3yo son stopped speaking

[Guest portakal]

Hi all. I have a 3yo son and we're trying to raise him bilingual. We live in New Zealand and I'm from Turkey. So I speak Turkish to him all the time. I started speaking from the day he was born. He was really good until he was 2 and he could tell you all the colours etc in Turkish. But now he's pretty much stopped speaking. He goes to daycare 5 days and obviously they speak English there. 

He still can understand everything I say in Turkish but responses in English. We skype with my parents they speak english but he still responses English.

His english is very good, he's very curious and very chatty. I still reply in Turkish but don't want him to not understand me and stop talking to me so I recently started adding a little bit of English to our conversations. 

Do you have any suggestions or anyone been in a similar situation? What shall I do? I don't want him to forget everything and not be able to speak Turkish.

 

Cheers

[EndOfOrdinary]

This sometimes happens if the child gets the idea that one of their languages makes them bad, weird, unintelligent, foreign, insert negative adjective.  Could he have gotten the message from another child or person at the daycare?  My son used to be very uncomfortable with me speaking Spanish to him in public places (or responding) until he realized just how many of this friends spoke Spanish or knew someone who did.  This made him then un-wierd and it was fine.

 

This is not necessarily what happened, but it was my first thought.  I have very little experience, but since no one else was chiming in I thought what tiny bit I had might be helpful.

[Guest portakal]

This sometimes happens if the child gets the idea that one of their languages makes them bad, weird, unintelligent, foreign, insert negative adjective.  Could he have gotten the message from another child or person at the daycare?  My son used to be very uncomfortable with me speaking Spanish to him in public places (or responding) until he realized just how many of this friends spoke Spanish or knew someone who did.  This made him then un-wierd and it was fine.

 

This is not necessarily what happened, but it was my first thought.  I have very little experience, but since no one else was chiming in I thought what tiny bit I had might be helpful.

 

 

Thanks for the reply. I don't think anyone at daycare would cause this. Teachers however are very keen for me to teach them some words so they can speak too. I'm getting quite concerned 

[mathmarm]

It could be developmental. A lot of my husbands family is Deaf, so all of the kids in the family have to Sign if they are going to communicate with the grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins who are Deaf. Deafness runs in the family so Hubby and his family feel confident in their methods of raising fluent Signers and speakers: Basically, make sure the minority language is rock-solid and age-fluent when the child is young. When they are toddlers, it is my advice that they be kept out of environments where the minority language will be dominated by a chic/cool language or stigmatized for being foreign, wrong, different or less than.

 

Jr, my toddler son is being raised bilingual. We live in the states and want to make sure that he is natively bilingual and that his minority language is strong, strong, strong before putting him in school, so during the day, he stays with my in-laws where he is immersed in the minority language with his grandparents and where his toddler, preschool and kindergarten cousins are also using the minority language, where the adults that come and go use the minority language. Many of his relatives can NOT hear and do NOT speak, so English isn't a reliable option for him right now. His only sure-fire way of communicating in sign because everyone in his life can sign, but not everyone can hear.

 

Right now English is NOT my sons dominant language and it freaks me out sometimes how well and how much he speaks the minority language (Sign Language) and how little he speaks the majority language (English), but my husband assures me that we should expect a switch up when he goes to school, and it will be several weeks to a few years before he uses both English and ASL evenly or simultaneously. For now, it is all about input, input, input. You have to make sure that he has vocabulary and understands the grammar of more complex things than he might be able to express right now, and you want to maintain that understanding of the complex grammar and large vocabulary.

 

In Hubbys experience and opinion, you have to continue to immerse them in the minority language and illicit feedback from them in the minority language where they are at, even if you have a higher level of input. You do NOT want their receptive language abilities to erode from fluent understanding to passive understanding to vague notion to nothing.

 

My advice, do not speak English with your son if you want him to speak and understand Turkish.

Take a couple of weeks where you intentionally speak slower, gesture, repeat, rephrase your Turkish to him just to be sure that he is following you, and then rachet it back up to OPOL or MLaH.

