Progress (Reading) September- December 2012

The entries from now on will be in English with a summary in Spanish. 
Apartir de ahora, las entradas serán en inglés con resumenes en castellano.
 
Getting them to Read - HOW TO DO IT    Empezando a leer  - COMO HACERLO
Since the summer the focus has changed to getting Marc to read in English.
 At school he's being taught to read in Catalan with a focus on the sounds. Like Spanish, the language is very phonic and is far easier than English. While he goes through pages of discrete sounds in Catalan, in English the initial pace is much slower, and the number of sounds are  fewer in English.
I feel that he’s mastered spoken English to a native level for his age, his accent now sounding south of England with some Dorset influences. The amount of expressions he remembers and the expressions he picks up from TV and songs amazes me,a nd the use of these media should never be underestimated.   His language shows some intrusions from Catalan. “put me some milk”. And interestingly, there are some English intrusions in his Catalan, especially vocabulary that he just uses but changes to a Catalan pronunciation! He doesn’t do this in English as I haven’t permitted it. In Catalan, since he lives here, this won’t be a problem. In both Catalan and English the mistakes are mostly overgeneralization, e.g he fighted me, and many previous irregular verbs are beginning to be said correctly. It’s a matter of time but also the discipline to provide the correct model: Marc: Daddy,  the boat sinked.   Me:  Right, so the boat SANK, did it? Marc: yes, it sank.  
As always, quality language input in, quality language out. They are worth it!
HOW TO GET THEM TO READ
You can start getting children to recognise words in brand names and logos, e.g the food they're eating, company names on buildings or makes and model logos and badges on cars and motorbikes. If you take the trouble you'll see how quickly they pick them up. 
From about age 4, the place to start is with the alphabet (try Sesame Street for famous singers doing it), and then the sounds the letter make. Search youtube for songs such as "A is for apple, a a apple, B is for ball, b, b ball, etc... There are at least two versions. He started the same at school when he was four. Whether they do it or not at school doesn't matter, if they don't, you MUST help them, if they do, then the complementary work will really help them make faster progress. 
Remember, DON'T treat this as WORK! Kids normally find the reading and sounds practice fun, depending on how you do it and what books you use. 
As Marc got nearer to five I used to pick out words for him when I was reading the bedtime stories. 
READ THEM A STORY EVERY DAY! 
One day inevitably I brought out the Level One book for him to read. While the books you read to them should be getting more and more complex, you suddenly begin with books that start. "This is Tom. This is a dog." Luckily, the books have been graded and then words carefully chosen so they begin with 'phonic' words, that obey the rules, and include just a few 'irregular' or tricky words that don't obey the rules, but are very common: e.g. 'the', 'was', 'come', i bought him a Tricky word book and we ended up doing a race to see how fast he could read the words. (see video). 
Marc has resisted a bit to reading, as it can seem like a chore at first, but you MUST PERSEVERE. They WILL begin to pick up the rules and learn the irregular words. Right now, he's still at Level One (Ladybird books), but should be moving to Level 2 in the near future, progress permitting.
IDEAS FOR THINGS TO BUY
There are an awful lot of books on the market, but here are some ideas that have worked: 
1) The ladybird series of graded readers 
2) Jolly phonics series of 7 books. Marc is about to start book 7. They make them as interesting as possible with funny characters, stickers, pictures to paint, matching games, board games, etc.
3) Leapfrog products. The activities are loaded from the website onto a special tag reader pen and it recognizes the books you’ve bought which you download onto the pen.
There’s a tag reader series of books, I’ve bought Toy Story 3 and Tangled. Each page comes with further activities. You can buy bundles of readers. The Leap pad tablet has been given mixed reviews, especially as the price of books you upload are expensive.
There’s also a Leapfrog discovery activities series. I’ve just added the human body to the Planet Earth and a Space one. They are very instructive and well thought out. Recommended. They use mostly British and American English at the same time and Australian on the Planet Earth one that deals with countries and culture. 
4) TABLETS. There are now dedicated tablets for children with Apps already loaded. the ipad seems to have a lot of apps. They add an extra dimension too learning.    I've just bought a Samsung Galaxy tab 2. and I'll review the usefulness of this for language learning in my next blog entry. 
IMPORTANT POINTS
1) I find that the time of day and the mood is important. If they're tired or distracted, you're almost wasting your time. 
2) Be patient and don't be too strict. At first you'll need to 'give them' the words and get them to repeat them. Being the authoritarian strict parent is counterproductive. If you find your own patience waning, it's probably better to change activities, because it's a problem for me when I'm tired or stressed!! 
3) Use a reward system and challenges. I use a reward ladder with 10 boxes we fill in with gold stars when he reads a book and let him put the stars on the ladder. at the end he gets a prize. Also, we do things like: "try and read these sounds / words as quick as you can. It makes it more fun. Or you can cut up the words and pictures in some books and get them to match them. The more fun it is, the better. 
4) Get them to write the words as well as read them, and try and make rhymes or sentences with them, the sillier the better! Many books give you this option.  See my recommendations above.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!     

RESUMEN EN CASTELLANO

Aunque voy dando consejos a padres extranjeros que viven en España, podrás extrapolar mis experiencias a un niño español que viva en Inglaterra, o un niño catalán que viva en Andalusia o incluso hay ideas que ayudan a cualquier niño que quiera aprender a escribir y leer.

Marc ha llegado a tener un nivel nativo en inglés para su edad: 5 años 7 meses con algunas influencias del catalán, y en su catalán se percata influencias del inglés. En ningún momento hay que preocuparse ya que es parte de un proceso normal. Aunque en casa los idiomas son inglés y catalán va aprendiendo el castellano de sus compañeros de clase, y cuando detecta un niño que no parece no hablar el catalán, le habla en castellano. También en tiendas y bares se dirige a las personas en castellano según el idioma que hablen. A mi, solo me habla en inglés, en cambio, a su madre a veces le habla en inglés en broma o para molestarla!

Su habilidad es su capacidad de imitar acentos. Ya habla con un accento inglés del sur de Inglaterra con rasgos del condado donde viven su primos (Dorset), y sabe imitar a americanos, australianos y el acento del norte de Inglaterra. Es muy poco frecuente que los niños pillen el acento del padre extranjero. Es debido a 2 razones.

1)      Principalmente la exposición al idioma y el ayuda a pronunciar ciertos sonidos.

2)      La habilidad natural de cada niño.

APRENDER A LEER

En Agora, ya tienen una inmersión en inglés y aprenden a leer y escribir en inglés, aunque a un ritmo algo más lento que en el Reino Unido por ejemplo, que es de esperar.  

Por eso a partir de los 4 años empezamos a enfocar la lectura en destacar una palabras para que las leyera. A partir de las 5 años ya es hora de empezar la lectura usando libros para este propósito. Me gustan el editorial Ladybird, y aunque al principio les es difícil leer, sobre todo en inglés hay que perseverar. Poco a poco tanto tus esfuerzos como las de ellos se verán recompensas.  Hay que elegir momentos en los cuales no están ni cansados ni distraídos. Y, no veas la lectura y la escritura como ‘trabajo’. Según como lo hagas puede ser divertido. Hoy día tanto los libros como los Apps en los tablets hacen que el trabajo del padre que le interese la educación de sus niños en casa sea más fácil.Acabo de comprar en Samsung Galxy Tab2.Haré una crítca de su uso para aprender idiomas en la siguiente entrada.

En la sección en inglés verás unas recomendaciones para aprender a leer y escribir en inglés.

  ¡FELIZ AÑO NUEVO!       BON ANY NOU!

SUMMER 2012 Holiday Clubs VERANO 2012 campos de verano

SUMMER'S ABROAD
One of the 'secrets' of successfully raising bilingual children seems to be sending them to the 'home' country during the summer period.  

So, taking this account we decided to send Marc to England for 5 weeks.
The first two weeks he stayed with his cousins. The first week, they were at school during the day, so he was with his 3 year-old cousin and my sister.
The second week he went to a 'Holiday Club' from 8am-1pm and stayed with his cousins again.

