Is me speaking the minority language enough?

[pipoca]

We live in Spain. I am British and DH is Spanish. My mum (also British) lives with us. We have a DS of 3.9 and a 7 mo DD. I speak English to DS and DD (and my mum of course) and Spanish to DH. DS goes to a Spanish preschool. He didn't really say much til he was 2 and a half...he had about 40 words in English by the time he went to nursery last year but wasn't putting 2 words together, they were single words. He had a handful of Spanish words but far fewer. within a couple of months at nursery his Spanish had come in leaps and bounds and now he pretty much speaks Spanish, full sentences and is beginning to conjugate verbs (does some pasts, past participles etc). But the English is really still single words. I still speak to him in English only and have started asking him to reply in English. So, for example he'll ask for juice "quiero zumo" and I say, how do we say that? and he'll attempt Please may I have a juice....comes out like Please I ave juice.
We don't go back to the UK at all as my mum lives here now and we don't really have any family there and anyway, mum has mobility problems and can't really either travel or be left.
Everyone else I know either has English as the home language or goes back for at least a month in the summer and a couple of weeks at Christmas and I'm beginning to worry DS (and DD later) will only ever really have a passive knowledge of English and will never really speak it. DS seems to have excellent understnading in English but just doesn't really use it apart from single words..."Mira mami, un witch!" (look mummy a witch) etc...
Should DH and I start speaking English together at home? He has upper intermediate English but hasn't really used it for about 3 years, so quite rusty. Not sure if he'd be up for it either, was always quite underconfident.
What do you think?

Parents/carers should speak to a child in their own first language (I'm a SLT) so you're doing the right thing OP. It's common for children who grow up with more than one language to have a slight delay to their early language development, but long-term being bilingual is an advantage. Your DP should continue using Spanish as it's his first language.

Are you reading him stories, singing songs and playing him English DVDs? That will help a little with his development. Is there an English speaking playgroup you can go to?

if your mother is there, your dc will hear you interacting with her naturally in English so they will pick it up but might not bother to use it. Do you meet up with other English speaking families sometimes? I'd look for a group where dc do something in English if it is really important to you that they speak the language fluently. It is more of a motivation when there are other people, in particular other dc speaking the language outside the family. They are still a bit young, but later maybe cubs/brownies or scouts, something like that if it is available where you live.

To clarify, I didn't mean DH should speak English to DS, I meant, should Dh and I start speaking English to each other, with DH still speaking Spanish to DS and me English to him, so no change in how DS is spoken to but he'd hear more English as DH and I would speak that to each other instead of Spanish?
We have Sky so DS watches tv in English only on cbeebies etc (meg and Mog, Fireman Sam etc) and to be fair has actually learnt words from it...owl and witch, fire, rescue, help etc.
Pretty much ALL my friends are British (I am integrated, honest) and have children growing up with two languages, so if we meet up with other kids, even though the kids speak Spanish amongst themselves, they hear the me and the other mums talking in English. Although, it's not all that regular as he's at preschool 9-2 so can only be the odd afternoon. I do storytime at bedtime and it's ALWAYS in English, in fact most of his books are in English.

was just worrying that without the intensive total immersion of a month in the UK in the summer, which all the other bilingual families I know do, that he'll never move from passive use.
Oh, I used to be an English teacher in an academy here and will be going back to that next year, so DS could go possibly to English kids classes there from 5 years old. Most of my teacher/2 language families do that.

If you're anywhere near Vigo I've set up a playgroup here to help DS's language development.

With your English speaking friends could you organise some sort of activity where the children have to speak in English. A playgroup, football classes, dance...

Fwiw, when ds was born I switched from me and dh speaking Spanish together to me peaking English and him replying in Spanish. Yhat way I reasoned ds would here more English. Could that work for you?

hear, of course.

What's to stop you going over to UK even though you don't have family there? (apart from cost I guess)

What ou are doing is what most people do, I think - certainly there is no recognised advantage to you and husband talking English (and it may create other probs.)

I do think that, representing the minority lang, one has to be quite "full on" - watching DVDs or satellite TV, stories exclusively in the minority lang, music in the car, posters and wall charts; basically, a whole section of children's life (i.e. the part that is "you") conducted in your language.

With your older child, Saturday school or (with both children) a weekend playgroup might also help - is there one near you? Could you start one?

