Encouraging Target Language Use Through Our German Home School Days!

In order to help the kids continue to immerse themselves in German, I pull them out of their regular school about one day every week (or once every other week) and home school them in German. Like I've mentioned before, my kids' primary language is slowly switching from German to English. This is inevitable, since we live in the United States, my husband and I are native English speakers, all their friends speak English, and they attend an English-speaking public school. So, naturally, their primary language will eventually be Englsih. In fact, I am quite surprised at how long we were able to keep German as their primary language! They only started increasingly speaking English at home in the past 9 months! It is not my intention to "fight" the English that is creeping into our home, but merely to continue to encourage as much German as possible. I want to give them opportunities where it feels comfortable and natural to speak German (our target language). Our pseudo-German-home-school is one of those opportunities. As we work on German work sheets and read German books, the kids naturally start speaking mostly in German to each other.

Reaching Higher Levels through Educational Software and Home Schooling!

We are continuing to "part-time home school" our three youngest children. I keep them home from school one day each week (more or less). On that day, usually it's a Wednesday, we do German lessons. I have a German 2nd grade curriculum that we work from . We also work a little on math and, often, I have them work on their regular school (English) homework.

I especially like that our German curriculum comes with some helpful software. The following video is of my Simon working on creating sentences in German. He has to put the phrases in the correct order to either create a statement or a question. It's so fun to see the kids learning so much. They aren't quite up to a native German 2nd grade level, as they often don't understand certain words. But by working through the German school curriculum, the kids continue to improve their German past the level that they would achieve by merely speaking German at home with their non-native German-speaking parents.  For non-native bilingual parenting to be successful, we need to expose our children to as many outside resources as possible in order to help them continue to progress in the target language.

Thank goodness for Technology Post

Working on Grammar! Still Loving our Part-time German Home School Experiment

We have an AMAZING local elementary school. We are so blessed that the principal and teachers have been so understanding and cooperative and willing to work with us as we try to raise biliterate kids.
The kids are now in in 3rd and 2nd grades. Ever since they started school, I have been "part-time" home schooling them, meaning that I pull them out of school at least once a week so that we can have German school at home. It has been such a perfect arrangement. Without our day at home, we would never find the time to really work on our German schoolwork.
In addition to our German schoolwork, we also do a lot of reading, both in German and English, The rest of our day at home is taken up with French lessons, practicing violin, chores and playtime. I ordered our German curriculum from Germany. I love that the kids are now a little more advanced and are working on grammar...which is something they really need.

In the video below, the kids are supposed to read a paragraph, find the verbs and then conjugate the verbs. It's fun to see them thinking about language, grammar and its usage. I'm hoping that as we continue to do German schoolwork, that the kids' language won't plateau. I realize that as they start communicating more in English with each other, that some plateauing is inevitable. However, as we read more and more advanced texts and are exposed to more unfamiliar words, hopefully, they will continue to improve their German.

Getting written up in a magazine and spreading the word about non-native bilingual parenting!

I get excited about non-native bilingual parenting. Our family's bilingualism has had such a positive impact on everything that we do. If you ask any of my kids, they will all tell you that they are super happy that we taught them German. And because of this, I get excited about encouraging others to do the same. There are so many people that speak a foreign language who haven't even considered the possibility of teaching their children that language. And there are many other people who have considered it a possibility but who lack the confidence to actually try it. This is the very reason why I started my blog (and my website). I just wanted to let others know that it can be done...and done successfully. 

I was super excited when I was interviewed by Sue Bergin, one of the editors of BYU Magazine, a magazine published by Brigham Young University with a readership of over 200,000. How fun to share the idea of non-native bilingual parenting with even more people! Sue did a great job on the article. She also interviewed Cindy Brewer, who is also a non-native bilingual parent. Cindy and I were graduate students at the same time. My college-aged daughter, Kiana, currently happens to be taking German from Cindy. Kiana, who can speak fairly fluently already, is finally getting a good grasp on her German grammar. It's fun to see just how much she is learning. 

Anyways, here is the link to a great article about Non-Native Bilingual Parenting.

Getting geared up for the new bilingual school year and wanting to be a more "deliberate" mom!

September arrived way too soon. I'm always so surprised at how quickly summer flies by. I always think I'll have the time to do summer school work with the kids, but it seldom works out. Between having all the kids home from school and all the summer activities and camps and the lack of a rigid schedule, I just don't seem to fit in any real school work. We mostly played, worked and had fun. We did, however, work a little bit on reading. Here's a little clip from some German summer reading:

The kids are now back in school and I'm getting ready to start our unique part-time home school program: see Part-Time Home Schooling Post  The biggest difference this year is that I will probably only be pulling the kids out of school once a week instead of twice a week, like I did last year. If I feel like I'm just not getting enough time with them, then I may pull them out twice on some weeks. We'll just see how it goes.

My three young kids are attending public school and are in first and second grade this year. They happen to have two of the best teachers in the world. Not only would my kids complain if I took them out of school too often (because they LOVE school), but I also don't want to disrupt their classroom learning too much. On the other hand, I'm anxious to see if we can keep up with our German reading and writing with only one day each week to work on it. I hope that even by exposing them to German reading and writing once a week, that their German literacy skills will continue to progress at grade level. I think that many of the skills they are learning at school (in English) will transfer to our German school work: see Learning to Read in Two Languages.
I am very excited to start our "German School." I love our home school days so much because I am a more "deliberate" mom on those days. I figure that if I'm taking my kids out of school, I'd better make sure that I am not wasting their time here at home. On our home school days, I make an extra effort to spend quality time with my kiddos: teaching, learning, playing, creating, reading, writing etc. We mostly focus on German reading, German writing (handwriting, spelling & journaling), and French. In addition, we usually spend time reading scriptures and teaching values, homemaking (cooking, cleaning, etc), music (piano), outdoor school (nature walks, etc.) and an occasional outing (museum). There's just so much we could do that I can't possibly fit it into one day!
I have spent today printing out our schedule, copying workbook pages, studying our French lesson and getting our "German school" area ready for Friday. I'm so excited about all the things that we will be learning together. I'm thrilled that they are learning to read and write in German and I'm happy that they are starting to learn French. But mostly, I'm just so excited to have my kids at home with me all day and to have this special, deliberate and quality time to connect with my precious little ones.

Learning to read in two languages simultaneously has benefits!

