One of the best ways to motivate kids’ Spanish speaking is to find a way to tie the language to their interests. My sons love soccer. My husband grew up playing soccer and loves to watch the games, which is how my sons became interested in the sport. My boys love it, whether it is watching the game, kicking around a ball, or actually playing.

Aside from being probably the most popular sport in the Spanish speaking world, there is also a significant Spanish speaking fan base for the sport here in the United States. We are fortunate to live close enough to the stadium where Major League Soccer games are played. When we attend LA Galaxy games, the announcements over the loud speakers are in both Spanish and English, the fans are a diverse mix with a lot of Spanish speakers in attendance, and of course there are the Hispanic players. My sons can’t help but hear and speak Spanish. Soccer has helped further their language skills, and enabled my sons to see the relevance of knowing another language.

It is not just the game that intrigues my boys, but the music and videos that celebrate soccer too. They really enjoy listening to music that is about soccer, and they sing along with the tunes. Here are some of their favorite songs and videos that have soccer as a theme:

Costa Rican singer Tapon’s song and video “Hasta La Muerte”

Shakira’s “Waka Waka” (in Spanish of course) which was the official song of the World Cup in 2010

Ricky Martin’s “La Copa de la Vida” which was the official song of the World Cup in 1998.

Music always makes learning fun, and when it is about a topic that interests my kids, even better.

Whenever we take a soccer ball to the park or the beach, we always have other young kids join in the game. I am happy that the game attracts a diverse mix of kids to play. We almost always meet other bilingual children too, which results in the use Spanish during their play.

While soccer is a game that my boys love, it also supports their bilingualism. Fostering my children’s interest in their favorite sport has benefited their language skills, and yet it has also been fun for them to play, watch games, and even sing about soccer. Tapping into our kids’ interests and finding ways to tie those to Spanish is one of the best ways for them to learn.

{Photo via: USAG-Humphreys}

I read with great interest the Wall Street Journal article featured in Spanglishbaby’s Week in Links regarding parents who move to China so that their children can learn and improve their language abilities. Learning another language and experiencing another culture can be a great experience for anyone, and it is especially valuable for children who tend to have an advantage at second language acquisition.

The question that I was left with after reading the article was: Why Chinese? None of the parents featured in the article actually spoke the language themselves, but rather, Chinese was viewed as the desirable language to learn because of China’s rising global influence. The interest in learning Chinese seemed to be linked, at least in some part, with giving kids a competitive edge in the job market of the future.

This article made me re-examine my own motives for teaching my children Spanish. While like any parent I want to give my children skills that will be beneficial to them in the future, I want to be sure that my motivations for teaching my kids Spanish involved more than financial gain and career success. Fortunately, Roxana had interviewed me for the book she co-wrote with Ana, Bilingual is Better on this very topic back in February. It was interesting to reflect back on my answers after having read the Wall Street Journal Article. I liked seeing that there really are a lot of factors that have influenced my decision to raise bilingual children.

To begin with, unlike the parents featured in the article, I do speak the language that I want my children to learn. I have always loved learning languages, and it only seemed natural to pass on my skills to my children. Having learned my languages later in life, it was a real challenge for me to become truly fluent. I didn’t want my children to struggle the way I did when they could avoid this difficult language learning process by acquiring the language when they were young. From a neuroscience prospective young children have superior language learning abilities.*

My children and I also have a lot of fun speaking Spanish together, reading and playing with the other children in our Spanish playgroup. It has been a worthwhile endeavor to see how easily my kids can use their different languages and they truly seem to enjoy speaking with mami in Spanish, papi in German, and grandma in English.

Like the parents in the article, I am committed to raising my children to speak another language since there are a variety of cognitive benefits associated with bilingualism. Even more importantly, speaking other languages is essential for gaining a deeper understanding of other countries, peoples, and cultures. I feel that speaking another language will increase my children’s opportunities to know and interact with a variety of different people and provide them with the linguistic skills and cultural understanding to more fully participate in our local community and in our increasingly international society. When we travel to Spanish speaking countries, my children easily make friends and are able to participate in the games of the local children. It is wonderful to see them get to know people and play with children that they would not have had the chance to bond with if they had been monolingual.

