Tuesday, August 21st, 2012

The bombardment of advertising and other images (television, books, lunchboxes, t-shirts, etc.) is amazingly powerful for curious, young minds. When most of the images shown do not represent the way all of our children look, it's important to promote more inclusive images at home to counteract this.
I didn't really pay too much attention to these images, even those directly targeted at children, until I realized my kids were paying attention! When they started drawing princesses with only long, blonde hair and pink skin, I knew there was an issue. Read more »
The 10 best things about going bilingual with your children:
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A hot topic for parents trying to raise balanced bilinguals is which language do you teach first, the minority one or the community language? Or maybe both at once?! We didn't have much choice, as our daughter was enrolled (reluctantly) in the English section of her French school for the first two years, due to lack of places on the French side, so all her initial reading was in English. Read more » |
I've long been resigned (though secretly thrilled) that my six-year-old daughter corrects my French, but I didn't expect my three-year-old son to start just yet. Read more » |
Being part of a family where we each have a unique skin tone and hair type has made me really think about the images my children are bombarded with every day, through adverts, toys, games, clothing, etc. Although it is clear there is a widespread and concerted effort to represent all different looks these days, when you actually start to pay attention, you soon realise we have a long way to go. Read more » |
We are always on the hunt for books in our family to support my childrens' language acquisition. For French books, this is fairly straightforward. After all, it's the tenth most widely spoken language in the world, with around 130 million speakers, which makes for a lot of books! There is a French Amazon, and the Canadian Amazon carries lots of French titles as well. Read more » |
So your kids have a ton of target language DVDs, books, websites and toys to fast-track their bilingualism, but what about you, the parent? If the target language isn't your native one, you'll be wanting to maintain and improve it any chance you get. But as we all know, being a parent doesn't give you the luxury of long stretches of free time for language-learning! The best way to keep up your language skills is to work it into your day-to-day life. Read more » |
I have recently been thinking about how long I can carry on talking to my children in a language that is not my mother tongue. There are many, many occasions when it is difficult and I'm sure I lose my cool with the kids more often because of the constant pressure I put on myself to stick to French, even when it would be a hundred times easier to think what to say in English. Read more » |
In the beginning I often felt quite self-conscious speaking French in public, with my English accent and errors. But people have always been lovely--English people often try and say a few minority language (ml) words to the children, such as 'Bonjour' and 'Au revoir,' while French people are often curious about my decision to speak non-native French, particularly if they haven't spoken French with their own children! And an unforeseen benefit is that I feel less exposed when it comes to disciplining Schmoo in public!
Schmoo sometimes teaches me new words now--a few days ago she kept referring to her pot of bubble mixture as a 'flacon,' a word I don't know and hadn't taught her. Read more » |
Early on, I read quite a bit about language acquisition and discovered that children need interactive language exposure in order to learn a language. This means that sitting your child in front of the television to watch minority language (ml) programs alone will not teach them that language. Your child needs to be highly motivated to actually use the language in order to learn it, which is only possible if they are brought into contact with people who speak it and who they want or need to communicate with. Read more » |
Welcome to my blog! I am bringing up my children, Schmoo and Pan-Pan, to speak three languages: English, Twi and French. I started learning French at school (age 11) and loved it so much I ended up studying it to MA level (age 26). So after all those years of struggling to learn another language I wanted to give my kids the easy option! As my husband grew up in Ghana, he speaks fluent Twi, so it was easy to add this third language into the mix. Read more » |
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