Cross-post: Physically organizing multiple languages in the home?

[bakpak]

Sorry for the cross-post, but it wasn't getting read on the Bilingual Board

 

I'm looking for ideas for what works best in your homes. I work with my DD (3) on 3 languages, English, Spanish, and French (in that order, with French minimally lately). I had been just mixing all the books up on her shelves so that she wouldn't treat them any differently. However, given that we have 20x as many books in English compared to Spanish and not many French books at all, I think I should do something to highlight the 2nd languages more. She probably asks me to read at least 1 book in Spanish a day, a book in French maybe once a week, and we read tons in English (I mean at her discretion - I can obviously choose more of any language in addition to those). I've noticed that the difference in # of books for each language is NOT helping me to remember to do enough Spanish & French throughout the day.

 

My thought for keeping everything mixed is that I want her to think of them equally (in as much as that is possible given our household is truly fluent only in English), and that reading in Spanish or French is not a special occasion event. I want her to flow between languages naturally.

 

She's beginning to read more in English too, and possibly that's why we've been focusing more on English lately as it's an exciting time and I'm trying to encourage her interest. She can sound out some Spanish words too, but we've been too busy with the holidays to keep that up.

 

I also have primers/games in Spanish/French as well, and was thinking about organizing them to be more accessible to her all the time, but should there be a 'Spanish corner'? I'm hesitant to do that...

 

So did you parents doing bilingual education find it most useful to mix it all up around the house, or did you treat the different languages as 'subjects'? Or a combination, where it's all mixed up around the house, but you set specific times for different languages? So far I've been pretty haphazard about speaking non-English with her, but would like to do a better job of focusing on that in the early mornings.

 

Also, she's in a Montessori preschool, and I tend to organize like that at home as much as possible (open shelves, organized a bit by subject). But with books, we have bookcases in every room except the bathroom (now there's an idea.... :hat: )...

 

Thanks for sharing!

[HejKatt]

We've done language days - when I'm with the dc (I work part-time), I try to speak Mandarin with them. The other days, the nanny speaks English.

 

I've heard someone post about language 'areas', e.g. German in the kitchen, French in the living room.

 

I think that time is the main constraint - the language of instruction will be eventually be the dominant language, though it doesn't mean that the other languages necessarily are weak. I would be happy to hear other people's experiences to the contrary!

 

ETA - Perhaps you can articulate some goals? For example, to reach a stage where they can read middle school texts, and learn by themselves in the future..

[anabelneri]

I've read somewhere that it takes something like 20hrs/week of immersion for a child to become fluent in a language. The actual stat was a percentage of their time, but for a kid who sleeps ~11-12hrs/day, it came out to about 20hrs/week. I wish I had bookmarked that, it seems so helpful.

 

Anyway, we've got our French books separated from our Japanese books, separated from the English books. I try to make sure that some French books are always on display somewhere (neither dh nor I read in Japanese so they aren't displayed the same way). Neither dh nor I are fluent in either target language, but we try to throw in French when we can throughout the day, we listen to French & Japanese music in the car, and then the kids also have their language time during "school". For a while all movies were French-only also; dd loved that she could finally watch the Disney princess movies (I'm usually strict about those), and would watch them even though they were in French. If I were fluent I would probably try to do 1 or 2 days/week in the target language, and really focus on that. I would also have a doll or stuffed animal (or multiple) that only "speaks" the target language, and then make a point of pulling them out to play with. I like your idea of mornings doing a particular language; we used to do French dinners, and that was good for a while, but it's fallen by the wayside.

 

Good luck!

:)

[bakpak]

Thanks for the comments. We definitely scatter foreign language throughout the day and listen to lots of French and Spanish music. The only TV she gets is in Spanish or French although that's really limited. That's a cute idea about the doll/stuffed animal only speaking one language! Just hearing the name of my friend's cat (Marceau) when I'm visiting them always makes me whip out some French, which inevitably enchants my daughter.

 

So I'm thinking I need to be a little more organized on my end so that I have ready access to the other language books (or even just a list to remind myself of what we have), and not worry too much about her uneven access given her age right now. Once she starts reading more fluently we can see what other structure works better.

 

I'd love to hear ideas from other folks as well!

[Sahamamama]

I've read somewhere that it takes something like 20hrs/week of immersion for a child to become fluent in a language. The actual stat was a percentage of their time, but for a kid who sleeps ~11-12hrs/day, it came out to about 20hrs/week. I wish I had bookmarked that, it seems so helpful.

 

Anyway, we've got our French books separated from our Japanese books, separated from the English books. I try to make sure that some French books are always on display somewhere (neither dh nor I read in Japanese so they aren't displayed the same way). Neither dh nor I are fluent in either target language, but we try to throw in French when we can throughout the day, we listen to French & Japanese music in the car, and then the kids also have their language time during "school". For a while all movies were French-only also; dd loved that she could finally watch the Disney princess movies (I'm usually strict about those), and would watch them even though they were in French. If I were fluent I would probably try to do 1 or 2 days/week in the target language, and really focus on that. I would also have a doll or stuffed animal (or multiple) that only "speaks" the target language, and then make a point of pulling them out to play with. I like your idea of mornings doing a particular language; we used to do French dinners, and that was good for a while, but it's fallen by the wayside.

 

Good luck!

:)

 

This isn't it, but it's interesting.

 

http://drsaraheaton.wordpress.com/2011/02/20/how-long-does-it-take-to-learn-a-new-language/

[regentrude]

We are bilingual, but keeping the two languages (English/German) equally balanced turned out to be an illusion. Despite us parents talking only German at home, reading in German, having dozens of German audiobooks and spending a month in Germany each year, our kids quickly developed a strong preference for English.

Consequently, even if we were mixing books, no way we could trick the kids into feeling the languages are equal. French as a foreign language is a distant third. We have grouped each kid's German books together on one/two shelves in their respective rooms; mine are grouped together on my bookshelves as well. The French books are also grouped together.

 

If you are expecting your kid to "flow between languages naturally", you would need to devote many hours daily to each of the languages and speak them fluently.

[bakpak]

Yes, my expectations are a bit high in terms of 'flowing between languages naturally', but it's a process, she's young (only 3), I'm always learning more, and who knows what other language opportunities she'll have in the future outside of my abilities to teach her. I know English will likely always be her dominant language, but I was hoping to set a good standard that the "foreign" languages aren't an abstract concept/game. It's like only doing math when you pull out the workbook. I think all subjects (math, science, history, reading, etc) should flow throughout the day whenever an opportunity presents itself, in addition to more focused study.

 

Thanks for the extra ideas!

[bakpak]

This isn't it, but it's interesting.

 

http://drsaraheaton....a-new-language/

 

 

Very nice read! It puts my own learning experience into a very nice perspective, as well as how much language-time I offer my child.

[cmarango]

I schedule school work for my dd every day in both languages (english and spanish). Most of the work is in english, but she has work to do in spanish as well. This is the only thing that has kept her from dropping spanish...and visiting Colombia a couple times every year for about a month each. If you don't do immersion for a good chunk of the day in your other languages then I am afraid english will become dominant.

 

We also added in some latin this year as well and that has been super easy for her. I think I may also add in some french too since we are going to France in the summer. I want her to be comfortable with ordering food and making small talk with young children.