My husband and I are trying the One Parent, One Language method with our 1 year old daughter in Atlanta. I speak to her in Spanish, while he speaks to her in English. She also goes to a trilingual (Spanish, French and Mandarin) preschool three days a week in Atlanta.

I consider myself a near-native Spanish speaker, having lived and gone to school in Spain and Chile for 8+ years while growing up. However, while my accent may be indistinguishable from a native speaker’s, my vocabulary is seriously lacking. I moved back to the states when I was 18 and really haven’t kept my Spanish up until now.

I find myself repeating the same things over and over to my daughter– using largely the same vocabulary and simple construction (like “kid” talk). Also, since I don’t have Spanish speaking adult friends, she doesn’t get the benefit of hearing me converse using more advanced vocabulary like she does when my husband and I speak to each other or our friends and family.

I’m taking an advanced Spanish course at work that is improving my ability to talk about the environmental field, which can be quite technical. What other resources can you recommend to help build my proficiency even more?

Thank you,
Davina

Dear Davina,

You are asking a wonderful question. It is such a benefit for your child to grow up bilingual. But – a child can’t develop true bilingual fluency unless they are exposed to rich, varied, interesting language through conversation, books, stories, songs, rhymes and games. I applaud your commitment to building your own language skills to be a good model for your child. Here are some suggestions that will help you build your fluency in areas that are relevant to your role as mom.

1. Get lots of children’s books in Spanish – also looking for chapter books that are a bit too advanced for your daughter and would help you learn vocabulary to bring her along.

2. Watch familiar movies in Spanish with English subtitles.

3. Read articles, and get ideas and activities at the bilingual literacy website, www.colorincolorado.org

4. Read resources for Spanish speaking early childhood professionals such as:

• Tesoros y Colores – the Spanish language magazine for teachers of young children from the National Association for the Education of Young Children
• The Office of Head Start from the US Department of Human Services

5. Most importantly, you need to USE your increased vocabulary if you really want to retain it. Try to find a Spanish play group or volunteer opportunity – some way that you could meet up with adults who will converse with you in Spanish.

Wishing you great success!

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I speak Catalan as mother language, Spanish 100%, English very good and  no French or German.

Claudia speaks German, English and French very well, and now medium-level Spanish. She doesn´t speak Catalan and no intention to learn it.

We met in NYC and we spoke to each other in English until 3 years ago. When Claudia moved to Barcelona mid 2008 we still spoke in English, but then I began to spek to her in Spanish because it was the only way for her to practice, to help in her integrate in the Spanish society, friends and family, even though Spanish it is not my native language because I speak Catalan with all my friends and family.

I am full of doubts as to how do we have to educate our daughter and which language to speak to her, indlvidually and as a family

Claudia talks to her in German all the time, when they are alone and when I am in front (I do not understand a word). I speak Catalan to Maria when we are alone and also in front of Claudia, who does not understand. Should we speak to Maria in Spanish when we the three of us are together? (We would all understend each other.)

I am full of doubts, can you help a bit please?

Dear Albert.

Your situation is certainly complicated, so there is no simple answer for you.  I suggest that you keep in mind three main points about language development.

1.  The most important thing is that a young child depends on language to bond with and learn from her family.

2.  The child needs to develop a solid foundation in at least one language so she can learn concepts and information as she grows.

3.  You want to prepare your daughter with the language foundation she will need to succeed in school.

I can not observe your language, your environment or your daughter, so I can not tell you what to do.  I can give you some information to help you and Claudia decide.

If Catalan is needed for Maria to be able to communicate with her grandparents, aunts, uncles and neighbors, then that would be a good language for her to learn.  If she will go to a Spanish-speaking school, she should also learn some Spanish.  Many parents raise their children bilingual by deciding one parent will speak only one language and the other parent will speak only the other language.

It is not usually advisable for a parent to speak only the language for which they have a low fluency.  This is because a child depends on high quality, rich, interesting language input to develop their own language and literacy well.  Another concern is that it may be detrimental if one parent speaks a language with the child that the other parent can not understand as this could harm the relationships within the family.

Looking at the information you provided, one suggestion might be for you to speak Catalan with Maria and for Claudia to use Spanish or English.  Another suggestion might be for you to speak Spanish with her and Claudia could speak English and you could also teach songs and stories in Catalan and use Catalan when spending time with family.  Or you might try speaking English only when at home, and Catalan when visiting the family or when out in the community.

One thing seems clear: it would not be a good idea to proceed without some kind of plan.

With so many different languages available and so many different options, going back and forth among the different languages would be too confusing for the child.

Whichever languages you choose, be sure to use lots of books, stories, songs, rhymes, games and conversations in those languages to build a good, solid language foundation.

Best wishes!

Karen Nemeth, Ed.M.

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Karen Nemeth.- has an M.Ed. from Rutgers University with specialization in language acquisition. She is the founder and CEO of Language Castle LLC, featuring professional development, consultation, resources and teaching strategies for multilingual preschool populations at www.languagecastle.com. She is the author of Many Languages, One Classroom, and she is a writer and consulting editor for NAEYC.  Karen is a member of the executive board of NJTESOL-NJBE. She serves as the Dual Language Learning Advisor for Teaching Young Children magazine and she has presented at many early childhood education and language-related conferences.  Karen has worked with early childhood programs throughout the United States to improve teaching practices in preschools with multiple languages.

My question is whether I should speak English to her instead of Valencian. I am quite proficient, even though it’s not my mother tongue, so my phonetics and grammar are good but not perfect, and sometimes it can be very tiring for me to do it. But still I would do it gladly if I knew that it would be good for our baby. My husband understands English quite well but he has some trouble speaking. The only native input my daughter would get would be on TV, computer, music, etc. Please help me! I don’t know what I should do. Thank you so much.

Mamen”

Dear Mamen:

What a wonderful way for a little girl to grow up – surrounded by different languages and parents who are so motivated to fill her world with all the richness of the different languages they can offer.  I think it is important that your daughter grows up fully able to communicate in Spanish and Valencian so she can learn and communicate in her family and in her community.  Whether or not you decide to add English to her language experience is purely a personal choice.

One of the books I recommend most often is Dr. Barbara Zurer Pearson’s Raising a Bilingual Child.  She summarizes research that shows a child needs to spend about 50% of their waking ours using a new language – not just hearing it but conversing, singing, and producing it – to become fully bilingual.  Some children do grow up speaking more than two languages but they may not speak all three languages equally.

If you speak only to your daughter in English, she will surely learn it.  Hearing it on TV is not going to contribute much to her learning because she needs to talk in English to really become fluent.  If she is not going to encounter many people in her environment that will encourage her to speak English as a child, then she is not likely to become as proficient in English as she is in her other two languages.  With that in mind, you might not get as much benefit as you are hoping for with all the effort you would put in to try to speak only English to her.  I’m not saying it is a bad plan.  I am saying you shouldn’t feel that you have to do it. Research has shown that children who grow up bilingual have an easier time learning a third language than monolingual children.  So, you might start teaching her English later if you wanted to.  Learning English at some point would certainly be an advantage for your daughter.  It is not necessary for her to learn it from a native speaker, and it is not necessary for her to learn it from the beginning.  She will already have all the advantages of being bilingual, so her English proficiency will just be an extra ability.  It is up to you to decide how much time and effort you want to devote to adding English as a third language.

I wish you all the best on your language adventure!

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