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What foreign languages do you teach?

... And how proficient you are in them yourself? My husband is German, and he speaks to our daughter in German, but unfortunately he became a lot less consistent with it since she always responds in English. My native language is Russian, and I plan to introduce it shortly.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Gabriele on February 7, 2010 at 2:27pm

I am teaching him Arabic, and hopefully a little German as well.
My husband is from Jordan, so he speaks Arabic to DS, but unfortunately isn't home enough for it to really be effective. I am hoping to one day take DS to go visit DH's family in Jordan as well!
My mother is from Germany, and I learned a little German growing up, but I regret not learning more. I am hoping to introduce German here and there as well. My mom took DS and I to Germany when he was two, and I know he's been begging to go back again, and I would love for him to learn the language!

Permalink Reply by Natalie F on February 7, 2010 at 2:34pm

My husband might take our daughter to Germany for a month this summer. I think that if they go without me (since I have to work), she will immerse more in the language. On the other hand, I don't quite relish the thought of such a long separation. We haven't quite decided on it yet.

Gabriele said:

I am teaching him Arabic, and hopefully a little German as well.
My husband is from Jordan, so he speaks Arabic to DS, but unfortunately isn't home enough for it to really be effective. I am hoping to one day take DS to go visit DH's family in Jordan as well!
My mother is from Germany, and I learned a little German growing up, but I regret not learning more. I am hoping to introduce German here and there as well. My mom took DS and I to Germany when he was two, and I know he's been begging to go back again, and I would love for him to learn the language!

Permalink Reply by Julie on February 7, 2010 at 4:37pm

I am fluent in French and English and speak both to our daughter and son. I speak more English to my daughter and more French to my son. My husband is fluent in Spanish and English and speaks to both children 98 percent of the time in Spanish.

Permalink Reply by Dana on February 8, 2010 at 8:50am

i am a former spanish teacher--not a native speaker, but near native proficiency. my husband does not speak a foreign language. my children know a few words in spanish. my son is much more receptive to learning spanish and my daughter is not interested at all! we do a few impromptu "lessons" a week! mainly, we are working on food and body parts since a visual aid is so readily available with those themes! i don't do any worksheets or reading or writing--i only speak the words to them! then they repeat them, say si! or answer me in english and i figure that's okay!

group leaderPermalink Reply by MaryAnne K on February 11, 2010 at 2:10pm

I teach my kids French, which I am fluent in. I am a former French and Spanish teacher, but settled on French (for now at least) because it is my stronger language and my husband speaks it a bit. I haven't been as consistent with it as I would like, but we've just started up some French play dates with friends, so hopefully that will help!

Permalink Reply by Voncelieet Monroig on August 28, 2010 at 11:54pm

For our family, English is a foreign language. We live in Puerto Rico and our primary language here is Spanish. In public schools, they teach English as a second language starting in Kinder. We started in Pre-K for my son (he's 3 years old) but we only accomplished the colors, he knows them very well in both languages.

Our blog is http://loschicosymama.blogspot.com

Permalink Reply by Roopa Shri on March 30, 2011 at 2:44pm

We are from India, currently residing in US. English is a foreign laguage for us, but for my daughter who was born here.. she is picking up english fast! We speak to her entirely in our mother tongue kannada, all songs, games etc in kannada... except while doing english reading

Our blog is www.puttiprapancha.blogpsot.com

Permalink Reply by Setsuko D. on June 5, 2011 at 9:50pm

I tried to speak to my daughter almost exclusively in Japanese when she was little until she started preschool when she was 4 and a half in preparation for kindergarten. Until she was 9 or 10, she was quite resistant to conversing in Japanese. When she realized that she could converse in Japanese and her dad would not understand her, that was when she truly felt relaxed about speaking in Japanese. She just graduated from high school and she is fluent enough in Japanese, German, and Latin in addition to her native tongue, English. My son, who is twelve, on the other hand, is not so fluent in Japanese. While he was growing up, I was not so persistent with him to speak Japanese with me, and other outside influences unfortunately worked against me.

Permalink Reply by Martina McConnon on June 9, 2011 at 10:49am

Hi, that's great that your kids are fluent (or almost fluent in your son's case). My kids are bi-lingual German/English, but the older they get the harder it seems to maintain. How did you manage reading and writing in Japanese? Did you teach them? Did you use materials or did you just "wing" it? I'm thinking about ordering the curriculum and teaching material for German from the Germany educational ministry - it's very expensive and I'm hoping it's money well spent, but I really don't see another way to teach them correct grammar and spelling... Any advise? thanks!

Martina

Permalink Reply by Setsuko D. on June 9, 2011 at 2:41pm

Then went to school (Japanese school) on Saturdays from 10 am to 4 pm - in my daughter's case, 1st through 6th grade, and my son from 1st through 5th. Prior to that, we had a playgroup once a week for Japanese kids in the area. So, their "learning to read and write" mostly came from their going to school on Saturdays (which they thoroughly dreaded) and having to work on their homework during the week. The school is partly funded by the Japanese government and materials are sent from Japan. Parents pay quite a lot for tuition and fees, but as far as I was concerned, I certainly couldn't think of being able to do what the school was doing by devoting Saturdays and reviewing the materials during the week. Depending on where you live, looking into language schools (for the children of the parent(s) who speak the language) would be an option. Embassies may be able to direct you to some other alternative. One thing that might have helped them somewhat get used to hearing and reading Japanese more than textbooks ever could was I told them I would buy any books and videos in Japanese (from comics, anime, to whatever they were interested in) and I kept that promise unless the cost proved too much. I had to buy them when my kids were growing up, but nowadays you can find abundance of resources online for free.

Permalink Reply by Megan Spires on July 24, 2011 at 9:54am

We teach American Sign Language. Our family uses ASL daily because one of our 4 young sons has a severe hearing loss. What's amazing is how ASL has transformed our family communication. All of our boys are learning sign language and it is even helping them learn how to read. I write about how we incorporate ASL into our daily activities at Signing for Life.

Permalink Reply by HearMyHands on January 8, 2013 at 4:42pm

Hi Megan

I tried to go on your site - is it still working? I'd love to hear how you use sign language daily :)