sleep right away, he calls out "Atchoum!" during the song about sneezing, "Boum!" in the song about an elephant that goes "Ba-da-boum," and "Non non non!" during the song about "Monsieur Oui" and "Monsieur Non" who say "Oui oui oui" and "Non non non" to each other. It's just about the cutest thing ever--you think he's finally fallen asleep, but then you hear this teeny tiny voice happily calling out "Non non non!" from the nursery.
He's heard Muriel's songs regularly, so I'm not surprised that he has identified some of the words he likes to say and can join in when he hears her sing them. What astonished me this week, though, is when he said words from a comptine that I've only played or sang for him a handful of times, "Pomme de reinette et pomme d'api." It's basically a nonsense rhyme about different types of apples, concluding with "tapis, tapis gris" (gray rug). But it's cheerful and it's traditional and it's in an illustrated book of comptines that I like a lot (Les plus belles comptines des petits lascars), so Carl's heard it occasionally. Anyway, I was eating an apple, and he was saying "Pomme!" and "Tatie mange pomme." And then he followed up with "Pomme 'nette tapis tapis"! Clearly, he had recalled the words from the song (even though he almost certainly doesn't even know what a reinette or a tapis is), associated them with the pomme I was eating and said the lines as if it were the most natural thing in the world!
Why he's singing this particular pomme rhyme instead of the three or four others about pommes from the same book, and why he's not singing the songs I've been singing to him ever since I started babysitting him, I have no idea! But I'm thrilled that he's starting to sing in French. Encore, Carl, encore!
Thursday, September 20, 2007
she can speak--but she can't write
I recently heard from Carla, a Panamanian who lives in Brazil and works as an English teacher. She has a new student, Dahanara, who was born in Brazil and grew up in South Africa. This nine-year-old speaks Portuguese and English fluently, but, says Carla, "she writes English as she speaks. So I'll have to teach her how to write and read in a different way, for she isn't learning how to speak (as most kids her age are learning here in our Language School). I've never had to teach a kid that was fluent in English, but didn't know how to write."
Carla agreed to let me post her emails to solicit some suggestions from the readers of Bringing up Baby Bilingual. She'll be able to work with Dahanara separately from the rest of her classes (who are learning EFL, English as a foreign language), so that means that at least the student won't end up in a class where her peers are much farther behind than she is, and the teacher won't have to teach two very different audiences in the same classroom (which is not uncommon for language teachers around the world)!
Dahanara's situation recalls that of what we call heritage language speakers, people who grew up speaking another language (typically the language of their parents) in a country whose majority language is a different one. These students tend to be fluent speakers but have not had formal instruction or much experience in reading and writing the minority language. They may speak very naturally and fluently, but perhaps can't recognize all the written words of the language and lack the writing conventions of the language (for example, spelling words phonetically and not knowing where the boundaries of words are, resulting in writing two or three short words as one long word). Heritage speakers and students like Dahanara bring special challenges to their teachers, who can be initially misled by their ease in speaking and their strong listening comprehension.
I have only worked with a handful of heritage speakers or students in Dahanara's position, so Carla's challenge as a teacher lies beyond my level of expertise. My first instinct, though, is to get her reading as much as possible in English, because that will help her become a better writer by familiarizing her with the spelling, punctuation, and conventions of written English. (Carla says that Dahanara sometimes has trouble reading, which is not a surprise; she should probably begin with books and stories below the level of what a native speaker would read at age nine, but nothing that she'd see as "babyish.")
I also suggested that Carla create some reading-writing activities that are as personalized and contextualized as possible. For example, have her tell a story about a funny picture or what she did over the weekend. Type up her story and cut it into separate phrases or sentences, and then have her put it back together in chronological order. Then give her the story with words missing that she has to fill back in. Finally, have her rewrite the story in her own words without looking at the original text.
Once Carla has some examples of Dahanara's written prose, she can do "error pattern analysis," where she determines what the most frequent mistakes are--spelling, verb use, organization, etc. The goal with error pattern analysis is to identify the problems that occur most often and prioritize them, with the mistakes that interfere with comprehension considered more serious than, say, spelling. Then Carla can find or create worksheets to practice those structures, ideally within a context (rather than a list of fill-in-the-blank sentences that have nothing to do with one another).
It might also be valuable to give Dahanara traditional lists of spelling words for her to practice (she can illustrate them, write sentences that use the words, do crossword puzzles that supply the definition of the word, find synonyms and antonyms, etc.). Even if she already knows what the words mean, she's bound to learn more about how to use them in writing. Then she can take spelling tests like she would in a class for nine-year-old native speakers of English. Carla might want to start with the traditional Dolch sight words, lists of "service words" and common nouns that students should be able to recognize automatically.