As my first grader and two Kindergartners are learning to read, write and spell in English at our local elementary school, I am simultaneously working with them at home to teach them how to read and write in German. I ordered a 1st grade German school curriculum, Piri by Klett, which I really like. At home, during our German "homeschool" sessions, we are learning the sounds of the German alphabet and also how to sound out words and how to write sentences. It's fun to see them making progress. We're also working on reading skills.

Some people might wonder if learning to read in two languages is difficult for a child. Does one language system interfere with the learning of the other system? Does learning both languages at the same time delay learning in both languages? Well, I have found the opposite to be true. I can't speak for all languages, but I have found that learning to read in both German and English simultaneously has only helped my kids. There are so many reading skills that transfer between and strengthen both languages. To learn to read means that a child needs to make a connection between symbols, sounds, and meaning. That very process is happening in both languages. I have been amazed at how seldom my kids mix the two languages. If they are reading in German, they pronounce things in their German accent and according to how that letter is pronounced in German. Now and then, they'll get a little confused, but very rarely. For instance, the letters W and V are a little tricky. The German W is pronounced like the English V and the German V is pronounced like the English F. This can be a little troublesome and confusing. But, these incongruities haven't been huge stumbling blocks in their reading development. Once they're immersed in reading a certain language, their mind switches into that language's syntax and phonological rules. If they come across a word that is spelled the same in both languages, like Baby or Computer, they will pronounce it correctly for the language that they are currently using. 

I love seeing how the reading skills that they are learning at school are helping them read (in German) at home. As they learn how to better blend sounds in English at school, I also see their ability to blend sounds in German improve. And as we work on dividing big German words into syllables, I see them applying some of these same strategies with English words. 

I love this quote that I found on the University of Calgary website:

According to Rahat Naqvi from the Faculty of Education, “Research also indicates that elementary school aged children can benefit from reading in two languages at the same time without hindering their ability to be effective readers in English. Multilingual literacy interventions in mainstream schools, such as dual language books, build on children’s first and second languages.” - See more at: http://arts.ucalgary.ca/news/research-shows-children-can-learn-multiple-languages-simultaneously#sthash.FmiuGNLE.dpuf

As long as the kids are eager to learn to read, I suggest taking advantage of this desire. Encourage them to read in both (or all) languages that they speak. There are so many overlapping skills that they are able to apply to both languages. It just makes sense for them to be practicing these skills in both languages. Although there may be a small amount confusion or mixing of languages at first, I have found that it is minor and that it works itself out quickly. In the meantime, the kids are able to get a much better grasp of both (or all) languages and will enjoy all the benefits of biliteracy at an early age. What a great gift!

Learning Their "Native" Language. My American Kids in ESL.

I've been interested in finding out just how our "German experiment" has effected my children's English language abilities. Since both my husband and I are native English speakers, I still think it's quite interesting that our children are enrolled in the ESL class at school. I am intrigued by the fact that English is their second language. It's not like they haven't been exposed to English. They have been exposed to English since birth. We live in the United States. Everywhere we go, outside the home, everyone is speaking English. All of the adults and teenagers in our home speak exclusively English to each other. So, needless to say, there is LOTS of English spoken around our three youngest children. It's spoken around the dinner table, as we do our chores, as we sit around and talk. But, like I've mentioned before, we (all the adults and teens) speak only German to our 3 little ones. And they speak only German to us and to each other. You would think that with all that English exposure, that they would have a complete grasp of the English language. But interestingly enough, they don't. In fact, up until they started socializing outside the home (age 5), their English was extremely limited. When I spoke to them in English, I often got blank stares. But once they reached the age and maturity where social interactions with friends became important enough, they were finally motivated to actually start learning English. Up until that point, they had no need for English and, thus, they mostly tuned it out. However, now that they see the need for English, they are picking it up very quickly. In school, all three of them are enrolled in ESL class and they are making steady progress.
In the video below, I'm working with Simon on some homework that he brought home from school. I like that some of these exercises actually allow me to gauge the kids' English ability. Sometimes, I start assuming that they know way more than they actually comprehend. It's not until I ask them specific questions, like "What does 'crowded' mean?", that I realize that their English still needs work. I'm glad that they are enrolled in ESL at school. I'm glad that we have them attending public school. And I'm glad that we are now reading way more English books at home. It's all making a difference. But mostly, I'm glad that we have maintained our language boundaries and that German continues to be our home language, I'm thrilled that they are continuing to improve in German.

So, rather than being overly concerned about their lagging English ability, I'm confident that they will pick it up very quickly. They are very motivated to learn and there is no stopping motivated kids!! They can learn anything (and any language) they set their minds to.  

My Kids in ESL

German Homeschooling Update

So, we're now into our second month of part-time German homeschooling. What is part-time German homeschooling? Well, we're sending the kids to school three days a week and keeping them home on the other two days (I still can't believe how lucky I am that our public elementary school has been so amazing to work with me on this). On the days that we're at home, I homeschool the kids in German (and French).

• I bought a German 1st grade curriculum (which I absolutely love) and that curriculum is the basis for our homeschooling. I have the teacher's manual, the reading book, the workbook and some other items. I just ordered the "Sachbuch"--which I'm super excited about. 
• I also bought a French curriculum (intended for German elementary students). My French is very limited, so I'm basically learning right along with my littles. It's pretty fun. I had about 4 semesters of French in college about 25 years ago. Needless to say, I had forgotten most of my French. But I'm surprised at what is coming back to me, as I introduce the kids to the basics. I like like that this curriculum has lots of songs. The kids and I sing them all the time together.
• I supplement with fun crafts and ideas from Kindersuppe.de. I love this site. You have to pay a small fee, but have access to tons of fun German educational craft ideas. 

The kids seem to be keeping up just fine in school. I guess, this only applies to my 1st grader, Jonathan, because he is the only one who technically is missing school in order to stay home on the days that the two Kindergartners already have off. There were a couple of occasions where he wanted to go to school instead of stay home. I think he worried about being "different" than the other kids at first. But, we came up with a fun points program to earn a visit to our local children's museum and ever since that, he's been much more excited about staying home and doing the work to earn the points. 

The other wonderful thing about homeschooling in German is that many of the same skills that we're working on as we learn to read and write in German also apply to reading and writing in English. The alphabets are different, yet similar. I'm amazed at how they know to pronounce certain letters one way in German and another way in English. Yes, there is some confusion, but it's relatively minimal. The positives far outweigh any issues we've had.

We spend a lot more time reading books,
both English and German.

