Switching from school language to home language

I have been quite intrigued with my younger batch of kids. What intrigues me, is that they continue to communicate with each other in German--even though they all attend an English speaking school together. They even all go to ESL class together while at school. My older kids had switched to speaking English to each other by the time they were in school. Yet, these younger ones are simply more comfortable communicating in German. It's fascinating that as soon as they step off the bus, they switch from their English world to their German world. A few months ago, I videoed our after school conversations at the bus stop and on our walk home (see video below). It was fun to see how they refer to things at school by the English term: "gym" and "library". But they still describe and discuss the day in German. They often walk home with English speaking friends. And I've noticed that when all the kids are together that they will speak English. But when they are just with a sibling or with me, the conversation is all in German. I've noticed that even when I am not a part of the conversation, that they get off the bus and immediately speak German to each other. I'm anxious to know what language they use to communicate with each other while they are at school. I don't see them at recess and I'm not even sure if they play that much together. I think Simon plays with the boys and Clarissa plays with the girls. But if Simon needs to ask Clarissa a question during class (they are in the same Kindergarten class), what language does he use? I think it's time to do some sleuthing so that I can get some linguistic answers. I'm curious to know if they're using their German at school...

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!

Cousins and Firemen

I took this little video last summer while we were visiting extended family. I had been resting on the sofa while the kids were playing with their cousins. It was fun to listen to them picking up on English phrases and slang while they played. At the beginning of the video, Simon approaches me and wants to know the English word for fireman. After I give it to him, he and his cousin start playing that they are firemen and that they have a fire to put out down in the stairwell. Simon asks his cousin where the fire is. He struggles a little bit with English prepositions: "Is the fire with your house?" He then corrects himself to "in" the house. Then Jonathan joins the game. Simon and Jonathan are speaking English as they talk about the fire that they need to put out. Jonathan then makes believe that he has a button that automatically sprays water on the imaginary fire. He uses German syntax in English to explain his make-believe button: "Water is coming alone out." This makes Simon mad. He doesn't like the imaginary button. As soon as Simon gets mad, he switches to German. I'm always fascinated when I observe the kids switching between languages. They have always been able to play in English, but they almost always use German to deal with relationship issues. When they are angry, they switch to German. However, at the very end, Simon yells at Jonathan using Jonathan's English name "Jonathan" (rather than the German pronuciation Yonahtahn). It was probably his way of letting his cousin know that he was frustrated with his brother. The language boundaries are sometimes not as clear. The kids were fighting in German in my presence and in the presence of their English speaking cousin, so it was not completely apparent which language to use.