How to Start?

[vivaciousbee]

Hello.

I am new here and have very young children, ages 2 and 4. I am not Bilingual and this might not be the place to ask, but here it is..

 

I really want my children to learn 1, if not 2 languages, fluently. Since they are so young and I myself am not fluent in any other language other than English.. How do I do this? Where do I start?

 

Spanish seems very practical and most likely this will be one of that is taught. (I do know some Spanish, but definitely not fluent)

 

Latin might be taught at some point, but I don't fully see the practicality of teaching it and hate to waste my time teaching something like that when they could learn a modern language that would be so much more useful in the missions field or future employment.

 

Is teaching basic vocabulary enought at this age? Should I seek out a tutor that speaks fluently? Is there a curriculum that would help get us started at such a young age?

 

Thank in advance!

[Queen of Sheba]

I highly recommend "Raising a Bilingual Child." It is written by a linguist and is a great overview of what the research says about bilingualism and what is necessary in order to create an environment where children become bilingual. The writing is accessible to the average parent.

 

It is do-able to have bilingual children, even when neither parent is bilingual. This book gives some helpful hints for those situations. It also discusses children who are fluent in three languages or more.

 

Here is the link from Amazon:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Bilingual-Child-Living-Language/dp/1400023343/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281073063&sr=1-1

[ilikemyhomeschool]

Great book!

[Ester Maria]

The way children "pick up" languages is actually by reconstructing them in their mind. That's why it's crucial that they're spoken to by native or, at least, very proficient speakers and provided with plenty of exposure to other native or very proficient speakers and materials aimed at children for whom language X is a native language - otherwise, they might reconstruct the language incorrectly. And you DO NOT want that, since once the mistakes have fossilized in their brain, it's VERY hard to "relearn" things, especially things learned at such a young age. That's why, especially if you're not a native speaker, it's important to expose kids to those that ARE - because then your child is going to model them as well, and they get to make up for whatever you might have messed up. Still, proficiency in the language is needed, especially if you're going to be your kids' primary source of that language.

 

It's going to boarder the impossible to raise children bilingually in your case - with two equally strong systems and using both of them at the same level, reading level, etc. What's far from impossible is raising children with a second (foreign) language, creating an environment in which they can learn an additional language very well, but without expecting full bilingualism. In any case it's going to be crucial to provide them with native and proficient language role models.

[Tress]

I highly recommend "Raising a Bilingual Child." It is written by a linguist and is a great overview of what the research says about bilingualism and what is necessary in order to create an environment where children become bilingual. The writing is accessible to the average parent.

 

It is do-able to have bilingual children, even when neither parent is bilingual. This book gives some helpful hints for those situations. It also discusses children who are fluent in three languages or more.

 

Here is the link from Amazon:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Bilingual-Child-Living-Language/dp/1400023343/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281073063&sr=1-1

 

There is also one other book "The Bilingual Edge" which will tell you that you can raise a bilingual child even when you as parents do not know more than one language.

 

I bought the book, paid shipping to The Netherlands at $$$, and the secret is.....get a nanny/housekeeper who speaks the language :glare:. Now, did I save you some money, or what :lol:?

 

So unless you can get a nanny/housekeeper/bilingual school it will be very difficult to raise truly bilingual kids. But you can always join the ranks of parents who want their children to become very good at a second language and than we can do :banghead: together on days that nothing works

(as you can tell, I'm not having a good day :glare:).

Edited August 18, 2010 by Tress
typo

[cathmom]

I have the Bilingual Edge too, and I would pretty much agree with your assessment. The book goes on and on about how you can have bilingual children even if you don't speak another language, and then has a study that shows that children whose parents do not speak their native language with them are at a disadvantage. So really the conclusion I came to after reading that book was that I shouldn't speak my non-native German to my children. Sigh.

 

I have to say that I like Nan in Mass's approach better: bad French is better than no French. In my case I change it to: a little German is better than no German...

 

For the OP, I would suggest choosing ONE language and beginning to learn it yourself, and then implementing it with your children at certain times each day. Or, if you can afford it, get a foreign nanny! :lol:

[Ester Maria]

So unless you can get a nanny/housekeeper/bilingual school it will be very difficult to raise truly bilingual kids.

