beachmom Posted July 28, 2012 Share Posted July 28, 2012 I have 2 ds, ages 8 and 11, who speak, read, and write German fluently for their ages. Unfortunately, mom and dad don't. Does anyone have suggestions on how I can keep some level of fluency after we move back to the States? I am thinking about getting a tutor once or twice a week, but I don't know yet how that will work out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted July 28, 2012 Share Posted July 28, 2012 (edited) It is very, very hard. We are a German speaking family, DH and I talk only German to the kids, and even so it is difficult to keep up the fluency (the kids prefer to speak English to each other and to us) A few suggestions: 1. audiobooks. We have tons, and when the kids were younger, they listened to German audiobooks in the car all the time. Great for vocabulary. 2. German movies on DVD. 3. Have a good assortment of German children's books and insist on a regular mandatory German reading time. If you do not require it, chances are that the kids will quickly revert to reading English only because they find that easier and can read faster. 4. Correspondence partners. Do they have friends or relatives in Germany with whom they could exchange emails or letters on a regular basis? 5. Contact with other German speaking families. It helps keep the language alive if they have other kids they can talk with. They are usually very interested in finding such opportunities for their children. A tutor might be a good idea to keep the writing going. My kids are fluent orally and in reading, but their writing is not where I would like it to be, and it is because I dropped the ball. If they like worksheets, you could use some fill-in-the-blank spelling workbooks or such. We found remedial spelling books for German school students a good resource. Edited July 28, 2012 by regentrude Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Posted July 29, 2012 Share Posted July 29, 2012 We listen to a wide variety of materials on CDs in German while in the car: novels, science, history, etc. During the school year, I also require my daughter to read out loud to me from a German novel for 15 minutes. We also did a Duden workbook that included some writing exercises. I think this helped a lot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted July 29, 2012 Share Posted July 29, 2012 @OP Another possible idea. They can get people, like "pen pals", to converse with on Skype. It's free, if both people are using Skype, and they can do Audio only or Audio + Video. The quality is usually very good. For Audio only, the quality is outstanding. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beachmom Posted July 29, 2012 Author Share Posted July 29, 2012 I will look into some of these ideas. Thanks for sharing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted July 30, 2012 Share Posted July 30, 2012 See if there's a German Saturday School where you're moving. My dds have all gone to German Sat. School since K, it goes through 11th grade. Most kids have at least one fluent parent, many are expatriates, the teachers are virtually all native- so the level of expectation is very high. I wouldn't say mine are native fluency, but they can all speak/read/write well; if they stay on track they can take the Sprachdiplom - they offer it at B2 and C1 levels, I believe. It's been amazingly inexpensive considering it's 3hrs a week, and having a community of German-speaking kids (since many of the kids are native speakers just here for a few years) has been invaluable. They also have a huge lending library of books/CDs/DVDs, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beachmom Posted July 30, 2012 Author Share Posted July 30, 2012 I have looked into the Saturday school, but it is 45 minutes to an hour away. I don't know how enthusiastic they would be about attending. The meetup group might be a possibility. I will have to look into that some more. I had not thought about the German audio books. I need to look into that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom-ninja. Posted July 30, 2012 Share Posted July 30, 2012 What about watching German TV/cartoons on-line? I can ask DH for some links if you are interested. He seems to find stuff. I don't come across a lot of German speaking people. DH speaks German and at this point the only people he speaks German to are his mom and brother on the phone. He reads in German often. I don't think he will ever forget, but he has spoken German for over 30 years. Oh, I'd love links. Please? I'm always looking for sites. My boys love Tom. My mom grew up in Germany, and moved here when she about 25 years ago. Her German is horrible now. Yes, she can talk to her family, but it's disjointed. She now also only speaks slang German. She could not speak high German to save her life. She actually does not understand me at times when I speak German to her because I insist on speaking only high German. I do not let her speak German to the boys because her German is so poor grammatically. She also cannot read German and understand it anymore. However, she has done nothing to keep up with German for the past 20+ years. My siblings and I grew up only speaking English and had little exposure to German because my mom decided us learning German was not important. I have looked into the