For the third week, he stayed with his grandmother and his mother came over to stay too.
He also went to the Holiday Club again for the week.
I arrived on the 4th week and we visited friends in London.
We went to Butlins in Minehead for the weekend and brought his 6-year old cousin with us.
They get on very well together.

The most interesting change from a language point of view was Marc's adopting of a Dorset accent and his cousin's mannerisms. This was the first time that he's spent so long with English children and up to then had only had his father as a reference, and copied his fairly standard southern English accent. The example video shows the way he's talking now. For those not familiar with a Dorset accent, the most noticeable feature is the pronunciation of words with the sound in words such as 'like'; 'fly', 'I' etc as loik, floy; 'oi'.
Another interesting point is that he  heard and participated in typical children language conversations such as name calling, rhymes, e.g. "Copy cat, copy cat, don't know what you're looking at', fun-making and boasting, such as 'my dad can run faster than your dad', yeah, well my dad can eat more than your dad, etc, on and on and on!!!!! as we found out! Great language practice of course!

Also, since he's been back in Spain, he talks more often to his mother in English. Sometimes, phrases that are more common in English are used: ' e.g 'una carrera de swimming' or 'fer un swimming race', which he'll use with his mother.  This happens as we don't correct it and it doesn't harm his Catalan since he lives in Catalunya. This is something he never does with his father as he knows that it is strictly English. As I keep repeating, a little gentle persuasion if necessary and discipline in the beginning will end up with the child speaking to you in the language you want them to. Don't accept slap-dash lazy language mixing in the minority language. It's not effective or useful. 

His grandmother spent the first week of September with us and this futher cemented his 'English summer'.
I really do recommend taking the effort to find opportunities for the children to spend time in the minority language country. We found that it was only this year, now that he is 5, that he was able to take full advantage of the family holiday resort, Butlins, as he is now able to take part in team sports and sessions such as fencing ( esgrima), and play with other children in the play areas. 

 In general Marc seems to pick up and remember phrases from the different sources that he's provided with: books, films, TV series, etc.. this summer he's watched an awful lot of Scooby Doo and picked up American phrases such as 'Oh Brother'or 'Oh boy'! From the olympics commentaries he's started using 'he stormed it', 'he nailed it', etc, and loves using 'It cost an absolute fortune' which he picked up from this grandmother.

As often happens he's also picked up some swear words and phrases, in most cases my fault. In the video we hear 'cocked up' (make a mistake). He does know that some phrases are not to be said.  
READING / HOME STUDY
Once children reach 4 years old, they can start learning to read. From this age on, they should be encouraged to start recognising words and learning the phonics method of reading. Check out youtube for the catchy 'phonics' songs. e.g "A is for Apple, a, a Apple, B is for Ball, b, b Ball. 
I also recommend Carole Vordeman's school books for home study. Once they are 5 years old they begin at KEY STAGE 1. I bought 3 books: ENGLISH, SCIENCE and MATHS.
They are user friendly with full notes and answers. Even if you're not a natural teacher they are quite easy to use. Bascially, the richer the input the richer than output. If the school doesn't give a lot of minority language input, you're obliged to help them at home.

LANGUAGE PROGRESS 
So, recapping, Marc's English has really been consolidated over then summer and he's indistinguable from both a native English or native Catalan boy of his age. He makes the 'usual' language errors, which normally can be summed up as regularising language: e.g. past tenses, such as 'bringed' or superlatives such as 'the goodest', and he's still mixing 'much' and 'many'. Other more complex patterns such as 'wish': I wish I had one of those,' and third conditionals, e.g I wouldn't have done that' are appearing naturally.
School
For the coming 2012-2013 school year he'll continue with approx 4 hours in English per day with a central American teacher, Dora, whom I presume will use American English.
  

BLOG MARC 5 YEARS OLD - MAY 2012  / 5 AÑOS – MAYO 2012

Coinciding with his 5th birthday I’ve included a summary in Spanish and English.

Este mes que coincide con su 5 cumpleaños el resumen es en castellano e inglés.

Es el resumen de los progresos de Marc durante los últimos 5 años.

Resumiendo seguimos viviendo en Mollet del Vallès y va a la escuela Agora de Sant Cugat (P4). Con su madre habla catalán y en la escuela  recibe clases en catalán 40%, inglés (con profesores no nativos) 40% y castellano: 20%.   Su exposición al inglés hablado viene de su padre :2 -3 horas diarias en días laborables y  4-8 horas los fines de semana. También tiene contacto con el inglés a través de visitas de amigos de habla inglesa, su abuela  (2 semanas al año en Mollet) y 2 semanas en Inglaterra además con sus 6 sobrinos allí. Recibe exposición diaria a través de la televisión británica (una media de 1,5 horas diarias) y hasta 4-5 horas los fines de semana que incluye también películas en inglés e internet. Una cosa curiosa es que sigue jugando integralmente en inglés con sus juguetes aunque yo no esté. Creo que he podido crear un ambiente ‘inglés’  en casa que actúa como estimulo lingüístico .

La forma de comunicación no ha sufrido cambios en los 5 años. Es siempre un padre, un idioma. El padre no se ha dirigido a él nunca en otro idioma que no sea inglés, aunque si le he enseñado palabras y frases en francés cuando hemos visitado a un amigo en Francia. También se ha interesado por los otros idiomas. Incluso quiso aprender unas palabras en galés por la web CBEEBIES.

Su nivel de inglés es comprable con un nivel medio de un niño nativo de su edad con la diferencia que habla catalán y el castellano bastante bien. Llos errores que hace a veces tienen que ver con influencias del catalán, por ejemplo preguntas indirectas o una palabra suelta como “mira”. Y en el catalán a veces usa palabras sueltas del inglés.  Usa menos palabras y frases españolas / catalanas que muchos ingleses que lleva tiempo viviendo aquí. Se preocupa por ‘hablar bien’ y pronunciar las palabras bien. Sobre su acento, es el mismo que su padre, del sur de Inglaterra estándar y personas de Inglaterra no notan ningún acento catalán en su inglés. A veces usa una intonación catalán en las preguntas tipo: …and the other team? Lo corrijo que una palabra “What…. “ y repite “What about the other team?” Desde que hemos hecho este tipo de corrección no se produce este tipo de ‘error’. La verdad es que me ha sorprendido los pocos niños que acaban hablando con el acento de su padre/madre ingles/a. Mi conclusión es que hay 2 factores: 1) la cantidad de exposición 2) factor genético.

En su caso hemos mantenido una exposición alta a través de mi ‘tiempo de contacto intensivo’ y los medios multimedia, pero quizás más importante es que tiene un muy bien oído. Puede imitar distintos acentos casi a la perfección. Si oye una frase en la televisión puede imitarlo, por ejemplo, escocés, del norte de Inglaterra, por ejemplo Newcastle, estados unidos, etc.   Incluso ha llegado a corregir su profesor de clase que habla inglés con un acento catalán. Esto me recuerda al hijo de un amigo que  tenía un acento nativo sin haber vivido fuera de Cataluña, y el comentario de su padre de que corregía a su madre unas palabras que decía en inglés a sus 3 o 4 años.  

Comentarios sobre los "Errores"  / desarrollo linguistico
Algunos vienen de la influencia del catalán, y en algunos casos el inglés influye en su uso del catalán. Los demás son generalizaciones/regularizaciones, por ejemplo de verbos y comparativos. Los padres no deben preocuparse por influencias del otro idioma ni de 'errores' ya que simplemente nos demuestran un desarollo normal de aprendizaje de los idiomas. No deben usarse como excusas para dejar de hablar un idioma.

En los videos que he subido en este blog se puede apreciar mis comentarios y análisis de su nivel de inglés.

Los resultados positivos han confirmado las reglas generales que he empleado desde el principio y que recomiendo para los padres en una situación similar:

1)      1 padre – 1 idioma   No  te compliques la vida. Funciona si lo acatas con disciplina. 

