Pinning My Linguistic Hopes on More Travel.

Posted by Multilingual Mama

This post was written for June’s Raising Multilingual Children Carnival hosted this month by All Done Monkey. This month’s theme is Multilingualism and Travel. If you would like to participate, host or simply learn more about the carnival, please visit Piri -Piri Lexicon’s Carnival Page.

I haven’t been home in two years. Wait, that’s wrong. I haven’t been home in three years but I am not sure anymore what home really is. I haven’t seen my parents in two years. The last time we saw each other, they flew from New York, the city where I was born and raised, to meet us in France, where I grew up spending my summers. Two years ago, they met our second daughter for the first time. She was 10 months old.

Prior to the trip, I was brimming with anticipation as I was sure, once immersed in the language, that my daughter Pea would flick a switch and start speaking French fluently. I felt like I’d read about this a thousand times, children who understood a language simply needing some time in the country to make the linguistic leap to actually speaking.

I was so very disappointed when it didn’t happen. Truth is we weren’t there long enough. We were also surrounded by people who understood and could speak English and who were all too keen to do so despite my begging them not to. I was reminded once again that there are no quick fixes when it comes to multilingualism. I did console myself with the idea that she had been immersed in lots of lovely French culture and, in a bid to try and view the glass half full, wrote a post on the topic here.

One of the reasons we chose to move to the other side of the world was the idea that we could afford to send our kids to a French school. I knew from friends’ experiences that spots in French/English immersion programs at public schools in New York were nearly impossible to come by, and private schools in the US are utterly unaffordable for us mere mortals. At the time, my daughter was attending a local Singaporean school but, after that trip, I was more determined than ever to get both our girls into French or bilingual schools and our upcoming move from Singapore to Bangkok was going to make that a reality with a more affordable French Lycée and an amazing little French/English bilingual nursery called Acacia conveniently near our new digs.

The first year was pretty much everything that I’d hoped for despite some major bumps in the road that caused me no end of neuroses -oh how I need to learn to think long term and not panic at every short term setback. But I digress… English is still the dominant language in our house but the girls’ French is fluent and I know progress has been made when, despite being an ‘English day’ at school, Pea comes home and choses to speak to me in French. My wee one, little plum already happily switches back and forth. They both love their schools and it’s all been a great success.

So why am I pulling them out?

A year in and I’ve realized the choice is really between private schools or tickets home to see family so in the end, I am opting for the latter. I’ve often preached about sticking to your heritage languages but what exactly is the point of my kids speaking French and Spanish if they then can’t go see their Mexican and French extended family? And really, since el Jeffe works all the time and all our funds go to the French school, Spanish is barely hanging on in our household.

What I will lose in giving up their formal French education I hope to gain with the ability to take more trips to France and Mexico in order to deepen their cultural connection and truly live their languages. Right now the girls don’t really get why Spanish is important but I know once they spend a few months with Abuelita and meet their cousins, they will want to actively add this language to their linguistic arsenal, as will I.

And let’s face it, I really miss good tortillas and ceviche.

Swimming Against the Tide: Why I am homeschooling.

Posted by Multilingual Mama

This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Homeschool Blogging Carnival hosted by Lisa at The Squishable Baby and Keisha at Unschooling Momma. This month our participants are introducing their homeschools and styles.

It seems like only yesterday I was pondering whether or not to homeschool my kids: what would it mean for us? Would I be patient enough? Could I, a non qualified teacher, teach them? Did we have a big enough support network? Would I ever get to pee alone again?

Wait, it was only yesterday and I am petrified.

My little family currently resides in Bangkok, Thailand. I am franco-american and lived in the UK for many years. My husband, aka el jeffe is Mexican and we have two daughters: Sweet Pea just five and little Plum, who will be three on September 1^st.

I’ve just received the emails from the kindergarten and Pre-K schools confirming I’ve officially withdrawn my children. It felt so final that I broke into a cold sweat and nearly fainted. I wish I were exaggerating.

There are many reasons why I am choosing to homeschool but they aren’t the two main ones I typically read about. Most of the time you either hear about families for whom it is a faith-based decision or kids not thriving in school. I want a secular education for my kids – and that for me means they learn about all the major global religions. My two girls overall both love school and this is probably the hardest thing about pulling them out. It would be so much easier if, like me, they were hating the experience.

