Dear SpanglishBaby,

This happened at my daughter’s English preschool where only 3 year olds attend: While her friend Amy spoke in Spanish, Mariana (a monolingual Latina student) told Amy “why are you talking like that? Talk normal!” (while giving her a dirty look as well). I was shocked and later was upset at myself for not enlightening this little girl. Luckily, I don’t think Amy understood her. It never crossed my mind that I would have to prepare my 3 year old daughter for such a situation at this age. Once again, I’m second guessing the fact that maybe we should begin to use the OPOL method instead of only Spanish. I would like my own daughter Carolina to be able to defend herself in both languages, if necessary.

Thank you,

Blanca

Please share your thoughts and words of wisdom in the comments section below.  Gracias.

Sarah Kalert reads our site from her new home in Chile.  She has enthusiastically agreed to let you weigh in on the issue she is facing while raising her son using the OPOL method.

“While I love reading SpanglishBaby, I must translate all advice to the opposite extreme. I am currently raising my 6 month old son in Southern Chile, in a very small town where I am the local English teacher and outside of my students, me and my husband (Chilean) are the only English speakers. We are choosing to raise Henry using the OPOL method as we are unsure what the future holds for our family and may be living back and forth between our English and Spanish speaking families.

But back to my question, I have had a very difficult time these first 6 months communicating only in English with my son when other people are around, as when we are visiting friends, or especially when my mother-in-law is present. I try my hardest to speak to him in only English and then address the others by repeating what I said to him in Spanish. But, many are so “sin vergüenza” they either get upset with me or downright tell me its rude to speak to him and not let them understand. I know its not their business and I can converse with my son as I feel, but it is still difficult and I often find myself falling into just Spanish after being somewhere for more than a short period.

I don’t want to become a shut in but I would love some advice on how to handle such situations and what you have found works best, in both managing speaking to my son, and in what to say to the rest of those around.

Thank you so much!

Sarah”

So, what do you, our reader/our expert, have to say about this?  What would you do if  you were in Sarah´s shoes?

Photo by daviddesign

We haven’t done this in a while, so we figured this would be as good a time as any… One of our readers has a question and we’re sure many of you would be able to help… Even though she is not a mami yet, her fiance and her have started thinking about raising their future children bilingual and she has been wondering about a few things. ¡Vamos a ayudarla!

Is my Husband too Old to Learn Spanish?

This question comes from Juliana Reyes who is bilingual and is engaged to a man who only speaks English. “I know this question does not have anything to do with teaching Spanish to my kids but I still need help on this. I am engaged to a wonderful “gringo” that does not speak Spanish at all. I am fluent in both in English and Spanish and I am fine with the fact that he doesn’t speak Spanish. Now that we have been talking about having kids he is becoming more interested on learning Spanish. He doesn’t want to be leaft out of my conversations with our future kids. Are there any resources I can use to teach him Spanish? How do you teach an adult? He is 33 years old, is it too late for him to learn?”

I say it’s never too late for anything. What do you think? I know a lot of you are in similar situations. Have you done anything special to deal with it? Or do monolingual husbands (or wives) just pick up some of the language as their kids grow up bilingual? It’d be great to hear what you have to share!

Have a question for one of our amazing experts? You can find out more about the experts and leave your question here.  Remember, no question is too big or too small and it’s most probably shared by many of us.

Photo by ~My aim is true~

Even though I still have some time, there’s something that’s been gnawing at me lately. And even though I debated a bit about whether or not I should write this entry, I eventually decided the timing was perfect.

First because we’ll be focusing on dual language immersion education the whole week and second–and most importantly–because after all the (six!) weeks since launching SpanglishBaby, I feel like we’ve already built a pretty impressive community. We love reading your comments because they’re both insightful and inspiring.

So, I’m going to be a bit selfish today and this time around, I’m going to present you with my problem in the hopes that you can enlighten me a bit, or at least give me a different perspective, something I might have missed.

The question is whether or not I should send Vanessa to a dual language immersion school where she will be taught in both English and Spanish. It’s not that I don’t want my daughter to be fully bilingual and bi-literate (able to read, write and speak) in my mother tongue, it’s more like I feel I should be able to do it myself. If I were able to find a dual language immersion program she could attend where we live, I think I might want for her to learn a third language like Mandarin Chinese…

Then, a few weeks ago, out of nowhere, my husband said something to this effect: “You’re going to be teaching Vanessa how to read and write in Spanish, right? You could do after she comes home from school, just a little every day, right?” It was really more a statement than a question, to which I reacted with nothing. Not because I had never thought about it, but because for the first time I saw the enormity of the task at hand.

Would I really be able and willing to do that? Would I have the patience and dedication? Would Vanessa want to continue studying after spending eight hours at school? Or, should I just do everything in my power to send her to an elementary school designed to do just that: teach her both languages while I just help reinforce the minority one at home?

In doing research for this week of dual language immersion programs, I came across some wonderful information about the successes and accomplishments of the kids enrolled in them. I truly believe this is the best option we can give our kids, I just don’t know whether having someone else teach Vanessa my first language is kind of a waste when she could be learning a third language.

So, what do you all think? What are your plans for your kids? If your kids are already in a dual language immersion program, I’d love to hear from you and what you have to say about them, or anything else related to the education of our little ones.

Photo by Kris Hoet

In this, our third week in our Ask an Expert series, we’ve decided to do something new and different. But before I explain what it is and share our reader’s question with all of you, I want to tell you just a little bit about our newest expert. Her name is Liza Sánchez–I mentioned her blog in yesterday’s Yo Quiero Links entry. She obtained her MA in Education at the University of California Berkeley. She is the founder and Board Chair of Escuela Bilingüe Internacional (EBI) in Oakland, California. EBI is the first independent school in California to offer a Spanish-English dual language program, extending from pre-K through 8th grade. Liza will be answering one of your questions next Monday, so please send anything related to bilingual education our way by going here.

Today, however, after reading all the incredibly useful and practical comments all of you have left here, Roxana and I realized that your are experts, too! So we’ve decided to let you dish out the advice. That’s right: You! We  love the fact that we have very opinionated and passionate readers who leave the most insightful comments. Reading them inspires us in so many ways. Now, let’s together help one of our readers who has agreed to receive honest and loving advice from us parents already on the journey to raising bilingual kids. Let’s share and learn from each other.

Will my husband confuse my baby?

This week’s question was sent by Mary Siddall, a Peruvian mom married to an American using the mL@H method to raise their son bilingual. They live in Denver, Colorado.

“I have a 10 month old baby. My native language is Spanish and my husband’s language is English. He knows some Spanish. I am having a hard time everytime my husband tries to speak Spanish to my baby. I think the baby will get confused if my husband does not speak it correctly. What do you suggest? Is it ok for my husband to speak to the baby in Spanish sometimes even though his Spanish has a lot of mistakes? Or, is it better for him only to speak to our son in English? I really don’t know. Thanks.”

You’re already raising a bilingual child or were raised as one…that makes you an expert. What advice can you give Mary? Let’s all chime in and make this experiment a success! Thanks to all and we look forward to reading your answers.

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