2)      No dejar que el niño te hable en otro idioma que no sea el tuyo. Empieza desde la primera vez que te pide agua o leche. Si ha tenido exposición suficiente no será más difícil decir ‘water’ que ‘aigua’ que’ agua’.  Hay que ser disciplinado y no confundir la ‘disciplina’ con la ‘crueldad’.  La mayoría de los padres empiezan a fallar en este punto y establecen una regla de comunicación en lo cual el niño le habla al padre en castellano y el padre le habla en su idioma. Es totalmente evitable.  Desafortunadamente hay padres que no se ven capaces a imponer esta regla.

3)      Exposición alta con una interacción intensiva y activa. Si, por razones de trabajo, vas a pasar poco tiempo con el niño, hay que aprovechar cada minuto hablando con él. En este punto, por falta de interés por parte del padre en cuestión aunque el niño acaba hablándole en inglés el nivel suele ser muy bajo y la pronunciación totalmente español.

Al final, si quieres que tu hijo hable la lengua minoritaria necesitas tener el objetivo siempre en mente, dedicarle tiempo suficiente,  esfuerzo, generosidad y disciplina. Y no hay que olvidar el apoyo de tu pareja, que a veces puede ser un factor fundamental.

Por ejemplo, si NO estás dispuesto a ‘jugar’ con el niño, leerle libros, ayudarle a escribir y pasar lo bastante tiempo con él,  no es tan extraño que el fracaso sea el resultado más frecuente.

Simplemente hablar tu idioma en plan ‘tranquilo’ no produce resultados muy satisfactorios.  Se puede resumir como ‘esfuerzo mediocre, resultados mediocres.’

A algunos padres, les vale un resultado mediocre ya que es lo que esperaban desde el principio; el hipótesis que se cumple por las acciones basado en las creencias equívocas. Tal y como hemos visto, un resultado positivo se puede cumplir sin problemas.

 Es triste ver la cantidad de padres perplejos que no entienden por qué el niño no le habla en su idioma. Siguiendo las 3 reglas arriba la probabilidad de éxito es muy alta.

 Espero que este blog haya servido y sirva como motivación por los padres interesados

PLANES

Para este verano vamos a dejar Marc con su abuela y 6 primos en Inglaterra durante un mes e irá a un ‘Holiday club’ por las mañanas. El objetico es aumentar su contacto con el inglés en un contexto nativo jugando con niños ingleses.

Tipos de input

En estos momentos lo hacemos casi todo sobre la marcha aunque el libro a la hora de dormir sigue siendo lo más habitual.  También juego deportes con él casi todos los días además de ver programas en la televisión británica como concursos de talentos y documentales. The Cube, Britain/America’s got talent ; X Factor…

Quiero que impongamos una rutina más planificada de inputs: por ejemplo. Tal hora a tal hora: televisión con dibujos en inglés; los martes y jueves aprender a escribir; sábado por la mañana. Debido de muchas horas de trabajo a veces es difícil, pero es la intención lo que cuenta y al final sí que le voy dedicando las horas que tengo libres.

Summary of Marc’s language progress over the his first 5 years

To sum up, we are still living in Mollet del Vallés and he goes to Agora Sant Cugat (year P4). He speaks Catalan with his mother and at school the classes are taught 40% in catalan; 40% in English (with non-native teachers) and 20% in Spanish. His exposure to English is nearly totally through his father: 2-3 hours per day during the week and at least 4-8 hours at the weekend. He also gets contact in English through friends’ visits and 2 weeks a years from his English grandmother coming to Mollet and 2 weeks when we visit her in the summer. He also get contact through his 6 cousins who live near his grandmother. He also gets daily exposure to British Television and age appropriate programmes (average 1.5 hours per day) and up to 4-5 hours including films and internet. An interesting point is that he still plays with his toys totally in English even when the father is not present. We’ve succeeded in setting up an English home environment that acts as a language trigger.

The communication method hasn’t changed over the 5 years. It’s always one parent, one language. The father has never spoken any other language to him or accepted catalan or Spanish. However, the father has taught him phrases and words in French coinciding with a trip to see a friend in France. He also wanted to learn some words in Welsh on a mini language awareness course on the CBEEBIES website.

His English level is on a par with an average native speaker child living in England with the difference of course that he is also a native catalán speaker who also has a good level in Spanish. Any deviations in his English apart from those because of his age are influences from catalan, for example the use of indirect questions: “I want to know who is that man?” or the very occasional intrusion of words such as ‘mira’ (look). In fact he uses far fewer ‘spanglish’ phrases than many adult expat English speakers who’ve been living in Spain for a long time.  He seems to take care of the language he uses and his pronunciation.  Regarding his accent, he speaks with a standard southern English accent and native English speakers  are unable to detect a Spanish/catalan accent when he speaks English.  Sometimes his intonation and word order in certain questions such as “….and the other team?”  show a catalan influence. When I say ‘What about…? “  he reformulates and repeats; “and what about the other team?” This support and reformulation is fundamental and shouldn’t be confused with overt and constant correction.

One thing that has surprised me a lot is the low percentage of children that speak with their parent’s accent. My conclusion is that there are two main factors:

1)      The amount of exposure

2)      A genetic factor: natural gift for imitating sounds

In Marc’s case, the father has always tried to maintain a high level of  exposure through quality ‘intensive language contact time’ and multimedia. But perhaps the most important factor has been his ear for language. He is able to imitate a variety of accents that he hears: e.g Scottish, north of England,, such as Newcastle, American, etc. He’s even corrected the his non-native  English teacher’s pronunciation.

He reminds me of the son of a teacher I know who reported that his son corrected his mother’s pronunciation when she tried to speak to him in English when he was only 3 or 4. He had a perfect English accent when I met him when he was 13, and he’d been born and brought up in Barcelona. An important factor was also that he spent every summer in the UK.  Another teacher whose daughters were born in Spain reported that he attributed their English accents to summers spent in the UK and high exposure to audio books and interest in Harry Potter in general.  Things to take into account.

Remarks on Language 'errors' / Language development
some of the deviations from standard can be attributed to influences from catalan. In other cases the main cause is generalisation / regularisation, for example of irregular verbs (buyed / shaked)) and comparatives (goodest). Parents should not be alarmed by these so called 'errors' as they as far from being negative. They simply show the child's normal language development. And, they certainly shouldn't be used as an excuse to justify giving up one of the langages.

The videos I’ve uploaded to this blog should give good examples of his English progress.

I attribute the positive results to the general rules that I’ve always followed and which I’d strongly recommend to parents in a similar situation:

1)      One parent – One language. Don’t complícate your life. It works if you follow it strictly. 

2)        DON’T LET THE CHILD SPEAK TO YOU IN ANY OTHER LANGUAGE EXCEPT YOUR OWN. It starts from the first time the child speaks to you, normally just a word. If the child has has enough exposure, it won’t be any more difficult to say ‘water’ than aigua’ than ‘agua’. Most parents fall at this first hurdle. But it’s totally avoidable with perseverance and discipline. Unfortunately, some parents are unable to bring themselves to enforce this rule and also confuse simple parent ‘discipline’ with ‘cruelty’.  Some parents use the excuse of, ‘yeah, but they know I understand Spanish.’ Yes, maybe , but they also know you speak and understand English. It’s up to you. Don’t let yourself or your child down.

3)      Language Contact Time (LCT) Exposure and intensive and active interaction .  If you find that you are unable to spend enough time with your child then every minute your are with them should be made use of to the max. It’s here that you often find that even when the child does speak to the parent in English, their language level is poor and their accent when speaking English exhibits a strong Spanish influence.

In the end, if you want your child to speak the minority language you need to keep this
ob jective in mind all the time, devote enough time and effort and be generous and disciplined. And you should remember the importance of  your partner’s input, which in some cases will be the difference between success and failure.  

