Teaching Mother Tongue

[neetsmassi]

I would be interested in other people's experiences/views on the following. I am Asian, DH is white. My DH does not speak my mother tongue, Punjabi, and therefore we always speak in English to DD (4). I would like her to learn punjabi but am not sure how to do it without excluding DH - Any ideas/experiences?
TIA

I've got the opposite problem iyswim. Both me & dh are English & therefore obviously speak English at home. We live in Swotzerland (German speaking part) dh & I both speak German - him well, me ok, but neither speak SwissGerman. I want to do all I can to help my boys 5, 3 & nearly 1. We've been here now 4 years & they understand a bit, but not much.

Ds1 started Kindergarten in August but still understands Very little. It is affecting his confidence & ability to integrate. I tried sending ds2 to an all-day playgroup but he was very unhappy so have taken him out of it. Where we live now there are loads of kids about but they tend to just play with each other.

I don't think my German is good enough to talk to them in it, & anyway, for the moment, they need SwissGerman, not high German. I only let them watch swiss/german tv now but don't know what else I can do.

btw neetsmassi, if I were you, I'd just speak Punjabi all the time to dd. she will of course ask you at times to speak english, but persevere! Bilingualism is such a precious gift to give a child.

thanks monkey it good to know somebody else
feels the same -
also can u explain what dd1 or dd2 means
i know it sounds thick

dd1/ds1 1st dear daughter/son
dd2/ds2 2nd dear daughter/son
dh dear husband etc

snowmoon, keep up the cantonese! It doesn't matter if you are the only speaker. I have friends here who are German /Australian family, living in Russian community, the kids only hear german from their mum, and that is their strongest language. You only need one regular speaker to interact with the child and they will pick it up. (we have aRussian babysitter one afternoon per week, and as a result he understands Russian)

My mum phoned me last week to tell me about new research that shows that kids who learn a second language before the age of 5 are brighter than monolingual kids. This is because the second language helps them to develop extra connections in the brain, and these benefit all round intelligence!! Now I don't know if it is true, but it is a great reason to give to anyone who is trying to stop you from doing it.

Austriamum, we used to have lots of kids come in to school (in England) aged 5 with no English, and after about 2-3 years they were fluent, so if they are going to go to school they will get it eventually. If you can persevere with some kind of playgroup/kindergarten, creche, or anything where the kids are together for the younger ones that will help. Also, although local kids only play with each other, could you invite some round together? Once they have played together a few times they will get used to the idea that your kids don't understand everything, but want to play. I think it is easiest for younger kids, and hardest for school age kids. We used to reckon that it took a whole year for a kid to settle in school if they had no language, most of that time was spent "listening" to the language, and then they would begin to participate. A lot depends on the school, and if they ever have other kids in who don't have German. If not then you might need to be a bit more pushy about asking them to help your kids settle. (for example, I had a kid come in who had a bit of French, no English and then his mother tongue was a local dialect, he really struggle to settle, until I found a handful of french words that he knew, and they just seemed to make a bridge for him. He then settled, and went on to learn English)

Hope that helps

Hi all,

interssting topic. my lil boy is ten months and my husband and i both speak different languages. we are both fluent in english , so we usually speak to him in english. We can both speak urdu, so we teach him certain words in english and urdu, ihave brought several books from the library which are written in english and urdu. The main words like mum dad grandma,etc we teah in both lang, keep everyone happy and i am all for teaching children more than one language. By the same token my mother has been here for 17 years and still hasnt really bothered to learn fluent english!

We live in Italy and have 2 children. We are both English. In my home we speak English and I try to speak Italian to them and my DH always speaks English. My DS is 3 and if you speak English he will respond in English and visa versa with Italian.

If it can help, I was brought up in France with a French father and English mother. They decided as soon as I was born that we would only speak English at home (including my Dad, but his French accent never bothered me!). At age 3 I started school, and three months later I was more or less fluent in French - no integration problem whatsoever. My little brothers were also brought up this way, and it was only around the ages of 9-12 that we sometimes resented coming from a different background (being teased at school for being English and eating mint sauce...). Talking about our school day when back at home came naturally in French, but our parents were adamant and would ask us to repeat until we said it in English. Radical but it worked! I am now a trained translator and live in the UK with my DH and 20 month-old DS, who understands both languages.
I'm really grateful for my parents, not only for the language skills but for the cultural awareness that this brought us - my husband was brought up in the UK by German parents, but they never really encouraged him to learn about their native country - probably because he was bullied at school for that reason - and now he has no intention of speaking German to our son, and knows nothing about this aspect of his family history.
So for anyone out there worrying about raising their child in their own language, keep at it even if the parent is the only one around actually speaking it. I also agree with recent messages about the importance of books, cds etc... xx

My MIL is Spanish and she speaks to my kids in Spanish, we speak English at home amd DS1 does an hour of spanish school a fortnight, I am suprised how much he has picked up with just this limited input. he knows much more than me