Starting Out: First Sibling Interactions!

I thought I'd throw in another video from the good old days!! Watching this brought back lots of memories from the beginnings of our non-native bilingual parenting adventures. I remember that when the kids were first born, that it was hard to speak to them in German. It felt unnatural. However, as we persisted, it became more and more normal. This video is taken when Ben is two years old and just starting to talk. It's fun to see that he is talking to his little siblings in German even though they can't even speak yet. One of my favorite parts of our non-native bilingual adventure has been watching my children interact with each other in German. And one of the reasons, I love this video, is because it shows one of the first times the Ben is really talking to his siblings in German. Plus, I thought it was pretty cute that as he was trying to take off his shirt, he decided to leave it on his head and pretend to be a doggy. 

Karl and I tried hard to speak only German to the kids when they were little. We did not always succeed, but by starting when they were super small, we were able to establish German as "our" language. In time, we became very comfortable speaking German to the kids. Those who are native Germans will be able to tell that our German is not perfect. But, we decided to persist...even with our imperfect German. I decided early on that an imperfect second language would be better than no second language at all! :)

Then (above) and now (below)!

French Fridays: Je mange une pomme! Fun with Little Pim!

For the past several months, my little kids have been doing half public school and half homeschool--meaning that I pull them out of public school two days a week so that we can work on our German and French. My goal in German is to have them reading and writing at approximately the same level in German as they are in English. This isn't really that hard, since they're using basically the same "reading skills" in both English and German. It just takes time...time which we can never find after they've spent a whole day at school. My goal for French is much simpler. Since my French is pretty limited, I basically just want to expose them to as much French as possible while they are young. Why French? Because it's the only other language I'm familiar with (I took a few semesters in college) and also because my husband also speaks some French. And why do I want to even teach them a third language? Well, I guess it's because they are at a great age to soak up languages. Being bilingual already, they totally understand the concept of "language". They understand that there are many different ways to express an idea. They are fascinated with foreign languages. They light up when they hear someone speaking Spanish at the store. They immediately recognize it as Spanish and start rattling off the five Spanish words they know in an effort to prove to me that they can speak Spanish. So, why not expose them to French right now? They're interested and they're primed to learn.
I have a French curriculum that I've been using. It's called La Petite Pierre. It's a French curriculum for German elementary students. But recently, I checked out the Little Pim DVDs from the library to supplement our French lesson on food. The Little Pim videos are very simple and repetitive. I really like them because they not only introduce and review vocabulary, but also help teach how to put that vocabulary into simple sentences so that the kids can actually use the new vocab.
Below, you can see my twins watching and interacting with the Little Pim video.  I've put out some food and drinks to help them practice some of the vocab. My goal is to get them to not only listen and watch the DVD, but also for them to produce language themselves. It's fun to see their little brains working so hard as they process the language. Although, they can only say a few things in French, they are under the impression that they can speak quite well. If you asked them what languages they speak, they would say German and French. They are quite proud of the fact that they have learned (some) French. And I'm thrilled that they are learning and enjoying languages.

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.