 

We use books as a platform for language with our son. If your son can string together 2 or 3 words in Turkish, then always prompt him for the 2-3 word reply and do not accept single words for him, you want to preserve his current abilities while building him up to understand and express even more.

 

an example from this weekend:

While reading Eric Carles' The Very Hungry Caterpillar Hubby and Jr. discuss the pictures in ASL and English, after reading the page in English. This exchange took place with hubby Speaking and signing, and Jr. signing back.

Hubby: Look. Look here, what is this?

Jr: ...uh. *playing with toe*

Hubby: Hey, do you know what this called?

Jr: catepillar.

Hubby: Right, correct, good. A caterpillar is a type of insect (bug). What is that insect (bug) called?

son: Insect (bug) is a caterpillar

Hubby: Yes, what color is the caterpillar?

Jr: Green.

Hubby: Green... green what?

Jr: Green *pointing at the picture of the caterpillar*

Hubby: Green? Green what? Tell me what is green?

Jr: Caterpillar is green insect(bug).

Hubby: Great! Great job! Good boy!

 

The point of these types of exchanges is to guide our son to always respond to the level he is currently capable of until he does it consistently and automatically Currently, our son strings together 3-8 word sentences in ASL so we are NOT accepting one word answers when we know he can do sentences.

 

So, when reading a book with your son, ask comprehension questions in Turkish, comment in Turkish, play games in Turkish and guide him to respond in Turkish. Teach him to read in Turkish before he learns at school, read to him daily in Turkish--even if you have to translate books yourself and use post it notes on the pages. Do crafts and make meals together in Turkish, have him help you around the house in Turkish so that he learns vocabulary in Turkish to understand you and to express himself. Go on trips to the zoo, park, museum in Turkish to build his vocabulary and awareness of the world IN Turkish.

[Mnemosyne]

I grew up in Europe with a mother from the USA. She spoke English to me, I refused to reply back in anything other than Dutch. I thought it was weird to be speaking a foreign language when no one else spoke it around me. 

 

That said, though I didn't speak English I did understand it very well. And when we moved to the USA, I was speaking fluently as well within a couple months.

 

I suppose what I am trying to say, is to not give up. Keep speaking Turkish - he may not want to speak it, that's fine at this point. The exposure to the language and being able to understand it will help him immensely if he does decide he wants to learn the language (or if you decide to require it as a 'class' at one point for your homeschool, if you're a homeschooler). Chances are that over time he will want to learn the language - especially if, like myself, he has family that doesn't speak English or (wink) refuse to speak English around your son. You can only be an interpreter for so long, after all.

 

I've only just started in the dual language process with my kids now, so I don't have any specific suggestions on how to make your son want to speak more Turkish. All I remember from being so young were a lot of English books and movies, so I'm afraid I'm not a lot of help there.

[Um_2_4]

Just keep speaking. Don't stop, even if he answers in English. As long as he understands, you are fine. He may speak more later. But replacing some words with English words and mixing the two languages will only add to the confusion. Repeat yourself in Turkish if needed, point or demonstrate, and finally translate the whole instruction to English if needed, then repeat it in Turkish. (assuming this is not an immediate safety issue of course) Next time he will pick up the words he missed.

Just don't make it a big deal. Parent A speaks Turkish, Parent B speaks English. I would look for a Turkish babysitter if I had to leave him at one.

For us, DH is the native Arabic speaker and Arabic is my second language, so since I spend most of the time with the kids, I speak both. Usually English for schoolwork and then a mix of Arabic and English for day to day stuff. But I know it would have been easier if all I spoke was Arabic when they were babies/toddlers instead of mixing the two. 

[bibiche]

DS went on a language strike at about that age.  I just kept on speaking to him in "our" language.  Then one day he encountered some children speaking our language and he hasn't spoken a word in English to me since. I think he just needed to know that speaking the minority language was useful after all.   Is there a community of Turkish speakers that you could meet up with?  Any chance of getting back home for a vacation?  In the meantime, just keep speaking Turkish and supporting the language in any way you can. We made sure that most of DS's books and all of what limited cartoon time he had were in his minority languages.  