Saturday school, but it is 45 minutes to an hour away. Is that all?! I would be thrilled if there was a German school that close to me. The closest to me is over 3 hours one way. :glare: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom-ninja. Posted July 30, 2012 Share Posted July 30, 2012 (edited) Another thought I had was I wonder if you can download Kindle books from Amazon.de. That would be a lot cheaper than having books shipped here. Can you? I haven't tried. I have found German books for Kindle on the US Amazon site. Here's one My ds loves this one. I bought it in English as well. Here's a classic for free There are quite a bit once you find them. Here's a link under German Children's eBooks Edited July 30, 2012 by Kleine Hexe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 I have looked into the Saturday school, but it is 45 minutes to an hour away. I don't know how enthusiastic they would be about attending. The Saturday school my kids have been attending for 9 years is 45 min. or more from my house. Many people come from farther away - I am thrilled it's that close. And it's always been a given that they go. I wouldn't call "enthusiastic" the right word, but over the years they've made friends and it's just become part of what we do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beachmom Posted July 31, 2012 Author Share Posted July 31, 2012 Is that all?! I would be thrilled if there was a German school that close to me. The closest to me is over 3 hours one way. :glare: May be I should be more grateful:001_smile:. My boys are adamant that they don't want to go to school every Saturday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 I won't travel 45 minutes one way every week for a German school. No offense to the German schools, but I don't get the impression it's a solution for serious German study. I think it depends on the school. The one we go to is. It's a big school - about 300 students, and there's 2-3 classrooms per grade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 Anything that is no longer copyrighted is available online for free through Project Gutenberg. You don't have to go through the Kindle store to get those. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rudyionk Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 host a German foreign exchange student each year? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
momof2cm Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 It is very hard when you do not speak the language. Maybe you can try and find a German club in your area. They might organize play groups or co-ops. I know the area where I live (San Francisco Bay area) offers this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4KookieKids Posted January 15, 2013 Share Posted January 15, 2013 It is very, very hard. We are a German speaking family, DH and I talk only German to the kids, and even so it is difficult to keep up the fluency (the kids prefer to speak English to each other and to us) A few suggestions: 1. audiobooks. We have tons, and when the kids were younger, they listened to German audiobooks in the car all the time. Great for vocabulary. Where do you get your audiobooks? I've been looking at audible.de, but wondered if there are other/better alternatives. If they like worksheets, you could use some fill-in-the-blank spelling workbooks or such. We found remedial spelling books for German school students a good resource. This made me think of this website I saw: http://www.grundschulmaterial.de/content/elternmaterial I was wondering if anyone had experience with these materials, either the parent version or the teacher version? It looks like it could be promising, but could also get pretty costly, if you go through a lot of worksheets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcadia Posted January 15, 2013 Share Posted January 15, 2013 See if there's a German Saturday School where you're moving. My dds have all gone to German Sat. School since K, it goes through 11th grade. Most kids have at least one fluent parent, many are expatriates, the teachers are virtually all native- so the level of expectation is very high. I wouldn't say mine are native fluency, but they can all speak/read/write well; if they stay on track they can take the Sprachdiplom - they offer it at B2 and C1 levels, I believe. My boys have improve in leaps and bounds since attending german saturday school last fall. Our is a 20 min drive away for 2.5hrs. It goes from preschool (3 years old) to high school. Their school also offers Deutsches Sprachdiplom and AATG Test (American Association of Teachers of German). My boys just took the AATG level one test. For us, it is also a given that they go and so far they have looked forward to their german class. Besides they like to eat laugenbrezel and laugenbrötchen. ETA: There are plenty of german schools near us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted January 15, 2013 Share Posted January 15, 2013 Where do you get your audiobooks? I've been looking at audible.de, but wondered if there are other/better alternatives. We bought ours whenever we visited Germany and had German visitors bring us some. You could probably order directly from amazon.de Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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