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College & University InformationHow To Get Your Kids To Speak Your Language
by:
Frank Gerace
Note: This experience had to do with protective
Spanish for our kids but the principles are valid for anyone trying to help their kids speak and preserve any language and culture.
COUNTRY OF Many a Folks
This country,,, (The authors raised their kids in the United States but they believe that their experience can be useful for folk in different non-spanish-speaking countries.) This country is ready-made up of folk from all over the world. We or our parents came from Latin countries. We now live here. We function in two several worlds, the American earth and the earth of our parents. All of us live in these two several worlds in several ways. Several of us were born in the countries our parents came from; others of us were born here. This does a difference in how and how more we live in our two worlds.
COUNTRY OF Many a LANGUAGES
The one thing that is most important in our parents' earth is their language which is as well ours in several ways. The Spanish language of our parents is an issue to all of us every day. We may be proud to speak it well. We may be disgraced at not speaking it well. Several of us may have gone through periods of trying not to speak it because we wanted to speak English better. We may only speak it once
we move across being who necessarily help in understanding English. We may only remember several sayings of our grandparents or children's songs educated to us by our parents.
You may want to review (or study it for the 1st time) your Spanish. We could only find one reference for you. It is costly and is a textbook, not too appealing but complete. Take a look at Nuevos Mundos, Spanish for Native Speakers 2nd Edition, Book
: Curso de espanol para estudiantes bilingues"
F. Bruce Robinson, assistant director in the National Endowment for the Humanities' division of education programs asks "How does America preserve this important resource of folk who are expert in different languages? Instead of trying to depress the noesis these students move to school with, we ought to be trying to build on it." (Chronicle of Higher Education, Feb. 2, 1994, page A15)
OUR CHILDREN AND OUR LANGUAGE
We all want our children to speak the language of their heritage. We discount the opinions of those who say that it is better to forget Spanish and to concentrate on speaking English well. These folk are simply wrong. It does not hurt your English to speak another language; it helps. Spanish is particularly useful to children in their learning English vocabulary. Simply now I educated my female offspring
the difference between vowels and consonants. Knowing Spanish actually helped with the idea of the consonants. I told her that the consonants have no voice; they can only be pronounced with the vowels. The con-sonants suenan con the vowels.
But tho'
most of us agree that it is a nice thing for our kids to speak Spanish, most kids in the US whose parents were born in Latin American countries do not speak Spanish well.
Even if several parents speak Spanish at home, quite often the kids answer their parents in English. Look about at your Latin friends and relatives and you wish see that most give up on teaching their kids to speak Spanish. Chicano and Puerto Rican families seem to have a little better luck than Latinos from different countries with keeping Spanish alive in their barrios but even as their younger generation is losing fluency in Spanish.
However, parents who want their children to speak Spanish can go against the current and set the stage for their children to grow up speaking Spanish. It is not easy. Most families fail in their resolve but it can be done. This report wish give several hints on how to improve your chances.
REASONS FOR OUR CHILDREN TO SPEAK SPANISH
There are many a reasons why it is nice for the kids to speak your language. One obvious reason is the advantage that it power be for them in the job market. As long as we live in a earth with shrunken distances and growing international trade, being has to be able to talk with folk from different countries.
Professor Francisco X. Alarcón of the University of Ca at Davis says that "now that we are moving toward a worldwide economy, it's O.K. to be bilingual in the U.S." (Chronicle of Higher Education, Feb.2, 1994, page A15)
Another nice reason for you to activity at your children's learning to speak Spanish is because it wish do you proud to hear the compliments of your friends and countrymen because your children are able to speak your language. You grow in standing
as a person who values your roots.
Your children wish as well be able to speak with their relatives thanks to improved phone service which is entering the most remote villages of our countries. Direct dialing from the United States is economical enough to be able call a few times a year. The thrill of being able to talk to their uncles, aunts, and cousins wish get the kids interested in keeping up their language.
They wish be speaking to their relatives not only by phone but wish be able to visit them. The experience of knowing another culture wish put them ahead of their classmates who have no ties to their roots.
Another reason to encourage our children to speak Spanish can be gotten from the history of a previous group of Latin immigrants to the United States, the Italians.