[Arcadia]

Just keep speaking. Don't stop, even if he answers in English. As long as he understands, you are fine. He may speak more later. But replacing some words with English words and mixing the two languages will only add to the confusion.

 

:iagree:

That is what parents around me does. They just speak to their children in the native language at the park, supermarket, stores even if the child replies in English.

[Guest olga.tr.kz.ru]

In our family, Turkish is, on the contrary, a majority language, and Russian is the minority one.

 

I agree with previous posters that you should keep speaking your language consistently. Additional exposure is necessary, too: all cartoons, TV, computer games can be in your language. There is an opinion that to have sold language skills in a language, a child should be exposed to that language at least 30 % of his waking time.

 

Ds7 started using many Turkish words with me after he started daycare at 3. One trick I used was to do anything he asks for in minority language very quickly and enthusiastically, with lots of praise. If he asked for something in majority language, I would repeat his words in the minority language and praised when he repeated that. If he didn't, I would still do whatever he asked, but much slower. It took us about 3 months to get back to division of languages.

[Renai]

 

His english is very good, he's very curious and very chatty. I still reply in Turkish but don't want him to not understand me and stop talking to me so I recently started adding a little bit of English to our conversations. 

Do you have any suggestions or anyone been in a similar situation? What shall I do? I don't want him to forget everything and not be able to speak Turkish.

 

Cheers

 

As long as you are speaking to him in Turkish, he will not fail to understand you. He may not answer, but he will still understand. Sometimes, they answer in the majority language because they are around it so much that it becomes easier. If you find this is the case, you can repeat back his answer in Turkish so he knows how to respond.

 

Son: Mom, can I have some milk?

Mom: (in Turkish) Sure you can have some milk. I'll get it for you.

 

Mom: (in Turkish) Are you dressed for school yet?

Son: Yes, I am ready.

Mom: (in Turkish) Oh, good, you're ready. Let's go!

 

 

 

My advice, do not speak English with your son if you want him to speak and understand Turkish.

Take a couple of weeks where you intentionally speak slower, gesture, repeat, rephrase your Turkish to him just to be sure that he is following you, and then rachet it back up to OPOL or MLaH.

 

I agree with this. If you start speaking in English to him, it will be harder to get him to speak Turkish. We should he, if you switch over? kwim? If something you say goes over his head, then show, gesture, repeat, in Turkish. If you translate in English, then he will not think in Turkish, but in English with Turkish translation. Does that make sense?

 

I had the same thing happen with my second daughter. She went on a language strike at about age 3 and said she did not want to talk in Spanish. However, dad only speaks Spanish, and I told him to play dumb if she spoke to him in English. She got over it. She started asking how to say certain things in Spanish so she could talk to daddy. A few months in a Spanish language preschool helped jumpstart that switch. She's still not as fluent as my oldest was at this age (4), but she is no longer resistant, and will ask for help.

[Brad S]

I'd also like to agree with several posts above and encourage you not to mix in English as long as your child still understands your native language. Your child responding in the language of the country where you're living is very common. When our DS tried that with my DW, right away we made him repeat what he said in DW's native language, Spanish, and after a few times he simply went back to speaking to his mom in Spanish. In our case, DS was young and had always spoken only Spanish with his Mom.

 

By the way, it's been my experience that kids who speak only a second language with one parent are not slowed down in English -- if anything, it's been my experience that they more often are advanced in English than behind. On the other hand, I have seen many cases where a non-native English speaker, with not-perfect-English, speaks to their kids in English; often that kid has been behind in English. It can be hard to unlearn grammatical errors or non-standard pronunciations. (I'm not referring to the original post, but rather a general point.) If there's no other way to learn English, and you're living in a non-English-speaking country, it may be worthwhile to speak English to your kids when they're young. But if they're attending school in English in an English speaking country, you may not be helping them by speaking English at home.

