French storytime = French boring-time?

You may remember how excited I was to learn that the Boulder Public Library was offering a French storytime twice a month.

And how I promised to report back right away on what we did and how it inspired me and how it motivated Griffin to speak French with francophone children his age.

And you may have noticed that three weeks have gone by without any mention of the French storytime.

The bad news: it was not good. It was uninspired, uninteractive, and boring.

The good news: it was so bad, in fact, that another mom and I are going to start our own French storytime at the library where I work!

Delphine (the other maman, whom I know through the French playgroup on Monday mornings in Boulder) and I were commiserating afterwards about how disappointed we were:

--45 minutes where the storytime volunteer, a woman from France, just read one book after another aloud to the squirmy kids--much too long for preschoolers to sit through
--no connection among the books--just a random assortment of children's picture books and board books in French
--no songs, nursery rhymes, or fingerplays
--no involvement on the part of the children or their grown-ups
--no movement
--minimal interaction (she would occasionally ask a child to pick the next book or ask the group what color an object in an illustration was)

Delphine and I agreed on everything we didn't like about it and found ourselves saying, "We could do a better storytime than this one." And a few minutes later, we decided we should! One week later, we have obtained permission to meet at the Lafayette library on Friday afternoons twice a month to read and sing and play in French.

Our plan is to ask a different parent to lead "L'heure du livre" (or whatever we call it) each time. We'll provide a format for a 20- to 25-minute session, and they'll plug in the stories, songs, comptines, and activities. (I'll write more about my ideas for the format later.)

Of course, it's nerve-wracking to think about being in charge of a storytime that real live native-speakers of French would attend with their children: I do speak with a noticeable American accent, and I have trouble staying in tune when I sing. But Delphine said something that made me feel a lot better: she told me that she'd much rather have her daughter listen to me read books than the native speaker we endured that morning, because she's heard me read books to Griffin and has seen how I get him involved when we read together.

Besides, knowing that I'm nervous about doing this helps me empathize with other potential volunteers. And hey, if the French moms turn to each other afterwards and say, "oh là là, what an abyssmal accent this woman is exposing our enfants to," we can say, "well then we really need your help! Sign up here to lead the storytime next month."

(Suggestions for a good name for our storytime? for what we should do or not do? for how to publicize it? Please share them via your comments! And if you're a Denver-Boulder-Longmont Francophile and would like to be on our mailing list, please email me at babybilingual AT gmail DOT com.)

Follow-up: to read more about what we ended up doing for our French storytime at the Lafayette Library, click on the label "storytime" below, and you'll see all the related posts in reverse chronological order.

a new series: Learning French Around the Maison

I'm pleased to introduce the next series of my articles about activities to teach your children French, published at Multilingual Living!

My first series for Multilingual Living was called "Learning French In and Around the Garden." This next series takes place right at home: "Learning French Around the Maison." In this multi-part series, we will explore music, rhythm, and rhyme, with songs and comptines about what goes on in the house; art and drama; literacy activities; and tactile and kinesthetic activities. We'll also explore ways to learn vocabulary such as prepositions and names of furniture and rooms of the house all while using French in a meaningful context.

The first part of the series here is a round-up of relevant vocabulary as presented via lists, interactive pictures, audio files, and video clips.

The next part, to appear in two weeks, will cover songs and comptines. However, I'm stuck: I have not found a lot of songs or rhymes in French that related directly to houses and homes! If any come to mind, please please please share them in your comments.

this made me happy

Just yesterday Griffin's (American) babysitter told us that he corrected her pronunciation when she stumbled over some words in the French books she was reading to him. Hourra! for the teenage babysitter who agreed to speak to Griffin in her high school French as best she could, and Hourra! for Griffin for helping her!

Bilingual Carnival time!

Maria over at Fab Mums is hosting this month's Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism! So what are you waiting for? Go read the round-up of posts from parents raising their kids with more than one language!

And to join in next month's Carnival, sign up for the newsletter at Bilingual for Fun.

school book orders in French!

My fellow readers in the US will probably remember fondly the days that your elementary school teachers sent home the Scholastic book order forms each month. The colorful, flimsy newsprint flyers offered four pages of age-appropriate books for cheaper than anything in the bookstore. Your teacher would collect the forms and the checks and send them in, then a few weeks later, lo and behold the brand-new books!

