what do you think?

[cathmom]

For about a year I spoke only German to my twins and some to my now 5 year old. Last summer I had a baby, my oldest left, I was too tired to speak even English, and I stopped. Now the three of them are all in speech therapy and I am trying to come up with a plan to get back into some German.

 

For my five year old, I was going to go with some actual lesson type activities. His speech issues are mainly pronunciation, but oddly enough, whenever he repeats German, he says it perfectly. For the twins, I was thinking it might be better if I just go back to speaking German to them for some time every day, and play games with them in German. I don't want to teach them individual words because they are just learning those in English. For example, they pretty much know their colors now but still dont' say them correctly. I think it would confuse them if I start saying, "Das ist blau" for "that is blue."

 

What do you think? Suggestions? Ideas? TIA!

[In The Great White North]

They're all three still young enough to learn quickly by immersion. You may want to try saying it in German, then repeating it in English at first, then drop the English.

 

 

Other things that could help are;

 

children's songs and finger-rhymes in German, over and over til they can sing along

 

children's videos in German (again, over and over)

 

Reading German picture books to them

[Friederike in Persia]

Does the speach therapist have any thoughts/suggestions?

 

Mine learned 3 languages at the same time, dh would call something "blue", I would say "blau" and the locals "kabud". It didn't particularily confuse them, but it meant they were a bit slower with gathering vocab. They still learned a lot, it just wasn't as much for each individual language as if would have been, if they would have only dealt with one language.

It also took them some time to use one language for one sentence, my youngest still stuggles with that and he's six.

 

Hope that helps

[ElizabethB]

I think the book I posted on another thread that I just added would be perfect for you!

 

I've found fonts like this especially helpful for my students with speech difficulties. Using the same font for both German and English and teaching them the sounds of both, and seeing the sounds clearly marked should help.

 

I had a student in my last class that couldn't figure out when to say oo or yoo for long u words, he used my UPP, but the Leigh Print used in those books should be just as useful.