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We are not alone
March 19, 2010
8:37 am
Member
Forum Posts: 3
Member Since:
March 19, 2010
Offline

I came across this site while browsing and though you might like it. Even though it hasn't been updated for a long while, it looks like there's a lot more than I expected out there.

http://humanities.byu.edu/bili…..index.html

Hope you find it interesting too.

Laugh

Marisa

March 23, 2010
12:04 am
Admin
Forum Posts: 64
Member Since:
November 28, 2008
Offline

Thanks, Marisa.

We are definitely NOT alone..isn't that great??!!

May 25, 2010
8:34 pm
Jai27
Guest

Good to know I am not alone (or crazy for trying to do this)!

May 29, 2010
10:30 pm
Corey Heller
Guest

I'll bet there are many people out there raising their children bilingually even though they are either learning the language along with their children or using a language that is not their non-native language.  I find that all so very exciting!!

Corey

June 2, 2010
12:16 pm
marisajc
Guest

Yeah, so do I. Thank goodness my chubby munchkin has just gone to sleep, and, to be honest, I don't think I'm going to utter another work in either language for the rest of the evening.

Buenas noches queriditas Laugh

June 2, 2010
12:21 pm
marisajc
Guest

sorry for the typo -another word- It's 2120 here in Zaragoza, Spain, but my "buenas noches" looks really funny with  US time next to it.

November 11, 2010
10:39 pm
New Member
Forum Posts: 2
Member Since:
November 11, 2010
Offline

Hi everyone! I am writing a magazine article about bilingual preschool education (either nannies or daycare). I am hoping to speak with parents who have decided to raise their kids bilingually, even if they themselves are monolingual. I'd really appreciate it if you could contact me if you are interested in sharing your story. Thanks so much! Lauren

November 20, 2010
9:49 am
Kay
Guest

I would be happy to talk to you.   My husband and I speak English primarily, and only a little spanish.   We are using a bilingual nanny who speaks only spanish to our daughter, who is currently 13 months old.  My email address is schic74@gmail.com

January 22, 2011
11:26 am
2 kids
Guest

Hello, 
 I'm planning to take my kids (2 1/2, and 4) to the States or to the UK  during the summer break (June-July). I'd like to enroll them in school, summer camp or nursery there so they can practice their English while being immersed. My husband and myself are monolingual, we speak English but not very well, but we've been trying to speak English to them since they were borned.  Any tips, or any particular school that you know of that will let me enroll them for only two months of the year? Also a residence, flat or family to stay in?

Thanks!

January 31, 2011
1:32 pm
Admin
Forum Posts: 17
Member Since:
November 28, 2008
Offline

Hello 2 kids,

Thanks for stopping by. I think it's awesome what you plan on doing during the summer break with your kids. You don't mention where you live or what your first language is, but I agree with you that immersion is the best way to get your children to learn how to speak English. 

I can't really speak about the UK, but I can tell you that schools are normally not in session during the summer break, so you'd definitely have to look for a summer camp or nursery. In terms of the summer camp, your 2 1/1 might be too little to be able to attend one of those, but I'm not 100% sure about that. In terms of the nursery, I don't think it'd be a problem at all for you to enroll them for just two months. Same goes for the summer camp, as that exactly how long they last anyway.

In terms of your question regarding a place to stay in, I think it all depends on where in this big country you'd like to go. Once you make that decision, maybe you can come back here and see if anyone of our readers lives there and may be able to guide you a bit better.

Good luck!

May 3, 2011
11:01 pm
Member
Forum Posts: 5
Member Since:
May 3, 2011
Offline

I see this thread is not very active at the moment, but I am new to the forum and will be looking for great ideas.  It is good to see I'm not alone, the path has been blazed before me! Smile

 

We are a monolingual family hoping to help our 2 year old daughter learn fluent Spanish.
May 7, 2011
11:36 pm
Admin
Forum Posts: 64
Member Since:
November 28, 2008
Offline

Hi TMichelle! Welcome to the forums. 

You are definitely not alone and one of our main missions here is to provide that community of support.  Oftentimes all we need is to know that others are going through the same challenges and joys we are to vaildate our mission.l

I truly admire monolingual parents that decide to raise their child with a second language.  

Please feel free to share your story and questions

May 11, 2011
10:25 am
Member
Forum Posts: 5
Member Since:
May 3, 2011
Offline

Thank you for the warm welcome.  Besides the Bible class and videos I am considering hiring a college student (read cheap Smile) to come and play with DD a couple times a week in Spanish.  I'm all ears for more advice.

We are a monolingual family hoping to help our 2 year old daughter learn fluent Spanish.
May 13, 2011
11:18 pm
Susan
Guest

Hi Michelle–Check out the books by Ana Lomba.  She provides great tips for how a monolingual parents can help their child learn Spanish.  My boys love the stories too.  You can find her on amazon.com.  She has books on-line too, but I haven't subscribed yet.  My almost two year old, is too rough with the computer yet.

