DDs will only speak English... what am I doing wrong?

[Schulte]

So I am German, DH is English, we live in the UK, and both DDs started going to nursery at 10 months old. I tried to always speak German with them, and read books to them in German only to start with. It proved too difficult and most of their CDs, DVDs and books are now in English, although they do have German stuff too. When we are with other people, I tend to speak English so as not to offend the other mums, and sometimes I even use English at home because I get so frustrated that the DDs always reply in English. DD1 is now nearly 5 and DD2 nearly 3 and I have started to think that I have missed the boat and they will never learn German... any advice would be much appreciated!

Going to be controversial here and say that I really don't agree with HOPOL. Ime (bilingual DCs and lots of friends with bilingual DCs) the best thing to do is just to wait, relax about it, have fun with language and things will eventually fall into place. Both of my DCs were raised using what I would term as VROPOL (very relaxed OPOL) from birth and used to only speak English to me and everyone else, even if they were spoken to in the minority language. As they obviously understood the minority language (ie. I could ask them to "go get the small red bucket from behind the bookcase in the upstairs study and fill it water from the tap in the kitchen and pour it on the sunflowers in the plant pot next to the back door" in the minority language and they would do it) I never got too stressed out about them not actually speaking it. Eventually (when they were 8-10 years old, can't exactly remember when) they started speaking the minority language in appropriate situations. Stressing about speaking in a certain language can make the whole situation more tense and stressful for your DDs, I would just relax for now.

Insist on speaking to them only in German. When DD starts talking to me in English, I tell her to bottle it and tell it to daddy when he arrives in the evening. That gets her talking to me in Turkish pretty sharpish

I agree with whoever said to find a German speaker who doesn't speak any English (although not sure how you will do that in the UK).

HOPOL is the way to go. We live in a very multi-cultural area, with many bilingual and even trilingual children. Parents have no qualms about speaking to their DC in a language others in the park will not understand.

I did VROPOL too, but that's not to say that HOPOL, at least for a time, may not be the way forward for the OP.

The other thing I would say is stick and carrot: if HOPOL is the stick, are there any useful carrots about? Some wonderful and fun experience they can only have because they speak German? Would you be able to visit Germany? Or find a German speaking playgroup? Or invite some German relatives over? Can you up the German book and DVD side of things?

Agreed, but I do think there is no need to make the experience stressful for anyone. As many have pointed out on this thread, just because kids don't speak the minority language doesn't mean they haven't/aren't learning it. Make more use of the minority language at home and try and use it more in different situations outside of home, but keep it fun and relaxed, no point in adding guilt about whether or not your kids are bilingual to the already considerable parenting guilt about everything.

Ideas about play groups, DVDs, holidays etc are very good as that's all using language in a fun context. I (personally) never felt the need to add complications to the communication with my DCs by refusing to listen to them if they spoke to me in English/insisting they only spoke to me in the minority language, just answered back in the minority language (and quite often also in English but that was my VROPOL). Maybe I was lucky, I never read any books about the subject, just did what felt best and most natural in any given situation. From purely anecdotal evidence from my friends who adopted a similar approach, all our our kids have turned out to be bilingual and doing very well with it.

This is not about stressing, at all. However, if you don't use a language, you lose it. If children don't speak a language, even if they continue to hear it, they will not learn to speak it [evident]

I think it depends a little on how long they don't speak it for, how much they hear it and how fluent they were before they stopped speaking.

Ds went through a period of what you might call selective mutism when he was about 3/4; he refused to speak English (the majority language) for perhaps 6 months, using his sister to interpret for him outside the family.

When he started up again, his language showed no signs of attrition, indeed it had moved forward from where it was before. But of course that was a limited period of time and with a lot of passive exposure. And most importantly, he had a genuine motivation to start again; that would seem the real difficulty with a period of loss of minority language.

Dcs' CM always used to comment on how their language skills (meaning their English) took a leap forward during the summer holidays- the one time in their lives when they were certainly not exposed to any English. I imagine that what happened was that their minds were expanded and they were then able to translate that into advances into their other language. But again, you'd have to be pretty secure in a language from the start to do that.

Sorry, joining this thread a bit late ...
I have had the same problem as you, I'm French living in the Uk with a British partner. DS1 wouldn't say a word of French back to me , although I always spoke French to him... until he started at the french Lycee in London aged 5. After 3 weeks of not speaking at all, he started speaking both languages. Teachers reasured me there that it was perfectly normal, he could speak but didn't want to be different. Now 12, he is perfectly bilingual. Planning to do the same with DS2, not yet 2.
I would say that, if your children are not going to go to a German school, what could help is putting them into contact with German-speaking children. They will realise they are not isolated, that it's perfectly normal and gain confidence. It's all about blending in, a sort of survival instinct! So show them that other chidlren are like them, from a binational family. Don't lose heart! It's worth it... good luck.