Susan, who blogs at LinguistKids and whom you may remember from her profile here on Bringing up Baby Bilingual recently, just learned that it's possible for US schools to receive the Scholastic Canada book orders which feature books in French! What's more, you just place your order online and they ship to your home for FREE! Read all about it here. Susan, thanks for sharing such a thrilling tip!

profile: English and Danish in Denmark

Meet another bilingual family, this one living in rural Denmark! Karen, the mom, is American and works as a freelance English teacher to business professionals. Her husband, Niels, who is Danish, is an energy engineer. Their daughter, Christina, four years old, enjoys drawing, building with Legos or wood blocks, singing and playing instruments, biking, collecting worms, and helping her parents bake. Christina is growing up bilingual in English and Danish. Thanks for answering my questions, Karen!

What languages are spoken by the adults in your household and at what level of proficiency?
We both speak English and Danish fluently. Niels lived in the U.S. for many years. Karen has been living in Denmark for over seven years, and completed the government-provided schooling to learn Danish, and then has worked in the Danish workforce since then.

What languages are you exposing your child to, and how?
Christina is exposed to Danish and English in the following ways: Karen speaks English to her. Niels speaks Danish to her. We parents speak English together, unless in the company of other Danes. This is what we've done since she was born. She has monolingual Danish-speaking grandparents, aunt, and preschool.

English is very common here, though the people in farming and smaller businesses aren't good at it. The preschool is in a small town, but nevertheless has several children of non-Danish backgrounds, many of whom are bilingual. No other bilingual Danish/English, however. Christina is proud of her English abilities, such as they are.

Why do you want your child to know more than one language?
She needs to know Danish because we live in Denmark. We want her to know English because Karen is American, and Christina has American relatives. Fortunately, English is also an extremely useful language to know, so it has appeal to most people.

How well does your child understand the different languages? How has their language use evolved as they grow?
Christina understands both languages perfectly. She speaks Danish at an age-appropriate level, and speaks “Danglish” to me (Karen). She is only recently saying sentences with more than one or two English words in them to me. I made a point of her focusing on English last year after we'd visited the U.S for a month. While there, I expected her English to develop, but there was only a little improvement. So when we got home, I started working with her in a more purposeful way.

After some initial reluctance, she became more enthusiastic about repeating after me, and saying the words or sentence she'd just said in Danish again in English. I now have stopped focusing on it so much, but praise her when she says something right in English. Her speaking fluency in English is nowhere near her speaking fluency in Danish. From what I've observed, she has dramatically cut down using English words to Danish speakers, and somewhat increased using English words with me.

How have you been able to expose your child to the cultures where the different languages are spoken?
Christina is exposed to the Danish-speaking culture in her daily life, and she has been to the U.S. for a month when she was a little over 3. Her American relatives have been here to visit for 2 weeks when she was 2 ½.

What resources and activities have been most useful to you? What, on the other hand, has not been useful?
Reading books in English have been very helpful, but most especially getting English nursery rhyme and song books. She took a much greater interest in saying those rhymes than anything before, including me singing to her.

It was not useful to press her too much to speak English. She would state that her tongue was tired. When I backed off, she was more responsive.

What challenges have you faced as you raise your child with more than one language?
The challenges have been with my feelings. I was reluctant to use English in public, but after reading a couple of books about raising children in a bilingual household, I followed the advice to not make the secondary language feel like a secret, or something that's only used at home. It's proven helpful to me and to her development and confidence in it.

Do you have any advice for us?
Use whatever resources you can find to make it easy and fun. Be patient, and don't expect the child to become equally fluent in both. I've had to let go of that desire, and it's made me more relaxed about it. Be willing to be the interpreter at all times if there are others around who don't speak the second language, and don't make it seem like a burden to anyone involved.

If any of the adults in the household are non-native speakers of the language they use with the children, please tell us a little about how that works for your family.
It works well, because Niels is so fluent that there's never anything said that he wouldn't understand. Christina will sometimes compliment him on his English.

