literacy activities around the maison

I seem to be pouring more creativity into my articles for Multilingual Living than into my blog of late...but I think it's worth it! I had so much fun coming up with reading and writing activities in French for my newest article in the "Learning French In and Around the Maison" series...check it out if you're interested in learning about any of the following:

• When you should call your toilet a réfrigérateur (and why)
• Who "Monsieur Bricolage" is and what he wants to sell you
• How Old MacDonald doesn't always need to have a ferme
• Which French translations of some classic children's books in English are any good
• And maybe a few other things you never thought you'd need to know!

when Mommy won't speak her mother tongue

I never thought it would be strange to speak to my child in my native language; in fact, it's been challenging to meet my goal of barraging Griffin with French, especially when we're together all day long! (See my most recent column in Multilingual Living Magazine for the full scoop on my struggle as a non-native speaker trying to raise my baby bilingually. It's one of the cover stories this time!)

But now, after three and a half months of being a maman, this must be starting to come more easily, because it feels weird to speak English to him now.

Yes, I do speak English around him when I'm with non-francophone family and friends (in other words, just about everyone); I'm not trying to disguise the fact that I speak and understand English. (To my delight, my nephew Carl has never protested that he and I only speak French together, even though he knows I'm an Anglophone--but many parents have to pretend that they don't understand the dominant language so that their kids will keep addressing them in the parents' language.)

However, I rarely address my son directly in English, unless my comments are actually directed towards other people--like to explain, say, why he's not wearing any pants ("Griffin, you've got to stop with these leaky diapers already!") or to make a request ("Griffin, don't you think that Daddy should bring Maman a glass of wine?").

And since his daddy doesn't speak French (yet!), when we sing to him together--such an important activity--we sing in English. But I don't sing songs in English by myself. That's hard enough, when so many fantastic songs that appeal to children exist and hold sentimental value for me; what's even harder is not reading to him in English.

But I've discovered one situation for which to make an exception to this rule: baby storytime at the library. The Lafayette Public Library has just begun a new program called "Book Babies." The babies--and I do mean babies, for no toddlers are allowed--and their grown-ups meet once a week for half an hour of songs, rhymes, fingerplays, and sharing board books geared towards babies. It's very interactive--we sing along with the librarian, help the babies clap, raise their arms to say "so big!", pretend our fingers are fleas crawling up and down their bodies, share books with them, give them horsey rides on our knees, and so on. Just imagine a roomful of infants and crawlers poking each other, shaking baby-sized maracas, gnawing on peek-a-boo books, and staring wide-eyed at the crazy lady ringing bells in Winnie-the-Pooh's face! It's been so successful that this month-long experiment will continue through the summer.

So you see, it would be rude for me to attend this storytime and refuse to participate; it would be pretentious to disregard the directions and conversations in English in order to translate them into French. (Not that I could translate many of these nursery rhymes and fingerplays on the fly anyway--"eensie weensie"? "waterspout"? How the heck do you say that in French?)

Therefore, every Wednesday morning, I toss aside the French so we can hang out with the other bibliobabies. And it feels quite strange to make that switch! Even though Griffin's clearly too young to care which language he's hearing from whom, I have the sensation that I'm breaking the law but have immunity because of a loophole. It's a little exciting, a little dangerous.

But w hat if I like it too much? What if I find myself informing him "I'm a little teapot" instead of "Je suis une petite théière?" What if I say to myself, "Oh, it's just a board book. One round of Bear Snores On won't hurt anybody"? Will I be able to resist when my mom pressures me into taking a hit of Eric Carle? What if The Very Hungry Caterpillar is just a gateway story to all my other beloved children's books and I start sneaking around to expose Griffin to English, hiding the evidence behind the couch or in the laundry room, denying to my friends and family that I've been reading and singing in English, saying that I'm taking Griffin to the grocery store but instead going to Borders and coming home late with bloodshot eyes and the incriminating evidence of papercuts on our fingers, until I need more and more and more songs and stories in English with my son to feel good?!

Help me be strong, dear readers. You are my support group!

books for babies

Check out these two short articles by my friend Estela, who is raising her one-year-old daughter with English and Spanish. She succinctly explains why it's so important to read to infants (but reassures readers that it's never too late to start) and gives advice on choosing board books for babies (pointing out, for example, that picture books with plots are not necessarily the best choice). Her ideas, of course, apply regardless of which language(s) you're using with your child. Thanks for the links, Estela! Keep reading, everybody!

the very hungry caterpillar = a very eager reader

I've mentioned that I'm tutoring Julia, a six-year-old who's struggling with reading in English, and that I love using drama as a teaching tool, so I thought I'd share an example of an activity that could be done with kids learning either their first or second language!

You probably know the classic picture book The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, about a ravenous little guy who eats his way through leaves, fruits, sausages, and ice cream cones before building a cocoon around himself and later emerging as a butterfly. I made color copies of the leaf, the butterfly, the sun, the cocoon, and many of the foods he ate, backed the pictures with cardboard, and glued them to plastic knives (since we didn't have any popsicle sticks).


Then I made a caterpillar with loopy brown chenille yarn and brown pipe cleaners and glued it to cardboard(appropriately enough; did you know that the French word "chenille" means, in fact, "caterpillar"?).


After Julia and I had read the book together several times (it was too hard for her to read straight through by herself), we decided who would hold which puppets, where we'd move them when, and which words/lines each of us would read (with our reading some of them together as well). We then performed our caterpillar play for the people hanging around the children's section of the public library, which even has a little puppet theatre for the kids to use! (But this sort of thing can also happen from behind a couch or a counter or in a large appliance-sized box with a square cut out for the performance space.)

As a follow-up, I made a little book called "The Very Hungry Julia" with lines inspired by the caterpillar book: "On Monday, Julia ate ________. On Tuesday, Julia ate ________." And so forth, concluding with "And then Julia turned into a _______." Her "homework" was to fill in one page each day with a description of what she ate and draw a picture.

While this one activity didn't turn Julia into an amazing reader, it did help her slow down and use context (the pictures, the repetition of days of the week, predicting what the caterpillar would transform into) to figure out words she didn't recognize. Reading it a total of five times over two days helped reinforce the new words and built up her confidence. And being able to perform it for her dad and other people made her feel important and capable and creative.

Now that I've got these colorful paper puppets, I'm planning on using them and the Caterpillar book with the four- and six-year-olds I tutor in French. I'll teach them the key vocab for new words like "caterpillar" and "cocoon," read the French translation with them, encourage them to interact with the text by asking questions all along, and then we'll perform the puppet show with me as the narrator, one of them as the caterpillar, and one of them as the foods the caterpillar eats. While they don't know enough French to tell the story themselves (even if we change it to the present tense), they'll be able to follow along with the puppets and chime in on words like "butterfly" and "ice cream."

I hope to find or create more interactive book-related activities to do with all my tutees! Any suggestions?

reading in more than one language

Visit Corey's blog, An American Between Worlds, to read this detailed post about her bilingual children learning to read. Fascinating! Does this sound familiar to anyone? What other approaches have worked as you try to foster your children's love of reading in more than one language?