One of my favorite things about our "German School" days is that I have some extra time with my babies in the morning. We read more books together and we cuddle more. They also get more time to play. Just yesterday, after we finished our school work, I sent them outside with an old broom and told them to clean up the tree house. Well, I didn't see them for 3 hours after that. But I heard lots of happy, energetic, and fun sounds coming from the trees. And, best of all, they all needed a bath because they had played so hard and had gotten so dirty. 

I still feel like I should pinch myself to make sure this isn't a dream...it's just so close to perfection! I am so, so pleased with the way things are working out. I'm so glad that they can go to school and improve their English. I really enjoy my 3 days a week to get things done at home. And I love that I get those other 2 days to really focus on teaching my babies. Life is good.

"I don't have water!!!" German schooling is working :-)

I was so tickled by what happened last night, that I had to write a quick blog post about it:

At night time, we usually have a lengthy routine for our three little ones. They get changed, brush their teeth, clean their room, say their prayers and then I read bible stories to them as they lay in their beds. After that, I turn out the lights and sing a bunch of German lullabies. Oh, on top of that, each child usually fills up their sippy cup (non-spill cup) with water and sets that cup within reach.
Well, last night, I apparently forgot about making sure that their water was filled. So, after songs and goodnight kisses, I closed their door and came downstairs. We were relaxing in the family room, when I heard some shuffling in the kids' bedroom above me. A little later, I heard some footsteps on the stairs and there stood Simon. He was a little bashful, because he knew he wasn't supposed to be out of bed. He handed us a note and scampered back upstairs.
We were all surprised and amused at his funny behavior. I took a look at the note. It was so cute. He wrote: Ich hade kein Wasa. Simon!  Translation: I don't have water. Simon. Then he drew a picture of a very sad boy holding an empty sippy cup. The first thing I noticed was that he had actually written the word for "I" correctly: ich.  We had been working on the "ch" sound last week in our German school. We also work a lot at sounding out words in syllables. Being very phonetic, German is an easy language to learn to spell, except that sometimes it's hard to hear certain endings...like the -er. As I expected, he misspelled the word for "Wasser", but I was impressed that he wrote it phonetically--like it sounds. We're still working on those -er endings. And like most kids, he confuses the "b" with the "d", but that will come with time.
I was just so delighted to receive this precious little note. I was pleased that he had the confidence to write a German message on paper. I love that he applied the skills that we've been working on in our German homeschooling. And most of all I love that he's learning and growing and experimenting with the language.
I promptly went upstairs and filled his little sippy cup. I love having little kids!!

Part-Time Homeschooling: The Best of Both Worlds

For the past month, I have been homeschooling my three youngest children part-time. So what does that mean? Well, ever since last summer, I have been playing with the idea of pulling my children out of school in order to homeschool them. It's been a struggle for me to figure out what the best option is for my my kids and our non-native bilingual family. I wrote about my quandary in the following posts: Homeschooling Thoughts? Me?  and  More Homeschooling Thoughts: Splitting It Up.
I initially planned on sending them to public school the first half of this school year and then pulling them out after Christmas break and homeschooling them the rest of the year. However, as the school year progressed, I realized that all three of the kids were really thriving in their respective classrooms. They absolutely LOVED going to school and looked forward to it each day. Their teachers were phenomenal and their classrooms had positive, happy, calm, learning-centered atmospheres. I also realized, after receiving their ESL test results (My American Kids in ESL), that they really needed all the extra English instruction that they could get, both in their ESL class, their regular classroom and on the playground. I suddenly found myself having second thoughts about pulling them out of school.
But, on the other hand, I still  wanted them to progress in their German literacy. I wanted them to learn to read and write in German and to really solidify their fluency in the German language. I wanted extra time at home to just read and read and read (both German and English) (The Read-Aloud Handbook). I also wanted to start learning French with them (Introducing French). And most of all, I wanted extra time with my little ones because I know from experience just how fast kids grow up!
So, what to do? Well, in November, I approached our amazing elementary school principal with my predicament. She knew of my initial choice to pull the kids out after Christmas. I explained my dilemma and asked about the possibility of doing school part-time instead of completely withdrawing. It turns out that my Kindergartners already only go to school 3 days a week. So it was only a matter of figuring out if we could have my first-grader stay home the same days that my Kindergartners are at home. We found the first grade teacher to be completely supportive and understanding of our situation. I was thrilled with our wonderful compromise. It seemed to combine the best of both worlds and promised to meet all the educational objectives that we have for our unique bilingual kids. Starting in January, we decided that we would homeschool on Tuesdays and Fridays and have the kids go to public school on the other three days. I was blown away by the cooperation and support that I felt from our wonderful elementary school. We have a great school district!

We're now in our 3rd week of this amazing part-time homeschooling experiment and, so far, we are absolutely loving it. I initially thought that we would get all of our homeschooling done before noon, but, it turns out we have so much to do, that we end up working hard into the afternoon.
Here's a very rough schedule of our typical "deutsche Schule" (German School) day:

• 6:30   Family Scripture Reading and Morning Jobs (dressed, teeth, room)
• 7:00  Breakfast and  Kitchen Jobs (chores)
• 8:00  Quiet Reading in Family Room, also read together from Fibel (Primer or Textbook)
• 8:30  Snack Break
• 9:00  Go to Schoolroom (attic)
• Calendar Time
• Writing worksheets (letters, sounds, spelling, cursive, etc)
• Word games
• Crafts
• Math Sheets
• 11:30 Lunch and Recess (Outside, of course!)  
• 1:00  French Class in Family Room
• 2:00  Read books, Color, Do more crafts, play educational computer games, or something fun.
• 3:00  Play hard until dinner (love to watch them at play)

I took the following video of the kids up in our schoolroom (attic) last week as they were working on the worksheets which go along with the sound "ch". The kids are all at slightly different levels and some are more wiggly than others, but it's so fun to spend this special time with them. I'm super excited to have this opportunity to help them to supplement their public schooling with our non-native language schooling!

My Turn to Study

I recently decided that I'd like to start saving up to take our younger children to Germany. We took our older kids to Germany in 2006. It was an amazing and life-changing experience for them. When you grow up speaking a foreign language, it is really special to finally get to visit the country where that language is spoken. When we took our older children, my oldest was 13 years old and the youngest (at the time) was 7. They had been speaking German since birth, but they didn't really know what Germany was like. It was a big deal for them to travel to Europe and see Germany for themselves. They got to see the farm where I lived for a few years as a child and they had the opportunity to finally use their German.