But of course, if we're talking about a true, balanced bilingualism. In order to raise kids the way that they don't prefer any of the two systems due to the lack of knowledge (they can prefer one of the two for "aesthetic" reasons :D, but NOT because their knowledge of the other one is significantly poorer!), they have to be spoken to and interacted with in both systems from a young age, they have to be educated, read to and then they have to read on their own in both systems on the SAME reading level (reading levels should increase at approx. the same time in both languages and at all times pretty much correspond), consume media in both systems, interact with other native or very proficient speakers of both systems - and all of that on a more or less DAILY basis.

 

There are even numerical "estimates" of this - a bilingual should spend on average 1/3 of the time they spend awake daily in each of their languages, in order for the balanced ("true")bilingualism to be developed. They should use both systems A LOT, and both of them with competent speakers. Not that it's an exact science we're talking about here, but if you take these estimates with a grain of salt, you do notice they do hit the point.

 

So I'm not surprised at all by the idea that foreign nannies or bilingual schools are amongst very rare ways to get your kids there if you yourself don't speak the other language, or don't speak it well. There is no magical recipe if the household itself and/or the outern society is not bilingual, I'm afraid - the vast majority of kids have to learn languages from the foreign language perspective and then when they're older seek out ways to implement those languages in their daily lives and thus, maybe, arrive to bilingualism one day. It's perfectly doable, though.

So really the conclusion I came to after reading that book was that I shouldn't speak my non-native German to my children. Sigh.

You know, I'm not so sure about this. You may not be a native speaker, but you're a very proficient speaker nonetheless. If you surround your kids with other native language models - such as cartoons, films, books written by native speakers for native speakers, etc. - those are going to "fix" whatever you might have "messed up".

 

I also speak English to my children from time to time (and I believe pretty much any native speaker can deduce from a small collection of my posts that I'm probably not a native speaker, even though I obviously speak the language at a relatively high level), in spite of not being a native speaker, but I don't think I'm "ruining" them - since they have plenty of other native speakers around them whom they can immitate and from the interaction with whom they can learn. It's been a long time since we've hit the point at which they correct me, not vice versa, actually. :D

And even if we, God willing, move out of the States back to Italy somewhere in the next 5 years, we probably will raise the baby with some English as well - only making sure she hears OTHER English, plenty of other, native English, in addition to how we speak.

 

That way you prevent the child from reconstructing the language incorrectly - it's NOT crucial that they're being spoken to only by native speakers, but they have to have exposure to native speakers in addition to proficient non-native speakers at home. You shouldn't be the ONLY source of your kids' German, but there's perfectly nothing wrong with speaking German to them if you're a very competent speaker and can make sure they have other sources of German in their life as well.

I have to say that I like Nan in Mass's approach better: bad French is better than no French.

See, this one I'm not sure I agree with. I guess it depeneds on what Nan originally meant - if "bad French" is being supplemented with lots of native materials and if kids growing up in a "bad French home" have exposure to kids and person that grew up in "good French homes", then I agree with her, but if she's pretty much the only source of the kids' French, the only one that talks to them on a regular basis, etc. - not so sure. They will pick up tons of subtle and not-so-subtle mistakes which will solidify over the years - and very often it's harder to "relearn properly" something you had once learned poorly than to just learn from the beginning a new material.

 

Personally, some years ago, I held a few dozen classes for two older teenage girls, sisters, with "poor Italian", and I ended up taking a beginner textbook with them - but I mean totally beginner textbook, starting at the sounds and letters, and went with them through things they thought they knew, but didn't really know. Even if what they spoke sounded Italian to their parents, to me it definitely didn't sound Italian (and nope, not talking dialects here - I'm talking your regular standard Italian, even neo-standard if you wish). They couldn't make some crucial phonological distinctions at least in the words where it's crucial and weren't even taught to discrimanate certain phonemes (this is a lot bigger problem in French though), and they had a whole set of fossilized mistakes in speech, misuse of idioms, etc. After that experience, I definitely started to rethink the whole option of teaching your children and being their main source of knowledge for the language you don't actually speak.