[Brad S]

P.S. My previous post refers to language learning. If you think you need to speak English to preserve your relationship with your child, or your child hasn't developed enough in Turkish to carry on a conversation, then you may want to put the other language to a part-time basis. But usually bilingualism seems to work well IMO.

[Renai]

I'd also like to agree with several posts above and encourage you not to mix in English as long as your child still understands your native language. Your child responding in the language of the country where you're living is very common. When our DS tried that with my DW, right away we made him repeat what he said in DW's native language, Spanish, and after a few times he simply went back to speaking to his mom in Spanish. In our case, DS was young and had always spoken only Spanish with his Mom.

 

By the way, it's been my experience that kids who speak only a second language with one parent are not slowed down in English -- if anything, it's been my experience that they more often are advanced in English than behind. On the other hand, I have seen many cases where a non-native English speaker, with not-perfect-English, speaks to their kids in English; often that kid has been behind in English. It can be hard to unlearn grammatical errors or non-standard pronunciations. (I'm not referring to the original post, but rather a general point.) If there's no other way to learn English, and you're living in a non-English-speaking country, it may be worthwhile to speak English to your kids when they're young. But if they're attending school in English in an English speaking country, you may not be helping them by speaking English at home.

 

There is research out there to back this up as well. When we first started out, my Spanish was not good, and dh's English wasn't good. I told him I didn't want my oldest to learn my Spanish or his English, so we stuck to our own languages for a while!

[JDoe]

 

Do you have any suggestions or anyone been in a similar situation? What shall I do? I don't want him to forget everything and not be able to speak Turkish.

 

Cheers

 

The ideal "solution" is immersion in the language, but if you can bring him into situations locally where the language is used with others (especially peers) that might be helpful, so may movies, radio (internetbased), etc.

 

In any case, keep using your language even if responses come back in English.

[composr]

I will wholeheartedly offer the same encouragement as many others have: keep speaking in Turkish! Feel encouraged with the understanding you see, and do not be discouraged by the preference for the majority language. It is, after all, the majority.

 

However, here are some ideas to help encourage/improve engagement on the production side:

 

1. Set aside special time in a minority language. Designating this hour, or that hour as "Turkish time!" can help encourage production when they otherwise have no motivation. Make it fun, and game-like. You can pretend to momentarily not understand their responses in the majority language, perhaps responding with a "Oops! I don't understand English right now!", accompanied by a silly voice, face, gesture, etc., to turn it into a kind of inside joke. Better if you have the buy-in and cooperation of the other parent, so they can deflect questions or clarification to you, preventing the ability to have an "out" or fallback.
2. Do special activities in the minority language. Going for a walk, reading a book together, watching something and discussing it, going to the mall, a theme park, etc. Picking a special activity that you will go out and do in the minority language. Again, this can be very game-like or play-like for them, so it can be seen as an adventure, not a chore.
3. Play classic games in the minority language. Games like tag, red rover and others are common in many cultures and have their analogues. Simon says and similar games offer fantastic opportunities for task-based learning (they have to actually do something in response to a prompt in the language). For more sophisticated options, card games, board games, etc. in the minority language improve engagement.
4. Social activities and trips in the minority language. This has the best overall net effect, but is  the most difficult, because it depends entirely on the community around you. If you have any population of speakers of the minority language around you, find get-togethers, events and other social venues to engage and interact in. Providing meaningful interaction in the language, especially for activities that are everday ("mundane"), fosters a normalcy for the language and helps alleviate the negative sense of "otherness".

 

Those are just some brief ideas. But really, it seems like you've  done a fantastic job with the passive part of the immersion experience - and that's incredibly important! Making sure you get the other side of the coin - active immersion - through spontaneous production (and sometimes by modelling and response when they lack confidence) will help bridge the gap between listening and speaking.

 

You want to encourage them to love the language you're giving to them, but ultimately they'll decide how much they do/don't like it. Even so, you have the ability to give them a minimal amount of engagement so they can maintain proficiency.

 

Good luck and keep up the good work!