Ever since our younger batch of children arrived, I've known that we need to try and get over to Germany again. I would like the little ones to have the same opportunity that their older siblings had. But, of course, a family trip to Europe costs money. So, I decided to start earning some money by teaching or subbing part-time.  I'm only hoping to teach 1 or maybe 2 days a week tops. The nice thing about subbing is that I can get to choose when I want to work. Also, because of our part-time homeschooling, I need to be at home several days a week.
I haven't worked outside the home since I was in college. I have a secondary education degree in German, but have not have not kept my license current. So, my first step is to get a teaching license. And the first step to getting my teaching license is to take and pass several competency tests. Since my major was German and my minor was TESL, I need to pass a comprehensive exam in each of these areas.
I was quite nervous about my German test. I did study, but there was just so much information and so little time to study, that I figured: "I'll either know it or I won't." Well, as I took my test, it became clear that all my years of speaking German at home had been a HUGE help. Because we speak German at home to the kids, my German skills had never become dormant. The words, phrases, idioms were at the forefront of my head. Phrases popped into my head as I was writing the essay. Having tutored my older children in grammar, helped me to remember all the grammar rules.
Several weeks later, I received my test scores. I had passed with flying colors! Of course, I was thrilled to have passed the test, but mostly I was so excited that my success came from the fact that we had decided to raise our children bilingually. My children weren't a distraction from my studies at all! Rather, they were literally 20 years of test prep! All my focus these last 20 years has been on the kids. All of our bilingual efforts have been directed towards improving their language proficiency. And even though I really haven't given my own German language learning much thought, it was fun to see just how much I have learned in the process of non-native bilingual parenting.

My American Kids in ESL: Improving English without giving up on German

It's always such a funny discussion when I try to explain to people that my kids struggle a little with English. Last year, when Jonathan started school, I had to explain the situation quite a few times. The conversation usually goes a little bit like this:

"So, if my kids don't understand everything you say, it's because they don't speak English very well. They've spoken mostly German since birth." 

"Oh, are you from Germany?"

"No, the kids have never been to Germany. We live here."

"Oh, are you German?" 

"No, I'm American." 

"Oh, is your husband German?" 

"No, he's also American. We're both Americans."

(Here I usually get a pause and a puzzled look, so I quickly just continue)

"We just decided to raise them German speaking...just because. It was sort of an experiment that actually worked."

At this point, I usually get congratulated or applauded for raising bilingual children and there's always several remarks about what a wonderful gift it will be for the kids. And I'm reminded of what a unique situation we've created for our children. 

My older batch of children spoke much better English by the time they entered school than my younger batch. That's because we've been much more consistent in our German with our younger children than we were with the older ones. I consider it a success that we've been able to stick with our German as much as we have. However, the increased German has come at a cost. The cost is that the three younger children's English is lagging behind a bit. I'm sure that it will catch up with their peers in time. My older kids have absolutely no problems with English. In fact, they are quite verbal and are great students. 

Jonathan starts 1st Grade

This year, Jonathan entered first grade and Clarissa and Simon entered Kindergarten. I asked that they all be tested for ESL. And all three of them qualified for ESL instruction. I was actually a little surprised since I thought that their English had been improving quite a bit this past year. And it has been improving. Jonathan's English is better than his younger twin siblings, as should be expected. His year in Kindergarten obviously helped his English. However, the twins' test results showed that they both had quite limited English skills. My little Clarissa, who is naturally much more verbal than her twin brother, tested slightly higher. In fact, her "reading-writing" and "listening" skills were "fluent" and in the 46th percentile. However, her "oral expression" was "limited" and was in the 1st percentile of a national percentile rank. Simon also ranked "fluent" in "listening." However, his "language comprehension" was "very limited." 

Based on a comparison to others of their age, the children tested well below average in their "Broad English Ability-Total. " This is a comprehensive measure of language ability, including language comprehension abilities.

Jonathan tested in the 16th percentile

Clarissa tested in the 21st percentile

Simon tested in the 10th percentile

Part of me got a little concerned when I saw the test results. I worried for a second (but only a second) that maybe we have pushed the German too much. But, when I really thought about it, my gut told me that their English will be just fine. The community language is extremely powerful. It will usually take care of itself just fine. I am not so worried about it that I'm willing to stop speaking German at home. But I'm concerned enough that I have made a few changes. We have substantially increased the amount of time we spend at home reading English books. I blogged about reading in English HERE. Their need to improve their English has also given me second thoughts when it comes to my homeschooling plans. I haven't given up completely on my homeschooling dreams. However, I think I am going to modify my plans a little to make sure that the kids get sufficient English instruction. But, with those modifications in place, we will continue to speak German at home. The kids continue to converse with each in German. 

I'm convinced that we don't need to give up our German in order to have our English. The English will come with time. I'm sure of that. We will help it along by reading English books at home and by going to church and sending the children to public school and by having them in the ESL program. And we will continue all of our German efforts. We will continue to speak only German to the kids at home. We will continue to watch German movies and TV shows (along with English ones). We will continue to teach them to read and write in German. We will continue to have a German speaking home because, in the end, I know that this incredible experiment is worth it. My older children have expressed how grateful they are for the gift of having a second language. I have seen how much it has enriched and blessed our family life. I have seen how speaking German has shaped and defined our family in so many positive ways. And, really, as I consider the ramifications of the ESL test results, what it has really shown me is that our funny language experiment of raising German speaking children has actually worked. We have indeed raised German speaking children. And that is no small thing!

The Read-Aloud Handbook: A Game Changer

A week ago, a very dear friend handed me a gift at church. It turned out to be a book that I had overheard her talking about in previous conversations. It was The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease. This friend is an avid reader (one of the most avid readers I know) and I was a little surprised when she told me that this book inspired her to read to her kids even more. So, the minute I had some time, I opened the book and started reading.

My first reaction: I have not been reading enough to my kids!

Yes, I read them books. We read a little before they go to bed, but usually only about 10 minutes or so (I'm usually anxious to put them down for the night so I can get things done). Sometimes, I'll sit and read books to them during the day, but not every single day. One of my problems is that I'm often so tired that the minute I sit down on the sofa to read a book to the kids, I fall asleep. I've been a casual read-aloud mom, at best. However, after reading The Read-Aloud Handbook, I realized that I wanted to read to them much, much more. The book is packed with encouraging statistics about the benefits of early exposure to books. It explains that those children who are immersed in more books receive some amazing benefits. They outperform those children with limited reading exposure in many areas, including vocabulary, reading comprehension, attention span, grammar, writing and spelling. The list goes on and on. The more I read, the more excited I got about increasing the reading in our home. It also got me thinking differently about some of my long-held ideas and philosophies about my bilingual parenting methods and inspired me to make some changes.

