Maintaining Language & Culture in a Multicultural Family

[expatalex]

I really don't know what you are worrying about..... at home you should and she should speak your native language, at school and in Argentina she will speak what she is suppose to speak.
my parents are Argentinean and I was born in the US, I spoke spanish with mom and dad at home and English with my friends and school... Its how I came to know spanish and English

"and thinks that there is nothing better than Argentina" seems that she is learning well from Argentineans....... lol......

 

[gpop]

I really don't know what you are worrying about..... at home you should and she should speak your native language, at school and in Argentina she will speak what she is suppose to speak.
my parents are Argentinean and I was born in the US, I spoke spanish with mom and dad at home and English with my friends and school... Its how I came to know spanish and English

"and thinks that there is nothing better than Argentina" seems that she is learning well from Argentineans....... lol......

Really??? This "dejarlo" attitude is exactly what pisses me off to no end.

I don't know if you are a parent; but as a parent it is awful to have to struggle to communicate with your child. I am trying to enjoy this time with my daughter before she becomes a teenager and don't want to talk with her parents anymore.
I've heard this argument before and I don't buy it, moreover, it is this kind of condescending, complacent, lazy attitude that I try to teach my daughter NOT to subscribe to. It IS important and it IS important now. Anything can happen at anytime so this time is precious, I don't take it lightly in the least.

I could let a lot of things go about Argentina... this is not one of them.

 

[captainmcd]

I have been reading this thread from the beginning, and thought I should offer my experience. All humans are different, so my experience and my children are different from others. I married an Argentine, and shortly after moved to the United States. We were both (more or less) bi-lingual, and appreciated eachother's culture. We had three children and have raised them to adulthood, and provided them with college educations. They are ALL happy to be born into a multi-cultural family. They all have different characters, and different goals, and different academic motivation.

We made frequent trips with them between the U.S. and Argentnina. When in the U.S. we used SEAD corespondence courses to teach them Spanish and Argentine history and geography, as well as math and science in Spanish, and they learned to read and write in Spanish. We also sent them to private schools the several months a year we were in Argentina.
When in the U.S. they went to public schools. They were home schooled with SEAD by my Argentine wife.

The oldest now speaks both languages without an accent, and is not recognized as a foreigner in either country. The middle does very well, but is recognized as a foreigner in Argentina. The youngest, who spent less time in Argentina private schools, has the most difficulty in Spanish, but gets along well there but wants to improve. (Now are all over 21) One time one of their teachers told us we were confusing our children by teaching them two languages, but I responded that once I sailed with a passenger from Norway who had a child with Downs Syndrome, and that youngster could speak THREE languages even with his disability, and I thought my three kids should be able to handle it OK.

My wife and I have always recognized the value of bi-lingual education. My children were not always supportive. I remember my oldest telling me "tienes un accento muy feo, habla ingles!" which made me feel bad. It is not always easy, but will pay dividends in the end. My wife also has been criticized for her foreign accent in English, but did not ever let it keep her from speaking Spanish to her children.

My advice to anyone is that if someone in the family has the knowledge and ability to share their language with their children, they must do it.

 

[bebero]

Really??? This "dejarlo" attitude is exactly what pisses me off to no end.

I don't know if you are a parent; but as a parent it is awful to have to struggle to communicate with your child. I am trying to enjoy this time with my daughter before she becomes a teenager and don't want to talk with her parents anymore.
I've heard this argument before and I don't buy it, moreover, it is this kind of condescending, complacent, lazy attitude that I try to teach my daughter NOT to subscribe to. It IS important and it IS important now. Anything can happen at anytime so this time is precious, I don't take it lightly in the least.

I could let a lot of things go about Argentina... this is not one of them.

i'm sorry, what is it exactly that you don't "buy"?
i know plenty of latins who had kids in the us and plenty of americans raising kids here, and honestly they all do the same. talk their native language at home and let them pick up the language of the country they live in when they go to school.

 

[clooz]

I have a bi-lingual 23-year old. We got there through lots of vacations and family visits, stays with cousins and so on.

Beyond learning the mechanics of a language and the cultural ideas and common sense ideas that languages carry, we learn how adults speak to each other and understand each other by listening to the adults around us interact. This part of learning is a bit delayed in multi-lingual households, and then later children in these households speed up and generally pass their peers in language skills. If their parents don't speak to each other fluently in the same language and fully develop the conversations, there's a gap to fill from somewhere else.

A suggestion then is that you invite to your home a Canadian or other native English speaking friend or two, who enjoy talking to you. Your daughter will hear you speaking with them, listening to them, smiling and laughing with them. She will see as well as hear the way we joke in English, wait for each other to speak, and to listen, see the nods and silences. Perhaps you can play a game with her in which she tries to remember what the visitors say, and you can act it out with her later. I had a friend who taught his daughter how to have a book in her imagination with pages on which she kept all kind of interesting notes and stories about things she'd heard and thought and seen - a kind of journal.

Plays might interest your daughter - there's an English language theatre group in San Isidro that puts on plays, gives classes.

If in your work you negotiate or instruct or advise others in English, the ways you do this are worth your daughter seeing and hearing and learning from. How about those take your kid to work days...

The production skills of learning to play a musical instrument and dancing are similar is some ways to the production skills of speaking well in a language in public. There's some cross-learning that goes on. If she's not taken any dance or music maybe she can do a bit of that.

 

[RSPlayer]

Congratulations Captain mcd, that is exactly my objective for our 2 kids “not to be recognized as a foreigner in either country” or better yet, but maybe more difficult, not to feel like a foreigner in either country.