These are just a few ideas that came to mind while thinking about this dilemma. Carla and I would love to hear from other teachers or parents about their ideas for improving Dahanara's literacy skills! Please share your ideas, experiences, or resources by clicking on "comments" at the bottom of this post.
Carla agreed to let me post her emails to solicit some suggestions from the readers of Bringing up Baby Bilingual. She'll be able to work with Dahanara separately from the rest of her classes (who are learning EFL, English as a foreign language), so that means that at least the student won't end up in a class where her peers are much farther behind than she is, and the teacher won't have to teach two very different audiences in the same classroom (which is not uncommon for language teachers around the world)!
Dahanara's situation recalls that of what we call heritage language speakers, people who grew up speaking another language (typically the language of their parents) in a country whose majority language is a different one. These students tend to be fluent speakers but have not had formal instruction or much experience in reading and writing the minority language. They may speak very naturally and fluently, but perhaps can't recognize all the written words of the language and lack the writing conventions of the language (for example, spelling words phonetically and not knowing where the boundaries of words are, resulting in writing two or three short words as one long word). Heritage speakers and students like Dahanara bring special challenges to their teachers, who can be initially misled by their ease in speaking and their strong listening comprehension.
I have only worked with a handful of heritage speakers or students in Dahanara's position, so Carla's challenge as a teacher lies beyond my level of expertise. My first instinct, though, is to get her reading as much as possible in English, because that will help her become a better writer by familiarizing her with the spelling, punctuation, and conventions of written English. (Carla says that Dahanara sometimes has trouble reading, which is not a surprise; she should probably begin with books and stories below the level of what a native speaker would read at age nine, but nothing that she'd see as "babyish.")
I also suggested that Carla create some reading-writing activities that are as personalized and contextualized as possible. For example, have her tell a story about a funny picture or what she did over the weekend. Type up her story and cut it into separate phrases or sentences, and then have her put it back together in chronological order. Then give her the story with words missing that she has to fill back in. Finally, have her rewrite the story in her own words without looking at the original text.
Once Carla has some examples of Dahanara's written prose, she can do "error pattern analysis," where she determines what the most frequent mistakes are--spelling, verb use, organization, etc. The goal with error pattern analysis is to identify the problems that occur most often and prioritize them, with the mistakes that interfere with comprehension considered more serious than, say, spelling. Then Carla can find or create worksheets to practice those structures, ideally within a context (rather than a list of fill-in-the-blank sentences that have nothing to do with one another).
It might also be valuable to give Dahanara traditional lists of spelling words for her to practice (she can illustrate them, write sentences that use the words, do crossword puzzles that supply the definition of the word, find synonyms and antonyms, etc.). Even if she already knows what the words mean, she's bound to learn more about how to use them in writing. Then she can take spelling tests like she would in a class for nine-year-old native speakers of English. Carla might want to start with the traditional Dolch sight words, lists of "service words" and common nouns that students should be able to recognize automatically.
These are just a few ideas that came to mind while thinking about this dilemma. Carla and I would love to hear from other teachers or parents about their ideas for improving Dahanara's literacy skills! Please share your ideas, experiences, or resources by clicking on "comments" at the bottom of this post.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
preschool textbooks in Morocco
My friends Mary and Mohammed spent a year in Morocco recently. She had a Fulbright to do research and most of his family still lives there, so they rented an apartment with their two children and dove into life in Morocco. Their four-year-old daughter, who already spoke French and understood some Arabic, was enrolled in a bilingual preschool (école maternelle, or la maternelle).
Mary showed me Latifah's textbooks (workbooks, really), and they're different enough from American materials for similarly-aged children that I thought some of my readers might enjoy taking a look!
The publisher is Bordas and the series includes three levels for the maternelle: petite section, moyenne section, and grande section. (Latifah was in the moyenne.) Here's what they consist of:
Maths: lots of counting and identifying shapes and patterns
Graphisme: like a pre-handwriting workbook to teach the child how to hold a pencil, draw lines and loops, etc. (The child doesn't actually write any letters yet.) No wonder French handwriting is so flawless and elaborate, if they start working on graphisme in preschool!
Lecture-écriture (reading and writing): This one does involve recognizing and writing letters, then recognizing words in a list and circling them (not contextualized, other than a picture of the word they're supposed to find).
