Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Dodge7]

[LuckyNomad]

I'll try my best to describe his situation and you can take from it what you will.
My first son is now 26 months old.
He lives with Me, his mother and his aunt.
The aunt usually uses Korean but sometimes uses her substandard english.
His mother used to use mostly Korean with him but now she uses more of a balance. I almost always use English with him. Just about everyone else he comes into contact with uses Korean.
Now. I don't think he learned much english naturally at first. I made an effort and still make an effort to teach him all the time. When we go outside I point to everything and tell him what it is and what color it is, etc.
"That's a blue truck."
That's a green car."
"It's a purple flower."
"That's a tree."
"What's that?"
If he points at a bus and says, "It's blue car." I correct him and tell him "It's a blue bus." Now instead of calling everything a car, he uses truck, bus, and car. Sometimes he still uses "Car," as a universal term for vehicles but when he does I correct him and he repeats it correctly.
He can say, "Yellow bus coming." "Blue car going."
He knows most basic body parts in both languages and sometimes when he forgets the english word he will say it in Korean.

He began really learning numbers on the elevator. We always read the numbers as the elevator went up or down and now he reads them himself. Also I made cards with colors, numbers, and animals on them and played, "bring me the blue card, bring me the 3, bring me the lion." He really likes those kinds of games.

He greets everyone with hello and says goodbye with, Good bye even to Koreans.
He knows the alphabet and can spell using it but doesn't know anything about hangeul.
He only counts using english. He doesn't seem to know how to count in Korean.
He knows all the basic colors in english. He also knows some of them in Korean. He used to almost always say them in Korean but now he almost always says them in english.
He always calls me 아파. And almost never uses Daddy. Though he knows the word.
He and his brother often wake up early in the morning at which time me and my wife are like zombies. So we turn on the TV and let him watch shows in english while we lay on the living room floor half asleep. He watches TV after school too. I don't feel bad about all that TV watching because he learns from it and often repeats what they say on TV.

So I think the most important thing to do is talk to your kid, a lot. More than you would to a normal person. Narrate every little thing you and everyone else does when you're doing it so she/he gets words, words, and words.

[Lolimahro]

My son is not mixed-race but I hope no one minds if I chime in for a second about what we've been doing for his language ability.

My son has been attending Korean daycare since he was 14 months old (before he even said his first word) and has been attending Korean Kindergarten since March 2012. He will be 4 in September.

As I work 9 hours a day and my husband is a full-time student, my son has been attending child care and kindergarten 5 days a week, between 8 and 10 hours a day. Thus, most of his daily interactions with both adults and other children happen in Korean. As a result, I've been concerned about his English language development as well as his Korean (actually his Korean worries me more because neither his father nor I speak Korean very well). However, he appears to have acquired both pretty proficiently.

Some of the things we do in our house (though I can't guarantee which, if any, produced the best results in his language development):

1. We speak to him in English all the time. While at meal times, giving him a bath, on the bus, etc. There's not a quiet moment in our house. It sounds annoying but he loves the attention and I've come to accept that constant chatter is a reality of life with a 3-year-old. *^^* We never punish our child for talking to much, or encourage him to be quiet (except at bedtime, and maybe dinner if he's not eating at all). I understand that in mixed-heritage households there will be language(s) that will be used in addition to English, but if the English speaker uses English most of the time, or sets aside constructive time every day to engage a child in the language, then I think that's an important part of encouraging a child's language development.

2. We read books to him in English every day. At first I wanted to read to him in Korean but I don't want him to pick up my bad pronunciation, so we just quit that and read books in English. I'm not suggesting others, especially with native speakers of Korean in the family, stop reading books in Korean - alternatively, reading at least one story book in English every day, and talking about it (critical thinking and comprehension - who are the characters? what are they doing? why did they do that? what happened? what will happen next? What do you think? How would that make you feel? etc...) is beneficial. Sometimes we just look at photo albums and talk about them. We try to answer every question he asks, no matter how silly or mundane.

We have books about trucks, tools, pirates, bugs, babies, etc. Every time there's a new life event (going to a new school, moving to a new home, new baby to be born) we go to What the Book and get a Berenstain Bears (or whatever) book about it. Sometimes I even read kids' novels to him (one chapter a night) and he falls asleep that way. Reading to children helps promote literacy skills in any language, especially when accompanied by discussion of the stories.

3. We watch TV programs in English only. This wasn't intentional - it was how he ended up liking it. We have found that TV programs that feature characters who are both children and adults really have developed our son's vocabulary (he was talking about hayrides the other day, something we certainly have never discussed living in Korea). Caillou, Little Einsteins, The Backyardigans and Max & Ruby are favorites in our house. TV programs with repetitive themes (Thomas the Train, etc.) provide a more limited amount of vocabulary (generally speaking) so it's good to be aware of that.