Thought I would share a funny anecdote that some may enjoy. Intellectually, I knew that very young kids (2-6 years old) learn a language, or multiple languages differently than adults do, but it was interesting to see it first hand.

A couple years ago when our oldest son was about 4 years old, I had finished his bedtime story (book) and said, “OK, it’s time to go to sleep.” And he said, “no daddy, otro, por favor”. I said “no, it’s really late”. To which he responded “quiero leer un libro que tiene…” and in mid-sentence, he corrected himself and said “…que tenga pocas paginas.” I doubt he was contemplating the grammar rules for the usage of the present subjunctive form of the verb tener (like when the antecedent is something unknown), like I would.

 

[gpop]

i'm sorry, what is it exactly that you don't "buy"?
i know plenty of latins who had kids in the us and plenty of americans raising kids here, and honestly they all do the same. talk their native language at home and let them pick up the language of the country they live in when they go to school.

What a child "picks up" is not necessarily what they should be learning. My wife complains that the Spanish that our daughter learns [from TV shows] is not Castellano, but more of a Mexican dialect which is not in line with her heritage. My issue is that the weak attempt at an English education here is not what I hoped it could be.

This is a formidable stage in a childs development and I don't take it so casually. That's what I don't BUY. For some people it may be OK, but for me it is not. I can bend to the norms of the culture I live in, but I will not change the dynamic of how our home life functions. Don't get me wrong; I am not some overbearing tyrant in my home that has to have everything his way... far from it. I am just trying to keep the Canadian element equal to that of the Argentine.

In my previous work I have had to interview dozens of people for positions in an USA based company with a requirement of English to be able to deal with the US and British clients. I've seen all manners of rating a candidates English skills, and all sorts of certifications... I would say that 90% of the candidates that I've interviewed couldn't last one conversation with a clearly speaking English client, never mind someone with a thick ethnic accent. So, I don't really put much faith in the level of education that a school promises because, as stated previously, the playground will be the deciding factor as to what language a child will favour.

There is a beauty to the English language that I want to share with my daughter. It doesn't stop there though, I will encourage her to learn as many languages as she can, and to learn about different cultures. I wanted that this experience would occur naturally for her, but I think that I will have to intervene and formalize how she is receiving her education. She will be starting 1st grade in a new school with a more regimented curriculum, and I will be starting new activities with her that are English only.
She's come a long way, but I have certain misgivings about what will happen if I don't insist on maintaining daily practice of BOTH languages in my home.

 

[sesamosinsal]

gpop -- 100% completely agree that you should put your foot down and "intervene." She'll be so grateful whenever she's off to college, and even more so when she graduates and starts job hunting. Such stuff may seem far down the road, but you'll probably end up saying something that my parents say to me: "It just seems like yesterday that you started Kindergarten." I'm in my mid-twenties. I wish you the best of luck!

 

[ben milne]

easy option that worked for me was for all movies / tv shows in english

cable tv maybe a little complicated apart from dora and diego !

I have 3 kids (6,9 and 12) and despite inital complaining, they happily watch movies and tv series in english nowadays

also, regular skype with friends and family in mother country

feel free to give me a call or mail me for more info

I have been here for 12 years so far and think it is definately possible to get the best out of both cultures without losing too much of either

sorry cant give you a more detailed response but very busy for the next 2 weeks


[email protected]

cheers

ben

 

[syngirl]

Hmm sounds a bit like it's not just a language issue but interlaced with your position in the household / relationship with your daughter etc. I think you feel reather powerless in terms of influencing your child in the direction you'd like her to head (and I don't blame you).

Maybe you need to de-emphasize language and first find a project that you two can do alone together. Be it reading, cycling, taking a course (it's summer, what about sailing etc). I think if you can find an activity where you do something alone together you'll be able to bond over something that is just for the two of you and language will naturally become part of that.

My dad was Anglo-Quebecois but he really wanted his daughters to speak french (we lived in Vancouver). I still remember sitting on his lap as he read us stories in french -- we had so many books in french you'd have thought french was his first language. I also equally remember reading an illustrated version of The Hobbit (in English) with him and being thrilled, scared, and excited to read the next chapter every night. The point was not what language we were reading in, but getting us reading an exciting story, and more importantly, spending time alone with our dad at the end of our day.

He also made efforts to do activities with my sister and I and one-on-one time with just him. He took us fishing, camping, tennis, sailing, to the amusement park etc. On Easter he'd always make a big deal of it and organise a scavenger hunt.

My parents also chose to send us to a bilingual school, and my mum continued to send us there up until graduation -- was my French perfect? No, but it became high-functioning enough considering I lived in a region where more Chinese/Japanese is heard than french.

When I think back on my childhood I remember these experiences with my dad -- and I don't remember thinking of it as torture of sitting there having to read in French, it was moments that I got to spend with my Dad -- and he went out of his way to create these moments because many nights of the week he was often home after we had even gone to bed.

My Dad died when I was 6 -- but having had these one on one (or two on one with my sister) moments with him created enduring memories (and influenced my beliefs even). Spending time reading with him created a lifelong interest in books and language.

Sitting down to read a book can be a magical time, but if you turn it into homework the magic is lost. You need to find books that will open up her imagination. There are lists everywhere for age appropriate books -- you can buy off of Amazon no problem. And you can buy english and spanish versions and read chapter by chapter in different languages if you like. In fact to start with I'd almost suggest you start by reading in Spanish together at first if that is what interests her more at the moment, and then slowly introduce English books. Perhaps find a series of books (there are so many for kids these days, and read some of the books in Spanish and some in English).

For inspiration you can read about this father and daughter that read together every night until she went to university: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/fashion/21GenB.html?pagewanted=all