My husband and I have always loved traveling and learning languages, and it has been fun sharing our interests and adventures with our own children. They seem to be enjoying the experience as well. It is easy to answer the question: Why Spanish? By teaching my children Spanish I am giving them the gift of another language that will help them in both their personal and career endeavors. I am also giving them the opportunity to get to know other peoples, countries and cultures, and hopefully I am giving them the chance to explore language and just have fun with it.

Why do you teach your children Spanish?

*From Welcome to Your Child’s Brain by Sandra Aamodt, PhD and Sam Wang, PhD.

{Photo by  Ha-Wee}

I really admire my mother-in-law for raising two bilingual children. Her task was especially challenging since she did so in an era when it was not popular to use a language other than English. In fact, she was actually told to stop speaking to her sons in German, her native language. Teachers, and even doctors, said that it would confuse them in school, but she knew better and continued to speak to her sons in German. Her persistence is why my husband and his brother are bilingual adults. Now my husband is able to pass that skill on to the next generation by teaching our children German.

My mother-in-law and I do disagree on one point though. I have always spoken to my sons exclusively in Spanish. It seems only natural to me, but my mother-in-law feels that it is rude for me to use Spanish when there are others around who do not understand. When my husband and his brother were growing up, she would use German with them at home, but English if they were around people who did not speak German.

I have to admit, her opinion did make me question my way of doing things, especially since I value her opinion as both my mother-in-law and a mother who has successfully raised bilingual and bicultural children. The problem is, I don’t want to jeopardize my children’s bilingual abilities by switching languages when speaking to them. Yet my mother-in-law did switch languages with her children, but still had success. I began to ponder what language to use with my children when others who do not speak Spanish are around. It is a dilemma to which I still have not found the perfect solution.

When my boys were just babies, it was easy. I would speak only Spanish to them, and I didn’t really think about it too much because it was a one sided conversation anyway. Now that the boys and I have real conversations, I am becoming increasingly more uncomfortable with my language choice. It is not when I am out in public or just at the store, but rather when I am spending time with monolingual family and friends. I feel like I am being rude, but at the same time, I don’t want to compromise their bilingualism.

In order to find a happy medium between the two languages, I have started to use new strategies to include everyone in the conversation. Having recently moved to a new neighborhood, I have started by explaining the languages used in our family to the new neighbors. Most people seem to be very positive and encouraging of our linguistic endeavors and have even expressed a desire for their own children to learn some Spanish. I also have started to translate what I say to the boys into English so that others will understand what I have said to them. It is an effort on my part, but I feel that it is worth the effort to maintain Spanish with my children while attempting to include other Spanish and non-Spanish speakers.

Raising bilingual children does have its challenges, but the rewards are well worth the work. I love that my children can easily speak different languages, and that they are acquiring a more international view of the world. I believe that there is a way to keep the Spanish going no matter the company that we are with, but I would love other ideas and strategies used by parents raising bilingual children.

What languages do you use with your children when in the company of people who do not speak Spanish?  How do you deal with this situation?

{Image via zherun}

In this country, there is a definite stereotype as to what a Spanish speaker is supposed to look like. The erroneous belief seems to be that only people with dark hair, dark eyes and tan skin speak Spanish. I know that the readers of SpanglishBaby are aware of the great diversity that exists among Spanish speakers, but the reality is that the American public seems to hold fast to their misconceptions.

At the school where I teach, the students are always amazed when they learn that Ms. Choi is a native speaker, because even though she is ethnically Korean, she was born and raised in Ecuador. This year in particular, my students are slowly changing their deeply guarded beliefs as to what a Spanish speaker looks like since they have a classmate who is ethnically Korean, but was born and raised in Paraguay, and two students of Indian descent whose parents grew up in Panama.