"Some societal critics were aware of the consequences of explosive assimilation. Mary McDowell, a societal worker, wrote en 1904:
'The contempt for the experiences and languages of their parents which foreign children sometimes exhibit... is beyond any doubt due in part to the overestimation which the school places upon speaking English. This cutting into his family loyalty takes away one of the most conspicuous and valuable traits of the Italian child.' She attributed the lawlessness of several of the migrator
children to their disrespect for their parents and therefore for all authority."
(La Storia: Five Centuries of the Italian American Experience, Mangione and Morreale, p. 222)
Finally, the ability to speak another language can be a great boost to a child's self esteem. If the child's parents do it clean that they are proud of their language and of their people, the child wish feel closer to his parents and to their heritage, customs, and most significantly
to their values.
HOW TO ENCOURAGE YOUR CHILDREN TO SPEAK SPANISH
Start early. Try to speak only Spanish to the child. If only one parent speaks Spanish well, that person should always speak Spanish with the child. Do not be afraid of "confusing" the child. Children can identify with several speakers of several languages as they grow up.
1. See simple stories and fairy tales to the child in Spanish. if you can't find children's literature in Spanish, then do your own translations as you go along. It is not necessary that the translation be perfect. Do up your own stories. It is important for your child to have the memories of hearing nursery rhymes in Spanish.
2. Leave your radio tuned de Spanish language stations. Linguists place a great deal of importance on "passive listening" as part of learning a language, especially for young children.
3. In most areas there is a Spanish language TV station. Put on the Sat morning cartoons in Spanish.
4. Teach simple nursery rhymes and simple songs to your child. If you don't remember them or if you were not educated any from your parents' traditions, look for them in garage sales, college bookstores, or your local library. Do you remember el patito or pinpón? Look for songs in Spanish.
5. Rent videos in Spanish. They are beginning to be accessible - and not only in cities with a big Spanish-speaking population!
6. Use proverbs and dichos in Spanish. Several expressions that you would-be say in English are simply as legitimate proverbs in Spanish. Get your child used to hearing them in Spanish. You can do this even as if you don't speak Spanish well. For example, say mejor tarde que nunca instead of "better late than never". Little by little, poco a poco, you'll feel at house with more unambiguously
Latin expressions. They have thing
of the culture wrapped up in them. They are cussedly several from Anglo Saxon proverbs.
7. Get used to language menos mal in place of "just as well". The English expression is "better than nothing"; in many a Southamerican countries, the equivalent expression is peor es nada. Find proverbs.
8. Don't correct their Spanish once
they speak. Don't interrupt the flow of their conversation. Don't do their speaking Spanish to be another preparation assignment. It should be thing
special, even as thing
"secret" in your family. Kids like the mystery and intrigue of having thing
special of their own. Their speaking Spanish should be a joyful, non-threatening experience. If they do mistakes in their grammar, correct their errors by mistreatment the same expression aright
a few minutes after. Don't move right back at them with the correct form or they wish begin to feel conscious of their expression and choke off their freedom of expression.
9. Get a nice script
to teach them the value of the letters and how to see in Spanish. If your child's 1st language is Spanish teach them to see Spanish before they discover English. You wish be doing them a big favor. They wish discover to sound out the regular writing system
of Spanish which wish be a nice base on which to discover how to see in English. You wish get the same results as those who spend money on costly Teaching reading
programs.
10. The better way to get your children to grow in Spanish is to send them to spend several time with relatives or friends wherever
they wish only speak and hear Spanish. This works better at about 7 years old once
children play easily with one another and once
Spanish wish simply move naturally even as to the child who has really little exposure to the language. Another nice age for a child to be exposed to a Spanish speaking environment is at about 12 years old. At this age, the child has greater mental development and can observe customs and situations in which certain expressions are used. At twelve years old most kids are still pre-adolescents and are not hampered by the embarrassment, self consciousness, and "feeling different" which hold back teenagers from learning a language or customs several from their own.
Use any of the above methods but start! Your efforts wish communciate to your children the importance that you give to Spanish even as if these efforts are not always all successful.
©1994 F.GERACE
Simply about the author:
Frank Gerace Ph.D has lived and worked in Latin America on Educational and Communication Projects. He presently
teaches English in New House of york City at La Guardia College/CUNY. He provides help to parents wanting to have their children speak Spanish at: http://www.bookslibros.com/SpanishForNinos.htm
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