Here are some of the changes that I'm about to implement (and I've already started some of them):

1. We're going to read a LOT more English books.
2. We're going to read more German books.
3. We're going to spend more time discussing English and German books in both English and German.

So why would we want to read more English (majority language) books, when I'm trying so hard to push German (minority language)?

Well, there are several compelling reasons. The first being that my children live in an English speaking country and will need to have a good grasp of the English language. They will go to school in English. They will take their college entrance exams in English. And, yes, even though we are teaching them German, they will live most of their lives in English. My philosophy, up to this point, was to just let the "English" happen on its own....which it did (to a certain degree), while we pushed German at home. I tried very hard to limit our reading to German books so that we could foster the children's German language development amid the pervasive English influence. I knew that unless we kept our home a German-speaking refuge, that the English would infiltrate and eventually overpower our German bilingual efforts. And, I know from experience, that once the majority language (English) becomes a comfortable conversational language among family members, that the minority language (German) will be spoken less and less until it's hardly used at all. 

However, as mentioned in a previous post:  Books Are Boundaries , I have discovered that reading English books does not affect our conversational use of German at home. Because a book is a clear language boundary, we are able to open the book, read (and even discuss) a book in English, close the book and then we naturally switch right back into German. It's a fascinating phenomenon. And because of this, I figure that we can spend much more time reading English books and reaping the benefits of improving the children's English language skills without it affecting our goal to have a German-speaking home.

What about German Books?

Of course, I want to continue to read a lot in German. And as we increase the amount of overall time we spend reading books, we will read more German books than we did previously. My goal is to have the children be literate in both English and German. I want their vocabularies to grow. I want them to understand more complex German sentence structures than what we usually use at home. I want them to be able to read and write in German and I feel like exposing them to lots German books will aide this process tremendously. So, yes, we will continue to read lots of German books. However, that said, the kids' English language skills will most likely play a much larger role in their lives than their German language skills, which is why we will no longer be reading exclusively German books.

Why discussing books is crucial in both languages

Because the children are more comfortable communicating in German, most of our book discussion tends to be in German--even when reading English books. It's crucial to spend time discussing books, especially when you're raising children to speak more than one language. As we read books, I'm able to ask questions about the story in either language. This way, I can check the kids' comprehension of the story in both languages. Sometimes, I ask in English and they answer in German. Other times, when discussing an English book, the discussion is all in English, and other times, it is all in German. The nice thing is that the book allows us to "break" our regular language rules and use whatever language we choose. As we read books in both languages and discuss them in both languages, we are able to translate words, talk about the different syntax in each language and even discuss cultural differences that come up in some books. 

I've always loved books. And, like I said before, I have been reading to my children their whole lives. But until recently, I feel like I've been underestimating and under-appreciating the power of books in helping my children to become truly literate in both languages. It took a book (The Read-Aloud Handbook), to really light the fire and to help me take reading to the next level. It took a recent discovery--that books are language boundaries--to open up my mind to the idea of reading to my children in English (the majority language). And both of these ideas together have been a positive "game changer" in our non-native bilingual parenting methods. I'm anxious to see where these new ideas will take us.

I've ordered a huge pile of books from our local library, all taken from the excellent anthology of great read-aloud books, which is included in The Read-Aloud Handbook. I recognize many of them from my childhood, but I had not thought to check them out for my own (German speaking) children until now. It's been fun to rediscover old books and enjoy new books. As much as I love our German books, it's been liberating to open our home to the world of English books...because, really, there is just no other way to read Dr. Suess!

Thanks, Stacey, for the book and your inspirational example!

More Homeschool Thoughts--Splitting it Up and Getting the Best of Both Worlds?

For the past year or so, I've been mulling a bunch of thoughts around in my head regarding home school, alternative school, private school, public school, etc. (home school thoughts). And I've been having a hard time making up my mind because what I want doesn't exist in our area. What I really want is the same type of schooling I had growing up. I wish that the school day was shorter...much shorter. The small school that I attended in Germany started at 8 am and got out at noon. That gave us time to come home, eat lunch with our families, do our homework and still have time to play. I would love to have an option like that for my kids, but I don't. I can't find anything like that around. So, I've been trying hard to come up with a best alternative.

So excited for 1st grade

There are a few things that I'm considering as I've been mulling this over. First off, I want to say that I don't dislike public school. In fact, there are a lot of things that I like about having my kids attend our local school. I like the sense of community. I like that they get to know the local kids and families. I like that they meet new friends. I like that they learn kid social rules and that they learn to get along with children from different backgrounds. I like that they are exposed to different kinds of teachers and teaching styles. And, in our particular case, I like that school helps them to learn English (real "kid-English"). It helps them to learn to pick up on social cues and kid-appropriate language. School helps them become a little bit more "socially savvy" in a kid sort of way. And my kids actually need that more than other kids, because we don't get any "kid-English" at home. It's all German.

So, why not just be happy sending them to school. Well, besides the problem of them being gone ALL day (which is a big deal to me), I also have some other issues. One is that I want to teach them to become literate in German (I already wrote all about this in another post). And I need WAY more time than the few hours after school and before bedtime. Not only do I want to work on reading and writing in German, but we are playing with the idea of teaching them French, too. I'd also love for them to have some more time to learn piano, do sports and dance and still have time to play. The "play" part is also a big deal to me.

Two cute Kinders ready to
meet their teacher.

So, how am I going to solve this dilemma? Well, since I can't have my ideal situation: 1/2 day school, I've decided on what I think is the best alternative: 1/2 year school. So, for now (and this plan could change depending on how I feel in a few months), I have decided that I will send the 3 Littles (my younger batch of kids) to school through December. And after Christmas break, we'll start our homeschooling adventure. And next fall, I'll probably send them back to school again and then maybe pull them out again the following December. That is the plan I've come up with...no promises or guarantees that we'll stick to it. But, at least it's a plan. 

Why does this crazy plan appeal to me. Well, for starters, they get the excitement of the first day and weeks of school. It's been so fun seeing the anticipation of my little people as they've been preparing for school. They loved getting their backpacks ready. They loved their meet and greet with their Kindergarten teacher and finding their cubbies. Jonathan loved finding out which friends were in his first grade class and seeing them again after the long summer. They also love the excitement of riding on the bus. They especially love feeling grown up and having the "school" experience.  