For example, if you are NOT willing to play with your child, read them books, help them to write and in general spend enough time with them then it’s not surprising that failure or poor quality is the most likely result.

Many parents have quite a blasé attitude towards bringing the child up to speak English thinking that just casually speaking to them will be enough. This almost always gives unsatisfactory results. This can be summed up as : a mediocre effort gives a mediocre result.”  Another point is that some parents seem happy with a mediocre level, and this may be based on the expectations that ‘this is normal’, which we’ve seen doesn’t have to be the case.

And it’s sad to see the number of parents who are genuinely perplexed as to why their child doesn’t end up speaking their language. Following the three main rules above will stack the odds in your favour and bring a sense of satisfaction to you and an amazing gift to your child

I hope this blog helps achieve your goals and acts as an inspiration.

PLANS

This summer Marc is going to spend a month in England with his grandmother and cousins. We’re planning to send him to a holiday Club in the mornings with the goal of him getting exposure in a natural environment and being able to play with native children.

Types of Input

At the moment, we play everything by ear, rarely planning the language input, although I always ensure to make use of every moment  I’m with him to give him maximum  language exposure.  We play sports together nearly every evening and watch British TV: sports, documentaries and talent shows: The Cube, Britain/America’s got talent ; X Factor…

What I’d like to do is to impose a more structured and planned approach to language input such as having a Schedule for certain TV watching times and programmes, having different days for different activities:  learning t read or write, etc.  due to long hours working it makes it difficult to do. But the intention is there and I do devote a lot of my free time to being with him and maintain language exposure.  

English nanny / carer. I hired Sam ( a male carer from New York) to look after Marc for a morning during the Christmas holidays 2011/2012. Marc had a great time playing basketball with him and enjoys meeting the new carers (his fourth) after he gets over the shyness of the first half an hour or so. In this case they are reading the Gruffalo and drawing pictures. Sam would need to increase his interactions with Marc on future occasions. Unlike a 'nornal' carer who may say the minimum to a child, if the objective is to increase language level, every moment has to be rich in language input and intereactions from beginning to end. This is a crucial point to understand and put into practise. For English carers in Barcelona or anywhere in Spain contact: www.english-nanny.com
 

Friday 3rd February. Marc was out of school due to the snow so we did a bit of 'work' before going out and building a snowman. The video shows an  example of  my interactions with him and his English at 4 years 8 months. As usual, as soon as I started filming he stopped talking as much! 

October  2011 – December 2011 Aged 4 years 5 months to 4 years 8 months

Summary / Resumen

I’m becoming more aware of making sure I spend enough time with Marc every day and find myself organizing my schedule around his school timetable. It makes me realize that if you are a working parent, especially one with a variable schedule you really have to make an effort to spend time with the child and make sure that any time spent contains quality language input.

From more real experiences and from reflecting on my own intensive system , for the first time I’m beginning to understand why many parents, especially fathers, who although they’d like their children to speak their language,  are not willing to put in sufficient time and effort to ensure this happens.

INPUT

Mornings

When he’s at school my options are a morning or an evening input session. Due to working most mornings I make use of any class cancellations to take him to school earlier and spend about an hour with him from waking to walking into the school.  Instead of putting on the TV in the morning I sit with him and we talk about everything from the cereal he’s eating to the weather, how he slept, what he dreamt about or if he’s in a bad mood it means telling him off and correctional behaviour language.  In the car during the 15 minute journey I point out the weather features, the vehicles on the road and the traffic conditions, music on the radio and go over a book we read the night before and see if we can retell it. Also, we might talk about his school day and his relationship with his classmates and teachers.

In the evenings, I try to spend at least 2 hours with him even if it means cutting short work that I’ve planned. ‘Luckily’ he tends to go to sleep around 10pm and this means that even if I get back at 8pm I can still see him. I think there was only one day I didn’t see him because he’d fallen asleep.

The main problem I have when I get home is tiredness and as I’ve said before you need to dig deep to ensure that you spend language intensive time with the child, not just sit watching TV or eating dinner or watching them play in silence. At worst, we watch the English TV together interactively, and I usually choose quiz or talent shows such as X Factor or Britain’s got Talent as films or series in the evening usually have unsuitable language or scenes.

We sometimes watch cartoons on youtube and we started using the phonics song ‘A is for Apple, a, a, Apple, etc’ in December that he also gets in school. 

School

From this term the school is officially ‘International’ , which means about 40% of content in English which in theory should help reinforce the language but it’s too early to say how good the input is and how much use given that only one other boy is native English (also born in Spain of an English mother). Interestingly they spoke to each other in English at the beginning of term but according to Marc they don’t at the moment.  Accounts of what happen in school aren’t always accurate of course.

More input

I started using the DVDs we’d bought second hand in England in the summer which included the 3 Scooby Doo feature films and the Thunderbird’s movie. I see these as a step up in his repertoire as there are more ‘complicated’ plots. Another new film he got for Christmas was ‘CARS 2’ which was the first ever film he’d seen. For my taste, it’s a little difficult for very young children due to the plot and the language used by Mater the tow truck is very regional both in expression and accent. This is also the reason I’m not keen on Spongebob.

I try to get related material to recycle the language from the films. For example, we got Marc the cars and other vehicles from the CARS 2 movie and a Scooby Doo Halloween story as well as the characters so he could act out scenes with them.

Themed seasonal occasions

Certain times of year lend themselves to specific language and give an opportunity for children to experience different cultural activities.

At Halloween we got him costumes, bought and carved a pumpkin, had pumpkin soup and rewatched the Monsters and Aliens Halloween film.

I got him a pirate book at Christmas that had a Christmas theme. He was interested in the specific pirate language and fascinated by the characters.

Readers

He’s starting to read and write as well as recognize words. We have a Ladybird Level 1 reader and we’ve started to read that. The method is the phonics method of sounding out the regular words and learning other ‘irregular’ words by sight.

With other books beyond his reading level, I pick out certain words that are repeated often for him to read. The more the better.

Holidays

At Christmas we spent 6 days in Costa Adeje, Tenerife. I choose this location and the specific hotel as it’s a destination for British holidaymakers. However, the children’s activities weren’t well run and were non-existent. So, the idea of Marc playing with other English children didn’t happen except a couple of spontaneous moment mealtimes or in the swimming pool. I’ve now heard that children’s activities are a bit hit or miss and some hotels do it better than others. So, I spent the days with Marc and he got massive input from me. By the way, the holiday was good and the winter sun excellent!

Output

Marc has continued to improve his vocabulary and complexity of his language. More of his irregular past tense verbs are correct now: e.g fall – fell -  He surprises me in the way he picks up new phrases and them uses them. Eg. ‘to get the hang of something.

He often takes these new phrases and over uses them, which is funny, before applying them correctly.

He surprised me one day when I arrived home by asking me: “How did your day go?” Something I often ask him.

He also experiments with new words, and for a while everything was ‘totally’. Totally hot or cold or delicious.

Another was ‘nearby’ and then ‘far away’. He’d ask ‘what’s far away?’ and then ‘what’s nearby? in a never ending combination: ‘Is my school nearby? Is England nearby?’ etc.

Educational themes developed

After a visit to a museum in Barcelona ‘Caixa forum’ in which I made sure I went as well, we bought him a skeleton and a torso with the vital organs. He’d been doing this in school and it was a good occasion to develop this area in English. We followed it up with the song’ Them bones, them bones ….. the knee bone is connected to the thigh bones, etc”. 

Playing on his own

He still plays in English when he’s on his own at home whether I’m there or not. I’ve also heard him singing nursery rhymes to himself. A few of his expletive expressions are Catalan or Spanish depending on what he hears at school.

Developing language

He still uses double negatives ‘I can’t do nothing’ and in question tags: “ It’s not right, isn’t it?

Also some indirect questions are not right and seem influenced by Catalan:

Do you know what is that?

Also, some question forms have Catalan influence:

e.g

Marc: Daddy, what’s that called?

