Where to "commencer"?

commencer = to begin

In recent weeks, two vastly different moms have approached me for suggestions on helping their kids learn French. One is Adriana over at My Bilingual Boys, an experienced Spanish teacher whose two young sons already speak English and Spanish fluently. The other is the mother of a large home-schooled family, two of whose teenagers want to learn French.

The former has a multitude of resources available to her online and through her colleagues, plus the knowledge and experience that comes from already having raised her children with two languages, while the latter's resources consist exclusively of what she can access in the public library (no Internet at home and no possibility of buying books or materials for the kids to use at home) plus her memories of learning German when she was younger. And unfortunately, our library does not have extensive French learning materials--Muzzy, yes (for little kids), but Rosetta Stone, no.

My challenge for myself will be to go back through my previous posts and the French materials for kids that I have accumulated to figure out what I might recommend to both of these families (even though what works for two teenagers may have little in common with what appeals to younger children). This means that I will (probably) finally get around to posting reviews of the more of the books, games, and videos that I've used with Carl and now Griffin!

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.

Help! These kids just arrived in the US and they don't speak any English yet!

My friend Katie, an experienced and award-winning university Spanish instructor, has been tutoring a woman who wants to learn Spanish because she's adopting three children from Guatemala. When the kids (ages 7-15) arrive, Katie will be tutoring them in English. (They won't be starting school right away; their mom, Kirsten, is going to homeschool them as she has with her other children.) Katie asked me for input since I've taught English as a Second Language (ESL) and worked with children. However, as I haven't taught ESL at the elementary level, and as the girls I tutor are learning French for fun, not survival, I'm turning to you all, the readers of this blog. Do you have any suggestions for ideas, activities, and resources?

Here are my recommendations so far:

Katie should not let on to the kids that she's a fluent speaker of Spanish. This way their lessons can be complete English immersion and the kids won't ask constantly ask for translations. She can do this by using lots of gestures, pictures, drawings, props, repetition, and cognates, and by acting things out or demonstrating. Oxford University Press makes some good picture dictionaries specific for English language learners, as do other publishers, but I suspect that most children's illustrated word books would also be useful.

Katie and Kirsten should set goals of what they want to accomplish, what they want the children to be able to do--talk about themselves, ask important questions, follow directions around the house, identify objects, listen to stories, etc. (Should she start teaching them to read in English? I don't know; if they don't read in Spanish yet, probably not, as we wouldn't want to overwhelm them. So then should they learn to read in Spanish? Help! This is beyond my expertise!) Each lesson should address those objectives and the kids should leave the session feeling like they've learned something new or understand something better.

Katie should vary the activities in each lesson to appeal to different learning styles and to accommodate the fact that seven-year-olds usually don't sit still very long. Including as many different kinesthetic activities, movements, and games will keep the kids engaged. (Click here for some of my homemade games ideas.)

Katie and their mom could pick out some textbooks and materials for English language learners at the elementary level; perhaps local elementary schools could tell them what they use in the different grades. Each child should have his or her own book(s) (rather than sharing them). Unfortunately I don't know enough about this genre to make recommendations myself. Anyone?

While teaching lists of nouns and verbs (to any age student) is very manageable for a good teacher like Katie because these words are easy to illustrate and act out, she should also familiarize them with function words like articles (a/an/the), pronouns (I/me/she/her etc.), interrogatives (who/what/where etc.), prepositions (in/on/near/to etc.), and conjunctions (and/or/if etc.). It's frustrating as a language learner to be able to point to objects and label them but not actually make sentences or express complete thoughts.

By the way, a book that has worked amazingly well for the little girls I tutor in French is called I Can Read & Speak in French: The Simple Picture Method for Kids to Learn French Immediately. It draws upon the Symtalk method where a usually-logical symbol represents a person, place, object, action, or idea. In this book, which also exists in Spanish and so probably in other languages, a sentence describes a photograph. Each word in the sentence is illustrated by its assigned symbol. As soon as the child can associate the symbol with the word, he can "read" the sentence, especially when aided by looking at the illustration. The goal is not to have them read, but rather use the vocabulary (composed of all the different parts of speech) to describe the picture. Eventually the child is able to tell the whole story of the children who go to the park with their bikes and dog and kites and end up falling in the fountain. It's very empowering for students to be able to tell a story in the new language! I also encouraged the girls to personalize, to tell me about when they go to the park, to describe their possessions, and so forth, using the same key vocabulary and the included flashcards. All this took, of course, a month or two of going over the new words little by little, reviewing the previous ones, playing games like Memory with the flashcards (I also made bingo cards with them)--it doesn't happen all at once. And the Symtalk method becomes increasingly more complex and can be used with many different levels and ages, but I don't know much about it beyond what I've seen with this book and at one conference session where the presenters showed us a lot of advanced Symtalk games. The book I describe here also comes with a CD, stickers, and directions. Here's a sample vocabulary page and one of the story pages:

