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St. Ann
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| Posted: Aug 21 2009 at 1:24am | IP Logged
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After spending the last year in the U.S. the girls are fluent in English, which is great! In fact, the 3 youngest are only slowly readjusting to German...
I will be homeschooling only my youngest, the 5y.o., because German law requires children to attend school starting in the 1st grade. I want to work with both languages as native languages, but am unsure what is the best way to go about it. I was thinking of 3 days English and 2 days German. The 2 days being the days we ride our bikes into town to go to the library(German) and to the farmers' market. This idea of mine might be totally ridiculous, but I am determined to not let English fall back into the foreign language category it once was.
We have been back in Germany 3 weeks now. Our family language still continues to be English, which I know will become more and more German as my school girls get more involved in german life. My dh and I have decided that I will continue to speak English at home unless we have german guests...there will be many exceptions...
Anyway, I guess my question for you all is:
Does anyone know of any families who have taught in 2 languages and what works and does not work? My 5y.o. will be attending german 1st grade next year, so there does have to be a certain amount of prep in that area.
thanks
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Stephanie
Wife and mother to Hannah '96, Maria '99, Dorothea '01, Helena '03
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sewcrazy
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| Posted: Aug 26 2009 at 10:14am | IP Logged
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Growing up, I had a friend with a 5 language household  Mom spoke Czech and Russian, Dad German and French, and the kids preferred English (having moved to America as preschoolers) Both parents fluently spoke English, but never to their daughters unless a friend was present--and not always then. The parents did what you are proposing, certain languages were spoken on certain days. It worked for them. My friend is now fluent in 7 languages and works as translator for the International Olympic Committee.
I would give it a try. I often wish I was fluent in another language.
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LeeAnn
Wife of David, mom to Ben, Dennis, Alex, Laura, Philip and our little souls in heaven we have yet to meet
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pmeilaen
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Hello Stephanie,
I'm German, married to an American who can speak German. We live in the U.S. I only speak German to the children, never English, even when people are around. My husband speaks English to the children during the week, but on the weekends we all speak German. So far they are all bilingual with English being their stronger language.
This is called the "one parent, one language" system. You could also do a "house language" and an "outdoors language." There's a great little book I read when I was a student at the University of Wuerzburg, called: "Zweisprachige Kindererziehung" by Bernd Kielhoefer published by Stauffenburg Verlag. Maybe that would be helpful. Good luck!
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Eva
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St. Ann
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| Posted: Aug 27 2009 at 1:55am | IP Logged
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LeeAnn and Eva, thank you both for sharing. I was eager to hear about real life experiences. My dh speaks both languages with the girls and I speak 95%English. I am a bit insecure about the 5yr old learning German if I only speak English with her the whole day - probably unfounded.
Eva, do you ask your children to respond to you in German, or do they answer in either language?
We have been back in Germany exactly 1 month and English is still the prevailing language at home. This is only the 2nd week of school.
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Stephanie
Wife and mother to Hannah '96, Maria '99, Dorothea '01, Helena '03
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pmeilaen
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When my children were little, they almost only spoke German -- even to my husband because I was around them more than he was. Around the age of 2, their English started to catch up and sometimes they would answer a German question in English. Whenever that happended, I pretended I didn't understand. Being so little they thought Mama didn't understand English when they spoke to me so they were forced to speak German. I was very consistent with this and never gave in even in front of relatives and friends. The older ones now "know" that I could speak English to them if I wanted to and I read plenty of English books to them. However, the early training has paid of and they never address me in English, not even in public.
The little book I recommended has many real life examples on how to do a successful bilingual education. The couple who wrote it is German/French and lives in Germany.
The only drawback with speaking only German to them in America is that some people feel left out when they can't understand this. To minimize these feelings, I try to speak as little as possible directly to my children when other English speaking people are around. If I do, I try to make no big deal out of it. Most people my age or younger think it's great, some older people like my mother-in-law feel somewhat uncomfortable but have come to accept it. Everybody marvels at the ease with which the children can go back and forth.
When we homeschool, we use English and German materials, but all my speaking still is in German. My children have to read and write in German, and also study German grammar and spelling. They are probably a little bit behind in their writing abiliies compared with their German peers but with all the subjects you have to cover, there is not enough time to write so much in German. I try to expose them to many good German books -- not just in literature, but also in science and history. We also listen to selected German CDs. We don't watch television, but if you had cable that would be another option.
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Eva
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LucyP
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I live in England and know two home educating families well where dad is British and mum is not - one mum speaks Estonian (and knows at least two other languages) and one where mum speaks dutch (and knows at least one other) - in each case, mum speaks to children in her mother tongue and teaches it as a working language as well as using it to teach other subjects in (in different ways - one mum does it formally, the other in an unschooly way). It is fun to see children being billingual and is nice for the mum to have people who speak her own language so well - but it is wierd for me and my children when conversations in another language go on!
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St. Ann
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Eva, I did stock up on good DVDs, which we use a couple of times a month. We also have many good books, which took up most of the allowed weight in our suitcases on our return flight to Germany  I found the book you suggested at Amazon.de, but want to see if our library system has it first. We are already meeting up with criticism about keeping the 5yr old home with me. There are several reasons for this, but also: "How will Helena learn Deutsch?" (I do speak German fluently, albeit with an accent which is stronger since being in America.) This book may just give us some strategies on how to continue and confidence in our lifestyle.
Eva, do you have any James Kruess CDs? "Mein Urgrossvater und Ich" und "Der Saengerkrieg der Heidehasen" are huge favorites of the whole family, sprachlich ausgezeichnet!
Lucy, thanks for chiming in! I think it will be less awkward here in Germany speaking English, because everyone here learns English in school and has some knowledge and experience with the language already.
Everyday an adventure!
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Stephanie
Wife and mother to Hannah '96, Maria '99, Dorothea '01, Helena '03
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pmeilaen
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Stephanie, I don't have the CDs your mentioned but I grew up with "Der Saengerkrieg der Heidehasen" on a record. I still have parts of it memorized. My parents just gave my brother the new (old) CD of it and I hope to get it for my children. I don't know the Kruess CD, but I'll look into it. Thanks for the recommendations.
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Eva
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: learning with 2 languages