So why am I doing it? The main reason is totally selfish. I am suddenly incredibly aware of my mortality and I know my kids will only worship the ground I walk on for a few more years so I’d like to spend as much of that time as possible with them, harnessing that adoration, instead of only getting the rushing on either side of school. Traffic in Bangkok means I have to get them up at 6am and they are gone by 6.55. By the time they get back in the afternoon, we have time for a tiny bit of tired play and the whole dinner, bath, book routine. During these windows, I frequently feel like I am tap dancing in a minefield as their exhaustion makes them emotional explosive time bombs. Ultimately, I get the two slices of bread and none of the delicious filling.

Another factor is the a question of value for money. Living in Bangkok, my only option is to send my kids to private school. These schools are extremely expensive catering generally to an élite expat crowd, bankrolled by their companies and the schools take full advantage of this including outrageous sign-up fees leaving us mere working mortals struggling to educate our children. Maybe if we were a monolingual family, I would have considered local Thai school but my kids are already growing up with English, French and Spanish and it just didn’t make sense to add Thai to that. Also the Thai educational approach is far from what I want for my kids.

Freeing up these financial resources allows me to organize a whole host of educational trips and activities including extended stays with Abuela in Mexico and their Papoo and Yaya in France and the US. It kills me that my mother in law hasn’t seen my eldest since she was 8 months old and has never met our second girl.

As far as approaches – well it is a little too early to say what we will end up doing but my plan at this point is loosely following a waldorf-based curriculum called Oak Meadow but without signing up for the teacher support at this stage. To this, I’d like to incorporate aspects of the Well Trained Mind approach. I am big on the classics and laying foundations. As far as maths go, I am hesitating between Singapore math and Montessori math. I am in Asia and hear so many good things about the former but from what I can tell so far SM and MM are actually very similar in their approaches so it may just be a case of which materials are easier for me to source. Of course all of these are ideas and only time will tell what ends up working for us.

Jumping into the deep end.

I mentioned earlier, I am petrified but ready to jump into the deep end. The courage I’ve found has come less from within but in the knowledge of the incredible support group I’ve been able to find here in Bangkok. Homeschooling is not common here but I’ve been fortunate to find a small group of families with kids of similar ages who are already homeschoolers or starting out like me.

And as I sat there, nauseous and nervous, having just read the withdrawal emails, my daughter, unbeknownst to her, shared an experience that sealed the deal. She was a little upset, wanting to draw a fish but insisting she didn’t know how. When I tried to encourage her, she explained to me that a teacher had told her that she hadn’t drawn her fish right.

Who tells a 4-year-old that their fish isn’t right? Apart from the millions of different types of fish and sea creatures I am pretty sure the teacher isn’t familiar with, WHO tells a FOUR-year-old their fish ISN’T RIGHT?

Talk about killing creativity and sowing the seeds of insecurity and doubt. No way, you are not getting my money or more importantly, my child.

Visit The Squishable Baby to see how you can participate in the next Homeschool Blogging Carnival.

Please take the time to read the submissions by other Carnival participants:

Lisa at The Squishable Baby Introduces her Homeschool.

Jody @ Mud Hut Mama shares how she Tailors Education to Fit Our Family, Our Experiences and Our Values.

Cecy Fencer Shares Who She is and Why She Homeschools.

Joy @ Who’s Learning? Who’s Teaching Shares Our Homeschool Beginnings.

Puppets as Linguistic Catalysts

Posted by Multilingual Mama

What to do when your child won’t speak their minority language.

A word before we start. This post was written for the upcoming Raising Multilingual Children Carnival hosted by The Piri-Piri Lexicon. The fact that my last post was also for the carnival indicates that I am nothing if not consistent with failing miserably to post more often. The Carnival comes out the last Monday of each month. Please check it out!

When Pea started pre-K nursery in French, she understood every word but had seldom spoken anything other than English. Within a few months, she was chattering away and I was over the moon – especially given the large chunk of money I’d handed over to enroll her.

—break for a personal gripe:

Expat schools make the assumption that everyone has a company with deep pockets paying tuition fees so they demand ridiculous sign-up sums. We paid THB100,000 or nearly USD3,500 just to enroll her and when a few months later, we thought we had to leave the country, we were told no portion would be refundable, which proved a great incentive to find work in Thailand.

–End gripe.

Pea joined Petite Section (1^st year pre-K) at the end of February and only had a few months of class before they determined she could move into the bilingual pre-K the following year. I was a little apprehensive since they had previously insisted she would need to stay in the purely French track. But if the professionals thought she had progressed enough, then I would go with the flow.