What do you think parents, caretakers, teachers, and/or researchers need to know about teaching a second language to children?
It's always an advantage to get to know another language. It makes many things easier to understand, such as cultures, lifestyles, ways of thinking and attitudes. It supposedly helps with other brain development, though I can't attest to that. It should be as inviting as possible; i.e. one language shouldn't be used solely to discipline. There should be some connection to the language, through songs or holidays, etc. As an English teacher, I feel that grammar lessons are tedious and a turn-off. Teaching by example and repetition and real-world situations tend to be far more effective, whatever the age.

Sarah here again: I love your attitude, Karen, how you're not putting pressure on Christina and yourself to make her "fluent by five" or anything like that, and how you're focusing on making English as appealing to her as Danish currently is. I wonder what it will be like for her when she starts taking English classes in school--will she realize all of a sudden how cool it is that she understands English so well? Thanks again for sharing!

and then the 'potamus did what?

Hey Francophones--Have you seen this adorable girl narrating a fairy tale of her own creation? She speaks very clearly (and the video is subtitled).

Griffin wasn't really interested, but I'm just glad to have a coherent short video of a child speaking French to show him!

DVD Review: Globe-Toddlers Adventures in France

I have complained before about the lack of quality videos in French for toddlers available in the US; Brainy Baby has particularly disappointed me. Since Griffin has started potty training, however, we have been watching videos again, just so he can have something that keeps his attention while he spends time on the little potty in the family room.

The best one so far is Globe-Toddlers Adventures in France from the company Tot Talk. Like most of the other language-learning videos for young anglophone children, it features footage of real kids interacting with toys, puppets performing actions, live action shots of animals, people, and places, and toys by themselves. (There's no animated clips, however, which is fine by me.) Similar to Brainy Baby and the others, the target vocabulary is mostly limited to single words and very short expressions presented a small number of times (ie, not repeated often enough or in varied contexts). The soundtrack is, predictably, classical music and some folk songs, but here the composers are French.

However, unlike the other videos, Globe-Toddlers Aventures in France is not just one generic program of kids frolicking to Mozart while a narrator reads words in French, then another narrator re-records the voiceover in German and they sell it as a German video, and another re-records it in Spanish and the sell it as a Spanish video, etc. This one is definitely unique! With segments on castles, vineyards, fashion, and the can-can, this DVD was clearly written to introduce children to French culture.

So therefore, my complaints about its weak presentation of spoken French are mitigated. The company's website doesn't explicitly state that the DVD focuses on French culture rather than the French language--and perhaps it should, because I just expected it to include narration, dialogue, language use in context--but when I approach it from that perspective, I have a higher opinion of the DVD.

So in Adventures in French, five puppets (cow, mouse, frog, hedgehog, and rooster) present ten different concepts dear to the traditional French heart: la mode (fashion), le fromage (cheese), le vignoble (vineyards), la cuisine (cooking), les châteaux (castles), les oeufs (eggs), la plage (the beach), le pain et la pâtisserie (bread and pastries), l'amour (love), and le can-can (that classic dance from the Moulin Rouge where lovely ladies kick their legs up high in unison).

For example, in "le fromage," we see different types and shapes of cheeses as well as the cows, goats, and sheep who produce the milk to make cheese. My nephew, Carl, age four, who watched with us, was surprised to learn than cheese can be made from sheep's milk. In "l'amour," lots of little boys and girls hug and kiss each other. In the fashion segment, some of the puppets are sitting on the terrace of a café with shopping bags beside them. When they arrive, they faire la bise--kiss each other on the cheek twice--very, very French, and a nice cultural touch. (Throughout the video, however, the puppets interact without ever speaking, which is unfortunate.)

These puppets are very accomplished. In addition to gadding about Paris in the "La mode" episode, the cow also cuts shapes out of cloth and sews them into a dress. (This--and some other bits--went right over the head of my toddler. Observing the cow holding the cloth with its mouth in order to manage the scissors with its hooves, Griffin said with surprise, "He eat da clothes!")