If your mum lives with you, I would think that your DS would pick up more English as he observes you two speaking it? You're definitely doing a good thing by speaking exclusively English to him. Not sure about you and DH speaking in English if his is not very good.

My DD is on her way to being trilingual and at the moment my language is slightly weaker than English and on par with French (but she started nursery just 2 months ago so French will be the dominant language at some point in the future, I imagine), but still she can form sentences easily. I'm the only one speaking it to her, plus we speak on Skype with my mum few times a week and my dad visits once or twice a month for few hours...we read in English, Polish and French and she watches Polish DVDs, but no more than English or French ones. We do go to Poland every summer for a month plus a few days here and there throughout the year.

In any case, I would stick to speaking English, he'll have no choice but to learn it if he wants to communicate with you easily. Whenever DD replies in English, she gets a raised eyebrow from me and corrects herself in Polish pronto (she's 2.10, btw).

My problem is the exact opposite! We have just moved back from Spain after 8 years there. DD3 is 2.10 and was probably more fluent in Spanish as we were pretty much in an entire Spanish urb, going to Spanish playgroups/play centres etc.

Now we are back and she has started at a Nursery School here, her English is way better. I'm speaking to her in as much Spanish as I can (I am English though) and we have a veritable mountain of Spanish DVDs and books, so I am hoping that for now they will maintain as much as possible until I can find a local Spanish class for her.

Don't know where you are, but we were near Marbella and occasionally used to go up to Cancelada to the Circus City (in the Supersol building) where it is almost exclusively English children, so perhaps that may help him with speaking it - among non family members where he almost has to speak it to join in with the other grotbags.

Cies we don't go the UK (I haven't been back for 6 years ) because Mum isn't up to travelling but isn't really up to fending for herself while we leave the country for a week or two, hence why she lives with us, she can't really manage on her own. So, kind of stuck here forever really. but that's a whole other thread. Also, partly cost, as we don't have anyone we could stay with who has room for me, DH, DS, DD and mum if she could travel, which she can't.
winny he'll have no choice but to learn it if he wants to communicate with you easily but he doesn't, because he knows I understand Spanish perfectly, cos it's what I speak to his dad in.
What I've always done is repeat everything back to him:
DS: Mami, hoy he visto a Angela en el parque
Me: You saw Angela in the park?
DS: Si
Me: And did you say hello?
As I understood this "modelling" was better than "forcing" them to speak your language. But now I'm wondering if it's enough? In the last few months I've been "pushing" the English more, by asking him if he can repeat things and asking him to speak to me in English when I know it's something he can say.

Hi Rock...not near Marbella unfortunately, nor Vigo either thanks Cies. We do see other kids who speak English but they're all bilingual and speak Spanish amongst themselves, so a help for him to see that other families have 2 languages, but not a push to talk, as a long holiday in the UK might be.

Oh gosh, pipoca - I think, if it was me, I would just carry on speaking English to him the whole time, but also I think that speaking with DH in English might not be a bad idea too. After all - DH would also get to practise! Also, as you have Sky, he will pick loads up from that, that you don't even realise. That is exactly how I learnt to speak Spanish when we moved there, by watching the Spanish news, listening to Spanish radio stations in the car, reading newspapers etc.

It took me almost a year before I realised that I was actually near fluent when I had to deal with Sevillana one day and managed the whole thing in Spanish without faltering. I am determined that DD3 will remain fluent as it would be such a shame to lose that second language.

I have an Argentinian friend in Marbella whose two children (5.5 and 2.1) obviously speak Spanish, but she also has Sky and through that they can both speak a good amount of English. Her DS is at a Spanish primary, but there's about 15% English there, so he's hearing it at school too and is really rather good now.

Well, this is really my question....do I need to speak English to DH? Or is the English from tv, stories, me, granny enough? I'm not sure DH would be into speaking to me in English, he's not confident, and I have to say it would feel weird as we've been togther 11 years and always spoken Spanish. Also, as I used to be a teacher and will be going back to it next year, I think it would drive me bonkers..would feel like being at work all the time, correcting his crappy grammar. Selfish probably.

Oh, ok, so he knows that you'll reply to his speaking to you in Spanish. Of course in that case he'll just use the majority language. Just ask him to repeat it in English.

I did what you're doing now with DS when we moved from the States and I was afraid three languages would be too many for him . Result: his Polish is very weak.