I’d also heard a rumor that, ironically, the bilingual English/French class had an overall better French level than the full French class due to the number of Franco-Thai children whose maternal language was Thai.

One month into Moyenne Section (The second year of Pre-K) and Pea no longer wanted to speak any French at home. I felt like her language was receding and began to regret my decision. Instead of speaking French all the time at home, I compromised. We agreed to alternate days as she followed at school. She still wanted to respond to me in only in English. At first I lost my temper and insisted she repeat everything in French ’til I got great advice from her teachers. They told me to lay off and try not to stress about it as Pea would pick up on my frustration and it would only be detrimental in the end. Instead, I was to persist with my own French and she would eventually respond as well.

They were right. So you should be wondering what do Puppets have to do with any of this?

Well it turns out puppets act as great catalysts. You see your child likely knows that you can in fact speak or at least understand another language. Alternatively, perhaps they are just being spiteful little creatures —I’m hoping on the former but not discounting entirely the latter. The truth is, a really awesome cuddly puppet who ONLY speaks the minority language works wonders. Now I am not talking about those lame-o sock puppets -Lambchop except you sweetie you are the most awesome sock puppet in the world.

Lamb Chop, forever in my heart.

We are talking about unbelievably cute and lifelike —in a stuffed animal kind of way— creatures that even manage to ignite my own maternal feelings.

The Germans already know this and frequently use them in kindergarten for language teaching. My daughter’s amazing English teacher knew about this and brought back two puppets to Bangkok for Pea’s bilingual class.

Please meet Gloria – the fire-red English speaking dragon and wait for it… Jeanette, the apple-green frog. How much do I love that they chose a Frog for the french class!

Pea’s teachers decided to try out having the kids foster the puppets over the weekend. It was and remains a huge success – so successful in fact that they sign up sheet was filled up within the first day and they had to extend the program. This is when I discovered that I could get Pea to speak French constantly. My sweet girl didn’t want to leave Jeanette out.

Now that French is gaining momentum again in our household and armed with this new information, I am determined to find a puppet who only speaks Spanish. Here’s to hoping they have a nice stuffed Chihuahua…

Raising Multilingual Children Carnival: Lessons Learned

Posted by Multilingual Mama

Nearly five years ago to the day, I sat, enormous and excited, waiting for the arrival of our new baby. Like so many of us, I had all these grand ideas and plans of what kind of mother I was going to be. I can assure you that in all of my scenarios, I was way more patient and crafty than I turned out in the end. I am much more likely to inadvertently teach my kids what happens if you leave eggs to boil for an hour –they explode and you warp all but the best quality pan than how to make papier-mâché or fireworks in a jar. However, the one thing I did stick to was the dream of raising multilingual kids.

I couldn’t have done it without an amazingly supportive community. At the time, it was pretty slim pickings, especially if you were looking for information on 3+ languages. I am particularly grateful to two people who were a huge support early on, before our wonderful multilingual world blossomed across the branches of the interwebs.

The first is Corey Heller, the founder of Multilingual Living. Before finding her site, I started to believe I was totally alone out there trying to raise trilingual kids. Or at least, I was the only one struggling with it. I can’t begin to explain the relief I felt once I started perusing her wonderful site.

The second is Letizia Quaranta from Bilingue per Gioco. She is the founder of the original Bilingual Carnival through which so many of us first met. I credit her work as a significant force in creating today’s significant and diverse community. Thanks to Letizia’s encouragement, I went from passive viewer of others’ stories to an active voice of my own. I, along with many others, was very sorry to see her Carnival slow down and eventually fade away. I know this happened only because she has moved on to bigger and better things; we are grateful for the foundations she put down and hope we can do all her hard work justice.

This incredible group of multilingual bloggers provides a rich and varied source of ideas, stories, and on occasion, a well deserved venting. Our inaugural carnival’s theme is looking back. As that dream-inducing bump is about to turn five in a couple of weeks, I thought it would be nice to have everyone look back at their experiences so far and share what they have learned so here we go!

I’ve broken it down in two sections. The first is a series of posts that are focused on resources out there. If there is one thing a seasoned parent has is a fantastic arsenal of tools and tips that can often be applicable across different languages. The second, to quote the charming Sinatra, is about our regrets and what we would do differently if we had the opportunity to start over.

Resources, tools and tips:

All Done Monkey looks back and shares what they would have done differently. In her case, it would have been to focus on the minority language using a wide array of resources.