If Symtalk books like this for ESL children don't exist, perhaps Katie or Kirsten could create something similar, using pictures of the family and their home and their possessions to tell a story.

The parents and siblings should reinforce at home what Katie covers in the English lessons, but also expose the children to songs, appropriate television programs and movies, lots of books, magazines, and poems in English, and interactions with other kids at home, on the playground, at playgroups, perhaps something like a music or gymnastics class.

Katie and the parents should check out the websites TESOL/ESL/TESL Resources and Colorin Colorado, too.

I recognize that so far these are pretty general guidelines. I'd also like to be able to suggest some specific activities that Katie can start doing the first day she meets with the kids. If you have any ideas or comments, please share them with us!

Click here for an update (as of September 2007).

homeschooling in French

My dear friend Amy, who is homeschooling her children, reports from Mississippi:

We’ve just begun formalized French study. Lily, who is six years old, is the primary student, though Gregory (4) and Lia (2) sometimes participate. We’re using Il etait une petite grenouille, a French as a Second Language (FSL) curriculum. We begin by listening to part of a story on CD and following along in a picture book. We review the previous lessons and then work on the new lesson. For instance, yesterday we worked on “Qu’est-ce que c'est” (what’s that? with the appropriate response) and pointed to pictures in the book, as well as in a picture book of French words, and we also practiced with “what is his/her/your name” and the appropriate response. Then, the new information included using “Je suis” (I am) so we did that for a while and the children pretended to be various animals, and tell me “Je suis une vache” or “Je suis un cheval” or whatever was correct. Already I’m concerned about my own grammar, however because I couldn’t remember if I ought to have them use the article in such sentences. (ARGH!) Over the next several days Lily will also use her activity book, writing, and reading book that go along with the lessons. Then, we’ll move to the next lesson on the CD.

Lily has also been playing a computer game called Adiboud Chou au Bord de la Mer for fun and I’ve found some online sites with FSL computer games that I’ll let her begin playing as soon as I have a faster connection. (This site also offers games in English.)

I'd love to hear from other parents who are homeschooling their kids in French (or other languages too, like Jeanne and Corey). What activities and techniques work best for y'all?

Jeanne's children learning English, German, Spanish, and Swedish in the US

Jeanne has only recently started to use other languages with all of her six children, but she reports that for the most part the kids are catching on and liking it a lot. In recent emails to me, she mentioned that her three-year-old just said his first independent word in German (in addition to his repeating words after her). And now her oldest son and daughter have started speaking to their younger siblings in German and asking for her to teach them more! You can follow along with Jeanne's family's linguistic explorations and adventures at her blog, Books and Brownies.

What is your language background and history?
I have always been fascinated with languages. At the age of 12, I heard a song by Menudo on the radio. It was their first English release. I liked it so much that I bought the tape, and then I wanted more of their music, so I started buying their Spanish albums. This led me to want to study Spanish, so I took 2 years in high school along with 3 years of French. When I went to college, I began to study German and continued my Spanish. I then decided to major in languages, so I majored in German and minored in Spanish. After graduation, I enrolled in graduate school and earned an MA in German. Since graduating in 1996, I have been at home with my children. I have no family connections in either Spanish or German, and my husband speaks only English.

What languages are you exposing your children to, and how?
I have six children: Robert is 17, Gabrielle is almost 11, Mary is almost 9, Ryan is 3, and Alexander and Christopher are identical twins who are a year and a half old. They are being exposed to three languages besides English to some extent, but German is the primary one.