Initially, I thought about sending them to public school for a few years and then pulling them out in 2nd or 3rd grade to focus on German for a year or two. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that by waiting that long, I might miss the (language) boat. I don't want to pass up that amazing language acquisition window (it starts closing around age 8-10). Right now they are at an age where they are literally little language sponges. If I wait a few years, I run the risk that learning new languages might not come as naturally. Plus, they might start rejecting German (after going to school for a few years) and choose to speak mostly English at home. That would make it much more difficult to try and pull off homeschooling in German--at the very least, it would make our time less effective. This is the same reason why I don't want to pull them out of school completely. That same language window helps them to acquire better English, as well. So, I've got to use the "window" while it's open, which is why I'm so anxious to use this time to soak up as much language learning as possible. 

Christmas break seems like a great time to pull them out. Once January hits, there really isn't that much going on at school---so, they'll miss the class Valentines party (I can live with that)! It'll be much easier to do school work at home in the winter when the sunshine isn't tempting them to go play outside. The winter months are cold, dark and rainy where we live and that seems like the perfect time to sit and read books in front of the fire with mom. No one really likes leaving the house on winter mornings to go to school. Even my teenagers look longingly at the roaring fire and the cozy family room and wish they could just stay home. It'll be a good time to get some serious homeschooling accomplished...and still give the kids time to build cushion forts, do crafts, and just enjoy cuddling together in front of the fire.

So, that's the plan. And I'm getting pretty excited about it. I've already started collecting teaching materials. I'm excited to try homeschooling and I'm especially excited about doing it in German (and adding some more French)! I'm excited about all the possibilities and about spending time with my kiddos! I'm just so excited to see where this new adventure will take us. Did I mention that I was excited???

Language Learning During Everyday Living

So, the other day, my little 6 year old Jonathan was working on emptying the dishwasher. It was his job that morning. He's my little analytical engineer. He loves to figure out how things work. Anyways, as he was emptying the dishwasher, I noticed that he kept stacking the clean dishes in ascending or descending towers. He would take the items out of the dishwasher, line them up in order of size and then he would analyze his work. Then I  noticed that he was working on comparative and superlative adjectives in German. He would start on one end and say: "Biggest, bigger, big..." I pulled out my phone camera because he was just being so cute about it.
I was impressed with his desire to really learn the correct words. He got them a little mixed up at first, but I could tell that he really wanted to get it right. It was fun to see the little gears turning in his head as he put the words together with the meanings.
As I watched him, it occurred to me that this kind of learning is "real" learning. Of course, it's something that you could also learn from a textbook in German class, but this was just a little more "real". I thought about how I had at one time considered sending the kids to the local German/American private school. I didn't send them because, firstly, it was way too expensive and, secondly, I felt like I could give them just as much or even more German at home with me. These kinds of experiences also continue to persuade me to consider some sort of homeschooling. I get glimpses of the fun learning environment that we can create in our home and I also get excited about having my sweet babies with me all day long and watching them learn, grow and develop. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do as far as schooling goes, but we will, for sure, continue to speak, teach and learn German at home--for as long as we can.

Thank Goodness for Technology (when you're parenting in your non-native language)

The boys play a German computer game. Love how the stuffed kitty
is hanging by its tail and watching. 

Having had the experience of raising bilingual kids in the 1990's as well as in the 2010's, I must say that I've been very grateful for the help of technology in both eras. In the 1990's I was very grateful for anything German that I could get my hands on. It was a LOT harder to get the things that I wanted than it is today. For example, in order to be able to watch German children's videos. First, I had to find someone who was going to Germany who could buy a video cassette for me. Of course, that video (being in PAL format, used in Europe) wouldn't play on my American (NTSC) video player. So, I would have to find someone who owned a (very expensive) PAL/NTSC conversion video player. Thankfully, the university I was attending owned such a player, so I was able to convert a few videos. And, boy, was I grateful for each and every one of my German videos. The first movie we had was Dumbo. My little Ben watched his German Dumbo every afternoon before he took a nap. Later, I found friends who had NTSC/PAL video players/converters and our small German video library slowly grew. Eventually, the price came down enough that we got our own machine. Our little library become much bigger. We acquired  a whole slew of Disney videos. We also picked up traditional German children's shows along the way, like Loewenzahn, Petzi, and Sendung mit der Maus.

With our younger batch of kids we've had so, so much more technology available to us. With the internet, it's so much easier to order videos.  And the PAL video players are very cheap now. I have found that Abe Books carries lots of German materials and their shipping to the US is very reasonable. But, lately, I have almost stopped buying videos altogether, because we can find so many shows on YouTube. We can also watch a whole bunch of children's shows, including our all time favorite, Sendung mit dem Elefanten, on Kika. (KiKA Link). KiKA is a German children's TV network.

We have found lots of fun computer sites that help the kids to develop their German. Many of these resources are pinned on my Pinterest board (see right column). One of our favorites is Toggolino. You pay a yearly subscription, but that gets you access to tons of different educational software games. My kids absolutely love it. They never get tired of it because there are so many different games and new ones are constantly being added. I love all the educational software available to help the kids learn to read and write in German. 

Another source of German, which technology has made much easier to acquire, is music and audio books. I used to order cassette tapes through catalogs. Now, I can download just about anything I want. We love our German children's music. We have it playing all the time. Our favorite artist is Rolf Zukowski. The kids love to sing along to his songs. We also love to listen to audio books in the car. I was so pleased to find that I could open a German Audible account and order just about any audio book I wanted. I don't know if you younger moms appreciate all this as much as us older moms. But, just imagine trying to get your hands on material in your target language without the internet. Having access to so much information is just so helpful when you're parenting in your non-native language!!

So, how has access to all this technology helped us to raise children in our non-native language? Well, most of all, it has exposed our kids to lots and lots of (natively) spoken German, which is something they desperately need since our German is far from perfect. Through the many forms of media, they are exposed to complex sentence structures, syntax, different dialects, fixed expressions, and many other linguistic nuances that they can’t pick up from us, their parents, because we are not native speakers. On numerous occasions, I’ve heard my kids use phrases that they picked up from a German TV show or a German song…phrases that neither Karl nor I have ever used. And whenever that happens, I am reminded of just how much technology has helped my children understand and speak better German.