[cathmom]

Ester Maria, here's an excerpt from my review of the book:

 

Chapter 6 is particularly relevant for my situation. "Children who hear more language and more complex language in everyday interactions tend to produce more language themselves" and "Children learn their first, second, and third languages best by being exposed to rich, dynamic, engaging interaction in each of those languages. The best way to get your children talking is to surround them with language." This is definitely something I need to work on. I started actively memorizing more of those Fingerspiele and the twins love them! Kendall and Mackey also reminded me that "it’s less important for your child to hear, for instance, perfect Korean than it is to have some early and meaningful exposure to Korean."

 

and then -

 

Now, here comes the part of the book that is confusing to me. While discussing minority language at home families (for example, a Russian couple who move to the US and want to continue Russian at home), they present a study that links home language use and academic performance. The researcher studied 3 kinds of families: English speaking families who only spoke English at home, minority language families who regularly used the minority language, and minority language families where the adults spoke English. Scores from groups 1 and 2 were similar, but "children whose parents spoke their non-native language, English, at home (group 3) fared considerably worse. As an explanation, [the researcher] suggests that the parents’ ‘use of their native language was beneficial because it provided rich, complex language input for the children.’"

If earlier in the book they were saying that language input need not be perfect, and then now they are saying that children do better when parents speak their native language, which is it? Is it just that the parent must make sure to provide good input? Or are they really saying that parents shouldn’t speak a non-native language to their children?

 

That really confused me, and maybe I should contact the authors to clarify.

 

Our story is that I began working actively on my German again in the spring of 2007. I decided to have a German time each day with my little ones, then 3 1/2 years old and 1 1/2 year old twins. That morphed into me speaking German to them all the time. My twins already were speech-delayed, but I didn't let that stop me. The following summer, I was very pregnant with my 7th child, my 3 younger boys all still were seriously speech-delayed, my oldest was leaving for college, and I was T.I.R.E.D. I wanted to just speak naturally, in English, without having to think about it. I was worried about their speech. And I had no native speaker input. We had belonged to a group, but the communication issues of this group (ie - a meeting to discuss goals was advertised, I drove 35-40 minutes to get there and there was no one there, my membership forms were not processed, I never got emails about anything, etc) forced me to give up.

 

I thought I would start again when the baby was born a few weeks later. I planned to speak German with him from day one. But when he was born, I just couldn't. I didn't want to, and I was overwhelmed just by daily life in general. Truthfully, I could barely speak English properly!

 

So, it's been 2 years since I stopped trying to speak only non-native German. I wish I could have stuck with it but I think I had too much going on and not enough (ie, ANY) practical support. I still do some German with the little ones sporadically, and I hope to work it back in, but not all the time.

 

Maybe I should have started my own thread here. Sorry, OP!

[cathmom]

 

Personally, some years ago, I held a few dozen classes for two older teenage girls, sisters, with "poor Italian", and I ended up taking a beginner textbook with them - but I mean totally beginner textbook, starting at the sounds and letters, and went with them through things they thought they knew, but didn't really know. Even if what they spoke sounded Italian to their parents, to me it definitely didn't sound Italian (and nope, not talking dialects here - I'm talking your regular standard Italian, even neo-standard if you wish). They couldn't make some crucial phonological distinctions at least in the words where it's crucial and weren't even taught to discrimanate certain phonemes (this is a lot bigger problem in French though), and they had a whole set of fossilized mistakes in speech, misuse of idioms, etc. After that experience, I definitely started to rethink the whole option of teaching your children and being their main source of knowledge for the language you don't actually speak.

 

What was the situation with these girls?

[Tress]

See, this one I'm not sure I agree with. I guess it depends on what Nan originally meant - if "bad French" is being supplemented with lots of native materials and if kids growing up in a "bad French home" have exposure to kids and person that grew up in "good French homes", then I agree with her, but if she's pretty much the only source of the kids' French, the only one that talks to them on a regular basis, etc. - not so sure. They will pick up tons of subtle and not-so-subtle mistakes which will solidify over the years - and very often it's harder to "relearn properly" something you had once learned poorly than to just learn from the beginning a new material.