Me: It’s a bumper

Marc: And that? (with Catalan intonation)

Me: Say: “and, what’s that / What about that?

First Language influence

It’ll be interesting how long it’ll be before he’ll change these forms to more English ones.

It’s obvious that if you speak two languages to a very high level there will always be some influence on the weaker one.  There is a massive influence in general on Catalan from Spanish except by those in strong catalan ‘strongholds’, and visa versa.

All English expats I know use ‘spanglish’ when they speak English, especially vocabulary and words that don’t have an equivalent, e.g ‘’gestoria´´ - accountants / labour law firms.

 So, if Marc uses Catalan influenced expressions then this is totally to be expected. What it doesn’t mean is that I shouldn’t point it out and reformulate using a correct model.  

It seems to be influencing his Catalan output and he freely uses English words with a catalan pronunciation when he doesn’t know the right word. His mother isn’t bothered about this as he lives in Catalonia with the resulting massive input!!

Awareness

He’s fully aware that he speaks English, Catalan and Spanish, and he recognizes American accents and French accents in English.

ACCENT AND PRONUNCIATION

He has a recognizable English accent and all but trained linguists would find it hard to work out that he wasn’t a monolingual English speaker. If he deviates on pronunciation I reformulate with a correct model or get him to say words with the sound in made up rhymes or songs. Some specific words sound American which might not come as a surprise as most of the TV and DVD input is American!!  As one of the English teachers pointed out at the school, it’s very unusual indeed that a child also picks up the parent’s accent, especially the father’s, mostly due to insufficient input ( and individual differences). However, as this study and that of other parents’ indicates, it IS possible and ‘simply’ requires a planned and concerted effort from the parent.

June - Septiembre 2011 Summer / Verano 2011 - 4 years old

Resumen / Summary This summer period has been characterised by fewer than ever notes taken by the author but more video espcially since buying a Blackberry that makes spontaneous video easier and showing Marc's English to other people easier too. Now he's speaking so much, it's more difficult to select exactly what to write down. Also, his progress in grammar is less apparent as his English is getting more accurate all the time. This summer we tried out some English school alternatives. INPUT He'3 finished school year P3 at the end of June and we were faced with the usual dilemma of childcare. www.english-nanny.com provides the option in English but living in Mollet it's more difficult to find somebody. For one morning I got an English carer to look after him for the morning in Barcelona and he enjoyed that. Although, as often happens the first time with many children, he was a little shy. I also repeated this one morning system at the beginning of September. In July we decided to send him to ISCAT in La Garriga, which is an English medium school. He enjoyed the atmosphere there, as it is small, cosy and friendly. However, the classes were more English lesson centered than we expected and he was the only native speaker child. this meant that although the classes were in English, there was a focus on structures which were irrelevant to him. Also, as he's quite shy sometimes in classes the teacher thought he didn't speak much English and I noticed she spoke to him as if he was non-native. When I played her a video of Marc 'chatting away' in English on my Blackberry she was quite surprised. After that she made him team leader in the class but the 3 weeks there weren't that enriching for him. Jumping to September, he started P4 and this year at Agora, Sant Cugat they've changed the school into an international one. In real terms this means that 40% of school time is immersion in English, with two English speaking teachers in the class taking care of the teaching through the medium of English. Another 40% is in Catalan and 20% in Spanish. There's another English speaking boy in his class, who has an English mother, and Marc says they speak English together. He only joined this year so isn't one of Marc's 'friends' yet. Obviously, from my point of view, the new set up promises to be very benefial to Marc's English as he'll be learning to read and write using the phonics method which is being introduced by the head of English Ruth Sale. We spent two weeks in England in August and checked out school offering so called HOLIDAY CLUBS to look after kids of working parents during the holidays. We found one which is part of a school very near to my mother's flat with a view to using it next year. We went to check it out with Marc and there was a 'tame' fox in the playground field which fascinated him. We also saw squirrels. The main point is 'selling it' to him and we let him talk to the kids setting up 'tents' under a tree. The amount of real English here would be very beneficial and we hope to try it out for a week next August. Parents should look at these options as an alternative in the summer. We managed quite a few trips and visits over the summer in England or English. We spent 2 days with my friends Nigel and Dawn and their son in Potter's Bar. After a day together they were playing happily together and enjoyed the day we spent on an 'activity farm' nearby. We spent a long weekend at Butlins in Minehead as an experiment!! Not everyone's cup of tea. I had some vague idea of Marc speaking and playing with other children, but as he wasn't doing any team games no real interaction happened. Only the half hour sessions in the play area of the restaurant in the evenings when he finished before us were spend playing in English with the children. Next year we plan to go with his cousin who'll be with him all the time and will probably be more fun than with his parents all the time!! While staying in my mother's flat Marc became 'obsessed' with a DVD: 'Monsters and Aliens', which he watched every day! Regarding films, they are a fantastic way of giving input. It throws up the issue of what type of language and also British vs American as most of the films tend to be American. He finds Monsters and Aliens easy to follow and hugh Laurie does the English accent of Doctor cockroach Phd yet other films have more slang and more extreme regional accents. My mother stayed with us for a week in September before the term started and thanks to her almost endless patience she spent most of the day with him, which was obviously fantastic for his English. A case in point is CARS and specially CARS 2 which became his first ever film he's seen at the cinema, and in 3D. Michael Cane does an English accent but Mater the tow truck has an extremely strong American accent and uses a lot of slang. Also, I thought the plot was more complicated than usual. Perhaps it's aimed at older children not 4 year olds!! ROUTINES I've tried to keep the book at bedtime routine although sometimes he's either not in the mood or too tired. Books included the classic fairy tales, the Gruffalo, a new one called the Pirate Cruncher he picked out in a bookshop and his books on the 'universe' and space. If I'm around in the morning I always wake him up, make him breakfast and sit with him as we watch CBeebies. Then if I can, i take him to school. this give an intense one hour contact to start the day. Sadly, It looks like I'm going to working at least 4 out of 5 mornings again this year. In the afternoons when I'm not in I'd like him to watch at least 1.5 hours of children's TV in English. In the evenings, I'm usually able to see him a couple of hours. We normally watch TV together, although it's adult TV. Very often they are talent shows, Britain's/ America's got talent and the X Factor are favourites. Some films that are 'appropriate' such as the X-Men or other space or superhero adventures that we deem 'ok' are watched in English. OUTPUT As mentioned in the summary, I haven't taken as many notes as before. In general, his English is really coming along and many of the errors are typical of any native speaker of his age, e.g irregular past tenses, comparative forms (much betterer), anything/nothing (I don't want nothing) , questions tags (although he's nailed the 'I'm right, aren't I? tag!) , and some prepositions (I'm good of that). He still plays in English all the time with only the occasionaly Catalan word or exclamation. And aftet his exposure to English, even at ISCAT he spoke more in English to his mother again. Since she doesn't tell him not to, and she understand him he doesn't really have an issue with it. Correcting his mother. Sometimes he'll ask her to say something in English (or I will) and then he cruelly laughs when she doesn't get the pronunciation right and taunts her 'again, again'! Learning and using new input Marc often surprises me when he comes out with phrases from films or TV programs or songs or even tongue twisters that I thought he hadn't learned. Once he reeled off a whole speech from a the 'alien' from monsters and aliens which sounded word perfect. The point is never underestimate the passive input that a child is getting. Obviously, you have to make sure that this is complemented with speaking interaction. Why? He still asks 'why?' incessantly and I'm trying to get him to ask 'how?' when it's the more relevant question? He also does this in Catalan. It show curiosity at least, even if it does become tiresome sometimes!! I sometimes make him ask the full question by asking 'Why what?´' and to be honest his question formation is excellent. not suprising with all that practice! Oddities He goes through stages, perhaps experimenting) and says things that I don't expect. One such occurrence was the use of 'yer' instead of 'you' at the end of a sentence. e.g 'Here's a ball for yer'. I haven't heard this for a while now. He sometimes picks up a word and then uses it wrongly. He learned 'allergic' from my mother and has used it to describe the English that the English speaking boy in his class uses: "I'm allergic to Ts English (!). I'm still not sure what he means as he can't explain it, perhaps his voice or accent or expressions? Perhaps due to my strictness, in English the intrusions are few and far between and words slipping out in Catalan are unusual, e.g 'disfraç' (costume), 'close the light' (turn off the light), he more frequently freely mixes sentences with his mother or adapts English words to Catalan, e.g lockejat the door' (locked. Catalan doesn't have one word for 'lock'). Awareness and current level He is now aware of other accents and sometimes immitates voices from American film characters. He's now fully aware that 'daddy's language' is English and that he speaks 3 languages. As far as his level in English is concerned it is probably in a par with an average child of his age and his accent is southern English and so far neither adults or children in England have mentioned his accent or if he might be foreign. I'm wondering if he'd be teased for being from Spain despite sounding English if he were in a school in the UK. His cousin introduced him to a friend as 'my cousin from Spain', which is accurate of course but obviously conjures up the connotations of probably not a native English speaker. These and other issues related to 'identity' will be more important when he's older.

