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.