Looking for Advice or Insight into Raising a Bilingual Child

Hi C.-
I grew up semi-bilingual (my grandparents lived in Mexico and we had a Spanish only- monolingual- nanny.) I did not study any foreign language until French in HS, then one year of Spanish in College. The early Spanish developed my ear for the French, making it easier. Early immersion is great. It provides one with an authentic accent, much intuitive grammar and wires the brain in beneficial ways.

BUT, It is a BIG commitment, both tuition, time and effort (on your part.) In order for it really to work you need to have ongoing exposure and motivational buy-in on the part of the child. It has to be FUN, relevent and required. Dance, sing, make it a game. A good immersion school can do that. A community that speaks the target language can do that. An Au pair or foreign exchange student in your house can help.

If you do not speak the language it is very hard. I have my 4.5 year old girl in both a Spanish and mandarin immersion program. (Not full time school.) Yes, I am a bit crazy. She has had Spanish exposure from birth (mine is a bit creative, so I feel the need to have outside instruction) and started mandarin last April.

Frankly, my expectations for the Mandarin are pretty low: I want to develop her ear for the tones, so that she can study it later if she wants to. I feel it is THE language to know in 20 years. The biggest hurdle for me is my inability to read it. Pinion makes no sense to me. Personally, I would not both with French unless you have a good reason, like you visit relatives in France every year or two.

In my experience, you have to search out supplementary material and learn some degree of it yourself too. (I can now count in mandarin.) Audio/visual materials are best. They can learn to read later. The point at this age is to learn it the way they learned English: through hearing it, constantly. They say that you need at least 4 hour a week, minimum, to improve at something. I would say strive for it being something you do every day, for say 1/2 hour. Just part of the routine. Like you always listen to it in the car. (Like I said it is a commitment from you too.)

There are some, like the "teach me" series: www.teachmetapes.com available through the Marin library system. Look for songs/audio dialog with the words printed in both the language and English. If you succeed with the basics, later you will be able to watch some DVDs in the target language (dubbed.)

If you have cable (we don't) you can check out "NiHao KaiLan" in Nick Jr. You will have to try different programs to see if they fit your child. And to mix it up and keep it interesting. My daughter likes the "Follow Jade" video but not the "...With Mei Mei" Frankly, they are pretty similar. Go figure. I like Language Tree's DVD. All three are in the library system. Also check the website ChinaSprout. (Have not bough anything from them yet, but they seem the most comprehensive I've yet found for young child mandarin.) There is more in San Francisco's library system, but make sure it is not Cantonese.

For French try Berlitz Jr., any picture dictionaries (Osborne has a good one, I think they have it at the Discovery Museum store) Ask the librarian or the bookstore to do a search for you. You can also search Amazon for people's recommendations. I also still like the "Baby's First Words in..." music CDs, even at 4. You can do advanced searches on Marinet (library) by language.

BBC's Muzzy is also available through the Marin library system. I am not too wild about Muzzy, personally, as I do not like some of the stereotypes it reinforces. Remember content is important too.

Last thing. I am pretty strict on limiting video/tv time, but much more willing if it is in a foreign language! Good luck!

C., I would go for it GREATLY. I adopted my daughter at 6 weeks old and immediately placed her with a Spanish Speaking provider. She is now 4 years old and is completely bilingual in both English & Spanish, while my Spanish is very limited to say the least, her Spanish is flawless.

I too am going through the same situation now that she is going to be going to Kindergarten, whereas it is more difficult to find a private school with the dual immersion that is reasonable; there are several public schools that have dual immersion programs for English/Spanish, but overall their academic scores are really low, which offers other reservations.

My friend enrolled her daughter in a French school in Berekley when she was 4 years old and she was there for a couple of years. Now that she is in Kindergarten, and the cost of the school got more expensive; she has learned that the school concentrated more on the language aspect than academics, thus her child is behind other children in her new kindergarten class. Make sure whatever school you place your child that there is a balance of language and academics. . .It makes no sense that your child speaks fluent Mandarin, but doesn't know his/her alphabets, numbers, blends, etc.