 

Personally, some years ago, I held a few dozen classes for two older teenage girls, sisters, with "poor Italian", and I ended up taking a beginner textbook with them - but I mean totally beginner textbook, starting at the sounds and letters, and went with them through things they thought they knew, but didn't really know. Even if what they spoke sounded Italian to their parents, to me it definitely didn't sound Italian (and nope, not talking dialects here - I'm talking your regular standard Italian, even neo-standard if you wish). They couldn't make some crucial phonological distinctions at least in the words where it's crucial and weren't even taught to discriminate certain phonemes (this is a lot bigger problem in French though), and they had a whole set of fossilized mistakes in speech, misuse of idioms, etc. After that experience, I definitely started to rethink the whole option of teaching your children and being their main source of knowledge for the language you don't actually speak.

 

The schools here start teaching English at 10yo, with *non* native teachers for maybe 1 hour a week.....well, I'm pretty certain I can do better than that :lol:, but....what you wrote above....that is exactly why I'm so very nervous about teaching my children English. I will be their only source of English and my English just isn't very good. My written English is *way* better than my spoken English, sigh, and my written English obviously isn't that good :001_huh:. I also cannot find good materials, so I'm using some hotchpotch. My daughter refuses to speak English (she is wiling to sing some songs) and this week she threw a fit every day because I wanted her to write the 4-5 sentences from her Rod&Staff English2. There are days that I'm ready to quit and just wait until she is 12yo and I can use a standard 7grade curriculum with her (and hire a tutor, which is not a possibility now).

 

Can we talk about how to decide if teaching a foreign language at a young age is worthwhile and when it is not? BTW, there is no doubt that my children will HAVE to learn English, but I'm just really doubting my efforts at this moment.

[cathmom]

The schools here start teaching English at 10yo, with *non* native teachers for maybe 1 hour a week.....well, I'm pretty certain I can do better than that :lol:, but....what you wrote above....that is exactly why I'm so very nervous about teaching my children English. I will be their only source of English and my English just isn't very good. My written English is *way* better than my spoken English, sigh, and my written English obviously isn't that good :001_huh:. I also cannot find good materials, so I'm using some hotchpotch. My daughter refuses to speak English (she is wiling to sing some songs) and this week she threw a fit every day because I wanted her to write the 4-5 sentences from her Rod&Staff English2. There are days that I'm ready to quit and just wait until she is 12yo and I can use a standard 7grade curriculum with her (and hire a tutor, which is not a possibility now).

 

Can we talk about how to decide if teaching a foreign language at a young age is worthwhile and when it is not? BTW, there is no doubt that my children will HAVE to learn English, but I'm just really doubting my efforts at this moment.

 

What do you mean your written English obviously isn't that good? I had no idea it wasn't your native language!

 

I think there are very few situations where teaching a child a language is not good - I'm hard pressed to think of any.

[OlgaLA]

 

If earlier in the book they were saying that language input need not be perfect, and then now they are saying that children do better when parents speak their native language, which is it? Is it just that the parent must make sure to provide good input? Or are they really saying that parents shouldn’t speak a non-native language to their children?

 

That really confused me, and maybe I should contact the authors to clarify.

 

 

I think I know what they mean. When I first moved to the US I met several other immigrants who moved here as children. Their English was marginally better than mine, and their Russian stayed on the child level plus they acquired some accent, too. So what I saw were rather intelligent people (I met them in my graduate school) who spoke two languages but were not fully literate in either one. It truly is scary, and it greatly affected me. So we speak Russian only at home, and my daughter goes to public school to balance it. Unfortunately, the scale is now tipped in favor of English, so I am working hard to bring her Russian to the same level. We are almost there, bit not quite.

 

Anyway, the point is that the kids have to converse in a language on a high level, at least in one language. Often, when you speak in a language you are not quite fluent in, you will pick simpler words and use simpler constructions. It is fine if they hear one language simplified, as long as there is another place or another language where they get input on a good level. Otherwise they just don't learn to think in more complex language. At least, this is how I see it.

[Tress]

What do you mean your written English obviously isn't that good? I had no idea it wasn't your native language!