Toute mon année de maternelle, published by Magnard, available in nine levels from age 2 to CM2 (elementary school): A much longer workbook that covers "lecture, écriture, logique, numération, découverte du monde" (reading, writing, logic, numbers, "discovery of the world") (Imagine, teaching logic to four-year-olds! Only the French....) In this text, the kids circle what doesn't belong, cut and paste pictures, match pictures, put pictures in order, color, do mazes, and complete a very few pages for recognizing letters and words.
The kids had a homemade book as well: It was a spiral-bound notebook that they pasted a comptine (nursery rhyme) into and then illustrated on the facing page. Based on the number of them, I'm guessing that they did one comptine a week.
Latifah also had one handwriting book for Arabic script, similar to the Graphisme workbook.
Amy, who is homeschooling her children and also teaching them French, was thinking about using texts like these with her kids. The books are definitely designed for native speakers of French, but I think her kids could handle them. (The younger children who can't read yet would need to have Amy read them the directions regardless.) On the other hand, the books don't really address how to use the French language or how to start reading, so maybe they're not ideal. On the other hand, they're fun and cute and cultural and do look a bit different from American workbooks for kids.
Mary showed me Latifah's textbooks (workbooks, really), and they're different enough from American materials for similarly-aged children that I thought some of my readers might enjoy taking a look!
The publisher is Bordas and the series includes three levels for the maternelle: petite section, moyenne section, and grande section. (Latifah was in the moyenne.) Here's what they consist of:
Maths: lots of counting and identifying shapes and patterns
Graphisme: like a pre-handwriting workbook to teach the child how to hold a pencil, draw lines and loops, etc. (The child doesn't actually write any letters yet.) No wonder French handwriting is so flawless and elaborate, if they start working on graphisme in preschool!
Lecture-écriture (reading and writing): This one does involve recognizing and writing letters, then recognizing words in a list and circling them (not contextualized, other than a picture of the word they're supposed to find).
Toute mon année de maternelle, published by Magnard, available in nine levels from age 2 to CM2 (elementary school): A much longer workbook that covers "lecture, écriture, logique, numération, découverte du monde" (reading, writing, logic, numbers, "discovery of the world") (Imagine, teaching logic to four-year-olds! Only the French....) In this text, the kids circle what doesn't belong, cut and paste pictures, match pictures, put pictures in order, color, do mazes, and complete a very few pages for recognizing letters and words.
The kids had a homemade book as well: It was a spiral-bound notebook that they pasted a comptine (nursery rhyme) into and then illustrated on the facing page. Based on the number of them, I'm guessing that they did one comptine a week.
Latifah also had one handwriting book for Arabic script, similar to the Graphisme workbook.
Amy, who is homeschooling her children and also teaching them French, was thinking about using texts like these with her kids. The books are definitely designed for native speakers of French, but I think her kids could handle them. (The younger children who can't read yet would need to have Amy read them the directions regardless.) On the other hand, the books don't really address how to use the French language or how to start reading, so maybe they're not ideal. On the other hand, they're fun and cute and cultural and do look a bit different from American workbooks for kids. Any comments, questions, or workbook suggestions for kids learning French outside of French-speaking countries?
Saturday, September 15, 2007
linguistic epiphany!
I started my new job at the library in earnest this week--the grant that funds the Reading Buddies program was finally approved (later than the official notification date)--and have been running around recruiting participants and teen volunteers, updating brochures, revising the training manual, making plans, learning my way around computer programs that are new to me, and so on. (I have to ask lots of questions about things that seem so basic--where they keep the phone book, how to make the photocopier do what I want, how to check my own voicemail, etc. This is my first new workplace in nine years! I don't like feeling lost and inept. Fortunately those unpleasant feelings are already starting to recede.) Our first Reading Buddies meeting is Monday already, and I've only managed to recruit and train two teen volunteers to work with the ten elementary school students (they're supposed to be paired one-to-one)! But I'll keep looking and I think we'll be all right.
Anyway, what I wanted to post about today is an unexpected work-related conversation I had in Spanish. I took two semesters of Spanish in 1991, and then a Spanish review class about five years ago. (Katie was my teacher!) I also shared an office for a few years with native speakers who often conversed in Spanish among themselves. So the combination of the formal classes, the exposure from my colleagues, and the similarities between French and Spanish means that my knowledge of the language is better than most people who have only had a year of Spanish class.
