Re: How to prime kids to learn 3+ languages?


"cjra" <cjrohr31@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1191294217.612864.118810@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Oct 1, 9:16 pm, Pili <huika_i_ol...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Oct 1, 5:49 pm, pkeb...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

Hi,
We're looking for methodologies and/or materials to prime child from 3
month of age for multiple language acquisition.

I remember being exposed to multi-language priming in first grade.
However I can't find any structured materials.

Now I'm raising my own son whom we'd like to prime for these
languages:
French, Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin, German, Russian, Japanese,
Portuguese, and English.

Unfortunately, we speak only 4 :(

Doesn't matter, because the best way is for each parent to speak only
one (different) language. Then, a grandparent speak a third, and then
the school do a fourth. Each context independent of the others. You
want your boy to speak English, too, right? If he's already going on
that, just let the TV and his friends do that one. You speak French
to him (or whatever it is you speak best) and your husband speaks only
Spanish to him. Then have Grandma or whoever else you have speak
Arabic to him. You didn't say which four you have covered.

Lots of studies on this. Lots of books. Lots of examples. Try
Google scholar "Second language acquisition" or "multilingual
acquisition." People I know who speak two or more languages well had
this method. Example: a German speaking mom and a French speaking
dad (quite a few in Europe, especially Switzerland), each speaks their
own native language.

This is what we do, although we only have 2 true languages between us
(French and English). DH also speaks German fluently, but doesn't feel
comfortable enough with it to speak it to DD - nor does he feel a read
need to, he'd rather speak French to her and it's more important she
speaks French as a native than German (since all DH's friends and
family are French Speakers with German as a second language).

We've asked her babysitter to speak to her only in Spanish, but alas I
think she gets more Spanglish than true Spanish..

If anyone knows of any good sources or other materials, or systems -
please let us know.

Any feedback is highly appreciated.

Lots of my family and friends are bilingual or trilingual. That's how
it worked for us, too. You can also try changing the language for a
few months a year for total immersion in one language at a time, but
when I see how that works with kids, I cringe (lots of crying or upset
if the child feels the parents are suddenly aliens, but I see people
try it all the time). Lots of the Chinese people I know, here or
where ever, end up with children who speak both Mandarin and Cantonese
(that's like French and Spanish, to me), and French (from going to
French school) and English (from going to afterschool English program)
and Tagalog (from hiring Filipino maid). Then, when they get about
middle school age, the parents send them to language school in Japan.
So I know quite a few young adults that are five-language speakers
(amazing, huh?)

The son of friends of mine is going along this track. The parents are
French and Aussie, so French and English are the two primaries,
although his first language was really Karen, due to the Karen nanny.
Then he started school at 3 - a Chinese School which tho they taught
in English, all the kids spoke Chinese so he started learning that.
And they were living in Thailand so though the other languages were
more dominant, he was also surrounded by Thai.

Be forewarned that in the early years such kids lag behind in language
development.They usually catch up then fly far above their peers, just
later.

IME, the key is to be consistent. Don't have the same person mix
languages. Each person speaks in one language to the child.

But the real ticket is that each person who speaks to the child speaks
a whole language and does it well and consistently, so the child has
to speak back in that language. Grew up with a bunch of German
immigrant kids, too, whose parents spoke German to grandma and grandpa
(who lived in the house), and all the kids had to, as well. Same with
most of the good bilingual Spanish/English kids, too.

Speaking back in the language is important! I have many friends
(myself included) who understand Spanish but can't really speak it
because they always responded to Spanish questions in English growing
up.

What you don't want is something like Spanglish or Gerenglish, where
the kids don't get to high competency in any language, just half and
half all the time.

Ugh...I am worried about this. The babysitter does speak Spanish
correctly, but around here, *everyone* speaks Spanglish. It's an ok
version in that proper words are used (as opposed to in So Cal where i
grew up where the words were so modified they didn't make sense), but
they mix the two in one sentence. I've told her I'd love for her to
speak in only Spanish to DD, but not Spanglish. Alas it is her
everyday speech, so I just gave in. We may do a Spanish immersion
program in school if by then her French is good enough (we don't have
a lot of French speakers around, so it's hard to reinforce it.
Spanish, OTOH, is all around us).

This is all such good advice.

This seems to be working in my family, but it's just Spanish and English.
I'm pretty fluent in Spanish (gotta watch not to speak spanglish tho).
Most of us speak English a lot, my husband doesn't speak Spanish. But, my
grandmas and my great-grandma speak Spanish and when we get together, my
aunts and uncles and everyone all speak Spanish. We have a lot of
get-togethers. So, on the weekends, all the little kids are immersed in
Spanish. I am worried more about English than Spanish because we want our
new baby to speak both, but be really good in English.

My nieces and nephews learned to read and write Spanish at the same time
they were learning to read and write English. They think Spanish is easier.
They can read newspapers in Spanish and we all watch Telemundo as much as we
watch English TV.

I am just thinking about whether I'd do what I see so many moms doing.
Talking Spanish to their kids in the grocery store, everywhere. I can't
imagine doing that because my husband wouldn't understand us! From what I
can tell though, my nieces and nephews have become really good bilinguals
without that. I should get some kind of test in Spanish and test them.

Jessica R




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