2011 – FIRST Quarter 1st Jaunary – 16th May 2011 4th Birthday

2011 – FIRST Quarter 1st Jaunary – 16th May 2011
Summary /Resumen
Es un resumen que destaca los progresos principales en inglés de Marc durante el período del 1 enero 2011 hasta su 4 cumpleaños, 16 mayo 2011.
This summary highlights Marc’s English language progress from the 1st January 2011 up to his 4th birthday on 16th May.

I’m pleased to say that Marc has continued his progress in English to a stage in which to all intents and purposes he can pass for a native speaker for a child of his age. He gives the impression that he can ‘chat away’ in English and also plays exclusively in English whether alone or accompanied. Since going to school I’ve noticed that his Catalan that he uses when talking to his mother has improved and he very rarely says anything to her in English except for English words which have become part of his Catalan vocabulary.
Over the 4 years I’ve recorded a lot of his output out of interest and also for other people to compare what I’ve been writing in this blog if they have any doubts.

INPUT
Due to greater than ever demands at work and the fact that I often have early starts every morning, I can’t see Marc then, which I like to do, and have to rely on his mother switching on the British children’s TV to give him some input. Any early morning that I’m free I make sure I’m with him and try to take him to school and take advantage of the extra 20 minutes with him. Despite working late some evenings I can still spend 2 to 3 hours talking to him and only once or twice have I found him asleep when I’ve got in. ‘Luckily’, he goes to bed between 10.30-11pm most nights which means that I can nearly always spend time talking to him. Sometimes I just feel like going to bed or saying nothing, but I think it’s the extra effort in these cases that has helped so much. At the weekends he’s been getting 6-10 hours input with me per day. I don’t really count the school as having a significant input yet as they sing nursery rhymes for half an hour a day and he may say the occasional phrase to the English assistant.
Next year the school will become ‘international’ with whole subjects taught exclusively in English, which I see as being a positive supplement to the English he receives from me.

Media input
The majority of the midweek nights we watch British TV together, and I try to find something suitable from the adult TV later on, such as quiz shows e.g (The Cube), singing competitions (American Idol) documentaries or even football matches if they’ve on. We’ve even watched snooker and darts which he likes and has plenty of scope for language input.
At the weekend we watch either Cbeebies or Tinypops which has a lot of Canadian talking animal cartoons, eg. ‘Timothy goes to school’. It also has commercial breaks which gives input of a different type, such as ads for Disneyland and Disneyworld .
We also pick out clips from films he’s liked, such as Spykids, or songs we’ve heard on the car radio. He still likes some old favourites such as episodes of Woody Woodpecker and the Pink Panther.
Other sources of input
Other people
At the beginning of January he had a Scottish childminder a couple of mornings employed through my www.english-nanny.com agency. We went to the UK for a week in March and he had contact with my mother and his cousins, and my mother visited at Easter and spent 3 days playing with him intensively. Sometimes it’s good to see him getting input from other English speakers and hear him picking up new words and expressions.
We got a visit from a friend of mine from Dublin and his 9 year old daughter and he had no problems understanding the Dublin accent, unlike me when I went to school there when I was 12!
Game and books, etc.
I try my best to read a book to him every night but there was a period in January and February when he was being ‘difficult’ and wanted to go to sleep with him mother on the sofa in front of the television. Luckily, since about March he’s ‘allowed’ me read him a bedtime story in bed. I’ve bought three new ones this quarter: ‘The Gruffalo’ , Cinderella and Hansel and Gretel. He’s very interested by the relationship between the characters and wanted me to explain what a ‘step mother’ is, which isn’t easy to grasp for a 3 year old!
We also read a book about the earth and universe, and refer to the globe that he has in his room. I loved the way he took my mother to his room and told her all about Japan and New Zealand where they had earthquakes. His main hot topics are planes, space and rockets.
Perhaps the language advantage of a father having a boy is that we can play ‘boys’ games together, such as football, catch, basketball and recently simple forms of cricket and ‘golf’ by hitting plastic balls. He also set up a table with marbles and made a ‘snooker table’.

OUTPUT
As mentioned in the summary, He is pretty fluent and tends to babble on sometimes, especially if he’s excited about something. When he’s explaining something, e.g from his day at school, he sometimes has to think about the words and I try and help him by guessing the word, “We went to a …. “ Me; ‘farm’ etc.. Interestingly, he doesn’t ask me to translate the word from Catalan. Up to now there have been few words that he didn’t know in English anyway. I’ve only had to include a few new ones for a couple of subjects, such as ‘PE’ (Phsyical Education) and gym /gymnasium / do exercises/ acrobatics, etc. some parents may be tempted to just leave the Spanish name of the subject but I prefer to find the equivalent which keeps everything in English and is useful if talking to his English cousins.
He also realizes without any doubt now that he speaks different languages. He knows he speaks English, Catalan and Spanish. So, if I ask him if mummy speaks English as well as Catalan, he’s able to say “, yeah, but not properly!”
A very important point is to NEVER laugh at or put down the child if they can’t find a word or make a mistake. This could lead to a lack of confidence in the best case and have disastrous consequences in a worst case scenario and the child might decide not to speak the language anymore to avoid being laughed at. I know of one real case of this. Take it into account. The most effective method is to help them find the words and be patient and give them time to explain themselves. And then congratulate them. Well done, you really explained that well. I loved that story” You should feel proud of them!! Lose the super strict, language disciplinarian parent in these cases, because it’s likely to backfire badly.
Why?
He asks ‘Why?’ all the time. It can go on for up to 10 explanations!! And can test the parent’s general knowledge. However, I’m getting to the stage now when I say, ‘it’s not ‘why?’ it’s ‘how? for example. It means he gets a lot of input and I suppose he’s just trying to make sense of the world, although sometimes I think it’s just laziness!
We’re going to the swimming pool.
Why?
So you can learn to swim better and it’s fun.
Why?
Because you have to go to a pool to learn don’t you?
Yes, why?
Because it’s the best place. Do you like going?
Yes.
Ok, Look for your towel and swimming things.
Why?
Ahhhhhh!!!!
Grammar
I continue to support my theory that a parent has to correct or reformulate if the child makes a repetitive mistake, e.g an irregular past tense verb, because of the fact that they won’t learn it from anyone else, unlike a child that gets 8 hours input in English at school.
So, when he says ‘What did happen?’ I say “Say: what happened? And he repeats it. He ‘s finally starting to say it correctly.
He says ‘on myself’ instead of ‘by myself’. I ‘blame myself for introducing ‘by myself’ and ‘on my own’ at the same time. I reformulate by saying ‘, “ ok, you mean ‘you did it on your own, right?” I’m pretty certain this will work itself out in time with gentle reformulation and the input from TV.
He’s started using more question tags. He used the Canadian ‘eh?’ for a while which may have some from tinypops! But it disappeared anyway after a couple of weeks.
He’s using ‘aren’t you’ and ‘didn’t you’ and ‘isn’t it’ the most. He sometimes makes small mistakes such as: you didn’t go to work, didn’t you daddy? which is all part of the process.
Comparatives. Still some confusion here. E.g It’s much more better
Negatives. Still confusion nothing and anything. E.g What were you doing Marc? - Anything.
Where were you? - anywhere

