Teaching in both languages ?

[lulalu]

Wondering how others do it-

Ds is in K. We have our morning time with the date, weather etc. We do this in both languages.

 

Do you all do as much as you can in both languages or just certain subjects in each language.

 

My son is in a PE class and I realized all the specific sport language he was learning I had no clue what they were! So when I was talking about the racket he had no clue what I was saying. Lol. Which got me to thinking about subject specific vocabulary.

 

Just trying to think through how much should be bilingual teaching or just delegate a subject to cettain language.

 

We will be adding in another language we are both learning later this year. When learning a language should I just give specific time to learning it? Or integrate it into all our other learning?

Edited September 30, 2016 by lolo

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

I'm not sure what your family situation is, so my advice might not apply.  We are one-parent-one-language.  I am a native English speaker, but am fluent in French.  My DH is a native French speaker, with very good English and working-knowledge German.  

 

Our kids are required by our country to have a strong French LA component to their schooling.   Our kids are bilingual, including high reading levels in both languages (for the 9 and 7 yo).  

 

In all casual conversation, I speak English to my kids, with two exceptions: dinner time when DH is home, and out-in-public-with-friends time, where I feel it's rude to not speak a language our friends understand.  

 

Here's our day:

 

- Wake up, breakfast, morning chores, etc, all in English.  

- 30 min reading baskets for big kids: this contains a mix of English and French books on history, science, math, nature, and a mom-chosen novel in French or Enlgish.   During this time, I teach reading, handwriting, and math to 4yo, as well as read her a chapter in an English novel.  

 

- math (in English)- I do make sure kids know their numbers in English, French, and German though.

 

- Duolingo (English --> German).  Kids are required to learn German as a foreign language starting in 3rd grade here.  Both my 4th and 2nd grader do duolingo, and also have a 2x/wk tutor.  

 

- English spelling

 

- French LA - I don't bother doing much with English grammar, except mentioning it as it applies to French grammar.  I tend to teach French grammar in English, or perhaps in Franglais.  Kids do conjugations, spelling, and dictations, then we do sentence analysis of the dictations.  

 

- writing- about 4x a week in French and 1x a week in English, on a topic from their reading baskets or on a particular writing skill we are developing.  Again, I tend to teach in English but their writing is in French.  

 

- handwriting- workbooks in French cursive

 

- German review workbook (French --> German)

 

Content topics- all taught in English, but often times with French books as supplements

 

oh yeah, always an audio book at lunch!  Probably 80% English books and 20% French ones.

 

EVENING

 

- DH reads and plays with 2yo with lots of vocab building "first words" books in French.  

- DH does a short reading lesson in French with 4yo, then reads/plays with her, in French.

- DH does a short reading lesson with 7yo, usually they just do buddy reading now, and then a short German review.

- DH does a German lesson with 9yo, then reads to him in French.  

 

In the mean time, I get the little ones in bed, then do read alouds with one big kid, then the other.  

 

PHEW, I'm now exhausted!  LOL.  

 

 

[Loesje22000]

We do certain subjects in each language, with some subjects always in the same language, and some subjects switching the language per year or semester.

Other subjects have multiple sources in different languages.

 

At 5yo we did some subjects double (or triple).

[lulalu]

Thanks. It is hard to know how to set up our days as my schooling was public and all in English. Changing up from what I know is hard!

[Loesje22000]

Thanks. It is hard to know how to set up our days as my schooling was public and all in English. Changing up from what I know is hard!

You'll grow with your student.

And sometimes you'll just have to try out what will work in your family!

[ishikawa]

Here we use also OPOL. English and Portuguese. My wife speaks in Portuguese with the kids and I speak in English. In this case, what is important is to have consistency. But I have read that the important is to do the way it feels natural to you and I've seen some cases in which the language was mixed by the same parent and the child absorbed both languages with no problem.

[lulalu]

A one parent one language wouldn't work here. My dh and I are still learning. And that would give us only school work done by me still so all school in one language. Our life just doesn't give time for dh to teach anything.

 

I think for now for k we are just going to do calendar in both, read aloud daily in both, math in both, and say our alphabets and letter sounds in both. All else we will just do in English as that is what I have for resources. We will just have to take year by year, but my son's language skills already surpass mine win't be long and he will be teaching me lol.

[ishikawa]

A one parent one language wouldn't work here. My dh and I are still learning. And that would give us only school work done by me still so all school in one language. Our life just doesn't give time for dh to teach anything.

 

I think for now for k we are just going to do calendar in both, read aloud daily in both, math in both, and say our alphabets and letter sounds in both. All else we will just do in English as that is what I have for resources. We will just have to take year by year, but my son's language skills already surpass mine win't be long and he will be teaching me lol.

One thing to consider if possible is to hire an au pair to communicate on the target language.