radiobrain Posted December 23, 2009 Share Posted December 23, 2009 Just wanting to hook up with some other HSers that are teaching Italian. My husband was born in Italy and it is required, even though I am slacking!!! Next time we go to visit the boys MUST be speaking Italian. :) Anyway, I would love a "support group"! I have Rosetta Stone, I also won a copy of "Tell Me More" and I have my husband. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
In The Great White North Posted December 23, 2009 Share Posted December 23, 2009 dd(13) is doing Rosetta Stone Italian. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C_l_e_0..Q_c Posted December 23, 2009 Share Posted December 23, 2009 I have Rosetta Stone, I also won a copy of "Tell Me More" and I have my husband. :D Based on personal observations left and right, Rosetta Stone and "Tell me more" are just plain not enough to reach bilingual status.. Having your husband is the biggest asset, I would say. I know of a family nearby who went through three levels of Rosetta Stone, and the children are not near fluency at all. How old are your kids? Have you looked at OPOL ? (One Language One Parent). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ester Maria Posted December 24, 2009 Share Posted December 24, 2009 How about your husband speaking Italian with them, and supplementing that with some kind of formal study (you can basically use any language and literature Italian textbooks, most of them are very good)? We're native speakers and that's how we do: lots of home talking + Italian media (I find some newspapers articles my daughters would be interested in, we watch the Italian news now and then, etc.; plus they of course watch TV and browse Italian sites) + proper Italian education (studying Italian language and literature by the same textbooks and program they use in the school in Italy where they also take yearly exams) + partially bilingual education (having the entire set of textbooks in Italian they would go through if they went to Italian school, making them go through it and supplementing their English education in sciences, humanities and arts with a lot of Italian materials) + frequent visits and prolonged stays in Italy (cca 3 months in total per year, including basically the entire summer break). My girls are COMPLETELY bilingual and their Italian cannot be distinguished from any Italian child, regardless of the fact whether it's formal, academic language or youth slang. But we've consciously raised them that way, if you're starting only now when your kids are 9 and 11, it's going to be much harder. The best thing you can do is immersion, get Italian music and films, tell your husband to speak exclusively Italian to them, and get them to read little by little. Also, HE should be teaching them if possible (grammar etc.), if he's the only native speaker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radiobrain Posted December 24, 2009 Author Share Posted December 24, 2009 Based on personal observations left and right, Rosetta Stone and "Tell me more" are just plain not enough to reach bilingual status.. Having your husband is the biggest asset, I would say. I know of a family nearby who went through three levels of Rosetta Stone, and the children are not near fluency at all. How old are your kids? Have you looked at OPOL ? (One Language One Parent). my kids are 9 & 11... my MIL lived with us for 9 years, and she and my husband spoke their familiar dialect (quite shortened and americanized, ugh) to each other all the time, but I was totally unable to get them to speak Italian to the kids. It drove me crazy. I would specifically ask my MIL to at least speak to them in Italian with numbers or whatever, instead of English... as her accent was then NOT ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION so please, let ME teach English.... but no. She just wouldn't do it. When we went to Italy in 2007 the family was horrified that the boys didn't speak Italian, my MIL had just died, so I couldn't say... um, it was HER fault and decision. Anyway, I am venting. It has been 2 years and I am still bitter about an opportunity lost. I suppose I should be grateful, as what my husband and his mother spoke to each other was not the type of Italian you could use out on the street, but... One good thing is that as my husband's family is from Tuscany which is the area closest to "classic Italian" Anyway, I hope to get them to a certain point with the 2 programs, then get the boys to hang out with some of the Italians in town, maybe join the conversational Italian classes offered in town (super expensive) and we will at one point send them off to Italy (hopefully we will go together) for some longer period of time. We have tons of Topolino books and I have been trying to get Italian History elementary textbooks from Mondadori, so we can have some real Italian history not just Rome, Renaissance. Wow! Sorry to be rambling! Mi dispiace! korin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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