The Educator’s Spin on It sent in a wonderful post giving guidance on how to go about finding relevant resources for your language and a double bonus to you if you are on the hunt for Russian materials!

Babel Kid’s post touches on a subject that I’ve struggled with so much and that is dealing with books and the often mediocre translations of our children’s favorite stories. Definitely something to think about as you build your child’s library.

LadydeeLG shares the amazing moment when you first experience your child code-switching appropriately as well as a host of fabulous resources for anyone needing Spanish support. (Me, me, meeeeeeee!)

And on the topic of resources and planning, Perogies and Gyoza shares with us their after school planning for the year, providing ideas for English curriculum resources as well as thoughts on how to match up thematically to what your kids are learning in their local schools.

***Interlude***

Here’s a post to remind you why you should/have undertaken this journey and why you should stick to it to avoid any regrets down the line…

Bilingual Monkeys‘ an adorable letter from a newborn to its parents telling them of its dream of being bilingual. A nice reminder too, that even though our kids will likely hit linguistic rebellious phases, later on, they will always be grateful for the gift of language you have given them.

“Regrets, I’ve had a few”

Project Procrastinot (which should be my motto given how late this carnival is going up) shares her own regret that her parents didn’t put more effort into creating a bilingual household while also acknowledging how tough it is to do so and a nice reminder that we are not alone ‘wandering the bilingual realm’ striving to do better.

The Head of the Heard’s Having Peppa Pig For Lunch is a hilarious reminder of how easy it is to make mistakes and the consequences that follow. And I say to Heard Head: you are not alone in having made the screen/table misjudgment! It is also a wonderful story of how to keep families close together despite being thousands of miles apart.

Mistakes, expectations, they are all par for the course. European Mama shares her top 10 multilingual parenting ideas that went out the window. So many of these resonated with me – particularly #9. But in the end, we get there and it’s important to remember to enjoy the journey instead of obsessing on the destination. It’s split in two parts: part 1 and part 2

MotherTongues looks back at the challenges and barriers they faced from outsiders on raising their kids bilingual and then trilingual (English/Afrikaans/Spanish). A reminder of the courage and determination it takes to ignore the naysayers and opt out of the easy path.

Busy as a Bee in Paris looks over the progress her trilingual kids are making and shows us how despite similar environments, different kids respond differently to languages. I also love reading about non-OPOL families as a nice reminder that there are different and effective ways to approach multilingual parenting.

Discovering the World Through my Son’s Eyes shares her one regret and the inspiring steps she took to make up for it. You will see the results she is now reaping!

Expats Since Birth tackles the fascinating topic of siblings in: Bilingual Siblings and their Language Preferences. I had no idea there was a book written on this topic that can help figure out where your family sits in the multilingual spectrum.

Third Culture Mama’s Hindsight is 20/20 had me shouting Yes Yes Yes and that was by around line 4:

But just like breastfeeding books have never met your baby and your breasts…

Point 1 is something I think doesn’t get nearly enough air/blog time. I am left thinking how lucky she is to have figured this out when her wee one is 13months. Let’s just say it took me a lot longer…’nuff said.

In Culture Parent’s editor shares her own story on Why OPOL Doesn’t Always Work and the importance of the overall time spent in languages as well as the importance of widening the exposure and opportunities as much as possible.

PiriPiri Lexicon’s From Linguist to Mum: Looking Back is a fascinating read. It’s an insightful piece from a former researcher who studied bilinguals’ language acquisition and how, when faced with reality, the theories don’t always hold up.

Closing thoughts: My hope is that this first carnival will serve as a strong reminder that there isn’t one ‘right’ way to raise multilingual kids and that different approaches will be needed depending on your languages, your community, your place of residence, and simply each individual’s child inherent and unique linguistic evolution. It’s a reminder that we all make mistakes and have regrets but that nothing is irreparable and we are so lucky to have a strong community to share and support each other.

A final word of thanks: I want to take this opportunity to thank Annabelle from PiriPiri Lexicon for her endless enthusiasm and energy in making this new multilingual carnival a reality. I am so grateful and thrilled to be a part of this and for the honour of hosting the inaugural carnival. For more information or to sign up as a host, please visit the carnival page.

Thank you all for participating. Thank you all for reading. And thanking you all in advance for sharing widely! This is multilingual mama singing out. I think I’ve just made the April 29th deadline somewhere over the Pacific, a little too close to an international date line…