But I've done almost nothing with Spanish in the meantime, even though I have good friends who are Spanish teachers and/or native speakers. Katie and Estela both offered to help me brush up my Spanish, but I never took them up on it. I've never spent time with the books I've bought in the meantime (simple stories, vocabulary lessons via comic strips, etc.). I don't listen to Spanish-language radio or watch movies in Spanish.
So just imagine the panic I felt when I called a parent on the waiting list (she wanted to enroll her child in the Big Buddies program) and discovered that she spoke very little English! But I actually managed to carry on an entire conversation--on the phone, which means no help from visual cues like facial expressions and gestures--and tell her who I was, when the program starts, and how to sign up. (Okay, for the latter I had to say "come to the library and write your son's name" because I had no idea what "register" or "sign up" was, but I think--I think!--she got the idea.)
It was exhilarating. This is why we learn other languages--not to conjugate verbs on tests, but to communicate about real things, in this case something that will help a child become a better reader!
It was also exhilarating to push past my insecurities about my pronunciation and lack of precise vocabulary in Spanish and just get the ideas out, although imperfectly. I wish that all of my former students from my French classes could have opportunities like this to challenge themselves, to realize that they can make themselves understood after all, that feeling too shy or embarrassed to speak French means missing out on a chance to share real ideas and exchange meaningful information.
Anyway, what I wanted to post about today is an unexpected work-related conversation I had in Spanish. I took two semesters of Spanish in 1991, and then a Spanish review class about five years ago. (Katie was my teacher!) I also shared an office for a few years with native speakers who often conversed in Spanish among themselves. So the combination of the formal classes, the exposure from my colleagues, and the similarities between French and Spanish means that my knowledge of the language is better than most people who have only had a year of Spanish class.
But I've done almost nothing with Spanish in the meantime, even though I have good friends who are Spanish teachers and/or native speakers. Katie and Estela both offered to help me brush up my Spanish, but I never took them up on it. I've never spent time with the books I've bought in the meantime (simple stories, vocabulary lessons via comic strips, etc.). I don't listen to Spanish-language radio or watch movies in Spanish.
So just imagine the panic I felt when I called a parent on the waiting list (she wanted to enroll her child in the Big Buddies program) and discovered that she spoke very little English! But I actually managed to carry on an entire conversation--on the phone, which means no help from visual cues like facial expressions and gestures--and tell her who I was, when the program starts, and how to sign up. (Okay, for the latter I had to say "come to the library and write your son's name" because I had no idea what "register" or "sign up" was, but I think--I think!--she got the idea.)
It was exhilarating. This is why we learn other languages--not to conjugate verbs on tests, but to communicate about real things, in this case something that will help a child become a better reader!
It was also exhilarating to push past my insecurities about my pronunciation and lack of precise vocabulary in Spanish and just get the ideas out, although imperfectly. I wish that all of my former students from my French classes could have opportunities like this to challenge themselves, to realize that they can make themselves understood after all, that feeling too shy or embarrassed to speak French means missing out on a chance to share real ideas and exchange meaningful information.
Saturday, September 08, 2007
C'est un garçon!
Look at those cute little feet (les pieds)! Croissant squirmed and danced his way through the ultrasound (l'échographie).
He's got the Duex family pointy chin (le menton) (like me) and his father's great smile (le sourire).
Here he's crooking the index finger (le doigt) of his left hand (la main) towards us, beckoning us to come closer.
And here's the proof that he's a he! (le you-know-what)Thursday, September 06, 2007
working on my French
As I mentioned in June, I sometimes feel like my French isn't strong enough to make Carl and Croissant fluent, idiomatic speakers. Now that I'm no longer teaching at the university, I have promised myself to make greater efforts to work on my French on my own. In fact, I later pledged to you all, my loyal and thought-provoking readers, that I would report back from time to time so that you can hold me accountable to my promise!
So here's what I've been doing since then:
Any further suggestions?
So here's what I've been doing since then:
- Completing "facile" level crossword puzzles (yeah, "facile" for native speakers, that is!)
- Writing occasional emails and letters in French (I could do more of that, though)
- Watching one or two French movies a week (yay Netflix)--most recently Les enfants du paradis and L'enfant
- Reading back issues of Le francais dans le monde (a magazine for French teachers that has articles on popular culture, la Francophonie, and teaching)
- Making an effort to memorize songs and nursery rhymes to sing to Carl
- Looking up words and expressions that I want to say to Carl when I can't figure out how to phrase them
- Organizing a monthly conversation group for French teachers (last month a Fulbright exchange teacher from Senegal attended!)