When my children were just babies, I would often wonder how these stereotypes would affect their Spanish speaking ability. Now that they are older, I am starting to see that it is not hurting them but rather helping them. Currently, Spanish is their dominant language. When they speak to me or to each other, it is always in Spanish.

The fact that they look very much like their German grandmother with their blond hair and blue eyes causes them to get a lot of positive attention for speaking Spanish. Both Spanish and non-Spanish speaking adults praise them for being bilingual. They are often told how smart they are or how wonderful it is that they can speak Spanish. I actually think it is the reason that they have never rebelled against our Spanish only rule. In fact, I am actually starting to find them showing off a bit. They use their Spanish to impress the hostess at the Mexican restaurant we frequent in order to hear her praise them, and to get more candy.

At the same time, I can’t help but wonder how Spanish speaking kids who do not fit this stereotype are treated. Do they receive the compliments and praise that my sons receive for speaking Spanish, or are they looked down upon for not speaking English? Are they told they are smart and wonderful for knowing two languages or are they told to speak English because they are in America?

It is my belief that as more studies come out about the benefits of being bilingual, there will be less negative reactions to different races and different languages. I hope that my efforts to educate both my own children and my students about the value of cultural and linguistic diversity will change negative stereotypes and make the world a better place for everyone.

{Image via Michael Bentley}

photo by: timsamoff

Raising bilingual children in the United States can be challenging, but having a plan in place, significantly increases your chance for success. If you are not lucky enough to have a bilingual school to support you, creativity and effort are necessary to help your child acquire Spanish.

In my head there was always an informal idea on how I would raise my children to speak Spanish, but now that they are in preschool, I am re-evaluating my action plan. To make sure the boys continue to speak Spanish I am addressing how, when and where they will be hearing and speaking Spanish to be sure that there is enough time spent in the language. In order to reach our language goal, I have decided to use a variety of different contexts and strategies to help them become bilingual.

Spanish Speaking Playgroup

I joined my Spanish speaking playgroup when my now 4-year-old was only six months. Through the years, my sons and I have made some great friends. I think the power of the playgroup comes from the joint goal of the moms to provide our children with the gift of a second language. The kids are exposed to Spanish from many different people and a variety of different situations. They hear the moms speaking Spanish, and they play with their friends in Spanish. Now that the children are getting older, we are trying to incorporate some more structured activities to expose them to Spanish by doing art projects, singing and dancing to music, reading and discussing the stories in Spanish, and of course we always make time to just play.

Media

My husband speaks to our boys only in German, and I use Spanish with them. To support our linguistic endeavors, I only let my sons watch TV and movies in Spanish or German. They are still young enough that this has not yet been an issue; rather they are just thrilled when I let them watch a program. Fortunately many movies have a Spanish language tract, and there are quality children’s programs in Spanish on TV too. The internet has also been another great resource to find programs in other languages.

Spanish Classes

I currently take my sons to a Spanish for Spanish speakers class. The teacher is wonderful, and they love to go. The class is taught completely in Spanish. Having been unsuccessful at finding a bilingual preschool in my area, I am happy to have found a structured class that builds on many of the literacy skills they are learning. As they get older, I am hoping to keep them in Spanish classes. If I am unable to find classes that meet our needs, I will teach them to read and write on my own. I know it will be a challenge, but I hope to make learning a fun and enriching experience for all of us.

Religion Classes

When I was young, I attended catechism classes, and I am raising my children Catholic too. Fortunately our church offers religious education classes in Spanish, and I plan on enrolling my children in them when they are in first grade. I plan to be a volunteer too, so that I can help organize even more events and religious celebrations in Spanish.

Books/Music

I read to the kids in Spanish every day, and we always listen to children’s music in Spanish. When they get older, and even when they are reading on their own, I still plan to read to them or have them read to me. I have many happy memories of my mother reading to me and my siblings, and I want to create those memories with my own children. Reading together does not have to end when your child learns to read, rather it can evolve into an activity that the whole family can enjoy.

