Re: Raising Bilingual Kids (was: Bilingual Kids and Playgroups)
- From: "hbar" <hrg1000@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 18 May 2006 12:56:17 -0700
This is a very interesting question. DS2 was 16 months when we left
Israel and so had very minimal language. He definitely completely
forgot Hebrew. He could not understand even very basic words like 'sit'
, 'milk' , 'car' , 'want' after 2 years in America. DS1 was nearly 3
when we left Israel and so was speaking fluently and with a large
vocabulary. I don't think he really forgot all the language, just that
it was buried deep and hard to access and probably reduced to 1.5 year
old level. When we got back to Israel he couldn't say anything and
understood almost nothing. However, he started speaking basic hebrew
after he'd been in summer camp for 3 weeks here (Israel). After about a
month of kindergarten he could speak reasonable though ungramatical
Hebrew. Now he speaks fluently though not at mother-tongue level.
DS2 had a very hard time picking up Hebrew and it was actually very
traumatic for him going into a totally Hebrew speaking pre-school to
the extent that I took him out after 3 weeks and found a school where
at least the teachers could speak English and communicate with him. We
had tried the previous 6 months to teach him some basics but he
refused. We read him Hebrew stories, Hebrew videos and even had a month
once he started the first pre-school with me speaking every sentence in
Hebrew followed by English, but he had a block against learning it.
Once he felt secure and happy in the new pre-school he naturally picked
the language up. Now he speaks fluently though not at mother-tongue
level.
I was under an illusion before the move that young kids picked up
languages very easily when surrounded by it so that after a month they
are fairly fluent and after half a year it has become like a
mother-tongue. This was not the case for us.
I think if your kids are already grade-school age then it will be very
difficult for them to pick up the language from zero just from you
speaking to them without being surrounded by the language. We tried it
with DS1 and DS2 in the few months before we moved back to Israel and
they just weren't interested (they were then 3.5 and 5 years old). We
tried reading stories , videos and speaking simple phrases. When we got
to Israel we tried speaking in Hebrew to help DS2, but it is very
difficult/frustrating until the child speaks a basic level so they can
at least understand what you are saying. I think if you start when your
child is an infant/toddler and speak to them exclusively in the
language for a few hours a day then they will become bilingual very
naturally and easily (as happened with DS1 when he was little). I also
think it will be not so great for them to learn the language in a
natural-immersion style (rather than formal learning) from someone who
is not fluent and speaks the language with mistakes. That is one of the
reasons why I speak to them in English and not Hebrew (and I am fluent,
but it is not my mother-tongue and I make occasional grammatical
mistakes).
I think it would be best for you to try and teach them in a more formal
style, though through games and songs and role-playing to make it fun.
Hope this helps, I regret that we stopped speaking Hebrew with the kids
whilst we were in America, it is a lot easier to retain a language
rather than learn one.
By the way, my husband and I always speak Hebrew with each other, but
from what I have observed with both my kids and other kids, they only
learn if the language is spoken to them.
Helen
.
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