Not only does all this exposure help their language, it also makes them feel like they are part of a bigger group. My kids have very few friends who speak German. We just don’t come in contact with many Germans on a day to day basis. For this reason, it really helps them to see other kids speaking German on TV. When they watch a German show and see all the characters speaking German, it helps them to realize that they are not the only ones speaking this funny language. It also helps with the “cool factor” of the language. If your favorite cartoon character speaks German, then maybe German is a cool language!

And on top of helping their language AND helping them to love the language, the other benefit that I’ve seen from exposing our kids to lots of German videos, is that they are learning about German culture. This culture learning comes especially from shows with “real” actors (rather than cartoons). One culturally educational series that our young kids enjoy are the “Sachgeschichten” on Sendung mit der Maus. These are excerpts that can be compared to the How It’s Made series, except it’s geared towards little kids. My older girls adore the Sissi movie about Empress of Austria. It’s packed with history and culture. And what girl doesn’t love the beautiful flouncy dresses and elaborate hairstyles of the Georgian era?

When you're raising your kids in a language that is foreign to you, you are going to make mistakes--lots of them! You will sound awkward at times and you'll be just plain wrong at other times. It just makes sense to make sure that you are not the only source of the target language. You're going to want to surround your children with as many native speakers as possible. When you're facing a huge project (and I think raising your kids in a foreign language counts as a huge project), you want as much help as you can get. Thank goodness for the many foreign language resources that technology has put at our fingertips!

Homeschooling Thoughts?? Me??

I went to public school (and loved it) and so have all my kids. They have done well in public school. My three oldest have already graduated. They got good grades in high school (two of them were 4.0 students).  I still have kids in high school now and they are getting good grades. For the most part, I've liked their teachers and feel like they were academically challenged. All the kids excelled/excel in sports. We love to cheer for our school team and love the sense of community we feel at high school sporting events. The older kids were/are involved in school leadership and have good groups of friends. The public school system has been good for our family.

So, why am I starting to have thoughts about homeschooling? Well, there are several reasons. One of the biggest is that I feel (and have always felt) like the public schools take my young children out of the home for too long. I don't like that they leave at 7:30 in the morning to catch a bus and then don't return home until almost 4:00. When is there enough time to play? And, as a mom, I just want more time with my kids (especially during their younger years)! There just is no need for young children to be pulled out of the home all day, every day.

One of the reasons this bothers me is because I can contrast it with my childhood experience. During the 5 years my family lived in Germany, I attended elementary school in the rural town of Parsberg. I LOVED my elementary school experience!!  We had very small class sizes, wonderful teachers, and best of all, school got out at noon for grades 1-4 and at 1 p.m. for grades 5 and 6. We had a snack during recess, but lunch (or noon-day dinner) was eaten at home. Too me, this is the ideal situation. We had the entire afternoon to play on the farm, do our homework and just be with our family. And our education was every bit as good as the American kids who spent most of the day at school.
Parsberger Grundschule

I have been toying with the homeschooling idea for a few years...I tend to go back and forth on the issue. My older kids are a done deal and they're happy with their schooling situation. But my younger kids' education is still an unwritten book. Well, I had two thoughts that have helped me over my mental hump of accepting the homeschooling idea.

The first thought wasn't mine. It was a friend of mine who explained to me that I didn't have to really choose either homeschooling or public schooling. I could do whatever works best for that child for that year...meaning, I didn't have to commit!! That was a liberating thought. I can choose whatever works for us. If the kids want to do public school one year, they can! If they want to do home school the next year, they can!! This thought is what gave me the guts to seriously consider trying homeschooling. Because, if I (or the kids) didn't like it, we could always go back to public school.

The second thought (and this was the clincher for me) was realizing the potential I have to really teach the kids German. I taught my older kids German, but they weren't really "literate" in German. I didn't teach them grammar rules. They can't write, or spell, or even read that well. I did do some German school work with them when they were very young, but once they started school, we ran out of time for "German homework". It was quite an epiphany for me when I realized that if I pulled my children out of public school for a year or two, the kids could become truly literate in German. We could learn grammar, writing, reading, science, math, etc. all in German. What better use of my college degrees than truly educating the people that mean the most to me? Why else did I get a German teaching degree and a masters in Language Acquisition? Maybe I'll teach someone else's kids someday, but for now, I'm going to focus on the kids who are most important to me: mine! I get excited just thinking about it!!

In the meantime, I have my little Jonathan enrolled in (English speaking) Kindergarten in our local public school and I plan on sending the twins to Kindergarten next year. I think it's important that the kids get a year or two of English schooling. They need to really learn English. They weren't learning it at home (of which I'm quite proud). I want them to learn "Kid-English" and understand how to really interact on a playground, learn what words and phrases are acceptable, and form friendships. I want them to lose their German accents and syntax, so that they can relate better to their peers. Of course, we'll continue speaking and learning German at home during this time.  But, in a year or two, I hope to pull them out and try homeschooling them in German. By that time, they'll be a little older and better able to learn some of the concepts that I'm so excited to teach them. I'm not sure if I'll do it for a year, for two years, or more... It all depends on how it goes (I love that I don't have to commit). But either way, I am so, so, SO excited for our little homeschooling adventure, that I can hardly wait.

Here's a beautiful photo of the town of Parsberg where I attended Kindergarten through 5th grades. You can barely see the school. It's behind the church. The Kindergarten building is behind the Maypole. 

Here I am with my brother and sister, both of whom are holding their Schultueten (a dunce cap full of candy which kids traditionally bring on the first day of first grade). I'm starting 3rd grade and my brother is starting first grade. My sister wanted to walk with us and hold a Tuete, too. but she wasn't really starting school. We caught the bus at the little cluster of houses in the background.

German Preschool or Spielgruppe

Let's face it, it is just plain hard to maintain a minority language when you're trying to raise bilingual kids. Even before my oldest child started school, I noticed that the kids were speaking more and more English (majority language). As I was trying to figure out more ways to encourage the kids' German, I realized that my kids had never spoken German to other children. The only people who had ever spoken German to them were their parents and a handful of other adults. I was pretty sure that if they heard other children speaking German, that they would be motivated to speak more German themselves. I needed to find other German-speaking children for them to interact with. I looked into our local German American School, but it was a private school and was financially out of our reach. Much to my surprise, I found a German preschool run by a local community center. It was a 30 minute drive for me, but I signed up my oldest for the preschool. Twice a week, we drove to the preschool. It was a wonderful opportunity for my son to hear German spoken by people other than his parents. However, I noticed that most of the kids in the preschool didn't actually communicate in German. In most cases, they had at least one German parent and many of them could understand German, but very few of them really spoke German. When I observed them on the playground, they were almost always speaking English to each other. Still, it was a great program and my son really enjoyed the experience. The teacher was amazing. I volunteered to help and so was able to have my younger children in the class with me. It helped my children to see that German was spoken by more people than just mom and dad. We also enjoyed celebrating some of the traditional German holidays, like Faschings (see photo). We participated with the preschool for a year and it definitely had a positive influence on the kids' German.

