FINAL UPDATE ON MARC´S PROGRESS - Mission "completed" 13 years - última actualización - Misión "cumplida" 13 años

 Review at 13 years old- Repaso a los 13 años

A continuación repaso los momentos destacados de los últimos 13 años y donde está ahora con su nivel de inglés, catalán e español. 

I thought this would be a good moment to review and give some highlights of Marc’s thirteen years. After this post I’m going to focus on bilingual families in general.

In the beginning I used to write down or record so many of his words and phrases, but as he’s got older it has been more difficult as he speaks so fast and he doesn’t make enough mistakes to point out.

However, it will wrap up this period leading up to the teenage years with a few points that parents can think about and briefly speak about the upcoming book AVAILABLE ON AMAZON KINDLE:  

THE 5 KEY STRATEGIES of SUCCESSFUL BILINGUAL FAMILIES.

1.       The important thing from the very beginning is to give as much exposure as possible. Even if you have to sacrifice some “me time”, if you are serious about your child speaking your language, you need to provide interactive input as much as possible.

2.       . Use the OPOL method, One Parent, One Language. Although some parents may ‘get lucky’, only speaking your language to your child is going to give you the biggest chance of success

3.       Make sure your child speaks back to you ONLY in ONE (your) language. 1L2U.  Don’t accept anything else!

4.       Accept that there will periods of resistance and language mixing in many cases. As long as you stay on track and keep up the exposure and OPOL – 1L2U, the chances of this happening are going to be reduced.

5.       Think of other sources of input apart from yourself. Schools, child-care, study trips abroad, and all media in your language in your home language world.

 

These are some of the key strategies. You can find out about these and much more in the book as well as strategies for non-native speakers who want to raise their children in a language that is not their first one.

Where is Marc right now with his language?

By employing the strategies above, he has always been at an average native level for his age, and now I feel that the first major stage is complete as he moves into adolescence. He is absolutely indistinguishable from a native English speaker of his age.

He spends a lot of time on YouTube (I mean hours and hours) watching gamer tutorials mostly, but all in English. I have noticed that even foreign children pick up a lot of English from this media as long as the content is comprehensible and age appropriate. He does read, but not enough, and trying to get him to do it turns into a real struggle. The important thing is to be as disciplined as possible. Firm but fair. He also needs to improve his English writing and spelling. Recently he started writing a Star Wars story in English, which will certainly help in this respect couple with the input he gets at school.

 

In September of last year, he began what was supposed to be full school year at a boarding school in England. In the end, due to the Corona Virus, he had to come back after the second term at Easter, and go back to his previous school.

 

 

Language forms

He started using ‘mate’ (tio) at the end of phrases to me, and he uses the adjective ‘decent’ all the time. “That game is pretty decent.”  He can create words like a native such as this morning when he came out with “shotgunning people in that game.”

He’ll use young people’s phrases from listening to Youtubers like “Let’s bounce” (let’s go), or “Did you know you are a ‘boomer’ Dad? (‘old person’ from Baby boomer generation ). I’ve heard many parents tell me about children using phrases they hadn’t taught them through social media and television exposure. 

Occasionally there is transference from Spanish / Catalan into English. I’ve heard him say ‘discussion’ instead of ‘argument’ for example. And sometimes he translates phrases from English into Catalan, “No es mi cosa.” “ It’s not my thing.”

Bilinguals will also have some transference, however well-balanced they are. Studies have shown that even second language learners get influenced by the language they are learning. This is a small sacrifice for being multilingual, don’t you think?

Recently, I heard him tell a Welsh PS4 gamer through the Discord app that gamers use that he thought English was his strongest language rather than Catalan.

He is becoming aware of his strengths and weaknesses in the languages he speaks. He feels that he needs to improve his Spanish since he gets little active practice. His mother, and friends all speak Catalan. He surprised me two weeks ago when he suggested I speak Spanish to him to help him improve. I reminded him that I am his only main English contact so that wouldn’t be a good idea and does not follow the One Parent One Language strategy.

  I suggested that his mother speak to him in Spanish from now on, as she is a bilingual Spanish-Catalan speaker, but she doesn’t want to. We will have to see how we help him in this respect. It may seem strange to some parents that a child living in Spain doesn’t speak Spanish up to a very high level, but this can happen in bilingual areas of countries in circumstances when there is a little contact with the ‘dominant’ language. I will speak about this further in a later Blog entry.

To sum up, these first thirteen years have been hard work! But seeing the results has made it all worth-while. This next stage during the teenage years is sure to bring up many challenges, but if you plan it well, you reduce some but not all the unpredictable moments.

Let me know how you are doing.  

 

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!