Vocabulary
As noted above he rarely mixes up the language especially talking to me. Once when remembering a conversation with a classmate he said’ Lorenzo was wearing a ‘disfras’ (costume). In fact he learned costume and to dress up in English first. As usual I said ‘what? you mean a costume? He replied ‘no, a disfraz’. He was really tired and a bit ratty, so I left it and the next day he came up to me and made a point of talking about costumes.
It should be pointed out that native speakers who live in a country for a long time sometimes drop common words into an English conversation, especially if there isn’t a precise translation, so the odd addition of these typical type of words shouldn’t alarm anyone.
He picked up ‘mend’ and then ‘dodgy’ from my mother while playing a ‘humpty dumpty on a wall’ game. He using phrasal words well now,e.g Are you going to pick me up from school today daddy?’ Also, his question forms are very good. Sometimes when we tries to ask a negative question he has to think about it and sometimes makes a mistake.
I try to feed in new Vocabulary and phrases whenever I can.
‘It’s raining cats and dogs’
What’re you up to? He now uses ‘What is he up to?
Or I add in synonyms like this. Daddy, that’s big, isn’t it?
‘Yes, but not just big, it’s enormous/huge/massive!!
We’re still working on ‘win’ vs ‘beat’ and now he’s nearly got it right but not quite, which shows how difficult some words are to learn. We use them a lot as he likes sport and is competitive all the time, which is good if you want to learn a certain word!!
Also, ‘in/at the end’, isn’t clear to him yet.
Pronunciation
He says words which are the same in both languages with an English or Spanish pronunciation depending on who he’ talking to. Eg. Name of films, and interestingly he even says the names of his friends with an English pronunciation! E.g Lorenzo.
From watching some American films, e.g Planet 51 and the Tinypops Canadian cartoons he seems to pronounce some words with an American accent sometimes without realizing it e.g as in ‘rock’, and other times for a laugh,e g. Astronaut which he learned from Planet 51.
While watching ‘Crocodile Dundee’ I pointed out the use of G’day mate’ for greeting people’ with the Australian pronunciation. Whenever possible I point out words and pronunciation from other English speaking countries.
My friend from Dublin pointed out his English pronunciation and got him to say ‘Dublin’ with the Irish ‘u’, which we laughed about.
He started saying “sings’ instead of ‘things’ for some reason and still occurs sometimes now. I make him repeat ‘Things’ and I think it may be a temporary stage.
According to my wife he recited an English rhyme from school with a slightly Spanish accent, probably repeating what he heard. A bit miffed I got him to repeat the same one to me which he did with an English accent, which shows he’s aware of his pronunciation. It also shows how important it is to have a good model of pronunciation from the beginning.
Tongue twisters
I’ve taught him two of these fun rhymes:
Red lorry, yellow lorry (good for the pronunciation of the English ‘o’ and the Rs)
She sells sea shells on the sea shore. (Also teaches shells and sea shore – this is where you can find pictures of beaches)

SEPTEMBER - DECEMBER 2010 3yr 4 -3yr7months

September – December 2010 – 3 years 4 months – 3 years 7 months
I’ve condensed Marc’s progress from the notes that I’ve been taking into one blog for this final quarter of the year as I haven’t done a monthly update, partly through a shortage of time due to work commitments.

Summary and thoughts at the end of 2010

I’ve managed to keep up a diary of notes, mostly an scraps of paper, as well as film clips of him (which I haven’t edited yet) and I’m glad I’m persevering even though in busy periods the thought of writing up a blog or even reading to him at night means making a big effort. I’m trying to pitch this account at a non-technical level with a few exceptions to make it readable for everyone who’s interested in this subject.
I’m very happy with his progress and still surprised at how well he is doing; much better than I could ever have imagined, especially based on practically all other first-hand accounts I’d heard. However, due to the amount of information I had before Marc was born, I was able to stick to the rules that I’ve already mentioned, e.g the most important: ‘ not allowing the child to speak to you in the local language.

Being an English teacher as a foreign language means that I notice things that most non language-teachers wouldn’t and probably wouldn’t even be interested in. I’ve also realized that playing with children isn’t something that every adult ‘enjoys’ or finds natural. From speaking to and hearing many cases of foreign language speaking fathers, the lack of ‘enthusiasm’ for educational games and activities and the lower contact time that fathers have is responsible for the very low success rate that their children have.

The ‘effort’ of playing with him in English even when I’m very tired after a long day and sticking to the golden rule method of ‘only in English’ and using the ‘Intensive and structured’ inputs in a natural setting has paid off. Not only is he getting more time and attention than he would from most fathers, he’s also become a native English speaker. And to be honest, seeing the results is not just rewarding but exhilarating as well. He’s got one proud Dad!!
INPUT
One of the main changes in his and our life this 7th September was him starting school, Agora in Sant Cugat. The main feature of this school for 3-year olds is that there is an English speaking assistant (non-native) in the classroom most of the day and the children think that she only speaks English. Only 30 minutes is dedicated to actual formal English instruction, which consists mainly of songs, which he sang to me when he came home from school. He also realized that the assistant’s pronunciation wasn’t right for some words,, eg. ‘chocolate’.
Even when I’ve had to work long days I’ve continued ‘to make the effort’ and be with him in the morning when I usually make him breakfast and watch Cbeebies together and then in the evening when I spend two-three hours with him having dinner together, watching a variety of children’s videos on youtube and playing games and then reading a bedtime story or stories to him in his bed.
One of the signs that he’s getting older is that we are beginning to be able to set up routines. This is another excellent way of introducing and consolidating language and phrases on a regular basis.
One of the big changes has been that on the majority of occasions he’s been going to his own bed to sleep and I’ve set up the ‘book, bottle and bubbies (sleep)’ routine which towards the end of October has become the norm. I’ve also introduced phrases which have got longer and longer right up to Christmas when we turn the light off:
“Ok, let’s tuck you in so you’re nice and warm and snug and cosy. So, sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite. Sweet dreams and see you in the morning for breakfast. “ If I forget to say one of the phrases he reminds me to say it!
In the morning he’s been getting out of bed himself around 8 o’clock. So I often refer to the time. “You’ve got up at 8 0’clock again. You always do that don’t you? I got up at 7 o’clock, an hour before you.” Etc. Sometime we look at the kitchen clock and he makes an effort to work out the time. We also have a book with clocks in it which he likes. It focuses on the ‘o’clocks’.
Morning phrases are ‘wakey wake, rise and shine! What’s the weather like today?”
Cultural characters
We’ve introduced Jack frost and we found a cartoon about this character on youtube. One winter morning we found frost which he loved!
Another character is the ‘tooth fairy’ which is the ‘tooth mouse’ in Spain. He tries to say ‘ratoncito Perez’. This can be rephrased as ratoncito perex the tooth mouse and in this way he learns an English way of explaining it. He also knows that the tooth fairy comes to children in England not Spain.
He’s fascinated by space and planets as well as planes. For Christmas he got two DVDs. Planet 51 and Monsters and Aliens and Planet 51. This year he’s aware of Christmas time and getting presents. This gave us an opportunity to introduce words for Christmas things such as baubles for the balls on the tree and tinsel, which even his mother started to use in English!! He also liked the fairy lights which he got his mother to use as stage lights (another fixation) around a wooden box where he could perform!
We stayed in Spain this Christmas, and I was able to up the hours I spent with Marc. The second week of Christmas; first week of January I employed one of our English Nanny carers from Scotland for 4 mornings while we were working, mainly so he could get the experience of another English speaker.
Youtube videos
His favourite’s have been the Pocoyo series, which is originally Spanish but is read in English by Steven Fry. He also loves a Pink Panther episode called ‘shocking in Pink’ with a narrator who has an old fashioned PR English accent but uses American words such as ‘faucet’ (tap).
We’ve watched Shakira’s ‘Waka Waka’ many times as he enjoys the football element too.
And one by the Hoosiers : ‘Stop giving me choices’ which he sings and especially likes as his mother doesn’t!
Radio / CD
The car provides a source of input and he often asks ‘Who sings that?’
Accents
He’s able to detect and sometimes imitate American accents. I sometimes speak with different accents for fun, and he surprised me by identifying a French accent I did: ‘That’s French isn’t it? I don’t remember having taught him that although he have sung ‘Frere Jaques’.
We’ve also watched Woody Woodpecker which he loves. The possibilities on youtube or endless and it’s a great resource for showing new vocabulary. He looked at ‘conker fights’ (with horse chestnuts) to show him visually what a conker and a chestnut was.
The Sesame Street special appearance of Katy Perry singing ‘hot and cold’ with Elmo has been a favourite and he sings along with it.