The segments really are just a brief introduction to the idea--the concepts and processes depicted are so streamlined you really would have no idea how clothes, bread, or cheese really are made or what a castle is. I was also put off by the very first episode, "La mode," which features a fashion show of mostly little girls being coached to walk and pose and pout like models. (You could tell by their head and eye movements that someone beside the camera was showing them how to move--not natural and a tiny bit creepy.) Then the girls smeared on make-up. Maybe some people think that's cute? But it was a little strange to be watching this video with two- and four-year-old boys who were all of a sudden learning how to say "lipstick" in French, when there are plenty of other higher-frequency clothing-related words that it would be preferable to expose them to, such as, colors, patterns, buttons, zippers, laces, etc.

On the other hand, some viewers might take offence that one of the segments is about vineyards. We see the grapes growing, the grapes being stomped, the white wine in wine glasses--and then the narrator tells us that this makes "jus de raisin--grape juice! Well, if you're going to have little girls prance around and wear make-up, acting older than they really are (in a video targeted to babies six months and up), then just call this product of the French vineyards what it really is--wine, beautiful wine!

I also had a few "WTF?" moments while watching the video, like when the frog puppet went bowling with what looked like wine bottles as the bowling pins. (Why not show pétanque instead?)

Linguistically, I only caught one error--calling the chicken "poulet," which is the term used for the meat of the chicken, while the animal itself is a "poule."

So what did Carl and Griffin think? Well, with sides of popcorn and cantaloupe, it held their attention for the full 45 minutes. Carl had fun yelling out English translations of the narrator's words ("Hey! That's French bread!"), and they both laughed uproariously in parts, like when the frog knocked down the sand castle. Tot Talk also sells other materials, like placemats, of which I bought a few and gave to Carl and Griffin for Christmas, so I was especially gratified during the vineyard episode when the narrator pronounced "raisin rouge" (red grape) and Carl cried, "On my French placemat, it says raisin rouge!" Griffin loved hearing the song "Sur le pont d'Avignon" in the castle section--he sang along joyfully. And during the highly-touted can-can scene, both boys got up, held my hands, and danced along--something I never thought I'd see Carl do!

(I also gave this video and the placemats to my friend Amy's family for Christmas--she speaks some French with their four children--but I don't know what she or the kids thought of it. I'll ask her to comment!)

Ultimately, the fact that there's no explanation or discussion of any of the ideas presented means that it's up to la maman and le papa and la babysitter to sit with the child and talk about what's going on. It's the grown-up's narration that will bring the video to life. So if you're willing to sit with your child for five minutes (one episode at a time) or 45 (to watch them all straight through, a little less if you skip "la mode" like I now do) and narrate and ask questions, then this is a good choice for a DVD for your toddler or preschooler, whether you speak French or not.

PS: We also bought their Adventures in Mexico DVD, which Griffin watches with the French soundtrack!

pajama dilemma solved thanks to bilingualism!

Last night Griffin insisted that he wear his "pajamas with the white rockets" to bed.

Dear readers, he doesn't own any pajamas with white rockets.

Ed and I were very confused and kept annoying him with our questions--what pajamas? white pajamas? how about the red pajamas? how about the pajamas with the blue rockets? what white pajamas?

After a few minutes that felt like an Ionesco play, it occured to me that we might be misinterpreting his two-year-old speech: he can't say an R sound in English yet (though he can do a passable French R!), so what sounded to us like "white pajamas" could have been "right pajamas," as in, "No, Daddy, not those jammies with the blue rockets. That's wrong! I want the right pajamas!"

So I stepped in to translate, asking Griffin if he wanted the "pyjama blanc" or the "pyjama correct." He looked up at me--and if he were a teenager he would have been rolling his eyes at this point--and informed me that indeed he needed the "pyjama blanc."

And while we never did find white pajamas with rockets for him to wear last night, it tickled me to think that we were able to clarify and understand his needs (despite his lisp) thanks to his bilingualism!

I like garlic, garlic likes me!

I have just learned that Keith Eckstein over at A Taste of Garlic (subtitle: Because We All Like Reading Blogs about Life in France) has featured Bringing up Baby Bilingual as a blog worth checking out. He usually reviews exclusively blogs written in English about living in France, so I'm flattered that he shared Bringing up Baby Bilingual anyway! If you're curious about la vie in l'Hexagone, do take a look at his impressive blogroll divided by region.

promoted to preschool?!