- Helping plan the French immersion portion of CCFLT's fall conference
- Watching the French nightly news (amazingly, even though we don't get cable, our high-definition television picks up a few random channels, one of which broadcasts news shows from around the world! It turns out that I can watch France 2's 8:00 nightly news right here in Lafayette, CO)
Any further suggestions?
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
update: Guatemalan adoptees learning English
Last month's post about my friend Katie who will be tutoring three children from Guatemala who will be adopted by a U.S. family generated lots of response, both in the comments section of the blog and also to my "Baby Bilingual" email account. I'd like to thank everyone who wrote in to offer suggestions and cautions--it's important for me, Katie, and Kirsten (the children's mom) to see as many different sides to this issue as possible (the issue being how to best teach them English while not losing their Spanish). Click here to read the original post and comments.
I had promised an update, but there's not much to report yet, as Kirsten and the children have just now returned to the U.S. Katie will be meeting them this week (informally, not for an English lesson yet) to assess how much English they already know so she can figure out where to start. (She's started to accumulate some materials, like a good picture dictionary for English Language Learners, although the ESL Symtalk book she wanted to use is out of print and she can't find a copy, and she's also contacted some ESL elementary school teachers for suggestions.) Much of the advice my readers have shared will be more applicable to Kirsten as she begins homeschooling the children with her other kids (Katie will see them only once a week for ESL lessons).
Hopefully the fact that Kirsten and some of the other kids in the family have studied Spanish (the oldest daughter even spent three months living at the orphanage in Guatemala with her new siblings) will mean that they still have opportunities to interact in Spanish at home. (In fact, they should probably establish a consistent routine, like using Spanish at every, say, lunch, and whenever they're in a certain room or sitting on a certain piece of furniture (like a couch covered with pillows from Guatemala), and whenever they're talking after watching a movie/video/program in Spanish. And I (and many of my blog readers) think that Kirsten, when doing homeschooling lessons with the kids, should draw upon her knowledge of Spanish to help them understand the connections between the languages and figure out how best to present the material. But for the private tutoring, when Katie has such limited time with them, I'm still inclined to say that she should immerse them in English and not give them a reason to think they can speak Spanish to her.
The readers who wrote to me off-blog all encouraged Kirsten to help her new kids maintain their Spanish, emphasizing the importance of keeping them connected to their original culture and language. Emily, who adopted two children from Guatemala, says that "use of the native language can become a bridge to learning English …. There's increasing amounts of recent research on the benefits of building on the first language to access the new language…. They could quickly lose their Spanish in an English-only environment. (There are some few and far between studies on language loss and acquisition in adopted children too). Emotions and language can be pretty tied up - I think the continued use of their first language while acquiring English could smooth the transition….Memories and emotions are connected to our use of language - personally, I feel it would be hard to lose that in the midst of such big changes, wonderful though the changes may be."
One reader recommends the book The Bilingual Family: A Handbook for Parents by Edith Harding-Esch and Philip Riley (originally published in 1986; updated in 2003) for suggestions on how families can maintain two languages.
Emily also recommends the following articles: "National Literacy Panel on Language Minority Children and Youth;" articles (and books) by Fred Genesee; and a Quincy Herald-Whig newspaper article called "Dual language learning benefits students" which "highlights Illinois research about the gains made by students in dual-language programs. This seems to be one of the few educational programs that has strong research to support it - we've been having to look closely at work at the research on English Immersion, Sheltered English, Transitional bilingual, etc. as we revise our state ELL regulations. There was also a report by the National Governor's Association last year citing research support for dual language learning and also for the positive influence of native language use in English acquisition programs."
Additionally, Emily relies on the OELA (Office of English Language Acquisition) daily newsletter which shares relevant articles; their website also offers searchable archives of past newsletters. It is published through the National Center for English Language Acquisition (NCELA), part of the U.S. Department of Education. (Here is their mission statement from their website: "OELA provides national leadership in promoting high quality education for the nation's population of English language learners [ELLs].... OELA's mission is to include various elements of school reform in programs designed to assist the language minority agenda. These include an emphasis on high academic standards, school accountability, professional development, family literacy, early reading, and partnerships between parents and the communities.") Emily also recommends browsing the Center for Applied Linguistics website and works by Deborah Short and Diane August.
Thanks again to everyone who wrote to share their thoughts on helping Kirsten's family with their linguistic transition! Please let us know if you have other resources to recommend or other approaches to try (or a different perspective on maintaining the children's Spanish). For those families with adopted children, can you tell us about how you're keeping them bilingual--or how you tried and it didn't work?