Starting School and ESL (Second Batch of kids)

Starting school has been a little bit different with my second batch of kids than it had been with the first batch, although there are a few similarities.

My little Jonathan is currently in Kindergarten. Just like his oldest brother, Ben, we also put Jonathan into the ESL (English as a Second Language) program. The difference between the older 5 and the younger 3 kids, is that the younger ones have spoken almost exclusively German and their English is not nearly as fluent as the older kids at the same age. The younger ones still communicate with each other in German to this day, where my older kids had switched to English by this age. About a year ago, I was starting to get concerned that Jonathan would just not be ready for Kindergarten. We had already held him back one year, since his birthday is the end of August (right before the cut-off), but we were still concerned that he would really struggle with English in school. I had been observing him in his church Sunday school class and saw that he really didn't participate much. When the Sunday school teacher asked him to do something, he would usually smile and nod whether or not he understood. I also noticed that the other children could tell that he didn't understand everything. They were all very nice to him, they just didn't interact with him as much. The thought crossed my mind about introducing more English at home, but I quickly dismissed that thought. I knew from experience (with my older batch of kids), that once you introduce the majority language (English) at home that there is no going back. I decided that his English exposure needed to come from a source that was outside the home.

So, I enrolled him in a preschool. It was a good experience for him. It was fun to watch his English and his social skills improve. Having two siblings only a year younger than him, he really didn't have much of a need to have lots of play dates. Most of his playing was with his siblings in German. So, in preschool, it was fun to not only see his English improve in leaps and bounds, but to also see his social skills expand. He is naturally a very social and well adjusted little guy, but without being able to communicate in English, he was limited with how much he could interact with friends.

On a side note, let me just add that we did get together with friends during those preschool years (when they were between 3-5 years old). I don't feel like my kids suffered that much by not being able to speak English. They couldn't communicate complex ideas in English, but at that age, they really didn't need to. I was always amazed at their ability to communicate with friends despite their language differences. If you've ever seen kids from different cultures and language backgrounds play together on a playground, you can get a good feel for how my kids interacted with others. They used sign language, laughter, simple words that they had learned and lots of active play. I guess, having been thrown into a foreign language environment myself at age 6, I knew that the social setbacks of not speaking their peers' language would be temporary.

So, back to Jonathan's school situation: Preschool definitely helped Jonathan prepare for Kindergarten. It also put me at ease, because I observed him interacting and playing with multiple children. I saw that, even though he couldn't speak English at the same level as his peers,  he would be able to manage just fine.

Before school started, I talked to Jonathan's teacher and to the ESL teacher. I explained Jonathan's situation. They agreed to have him participate in the ESL program. Everyone at school was very supportive of Jonathan's bilingual situation. The principal just "loved" what we were doing with our children. The first few weeks of school, Jonathan struggled a little to understand everything. His teacher noticed that he sometimes didn't understand what she was asking, but she noticed him taking cues from the other children's actions.

Jonathan was tested just a few weeks into the school year. Here are his results:

I found it interesting, looking at the National Percentile Rank on the right of the chart, that Jonathan scored above average in everything except "Oral Language-Total" (29th % ile) and "Oral Expression" (11th % ile). His reading-writing, broad English ability, applied language proficiency and his language comprehension were all above average. I think this an amazingly accurate reflection of his early language exposure. He was exposed to lots of English growing up. He constantly heard English spoken by the adults and teenagers in his household. He also heard lots of English in the community. He was understanding much more than we gave him credit for. However, he had not been speaking (using) much English, so his ability to produce language was below average, because, of course, he hadn't been producing much English at home...he was only hearing it.

At the time of this post, Jonathan has just started the second half of his Kindergarten year. He tested out of the ESL program in November...meaning that he had already improved so much that he no longer qualified for ESL help. His oral ability is close to that of his peers. He interacts, plays, talks and jokes with his classmates. He still has his cute German accent and still struggles expressing more complex thoughts in English, but his progress has been amazing. I have no doubt that by 2nd grade, his English ability will be indistinguishable from that of his peers.

Starting School and ESL (First Batch of Kids)

I think it's kind of funny, that when I'm filling out all the school registration forms, that I get to put down that my children's first language is German and that their second language is English...and it's true. They each spoke German before they learned English. And I'm pretty proud of that.

Well, when Ben, my oldest, started started Kindergarten, I decided to put him in the ESL (English as a Second Language) program. I didn't really feel that he needed it. He could speak English, although his German was better. By the time he was 5, he was already speaking a lot of English to his siblings. So, he could communicate in English just fine. The biggest reason I wanted him in ESL, was to have his English evaluated. I was just curious about our whole German language experiment and thought it would be nice to get some feedback from an "expert". They evaluated him and kept him in the program for a couple months. He had a couple syntactic, vocab, and pronunciation issues. But they were quickly resolved. A few months into his Kindergarten year, I was informed that they were moving him out of the program because he no longer needed the extra help. I didn't put any of the other older kids into the ESL program. By the time they reached Kindergarten age, their English was better than Ben's had been at the same age, so there was really no justification for putting them into the ESL program.

My 5 older kids did just fine in school, despite English being their second language. If any of them had any issues with school, it was because of problems that were unrelated to their bilingualism--like inattention or difficulty with math concepts, etc. All of them were able to quickly overcome any issues that were related to English being their second language. Their peers and teachers were fascinated by their ability to understand and speak German. Their friends often asked them to talk in German, to which they'd usually reply with something like "Hallo, wie geht's" (Hello, how are you?). I thought that they might sometimes use German with their siblings at school. I especially thought that my twin girls would use German as a private language. It's cool enough to have a twin in your class, but a twin who speaks the same foreign language is even cooler. I was sure that they'd enjoy having their own twin language. But, to my surprise, they almost never communicated in German at school or among friends. They only used English among friends.