We listen to a lot of children’s music in Spanish, and when they are older, I also plan on introducing my sons to popular Spanish music. I often use music in my classroom and was pleasantly surprised this year when the students asked me to bring my iPod to the movie night I was chaperoning. They liked the music from class so much, that they even listen to it in their free time.

Vacations

Our trip to Peru last summer did wonders for the Spanish of everyone in the family. My husband and I are hoping to take a trip to immerse the children in one of their languages every summer. We want to stay with home-stay families instead of in hotels, take Spanish classes, become a part of the local community, actually experiencing the culture of the country we are visiting. There is really no better way to improve language skills than to be immersed in the country and its culture.

I know that it will at times be challenging to raise my children in Spanish, but I love the language. I am convinced that my motivation, and by having a plan in place, we will succeed. I am sure that my strategies will adapt and change as the kids grow, but by having a plan in place, we will reach our bilingual goal.

For me the holidays are about spending time with family and participating in traditions together. There is the visit to Santa, sled riding with all of our cousins, midnight mass on Christmas eve, and Christmas dinner at my aunt and uncles’ home with all of our relatives.

{Photo by: eternal memories ♥}

Back in August, a question in the Ask an Expert column really hit home with me. The mother who felt that her vocabulary was weak and her proficiency in Spanish was lacking particularly moved me. She was seeking ideas on how to build her own Spanish proficiency to best help her child become bilingual. As a non-native Spanish speaker, I could relate to her fears and insecurities about being a non-native speaker. I was also impressed by her determination to give her child the gift of another language.

When my son was first born, I felt the need to really immerse myself in Spanish for my own proficiency and to help my child become bilingual. Being a mom means that we often do not have a lot of extra time for studying. Rather than making my language enrichment program a chore, I found creative and fun ways to incorporate Spanish into my daily life. It has been a lot of fun, and I know that my vocabulary has increased exponentially as a result.

I love to read, and was a voracious reader prior to having children. I still find time to read in both Spanish and English, but many nights I am so tired that I only read two to three pages before falling asleep. Fortunately, I have learned a lot of new vocabulary reading children’s books to my sons, but I still longed for adult literature. Luckily, my iPod has made it possible for me to clean the house, commute to work, and even exercise while being entertained by stories in Spanish.

iTunes U, available through the iTunes store, has an amazing assortment of recordings from Spanish and Mexican universities. You can listen to lectures by professors and short stories. The iTunes store and the Web also offer many free podcasts that you can enjoy, and my favorite site lets me listen to the classics that I learned while studying Spanish in college. Listening to Spanish is a great way to further your own knowledge of the language, while at the same time being interesting and educational.

In addition to reading Spanglishbaby, I love to read blogs by other Spanish teachers. I often discover new ideas for teaching my high school students and my own children. One day, I was fortunate to stumble upon El Mundo de Birch. This Spanish teacher in Maryland has given me a lot of ideas, but by far, the most valuable gift from Sra. Birch has been her Spanish music database. This excel spread sheet has over 600 songs by artists from throughout the Spanish speaking world. You can search for songs by country, culture, even grammar point and vocabulary. There are even YouTube links that let you watch the videos too. Music is my favorite way to immerse myself in Spanish, and with so many different artists and genres to choose from, I am always learning a new song and discovering a new artist.

Living in Southern California provides me with lots of opportunities to use Spanish, but I know that not everyone is so lucky. I happened to stumble across Verbling and was just amazed at the opportunity that this website provides for practicing Spanish.  Using Skype technology, Verbling automatically pairs you up with a native speaker of Spanish. You get to practice your Spanish for five minutes, and then the conversation is in English to allow your partner to practice their second language. I tried it several times and met interesting people from Colombia, Argentina, and Mexico. This website provides you with the opportunity to converse in Spanish and actually use the language which definitely helps improve proficiency.