Dropped Griffin off at daycare this morning, put three extra pairs of underpants and shorts in his cubby (we're on day 10 of toilet training), and then found out that they're moving him up from the toddler room to the preschool room. This suprised me--he's only 2.5 years old!--and then I was suprised by how close I was all of a sudden to tears.

The teacher reassured me that he's showing all the signs of being ready to transfer to the older kids' room, that they'll do it gradually, that if he doesn't respond well they'll keep him with the toddlers for a few more weeks...but still! I mean, this is my baby we're talking about.

But I have to admit, I've noticed him growing and developing by leaps and bounds. The potty training, yes, but also learning to turn somersaults, climbing on furniture he couldn't reach before, drinking from a non-sippy cup with less spillage, that sort of thing. Plus, the boy is tall! People never guess his true age--they always think he's older.

And his language! It keeps exploding! Especially his English! His sentences get longer and longer, he uses irregular past tense verbs correctly, he even hears himself say something ungrammatical and fixes it himself occasionally.

And it's not just the grammar: he keeps inventing with language. He regularly makes up new song lyrics (like a recent lullaby to his own feet) and tells jokes (or rather, says things just to be funny). He can carry on monologues, like after his nap, observing and commenting and reminding himself of things; sometimes the monologues turn into dialogues as he converses with a doudou (stuffed animal) and changes his voice for the giraffe's reply!

He spends a lot of time playing with trains and balls and blocks, but he still reaches for a book first thing in the morning. Ed has to be at work early, so he'll scoop Griffin up and drop him in our bed on his way out the door, and Griffin and I read together even before we have breakfast. We read all day long.

Just yesterday he astonished me by asking for the story about les animaux (the animals) who want to attraper (catch) the singe (monkey): I had no idea what he was talking about until he brought me an anthology with a story in French about that highly pursued monkey which we had read one time. Over a month ago. And never discussed again.

I love age 2.5! Maybe that's why I'm reluctant to see him "graduate" to preschool--everything right now is so dang good I don't want things to change.

storytime en français!

Exciting news--the Boulder Public Library is going to start offering a French storytime every other week this fall!

This is just the kick in the fesses that I need to get Griffin and me socializing en français again--we haven't been to the French playgroup since May because my work schedule changed over the summer and then I signed him up for dinosaur class. But now that our Monday mornings are free again, we need to go hear other kids (and their mamans and papas) speaking French.

Part of me still wants to form a French playgroup closer to home--the other is a 25-minute drive--at a more convenient time, like a Friday afternoon, which would be good for me and for parents who work as teachers and for kids who are in school during the day, or a weekend, so working parents who can't attend the Monday morning playgroup could participate. But I never figured out where or when to do it, or whether I wanted to suggest that it be more structured than just "come play and speak French."

But in the meantime, I'll gladly join another group that someone else has taken the trouble to form and is willing to lead! The first meeting is on September 21 (the first and third Tuesday of the month at 10:15 at the main library), and you can be sure that I'll write about it here. Babar, Petit Prince, and T'choupi, here we come!

Profile: Portuguese and Spanish with Marcela's family in the US

Please welcome Marcela into the Bringing up Baby Bilingual family. She kindly answered my questions about raising her children with Portuguese and Spanish in the US--no English yet at all! I know some of you are also focusing on the minority language(s) at home to ensure that your children have a strong base before they start school and are bombarded by the majority language. Marcela and I would love to hear about your strategies and challenges and choices--please share them in the comments below! Thank you, Marcela.

Introduce us to your family--
• Parents'/caretakers'/adults' names, occupations, nationality--We're the parents--Edson and Marcela. Edson is a dialysis tech at our local hospital and working on his RN degree which he'll thankfully get at the end of this year! Marcela is a SAHM that also works part time from home. Edson is Brazilian and Marcela is Chilean.
• Kids' names, ages, interests--Our kids are Lucas (3) and he LOVES anything that has to do with trucks, trains or dirt. Gabriela (Gabi) is 8 months old and she likes playing with her brother's toys and hanging out with mom.
• Where you currently live--Provo, Utah
• Other countries you've lived--Edson has lived in Brazil and I have lived in Brazil and Chile.
What languages are spoken by the adults in your household and at what level of proficiency?