4. We call Grandma and Grandpa in the U.S. every once in awhile and they chat together over the TV. It's good for them to see him and also he has to speak English to his grandparents and other extended family members in the U.S.! Increasing the amount of situations in which a child has to use the target language will encourage them to use that language more, I think.

5. For the last few months, we have been working through a book of ABCs, numbers, etc. for pre-schoolers that we bought at Costco. Sometimes my mom sends coloring activity books from the U.S. for learning shapes, rhyming, comparing, and other cognitive/critical thinking skills for pre-kindergarten. Since it's a one-on-one activity that's focused solely on him, he loves doing it and he really is proud of himself. (Really, though, any one-on-one time you spend with your kid engaging them in English - and not in front of the TV - will help produce more language skills; play-dough, coloring, reading, activity books, playing with stickers, board games, etc. are all activities that can spur a lot of conversation).

6. We make him ask for things in complete sentences. This is actually part of his manners training. I got tired of hearing things like "I want milk!" and "Give me milk!" He has to say "May I have some milk please?" or he doesn't get anything. Sometimes we have to feed him the right phrase but with enough practice he gets it down. I wish I could teach my son Korean manners but all I know is how to use manners in English, so I do the best I can, I guess.

I'm sure there's more things we could be doing. I think just a little bit of one-on-one time with the kids every day is so important; I wish I could spend more!

As for how he's getting along at school, it seems to be mostly positive. He doesn't share any particularly negative experiences with us, but his teacher did say the kids cheer and clap when he arrives at school (this was back in April). I don't know, I think he just wants to be treated like a regular kid, even though he looks different than others and can speak English. He's very resistant to talking to strangers and won't speak English on the playground. I have always been concerned that kids will just be his friend so they can learn English (pressure from moms), but it seems he has some genuine friends that he's been in the same class with for the last 2 years (spanning both daycare and kindergarten). Hopefully it lasts through kindergarten and he has good relationships in elementary school, too. I'm really happy to hear that other expats' children have had positive experiences in elementary school.

[v88]

My boy will be 2 in a month. He speaks both Korean and English, but gets Korean most of the time so he prefers it. My wife and I talk to him in both languages and translate most things that we say so that he gets all the basics in two languages. He watches both Korean and English shows. We aren't too worried as we plan to leave in the near future. We're actually more worried about his Korean ability and will need to put some work into that when we move.

He has been going to daycare for about a year, mostly on a part time basis, but full time recently so mom can work. I love daycare, it has really improved his speaking. I love the fact that he has all these kids to talk to and interact with and the teachers to teach him things that perhaps my wife and I would not. No complaints yet about him being a halfie. The kids all notice he's different, but they don't really clue into the reality of what it might mean to be a foreigner in Korea. They do touch him endlessly and it was a little rough when all the older girls wouldn't leave him alone. They just had to touch his blond hair.

The playgrund is more annoying for me and it can be a bit annoying for my wife too. Even shopping the endless "Look a foreign baby!" gets annoying. Even when my wife is with him without me. Blows my mind. With some people there is just no such thing as a middle ground, or the possibility that anyone with less than 100% Korean genes can be Korean. Bloody Korean purity nonsense pisses me off. At the play ground kids activily argue about his race and continually comment on it. No one can just play with him because he's a cute kid, it's always because he's a cute foreign kid, a novelty. I sometimes like to ask kids if they are Chinese, at which point most kids just get angry. Works sometimes on older kids. I really hate it when parents just stand and giggle as their kid points and yammers about the foreign kid with the strange hair. People endlessly take pictures of him in public too. Most of it isn't bad, Koreans really just think he's cute. There is a lot of curiosity about mixed kids these days, but I wish they understood that he is not just a novelty. He is my little boy and he'll grow up to be a normal person who actually likes Kimchi, cheeseburgers and christ knows what else. I really wish Koreans wouldn't be so hung up on their Koreaness and how strange it is that others might also like it. It's not like I go to Burger King and stand slack jawed at all the Koreans eating burgers.

I'd like to film a parody of how I feel I get treated sometimes. Perhaps I'd film my self or a friend walking around saying Anyong to everyone. Perhaps interview people and ask if they like burgers and cheese, if they can handle greasy food, and if they like America. Perhaps tell people about the the important sovereign lands of America stolen by the vile Canadians. Remind people of the things that Japanese did to Americans in WWII and ask people to demand that Japan say sorry for bombing Pearl Harbor...

[Who's Your Daddy?]

[Steelrails]

As someone who has grown up being different and being in a multi-cultural family and has dozens of friends who grew up with culture gaps between their family, it isn't easy, but it isn't that hard. Kids are strong and life goes on.

Immigrants the world over have done it before for the last 200 years. If they can do it, we can too.

That being said, as a parent, I will want to give my kid the best opportunity in a global economy, and clearly proficiency in English is a must for that. I wouldn't worry too much about the cultural and racist aspects and being an outsider. Trust me, its not that bad. I would seriously worry about lacking development in English.

Get them to Grandma!