 

Thank you! This really brightens my day :).

 

For now I have been working with idea that I will mostly work on *reading* and *writing* English with my children, and that they will have to work on their spoken English when they are older (high school tutor, summer camps abroad etc), but honestly I have no idea if this is realistic at all. Ester Maria, or anyone elso, do not hesitate to tell me I'm an idiot :D, I would rather hear that now than spend lots of effort on something not worthwhile.

 

I think there are very few situations where teaching a child a language is not good - I'm hard pressed to think of any.

My fear is that I will spend an hour (or more) a day the next few years and will end up with children who speak 'bad English' (we call it 'NederEnglish') and who have to unlearn so many mistakes that they would be better off if I had done nothing and they had started studying English at high school.

 

This English thing is driving my insane :banghead:. I'm surrounded by (radical) unschoolers who assure me that playing Starfall will be everything my child need to learn English....and public school parents who proudly tell me that 'their 5yo is learning English and has learned one whole song last year'. Either I'm just too stupid to make this work, or everyone around me is crazy :lol:.

[Ester Maria]

What was the situation with these girls?

Dad ethnically Italian, but grew up in one of those old immigrant families where not much of the language remained - an expression or two mixed with English, but he definitely did not grow up speaking Italian or acquiring Italian literacy, and neither did his parents. He learned Italian as a foreign language in college and beyond, had a few shorter stays in Italy, is passionate about Italian culture - but in English.

Mom has no ties with Italy whatsoever, but she studied Italian as a foreign language and is also passionate about it.

 

They both speak some sort of "upper intermediate" Italian. They can do well with all common tenses, they can even use some subjunctives correctly, but they don't know big chunks of the advanced grammar (e.g. passives, or even cues on when to use subjunctives and when not). Their accents and intonations are fairly good for Americans, but definitely not native-like. I suspect that they could, with much effort, read a short popular crime novel in Italian and even then they would come across unknown vocabulary and constructions.

 

So, they decided that, since they love Italy and all things Italian so much, they would have bilingual kids. They mixed methods, had periods of speaking both languages with the kids, periods of speaking only broken Italian, and after that they spoke it only in the evenings, and they even tried to make their kids fairly literate (taught them to read and write using some simple children materials). They didn't make any serious attempts to connect their kids with proficient and native Italian speakers, only with a small sample of semi-literate and semi-proficient heritage speakers.

 

So the result is that I get a 15 y.o. and a 17 y.o. in my home for a lesson in "native Italian", BUT who are pronouncing Ho 15/17 anni as if it were Ho 15/17 ani (the difference between years and anuses is a pretty big one), who don't differentiate even minimally open and closed Es and Os (there are lots of regions that don't do it fully, but pretty much any Italian can do it when they speak standard), who are transferring English articles usage to Italian (A cat is an animal that... - nope, in Italian is il gatto e' un animale che... first definite, then indefinite), who cannot figure out why I'm writing un'amica, but un amico (without an apostrophe! - and they used to write it often with an apostrophe, since nobody thoroughly explained to them when do you use that), who don't differentiate between elisions and apocopes, make way too many spelling mistakes in basic words for it to be an accident (diciassette has a double T AND a double S), that don't get the difference between il libro va letto and il libro viene letto, and don't even get that those are two different verbs here, who don't know which participles go with essere and which with avere (I had a whole mess to fix there, since they obviously didn't get there's a rule about it, and when a verb can go with both, that meaning sometimes changes A LOT), who are transferring the morphology of adjectives onto participles (la lingua parlatissima? :confused: my God...), who are saying quando si e' contento rather than quando si e' contenti (they totally don't get that way of phrasing things "neutrally" and anglicize it), and don't even get me started on NOT respecting the accord of participles and direct objects. And none of what I'm saying now are high level ultra-correct Italian stuff, but perfectly normal things that they should have known by then.