We both speak Spanish and Portuguese fluently but Edson says his Spanish is "Portunol" than pure Spanish. His Spanish is good, it definitely gets him by, but it's not grammatically correct all of the time. However, when we're both home, we speak in Portuguese to each other. I learned English in school. I went to ESL classes from Kindergarten all the way through 5th grade. By that time (5th grade), I was only going to my ESL class for an hour and the rest was all English. I was pretty fluent by then and was able to test out. Edson learned English by speaking to Americans in Brazil. He worked with them in Brazil but his vocabulary was very limited to his work. Once he got here, he was able to fully pick it up.

What languages are you exposing your children to, and how?

I speak only Spanish to the kids and Edson speaks only Portuguese to them. When Lucas watches TV, it's usually Spanish cartoons, and his Disney movies are all in Portuguese. He also gets some exposure with English whenever he goes to Church or plays with the kids outside.

Why do you want your children to know more than one language?

Aside from the obvious reason of helping them in their future, we both feel it's very important for our kids to be able to communicate with their family. My parents don't speak English and neither does anyone in my husband's family. I have a brother that only taught his kids English and they aren't able to communicate with my parents and I think it's a true shame to not be able to do so.

How well do your children understand the different languages? Do they have a preference for what they speak in which contexts? How has their language use evolved as they grow?

Lucas understands and speaks both Spanish and Portuguese really well! He mixes very few words from one to the other but the amazing thing is that he knows which language he needs to speak with whom. I've noticed that when Lucas is playing by himself, he talks to his cars in Portuguese. So I'm guessing he has a preference for it. His language has evolved a ton ever since he started watching more TV (as a result of my needing to work from home), especially since he hears slang in Portuguese from the Disney movies, he just says it all the time!

How have you been able to expose your children to the cultures where the different languages are spoken?

We Skype quite a bit with both of our families. Lucas and Edson went to Brazil in July so he was able to fully immerse himself in their culture. My parents frequently fly out here as well, so they get their Spanish culture in as well. We also go to library readings for kids in Spanish.

What resources and activities have been most useful to you? What, on the other hand, has not been useful?

Our library has a few Spanish books which are helpful. I wish they would have more and in other languages. I would love to be able to have more books in Portuguese but unfortunately, those are hard to come by and buying them online is sometimes really expensive. The library readings are great because he gets to see other kids that speak his language as well.

What challenges have you faced as you raise your children with more than one language?

It hasn't been a problem yet but I'm scared of what will happen in the future once the kids are going to school and learning English. It will become their social language and I'm scared that they won't want to speak at home anymore and then turn into one of those kids that understand the parents' language but don't speak it. We plan on having more family vacations to both Chile and Brazil in the future but until that point in our lives, I'm scared of them rebelling against the languages. Or even telling us that since both Mom and Dad speak English, why can't we all just speak English?

Do you have any advice for us?

Just keep at it! It's very important to be consistent with the target language and if you don't know a word, look it up! That way you and your child are both learning and you're still using the language. As far as those people we encounter who don't speak either Spanish or Portuguese, we just explain the situation and have a little patience with them. We still speak to the kids in Spanish or Portuguese when we have to say something and then translate it for the other people around if they seem uncomfortable. Most of the time, I've found, people are fine with us speaking our languages to them.

What do you think parents, caretakers, teachers, and/or researchers need to know about teaching a second language to children? What do you wish you had known when you started? What, if anything, would you do differently now?

It's very rewarding! To know that your kids' minds are like sponges and can pick multiple languages up in just a snap is great! One thing to keep in mind is that because they're learning more than one language, it doesn't mean they're slow. We've had people treat Lucas like he was a child with developmental difficulties because of it. That really bothered me because he's extremely smart--he just doesn't speak your language yet. I wish I would've known to pick up more books/movies for the kids to watch. Also, I would've researched more to find mommy groups that were in the same situation so that the kids could get together and learn together as well.

Answer your own question now--what did I not ask about that you would like to comment on?

It's more of a question--I guess I'm struggling with when to introduce English (formally) to Lucas. Should I let a preschool do it? Or should it be me? If it is me, then will he not want to speak to me in Spanish anymore?