Robert (17) is learning German at home using a high school level text called Deutsch Aktuell, and he spent a month in Germany with me when he was 5 ½. During that month, he spent the mornings at a home daycare that a German family ran. By the end of the month, he understood most of what was said to him. An elderly woman at a museum asked him several questions, which he answered with “ja” or “nein” appropriately. Later she overheard us speaking English and asked me if he was German, so she obviously had thought he was. I wish that I had been better at teaching him German through the years, but I was very lost as to what exactly to do with him. Robert is fairly good at languages and studied Latin for two years, has some Spanish, and is currently volunteering with me as an ESL assistant teacher. However, he is not anywhere near fluent in any other language. We plan to finish at least three high school years of German before he graduates, and also two official years of Spanish. I also hope to be able to get him to Germany next year somehow.

Gabrielle and Mary have taken German classes through a German group we belong to called CarolinaKinder. In addition, we have done lessons at home. We tried using Power Glide Jr., which was expensive and not at all worth it! It did not produce any noticeable German. Then, I didn’t know what to do with them, but got some inspiration from our math books. The Saxon math series does a “meeting” where the child has daily practice on things like writing the date, counting money, etc. I decided to have a German meeting with them to teach them basic vocabulary and review it every day. I used Usborne’s First 1000 Words in German sticker book as a base. Every day we reviewed numbers, colors, days of the week, seasons, months, time of day (like morning, afternoon, etc), weather, and clothing. As they learned the basic vocabulary, I added in more German. I also wrote phrases in the book so it wasn’t just vocabulary. For example, under the picture of rain, it says “der Regen” and I wrote in “Es regnet” so they would know how to say “It’s raining.” Then we added in some verbs and we had a page that we were learning. We started with pets. We would play games where they would be an animal and we had to guess what they were. For colors we would play I Spy.

I don’t know how to measure our success with this. They did learn basic vocabulary, but I spoke way too much English doing it with them. I tried to add in more German, but at the time I was not too comfortable with my spoken German, which had gotten incredibly rusty. I tried to mix the languages so the girls wouldn’t stress about what I was saying, but in hindsight, I wouldn’t have done it that way. Eventually, they had learned the words and were getting bored with what we were doing. I then bought LinguaFun cards and we played games with them, which the girls enjoyed. We played while I was on bed rest during my pregnancy with the twins. At this point, their German mainly consists of knowing basic vocabulary and being able to answer, “What’s your name?” Now they hear me speaking it to the little ones, so that helps. I hope to get them back into German classes this fall.

In addition, Gabrielle is very motivated to learn Spanish. She is currently using a program called “Learn Spanish with Grace.” She has a very good accent. She sang in a Spanish children’s choir when she was five, the only non-Hispanic child to participate. She would love to do that again. I am going to start having a short time every day of speaking Spanish with her. Mary is not “officially” studying Spanish, but she overhears a lot of what Gabrielle does and so is learning it too (sometimes you have to be sneaky!).

Mary wants to learn Swedish. That comes from the Kirsten series in the American Girl book line. One day she came to me and asked if I had any songs in Swedish, since Gabrielle was learning Spanish songs. I actually do, because I love ABBA and they recorded several of their biggest hits in Swedish. So I gave her the CDs (which had the words thankfully) and she learned them all. It’s very interesting to have an 8 year old singing “Waterloo” to you in Swedish! I have been searching for a children’s program to use with her and so far have been unsuccessful. She doesn’t want to do it entirely on the computer. We have the Bilingual Baby video in Swedish and she learned some basic vocabulary with that, but how many times can you watch the same video? I would love to take her to the Concordia Language Villages sometime in the future. Since Swedish is kind of obscure, it’s hard to find resources. We do live near a large university, so I have been thinking of seeing if I could find a Swedish exchange student who would tutor her. That is probably the best option. I am happy to learn it with her, but I know from experience that just knowing the language doesn’t mean you know what to do to teach it.

Since the girls have other languages they want to learn, they don’t understand why I want them to learn German too. They think one other language is enough. But I tell them that they can learn both, and they need to study German because I said so. My husband backs me up on that, so it helps. I hope to organize some activities for older children in our German group, but what I find is that the older children all speak English to each other when they are together. I know that I need to create reasons for them to learn German and get that desire back. It’s likely at some point we will go spend some time in Germany and I want them to at least be able to converse in German. They do like learning German songs and can sing about 5 or 6 children’s songs.