 

They weren't bilingual AT ALL. At best, they knew a very decent informal Italian, but their actual Italian was far from correct and grammatical. You could send them to Italy and they could definitely get by for a few weeks, be able to talk to people about weather and food :D, etc... But you couldn't send them to an Italian school because they would fail years immediately, especially in the very subject of Italian. And they were supposedly "bilingual" - with two native languages, or at least one native and one very proficient one. Their Italian was, maybe, conversationally fluent, but NOT proficient or accurate. You could understand them with no problems and interact with them, but they weren't speaking correctly. For an informal communication it doesn't matter as much but they couldn't function in nearly all linguistic contexts in which native Italian kids their age could.

 

So I had to go back to the basics and give them a crash course in grammar, spelling, certain issues regarding pronunciation, etc. When I gave them a bit more complicated sentences, with a subordinate clause or two, they often couldn't tell me who does what (i.e. what's the subject, object, predicate, etc.) and didn't understand why the sentences were put that way.

 

Simply put, their parents transferred all of their mistakes onto the kids, and they had no other source of language other than those parents. Years and years of speaking semi-correct Italian made those mistakes solidify and when encountering correct things, they often couldn't adjust to it so easily.

 

I told their parents then that two hours weekly with me isn't going to make them proficient speakers and that they have to send them to Italy for a few months in an Italian home and immersion combined with formal and explicit study of the language as if it were totally foreign, and that only that is going to cure the situation. Not sure what happened with the younger kid since meanwhile we lost contact (they moved), but the older one spent a whole summer in Italy when she turned 18, before college (DH and I arragned something for her, we knew a family that could use some household help with occasional babysitting in turn for a bed, board and language instruction). She came back speaking significantly improved Italian, and she explicitly told me that before that experience she had been totally unaware of how many things she had learned incorrectly by her parents - she literally had to relearn huge chunks of the language, consciously work on pronunciation and sentence construction, etc.

:rant:

 

I know, it might be only an extreme example, and today there's internet and a lot more resources so the danger of doing that to your kid is not as great since it's easier to make sure your child hears "proper Italian". But still, I don't think it's a great idea to be taught a language as a native one by non-native and/or non-proficient speakers. Even as a foreign one - but especially not as a native one, at a young age, and grow up with such semi-language.

 

Of course, for pretty much any non-native speaker who either lived a great deal abroad, was educated in the second language, majored in it or otherwise received high competence in it, it's a totally different situation, but what I encountered were two amateurs who tried to raise the kids speaking Italian and, honestly, did better job at "messing them up" than at making them bilingual, since their own Italian wasn't on a very high level.

[Ester Maria]

For now I have been working with idea that I will mostly work on *reading* and *writing* English with my children, and that they will have to work on their spoken English when they are older (high school tutor, summer camps abroad etc), but honestly I have no idea if this is realistic at all. Ester Maria, or anyone elso, do not hesitate to tell me I'm an idiot :D, I would rather hear that now than spend lots of effort on something not worthwhile.

I believe we're talking about two different issues here.

I'm not talking about teaching your child a second foreign language - I'm talking about an attempt to raise truly bilingual children, who can function with both systems equally well. That's different than "just" speaking another language.

 

There isn't much damage in teaching your child a foreign language, even if daily, if it's clear to everyone that it's a foreign language we're consciously learning. There MIGHT be damage in speaking half of every day with your children the language that you yourself don't speak very well, and can't provide them with additional sources. Attempting to communicate ALL of the things in a language that you don't feel fully free with, and, even more so, attempting to create a meaningful emotional relationship with your child in such a situation might not be the best idea.

 

But, from what I see, that's not at all what you're doing. One, your English, from the little I see it on these boards, might even be good enough to raise native speakers if you wanted to do that, and is certainly good enough to provide an ESL instruction for your kids; and two, they obviously have Dutch as their first and stable system, which is very important. The only thing you must be careful with are subtleties and accent/intonation - and that's being solved by exposing your children to a lot of materials aimed at native speakers and, if possible, by making them meet native (or at least other very proficient) English speakers. If not, English films that aren't subtitled and such things - it's important that they get used to real-time fast speech, if not real than broadcast. Subtleties are being addressed by the formal education (and you seem to have started them with that already) and reading. Your oldest might not show great interest in it NOW, but things will probably change. Once she discovers mass media, if not before ;), and realizes that she WANTS to learn it to communicate with the world.