 

Susan

May 17, 2011
12:41 pm
Admin
Forum Posts: 61
Member Since:
February 18, 2010
Offline

Hello AND Hola, TMichelle! I think your idea of having a Spanish-speaking college student come to play is a great one.

Many adults say they "can't" learn a language. If they only realized how they were doomed simply by never opening their mouths to SPEAK. It's not important to speak perfectly, or grammatically – it's important to speak. Children, fortunately, are less easily embarrassed. The challenge is to set up situations where a child is being given the opportunity to actively talk. Playtime could be a wonderful opportunity to just let the language flow.

You might even find a middle-school, high-school, or retired person, to do this even cheaper and they might even be more playful/fun.

I do think you should be somewhere around to supervise, for safety's sake (I find it's amazing how kids "come out of their shell" and somehow seem to forget I'm there when my nose is buried in my knitting — although I am actually seeing and hearing everything). 

Keep coming back and let us know please how things are going for you!!!

June 3, 2011
10:05 pm
Member
Forum Posts: 4
Member Since:
June 3, 2011
Offline

I have visit your link, it really helpful for me to get knowledge..

I will also recommend this link to my friends to take advantage from this..

 

June 24, 2011
8:03 am
Jeanne dee
Guest

Hello, Hola, Nihao!

We are a monolingual parents raising a fluent-as-a-native trilingual/triliterate from birth ( Mandarin, Spanish, English) and now she will soon be 11, so prove it can be done. ;)

If you are interested in some of the things that have worked for us, I've been doing a series about it on our travel blog. ( We have been doing an open-ended non-stop world tour as family going on 6 years now to 42 countries on 5 continents on just $23/day per person). Our child was 5 when we left and turns 11 this fall. 

http://www.soultravelers3.com/…..vel.html 

Nope, you are not alone and it is absolutely worth the effort!! ;) 

August 29, 2011
11:40 am
kfletcher
Guest

Hi!  We too are monolingual parents raising bilingual boys.  My lifemate and I both took Spanish in high school and college but are not fluent; however, we  feel very strongly about our 2 sons (now 6 and 4) being fluent (reading, writing and speaking) Spanish and having a real understanding of the history and culture.  We have been on this path for 2 years now and the progress is just simply outstanding!  When the 6 year old was 4 (just about turning 5) we signed him up for a weekly Spanish immersion program (www.funwithforeignlanguage.com) and then made sure that he and his brother watched a good amount of cartoons all in Spanish everyday.  Since we have cable it was easy for us to just turn on Vme and have them watch cartoons in the morning.  They took to it like to fish to water!  They really loved it.  And it was clear that they understood it, because they were still watching their favorite cartoons (Dora, Diego, Blue's Clues, Pinky Dinky Doo) just all in Spanish.  Soon they picked up some new favorites, like Jim de la Luna.  Since we also have a DVR we taped them and burned them to disc later.  We repeated the process when our youngest was 4.

 

After attending the weekly fun with foreign language program from September through April, my son had simply out grown the class.  He was talking in full sentences and completely understood the teacher that spoke nothing but Spanish.  When the other kids were answering the questions with the one-response that they had learned, my son was speaking in full sentences!  We were ecstatic!  The next move was to hire a tutor and that is where we are now.  It was pretty hard to find a tutor for a 5 almost 6 year old but the one we have now is a godsent.  She is great with kids and understands that even though our son needs to be challenged (he just knows so much Spanish) it still has be fun and relatable for him.  

If any one is interested in the worksheets and books that we use, I will be more than happy to share.  At first, I couldn't find the material that I needed, so I just made worksheets from what he was doing in Kindergarten and had his tutor translate them.  Worked like a charm.

 

Hope this helps someone.

September 27, 2011
8:59 am
Nekane
Guest

Hi/Hola you all,

My family is Spanish, but as I am fluent in English, we are trying to raise our son bilingual. I've been talking to him in English most of the time and my husband in Spanish (he understands English quite well). I'm trying to be more consistent, but my baby is turning 1 year-old next week and he doesn't go further than "mama" or some babish talk. I think he likes me talking to him in English and he listens to baby songs in English and watches English cartoons, but he doesn't seem to be very interested in talking himself. Am I doing something wrong???

I'd be very grateful for your experiences.

September 29, 2011
8:58 pm
Susan
Guest

Hola Nekane–

 

Keep speaking to your child in English.  The pay off will be worth it in the end.  Raising a child in more than one language does not cause a speech delay.  That is a myth.  We are raising our children in three languages.  I speak to them in Spanish and Dad speaks to them in German.  They will get English living in the U.S.  Our first child started speaking in sentences at 9 months.  Our second child's language skills started to develop just before he was two.  They both do fine in all three languages.  Each child is different when it comes to speaking, but I know that the different languages are not the reason.  I didn't let our kids watch TV until after 2 since that is what my doctor recommended.  Even now they don't watch much, but that is because I love to be outside, so we are almost always at the park or beach.  That may help too since conversation is more effective at developing language skills than TV.

 

Hope that helps,

Susan

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