Stay tuned for another update when Katie starts doing ESL lessons with the three kids.
I had promised an update, but there's not much to report yet, as Kirsten and the children have just now returned to the U.S. Katie will be meeting them this week (informally, not for an English lesson yet) to assess how much English they already know so she can figure out where to start. (She's started to accumulate some materials, like a good picture dictionary for English Language Learners, although the ESL Symtalk book she wanted to use is out of print and she can't find a copy, and she's also contacted some ESL elementary school teachers for suggestions.) Much of the advice my readers have shared will be more applicable to Kirsten as she begins homeschooling the children with her other kids (Katie will see them only once a week for ESL lessons).
Hopefully the fact that Kirsten and some of the other kids in the family have studied Spanish (the oldest daughter even spent three months living at the orphanage in Guatemala with her new siblings) will mean that they still have opportunities to interact in Spanish at home. (In fact, they should probably establish a consistent routine, like using Spanish at every, say, lunch, and whenever they're in a certain room or sitting on a certain piece of furniture (like a couch covered with pillows from Guatemala), and whenever they're talking after watching a movie/video/program in Spanish. And I (and many of my blog readers) think that Kirsten, when doing homeschooling lessons with the kids, should draw upon her knowledge of Spanish to help them understand the connections between the languages and figure out how best to present the material. But for the private tutoring, when Katie has such limited time with them, I'm still inclined to say that she should immerse them in English and not give them a reason to think they can speak Spanish to her.
The readers who wrote to me off-blog all encouraged Kirsten to help her new kids maintain their Spanish, emphasizing the importance of keeping them connected to their original culture and language. Emily, who adopted two children from Guatemala, says that "use of the native language can become a bridge to learning English …. There's increasing amounts of recent research on the benefits of building on the first language to access the new language…. They could quickly lose their Spanish in an English-only environment. (There are some few and far between studies on language loss and acquisition in adopted children too). Emotions and language can be pretty tied up - I think the continued use of their first language while acquiring English could smooth the transition….Memories and emotions are connected to our use of language - personally, I feel it would be hard to lose that in the midst of such big changes, wonderful though the changes may be."
One reader recommends the book The Bilingual Family: A Handbook for Parents by Edith Harding-Esch and Philip Riley (originally published in 1986; updated in 2003) for suggestions on how families can maintain two languages.
Emily also recommends the following articles: "National Literacy Panel on Language Minority Children and Youth;" articles (and books) by Fred Genesee; and a Quincy Herald-Whig newspaper article called "Dual language learning benefits students" which "highlights Illinois research about the gains made by students in dual-language programs. This seems to be one of the few educational programs that has strong research to support it - we've been having to look closely at work at the research on English Immersion, Sheltered English, Transitional bilingual, etc. as we revise our state ELL regulations. There was also a report by the National Governor's Association last year citing research support for dual language learning and also for the positive influence of native language use in English acquisition programs."
Additionally, Emily relies on the OELA (Office of English Language Acquisition) daily newsletter which shares relevant articles; their website also offers searchable archives of past newsletters. It is published through the National Center for English Language Acquisition (NCELA), part of the U.S. Department of Education. (Here is their mission statement from their website: "OELA provides national leadership in promoting high quality education for the nation's population of English language learners [ELLs].... OELA's mission is to include various elements of school reform in programs designed to assist the language minority agenda. These include an emphasis on high academic standards, school accountability, professional development, family literacy, early reading, and partnerships between parents and the communities.") Emily also recommends browsing the Center for Applied Linguistics website and works by Deborah Short and Diane August.
Thanks again to everyone who wrote to share their thoughts on helping Kirsten's family with their linguistic transition! Please let us know if you have other resources to recommend or other approaches to try (or a different perspective on maintaining the children's Spanish). For those families with adopted children, can you tell us about how you're keeping them bilingual--or how you tried and it didn't work?
Stay tuned for another update when Katie starts doing ESL lessons with the three kids.
Sunday, September 02, 2007
new issue of Multilingual Living Magazine
Multilingual Living Magazine has just published its September/October issue, which includes my regular column, "Tatie Teaches a Toddler." This one isn't so much about Carl, though, because I had to submit it in late June after having spent May and June traveling and missing most of my regular Thursdays with Carl. Instead, I talk more about the type of language-learning materials I'm using with him and how to find them cheaply (or make them for free).This "back-to-school" issue focuses on education, include home schooling. Check it out here--you can even receive a free issue--and please do consider subscribing--it's only $12 a year!
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