 

I don't think *you* have much to worry about, actually. :)

Kids often refuse languages, even native ones, let alone foreign ones. Have you tried taking a break and then trying again? Or talking to your daughter on why exactly she dislikes English?

Is there ANY way you might introduce her to anglophone children - international schools, for example, where you might contact those parents and see if they organize something, playdates or something of the kind? That would really help, kids learn rapidly with "peer pressure" from other kids and like to immitate them.

My fear is that I will spend an hour (or more) a day the next few years and will end up with children who speak 'bad English' (we call it 'NederEnglish') and who have to unlearn so many mistakes that they would be better off if I had done nothing and they had started studying English at high school.

But what mistakes - if we're not talking generally, but about your concrete situation?

 

At worst, they'll end up with a non-native accent (big deal! - and if they'll really want to get rid of it as adults, it's still possible!) and with less concrete knowledge than YOU aimed for. But the concrete knowledge that they WILL have will probably be 99%+ correct. You won't teach them "You is" or spelling like "wassup, Inglish rulez" :lol:. They won't be speaking like Borat. You cannot POSSIBLY mess them up a lot, especially if they'll have to learn English anyway on the long run - you know English too darn well to mess them up. They can only fail with regards to *your* expectations, but chances are, the little they learn will be grammatically correct and accurate.

 

If they grow up with media in English, and especially if you can afford later to send them to summer camps abroad or something of the kind, they'll have plenty of time to improve and to self-correct.

 

(P.S. I haven't forgotten. Just so you know. :blush: As soon as a certain individual allows me to fully own my body again, I'll finish it - got stuck at 3rd grade for now - and send it. I would have asked kids to help, but they went abroad and who knows where all the stuff ARE even, LOL.)

[Tress]

Sorry for my late response, I wasn't feeling well the last few days.

 

I believe we're talking about two different issues here.

I'm not talking about teaching your child a second foreign language - I'm talking about an attempt to raise truly bilingual children, who can function with both systems equally well. That's different than "just" speaking another language.

 

You are right. I know that I do not really belong on the bilingual forum, but I like to read here because the goals of bilingual families are more in line with my goals than the usual 'I'm teaching my child several foreign languages in 20minutes a week' posts ;).

 

The situation you describe with the family who wanted their children to be bilingual in Italian-English...shudder...what a sad, sad situation! So much good intentions, but the results were :001_huh:.

 

At worst, they'll end up with a non-native accent (big deal! - and if they'll really want to get rid of it as adults, it's still possible!) and with less concrete knowledge than YOU aimed for. But the concrete knowledge that they WILL have will probably be 99%+ correct. You won't teach them "You is" or spelling like "wassup, Inglish rulez" :lol:. They won't be speaking like Borat. You cannot POSSIBLY mess them up a lot, especially if they'll have to learn English anyway on the long run - you know English too darn well to mess them up. They can only fail with regards to *your* expectations, but chances are, the little they learn will be grammatically correct and accurate.

You are right that I will not teach them 'you is' and I will teach them how to spell :). I'm laughing at you mentioning Borat. Yes, I can do better than that!

 

Still, I'm certain that my written English will often sound a bit 'off' in the ears of English native speakers and I'm afraid of getting that ingrained in my children's English. Oh, well, I will just have to do what I can and hope that any mistakes can get straightened out at later time. Homeschooling English has always made me nervous and now I'm ill I tend to get even more nervous.

 

(P.S. I haven't forgotten. Just so you know. :blush: As soon as a certain individual allows me to fully own my body again, I'll finish it - got stuck at 3rd grade for now - and send it. I would have asked kids to help, but they went abroad and who knows where all the stuff ARE even, LOL.)

That's all right, no rush. I'm having the same kind of 'occupant' who is messing up my body (I'm sitting here with a bucket next to me :crying:, only 19 more weeks to go).

[cathmom]

 

 

You are right. I know that I do not really belong on the bilingual forum, but I like to read here because the goals of bilingual families are more in line with my goals than the usual 'I'm teaching my child several foreign languages in 20minutes a week' posts ;).

 

 

 

 

 

Me too! Hope you feel better soon!