I have had a lot of fun improving my Spanish. I have enjoyed being entertained by short stories, listening to music, and I always love to talk and meet new people. While my insecurities about being a non-native speaker are still there, I am more confident in my knowledge. As I continue to develop my own proficiency skills, I know that both my children and students will benefit on their own journey to bilingualism.

Please share any other ideas you may have for learning Spanish in fun and entertaining ways.

{Susan's kids with their host's granddaughter}

I get a bit jealous when I read about other contributors’ travels to visit family in Spanish speaking countries. What a great way to not only connect with family, but also to reinforce the Spanish being taught at home in the United States. Unfortunately, I don’t have family abroad to visit, but I was convinced that my own children would greatly benefit from the experience of visiting another country and being immersed in Spanish.

Back in high school I started studying Spanish, but it was during a semester study abroad program in Spain that I actually achieved fluency. There is nothing like being completely immersed in the language to learn how to speak it with confidence and ease.

For our family study abroad experience, I chose Peru. My husband and I had traveled throughout Peru prior to having children and just fell in love with the country, its culture and people. Before our sons were born, we rarely planned our trips, having only a rough itinerary and our plane tickets. Traveling with children changed my usual travel style, and so, I started planning our trip eight months prior to our departure. I began to research different schools and programs so that our whole family could spend time immersed in Spanish and the culture of Peru. My plan was to duplicate many aspects of my own study abroad adventure, and I was able to pretty much achieve a similar experience for our entire family.

My sons both spoke Spanish well before our trip, but now they are experts. We spent a month living in Arequipa with our home stay family. Living with a Peruvian family was a rewarding experience, and we were fortunate to have been placed with a family that was friendly, welcoming and supportive. Our host mother Marta went out of her way to help us feel welcome and at home.

Living day to day completely surrounded in Spanish was wonderful. My sons were also fortunate to have had lots of opportunities to play in Spanish with other children too. We were able to visit a preschool to play with other children, and the grandchildren of our host family were always coming over to play.
Originally I had planned to put the boys into a preschool program, but my son’s bilingual preschool teacher suggested private classes instead since it typically takes children a month to adjust to a new pre-school.  Fortunately, I found a school that had teachers who specialized in teaching young children.  The situation was actually perfect. My husband and I took Spanish classes while our sons were taking classes each with their own teacher. My older son was being taught to read using the Coquito method which is a Peruvian method of teaching that I think is one of the best in the world. My younger son spent a lot of time singing, reading and just playing with his teacher in Spanish. The boys’ teachers were wonderful, and for two hours a day, I was able to work with my own teacher studying Peruvian literature and furthering my own language skills.

We also traveled while in Peru to expose the boys to more than just life in the city. We spent time visiting an ancient religious site of the Wari Civilization and seeing the Inca terraces and small villages of the Colca Canyon. I was pleased that my sons loved to travel as much as their father and I do.

This trip has been a wonderful experience for our entire family. My husband and I plan to use Spanish with each other so that he will not lose the fluency that he acquired while living abroad. As a non-native speaker raising bilingual children, I am more confident in my own abilities and am inspired to continue reading in Spanish to further my own language skills. Most importantly, living in Peru was a wonderful experience for my own children. Being immersed in the language has really helped develop their Spanish and their traveling and playing with Peruvian children is helping them become citizens of the world.

I highly recommend this experience for other families.  I will post our school information in the forum.  Our host family is also interested in hosting other families.  You can email me if you would like their contact information.

Recently a question in the Ask an Expert column really grabbed my attention since the writer wanted to know if she should speak a language to her child that was not her mother tongue.  The main concern being that her daughter would not be getting much native input in this second language.

This article really made me stop and think because I have been speaking to my sons exclusively in Spanish since the day they were born, and I am not by definition a native speaker.  The more I thought about it, I wondered, who exactly is a native speaker?

After reading a variety of different definitions, I was still confused.  Wikipedia states, “a first language (also native language, mother tongue, arterial language, or L1), is the language(s) a person has learned from birth or within the critical period, or that a person speaks the best…”  Clearly, I am not by definition a native, speaker but my husband, who speaks to our children in German, is.  His mother is German and that was his first language.  So he does fit the definition of being a native speaker, but he will be the first to admit that since he grew up in the United States, English is his dominant language.