Output

The most noticeable aspect of his English in this final quarter of 2010 has been his increasing fluency and ability to express things. Listening to him as he stands in front of me and with a serious face explains himself in English amazes me: “Daddy I want you to stay here ok, and I’m going to get the 3 bears and then we can play, ok?
I’m starting to take for granted his knowledge of common objects and concepts such as colours and objects around the house. If he needs a word I try and help him or he just asks me. As he does when he hears a new English word. ‘What does frost mean daddy?’
It’s interesting the way he just accepts a correction and repeats it correctly back to me or repeats new words or phrases without any protest. His pronunciation is excellent as has all the features of a native speaker of his age. Some of previous characteristics have disappeared and he even tries to pronounce some Spanish place names with an English accent!! All this is so different from an adult learner!!
Interaction with his mother and playing alone
He continues to mix English and Catalan when talking to his mother, although she very rarely says anything to him or replies to him in English. This is fine in his case in Spain, but if I’d allowed him to do this with me he probably wouldn’t be speaking any English now as most of my informal talks with parents and studies have shown. It shows that he feels happy and confident in English and he’s has continued to play on his own exclusively in English barring one or two exclamations. So, even when I’m not with him he’s getting practice. It’s a very unusual occurrence and may be down to the amount of English he is exposed to at home including the television and music and the fact that his mother understands him.

Songs and music
They say music runs in the family and through exposure children imitate their parents. I’ve been singing to him since he was born and he seems to love music and instruments. We’ve watched American Idol and X Factor (please don’t report me for child abuse!) and over the months he came out with phrases he’d heard such as ‘he didn’t sing in tune!’ She’s rubbish!
Programmes like the Tweenies have a lot of songs on them and Boogie beebies combines songs with dancing and exercise.
This is an area I’m going to develop with him in 2011.
Inventing lyrics
I sometimes change the lyrics to songs and add new words to these melodies. He commented: ‘you’re making up the words’. And on a few occasions he’s changed the lyrics to songs. E.g the ‘hot and cold’ song by Katy Perry whereby he sings them the other way round and even more difficult he pointed up and said down and down and said up, etc. which as his Dad impressed me!!
Imitating accents
One day in September spontaneously he said ‘ladybird’ with an American pronunciation shown especially on the final ‘r’. It even caught him out and we both laughed. He repeated it and laughed. I noticed previously that he’d been exaggerating the final ‘r’ in some words, and I’d be interested to know if other children in the UK do the same. He then did this pronunciation at will, and produced the south of England pronunciation.
Example language
Here are just a few of the areas that have seems salient in this quarter.
Question forms
He is using past and present questions forms correctly in general although not 100% yet.
For subject questions he adds an auxiliary: “What did happen?” I repeat ‘ you mean ‘what happened?
This making language regular is a typical feature of native children and he has regularized many past tense verbs. ‘ He breaked it’ although at some stage he has used the past forms correctly which he will do again of course!
Typical questions
What does that mean?
Question tags
He’s using ‘is it?’ with his favourite phrase: ‘That’s not right, is it? Which I’ve used a lot.
I use question tags a lot and it’ll be interesting to see when he suddenly starts using and experimenting with them
BUT
He’s been using ‘but’ a lot, and it’s funny how he forces the use:
‘I’m going to have one chocky drink, but just one ok?
The related word ‘though’ has also started to appear.
Why?
‘Why?’ appeared on New Year’s Eve out of nowhere!!! Or so it seemed. So, now we get ‘Why?’ asked for every statement. Look, there’s a cat over there. – Why? It’s cold today. Why? Etc…
I think these questions are an important part of language acquisition and learning in general and as far as I can gather are universal in world languages for this reason.
Perhaps in the same way that saying ‘no’ and using ‘negatives’ is not just a bevavioural phase but also important for using the negative in a language such as English that uses auxiliaries. Or maybe not!!It's just a theory.
Phrases
(Looking at the grey clouds) ‘The clouds are going to burst?
He’s relating words to different contexts more and more.
He sometimes uses positive phrases as a question which could have a Catalan influence but are also used by native English speakers.
Use of phrasal verbs
Daddy, I want to put this one on.
Although he’s starting to experiment and has said: 'wear this on’ and even ‘the plane is going to land up’ !!
Comparatives and superlatives
He’s getting lots of practice as he’s competitive!
I’m bigger/taller/faster or the tallest the biggest, etc.
Shape and size and similarity /difference
I cut them in half.
There’s not the same pattern. They’re not mathing. They’re odd (socks) this was a theme on the Tweenies.
Vocabulary
He’s distinguishing and using many common words correctly now.
Watch vs clock for example and even said: ‘Daddy, put it one hour back’ (when we had to put our clocks back in October).
I’ve got him to say ‘basketball’ instead of just ‘basket’.
He’s still grasping ‘beat vs win’ “ I beated /won you” and various combinations. I always correct him.
I’ve only heard him mix up adjective nouns on 2 occasions. One of them was when I discovered a phrase he’d learned ‘el jet privat’ (private jet). I said ‘oh you mean ‘private jet’. What colour was it. He replied ‘an aeroplane black’ probably still in Catalan mode. Again, gentle correction reminded him and I haven’t heard him do this again.
His special subjects
Like most children and probably like many boys he enjoys technical things and he’s been fascinated by:
Aeroplanes (for some time now) drawing pictures of them and naming the parts: propellers, jets, boarding steps, wings, tail, etc.
Tubes and pipes and where the water goes when you flush a toilet or pull a plug out of a basin.
Swimming pools. From December he’s been drawing even more detailed pictures of swimming pools. We even looked up specific vocabulary such as ‘lane dividers’ and floats, etc.
Football pitches. He enjoys drawing them and they have the same basic shape as a swimming pool.
Never underestimate the importance of the child drawing and naming the parts and getting them to describe what they are doing.

Negatives and quantity expressions
He’s mixing up and experimenting with
‘anybody’ / nobody’ ‘anything / nothing'
Which shows why it's so hard for non-native learners to grasp!
Pronunciation
As mentioned before,to all intents and purposes, he’s indistinguishable from a native English speaker of his age. He uses the schwa ‘weak’ sound always and the ‘No’ sounds very English, although it was strange in December when it started to sound Australian! Or was it me? I managed to record one instance of it. It sounded like ‘nigh ooh’ . But recently it’s disappeared again.
Around November I started to notice that he pronounced the unvoiced intervocalic ‘th’ sound as ‘s’ in some words such as ‘nothing’, ‘something’. I’ll continue to monitor this.
He makes an effort to pronounce words that also exist in Spanish in an English way, such as ‘Pocoyo’ although as mentioned he does watch this in English. When he has heard English films pronounced in Spanish he imitates this, e.g ‘Toy Story’. I always point out the English pronunciation and he uses that from then on with a few occasional slips.