As I said, when DD attempts to talk to me in English (whic is getting rarer and rarer now), I just raise my eyebrow or say 'Po polsku!' and she complies. She switches between English (DP's mother tongue plus the language DP and I use to talk to each other) and Polish effortlessly now. Good luck

Sorry pipoca had to go off and do that damned RL shite! I think television, stories and you/granny should be enough. He's still small and I think that so long as the background basics are there he will have a good handle on it. I'll ask my Argentinian chum whether she has any ideas too and PM you later in the week.

I just say I don't understand when my daughter speaks to me in English. She accepts this and tries again in French, because French is what daddy speaks.

Yet on another level she "knows" that I'm not telling the truth, as I speak to her mum and almost everyone else in English, all day, every day.

But when I let her speak English - if she is very distressed, for example, or doen't know the vocab she needs, or if she's just come out of school and forgets herself - then she does, and expresses no surprise that papa has suddenly become a fluent English speaker!

In other words, she knows it is not the literal truth, but she still accepts that it is the rule and reacts accordingly.

There is also the danger, if your husband speaks English when he is not confident, that he will make mistakes, which, because this is now the "official" situation, your child will accept as a model.

My advice would be, keep doing what you're doing - just don't let your child get away with it!

We're doing this the other way around -DD was born in Spain but we're now back in the UK- and I'm the "Spanish speaker" (I'm English but speak Spanish better than DW). DD goes to one Spanish playgroup session a week, but otherwise it's only me, and occasionally DW, that she speaks Spanish with. She 23 months now and, obviously, her English is ahead and she does have some Spanish. But while she can form requests or questions in English ("A bit more milk now please"; "What's daddy doing?"), in Spanish she mainly sticks to statements ("hay un gato"; "me llevas"). Plus I'm undoubtedly not the best model for accent!

I think down the line we're going to look in to getting her lessons or maybe just play sessions with a nativity speaker, which you might want to think about. I was talking to a Primary School teacher recently about what they did with bilingual French/English students during French lessons - she said that the students just join in and that's it's often the first time their have ever really written in their other language - yes they can speak fluently, but they have no idea how to spell or the differences between spoken and written language. Sorry, that's a bit tangential, but what I meant was don't feel you've failed if you end up sending your DCs to English lessons - all English kids get English lessons after all! But for the time being I'm sure just you and your Mum will be more than enough, especially if you have a good stock on childrens' books that they like.

Thanks MIFLAW (Man I feel like a woman?) Love it. You're right, I need to push the English more. I always thought the repeating and correct modelling would work but it doesn't seem to be. I'm just not sure if he'll really be able to talk to me if I say I can't understand Spanish though, as he's only got single words in English...no structures. But, OTOH I suppose he'll never bother if I don't push.
MrIC I currently work from home but will probably go back to my old job of teaching English to kids/teens in an academy next Sept. DS would be able to go free to one of the kids classes from 5 yo if I were working there. Lots of the other teachers with bilingual kids do the same, as obviously their English otherwise is largely only speaking and listening, so helps them with the reading and writing. The teachers are all natives, like me.

I think it's often a mix - so you say, "I don't speak Spanish", he says (for example) "park" and you say, v. enthusiastically, "that's a good idea, let's go to the park! What shall we do at the park? Shall we go on the swings? Shall we go on the slide? Do you like the roundabout?" And so on. In other words, you model AND EXTEND.

Then - hopefully - the next time you ask the question he says, "go to park," you say, "why?", he says, "slide" and you say, perhaps with hand gestures and mime to accompany, "good idea - the big slide or the small slide? Won't you be scared on the big slide?"

Repeat for the next 11 years ...

By the way, yes, I used to be Man I Feel Like A Woman, but everyone else abbreviated it to MIFLAW and I got tired of typing it in full!

Oh, OK...I do pretty much do that already actually. Well, I do the modelling and extending, but probably not the first bit of asking him specifically to produce something in English. I've been more just repeating what he's said in the correct language and then extending. Have been pushing him to produce a bit more in the last few days and it seems to be working a little.
I think there's also some scope for me speaking more English to his dad maybe, without actually going as far as changing the language DH and I speak. DH has good passive English so when it's something I've wanted DS to understand too I've been saying it in English to DH, who then responds in Spanish.
Finding the whole thing fascinating to think about as well.

I think it's also important (though I have no proof of this) that it helps for the child to see the adult using the language with someone else so that it is clearly not just an elaborate game.

I ended up speaking French to the cats at one point for precisely this reason ...