Now, onto the little ones! Ryan is 3 and the twins are 20 months. I decided about a month ago to begin speaking German to them consistently. This now means that I speak German at least 50% of the time. I would like it to be more, but I need to increase my child-centered vocabulary! I learned German as an adult, and didn’t know how to say things like, “Would you like to play catch?” So I sit there with my little dictionary and look up words as I need them. I just bought more children’s books in German, so I read the books to them and talk to them and play with them.

Why do you want your children to learn additional languages?
Because I just think it’s wrong that Americans believe they don’t need to learn any other language. I just read yesterday that the EU is promoting being able to speak your own language plus 2 others – in the US hardly anyone speaks just one other! I don’t think that the US can afford to be isolated anymore. I believe that studying languages is fun and interesting and that anyone can learn to some extent. I want them to learn German because it will help them with whatever they decide to do in the future, and because we may at some point go to Germany so I can study. I think it’s great that they also have another language they want to learn, and I want to support their efforts and get them to a basic level of fluency in both.

How well do your children understand, speak, read, and write the other languages?
Robert seems to have a basic understanding of German and Spanish and can usually figure out the topic of something he is reading. He likes languages, but not as much as I do. To him they are just a means of communication! Gabrielle and Mary are very much beginners in their languages. Ryan is understanding some of what I say in German and repeating it back, but doesn’t spontaneously say things (although we did just start with the German in the last month or so).

How you been able to expose your children to the culture(s) where the other languages are is spoken?
Mainly through our German group. They have holiday celebrations like they would in Germany. I tell my children about Germany, show them pictures, and read books about Germany. For Spanish, there are a lot of Hispanics in our area. Our church building looks like a transplant from New Mexico. Just yesterday I was explaining to the girls that even though there are a lot of people that speak Spanish, they have different cultures, just like England, Ireland, the US, and Australia all speak English but have different cultures. I also like to listen to Latin music, so they know some of those songs. We have gotten books out of the library about Sweden for Mary, and she will tell us, “In Sweden they do such-and-such.” A couple of weeks ago, we all watched the Eurovision contest on the computer and that was a lot of fun. It inspired my daughters to have their own contest with their Barbies. They got a map of Europe and chose countries for each Barbie and made outfits and then had the contest.

What challenges have occurred as you teach your children other languages?
The biggest challenge has been just not knowing exactly what to do! Another big challenge is finding good resources that don’t break the bank! And since we live out in the country, I have had to decide that it’s worth it. Yes, it’s worth it to drive an hour for a 30 minute storytime. It is a commitment of time and money and energy, but I don’t want to have my little ones grown and say, “Why didn’t I do this with them? Why didn’t I give them this gift?” like I am doing with my oldest. Another challenge is my daughters’ resistance to German. Hopefully I can overcome that. And I already mentioned how difficult it is to find Swedish resources for Mary.

What resources have been most useful to you? What, on the other hand, has not been useful?
Useful: Berlitz book Help Your Child with a Foreign Language by Opal Dunn, Usborne language books, a songbook and CD set I got from Alphabet Garten [specializing in German materials], other German picture books, Sound Beginnings CD, Bilingual Baby videos, LinguaFun cards, Enchanted Learning website, Deutsch Aktuell, Learn Spanish with Grace.

Not useful: Power Glide, Rosetta Stone (and on her blog, Jeanne also explains the inadequacies of the Pimsleur program)

What do you wish you had known when you started? What, if anything, would you do differently now?
I would like to see more research about effective ways for families to learn a language together, and also for a parent to teach a non-native language to his or her own child. I really can’t believe that I let a month’s worth of German slip away from my son! I should have continued with him and maybe by now he would be fluent.

Answer your own question now--what did I not ask about that you want to comment on?
Another thing that I would really like to do, but have been unable to figure out how, is teach other subjects in the target language. I guess I could probably find resources to do this with Spanish, but it would be hard to do it in German and even harder in Swedish. And I guess that one would have to reach a basic level in the language before anything else would make sense. Any ideas about how to do that? I really am inspired by your creativity with the games and ideas that you do with the girls you tutor and with your nephew!

Jeanne, thanks so much for answering this questionnaire with so much detail! I really like seeing how it's possible to start using a foreign language with kids of such varied ages. Thank you too for all the specific resource recommendations. Readers, do you have any questions or comments for Jeanne?