My kids were in a public school Cantonese immersion program. It was a good experience other than the fact that math is a little tricky for them now because they learned all the numbers in terms in Chinese, and are now taking it in English and having to translate!
I was a little obsessed, myself, about making sure they started learning a second language early, because that was my experience, and I learn languages (Spanish and French, and currently learning Italian) very easily. My kids, now in high school, volunteer at our church food pantry, translating for the Chinese families. Everyone they talk to raves about their perfect pronunciation.
One of their friends lives in a household where the mother only speaks Spanish to them, and the father speaks only English to them, so the kids in that family are tri-lingual, and move easily from one language to another.
In my opinion, nothing can compete with that early language experience. There may be cheaper ways to find it than an immersion pre-school, but I encourage you to find something.
Good luck!

I think languages is one great gift you can give to your child. We are a bilingual family and I would love to introduce a third language. I'm thinking of finding a way of us moving to Asia for one or two years. We will see. Now we try to speak spanish and english at home all the time. Our son is 18 months old.

My opinion is that unless you continue to keep a child in language immersion for years and years they will not retain what they learned in preschool. Children are facile with languages, it's true, but they will forget what they do not continually use. My sister and I both speak French and English with our little ones, but it doesn't appear to have made a dent in their ability. Perhaps later on, we'll see that they have a bit of a "head start" by conditioning their ears for French, but that remains to be seen! How about this less expensive option: a home learning program and/or a nanny who speaks the target language with him and then, if he is interested, get into a student exchange program so he can then experience immersion. Immersion is the only way to truly become fluent, IMO.

C.,
Start cleaning! Use Nix or Rid overnight on your daughter's head, covered with a shower cap, strip the beds, wash all hair brushes, hair ties, bands, combs, pillows, bedding, jackets, in HOT water and bad in a garbage bag all stuffed animals for 30 days. You have a full day of work ahead of you. You can also call your pediatrician for advice. Good luck !
A. A

I'm on the same boat! I'm bilingual and am having trouble making sure my 3 year old child speaks Spanish. He seems to prefer English, maybe because he is very articulate in this language. I try to speak only Spanish to him but it is difficult since everyone around me speaks only English. I had not thought it would be sooo difficult since I am a native speaker but I'm finding that even so, I need to make a concerted effort to reinforce the language.

Which actually makes sense because thought I learned at home with my family, I also went to a bilingual school during the elementary years then took advanced Spanish classes and in college, one of my majors was Spanish, and I have lived abroad in Spanish speaking countries. Some of the children in my family who did not devote so much time and effort to Spanish are still able to speak Spanish but nowhere near the same level.

Sooo, when my child finally started talking a year ago (he was a little delayed but then talked in full sentences), I worried that it was only in English and started looking for a Spanish immersion program. As a single income household, I found the prices way beyond our reach and many of these programs were not integrated. By that I mean, they did not have children in the program that spoke Spanish already~~this is essential in a good language program since a child's incentive to speak the language in greatly enhanced when he wants to play! I found some great co-ops but they were all full...

I ended up finding a home-based program through Craigslist (I posted an ad) and I LOVE it! It is a full immersion program, small, and play-based. It's only three hours and way far from my home but totally worthwhile. I'm planning to go back to work next year and plan to put him in Escuela Bilingue Internacional (Spanish/Mandarin in the East Bay) but this makes a great transition to a longer program.

Also, the research shows that in order for a child to grow up bilingual, they must be immersed in the target language for at least 30% of their day. Tall order but definitely doable if you reach out and arrange playdates or hire a babysitter who speaks the language. I found the "Bilingual Edge" a good general book to read. It's not very in-depth but a good laymans book to get a general sense of second language learning.

Anyway, sorry for such a looong post but this is an issue very near and dear to my heart too as I don't wish my child to become disconnected from his extended family (many of them only speak Spanish).

LP