I must admit that prior to embarking on the adventure of raising bilingual children my main concern was that my husband and I would both be using our weaker languages to communicate with our children. While I have been studying and speaking Spanish for over twenty years, I did not start learning Spanish until I was sixteen.  My husband grew up speaking German with his mother, but English is his stronger language.  To allay my fears, I did a lot of research on the topic of speaking to children in a non-native language.  My biggest concern being that by not speaking to our children in our more dominant language, we would be hindering their linguistic development.

Fortunately, I read many books and academic literature on the matter and found supportive websites such as SpanglishBaby.com that have helped me see that I would not harm my children by speaking to them in a non-native language.  We have been using Spanish and German with our boys since they were born.  Now that the boys are older, it is obvious that we made the right decision.  Both boys are trilingual.  The children can effortlessly change languages and will even translate for me.   It has sometimes been a challenge, but hearing our sons speak fluently in different languages has rewarded the efforts.

The benefits have not just been for our children though; my husband and I have discovered that we greatly improved in our own language skills.  With all of the recent research showing the advantages of being an active bilingual, it is clear that the benefits have been for all of us.

If you are not a native speaker, or if your English is stronger than your second language, don’t be afraid to pass on the gift of another language to your children. It might be awkward and challenging at first, but with time and practice, it will much be easier.   Giving your child the ability to speak a second language is one of the best gifts you can give to them and yourself.

Share: What has been your greatest challenge in teaching your child a minority language?

In their search for high quality Spanish classes for their own children, two accomplished Latina mothers founded Isabella & Ferdinand Spanish Language Adventures.  Their innovative Spanish language-learning program for children includes the exciting CD-Olé and Play!  Songs from Isabella & Ferdinand Spanish Language Adventures.  The music is fabulous and is a great way to introduce your child to Spanish and the cultures of Spanish speaking countries.  Produced by Grammy and Multiple Latin Grammy award winner Andres Castro, and sung by Latin Grammy-nominated Colombian vocalist Adriana Lucia, this CD will be one that both you and your children will enjoy.

I absolutely love this CD!  Not only is the music wonderful to listen to, but the lyrics are so educational.  A variety of cultural topics are covered including:  Columbus and his voyage to the Americas, artists such as Velázquez, Picasso, Botero, Frida Kahlo, and Diego Rivera, and even Cervantes is introduced in a song about Don Quijote.

To be honest, I was skeptical that music could teach my children culture, but I am amazed by what they have learned by listening to this CD.  They both love singing the chorus, pinta, pinta, pinta Velázquez.  To further their learning from the music, I showed them a print of Velazquez’s Las Meninas and explained the art to them, pointing out that the painter Velázquez from the song was the person who actually painted the picture we were looking at.  I was also stunned this weekend when my elder son asked me to play the song about el caballero.  The song about Don Quijote is now his favorite.  Seeing that I don’t use the word caballero all that often when speaking to my children, I was convinced that this CD is teaching them Spanish and culture.

For a fun CD to teach your children Spanish and culture, I highly recommend Olé and Play.  It is guaranteed to become a favorite of the entire family.

Catch their first video here for the song Las Aventuras de Don Quijote

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGYYFAHmDPk&feature=channel_video_title

THE GIVEAWAY

This giveaway is now closed. Congratulations to the winners:  Diana, Sandy, Kim, Daniel, and Natalie!

We’re giving away a Olé and Play! CD to FIVE lucky winners. For your chance to win just tell us how you use music in your kid´s daily life.

This giveaway ends at midnight EST on Sunday, June 5, 2011. Entries/Comments that do not follow the submission guidelines will be invalid and automatically deleted. Sorry, just need to keep it fair. Good luck to all!

Check out the Giveaway Rules.
Disclosure: Scholastic provided me with a copy of the book to review. All opinions are my own.