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NilesQ
Joined: 27 Nov 2006
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 Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2012 5:09 am Post subject: |
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| chrisblank wrote: |
| NilesQ wrote: |
| What I've seen from friends in Canada who are kids of immigrants and friends in Korea who have a mixed language household, is that the language of education will be your child's first language. Not necessarily chronologically, but in order of proficancy. |
I don't know about that.
Purely anecdotal:
I am English, but grew up in Quebec. I went to school in English with many French students. (still friends with a few) and while they are able read and communicate freely in English, French is still their first language. And you can tell: grammar , pronunciation, intonation etc.
My brother is perfectly bilingual. He is married to a French wife, and they communicate in French. He works in French. By his own admission he now spends about 75% of his time only in French. Most people do not realize his first language is English. But he went all through school in English. He is equally comfortable in both, and often code -switches throughout his day. Meaning while at work he thinks and processes information purely in French, when he goes to dinner with my father (who is tri-lingual, more later) or Badminton he switches to English.
My father is French and started learning English after high-school. He married an English woman. Almost his whole life now is in English: at home we speak/spoke English. He reads an English newspaper, only watches English TV, English radio, etc. Only speaks to the family in English. He uses French when he goes out to pick up groceries, or run errands. Most people think he is English but speaks French well, just because of his lifestyle. He also is fluent in Spanish. Travels to Spain every year. When he speaks Spanish, native speakers often don't realize he is not a native speaker. He started learning Spanish at 45.
I have a close friend who is Kyopo. Not an English teacher, he works in business in Seoul. Moved to Canada when he was 6, came back to Korea when he was 29. Went to school only in English. Spoke only Korean at home. If you talk to him on the phone you wouldn't guess he is Korean. He worked in international business in Singapore for years. Solely speaking English. Now he uses only Korean and people can't tell he never went to school in Korean.
With my son (3 yrs old) we try to use English at home. I read to him everyday for at least 25-30 minutes. He watches English TV and interacts with Mickey Mouse and Blues Clues, etc. He goes to Korean pre-school where he uses only Korean... he laughs at the teachers when they try to use English. His nanny is Korean. He spends about 75% of his time in Korean. But when we go to Canada (every 6 mos or so since he was born) he uses English. My wife works more than I, so I take him with me to Canada a few weeks ahead of her, and he gets 10-14 days without Korean, and so switches to English almost exclusively.
This summer we are not doing the Canada trip so he is going a year without his English immersion. His Korean now is better than his English, but I'm not worried. Yet. |
Quebec is a special case. Depending on where you live, French will be the most common language outside of school. If you went to school in English, it would be like learning a foreign language if you speak French at home and outside of school with friends.
Your example of the Kyopo doesnt say his Korean is better than his English. Just says he speaks Korean very well. I think if you asked him to give an hour long presentation on an academic subject, he'd choose to do it in English. |
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nero
Joined: 11 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2012 5:34 am Post subject: |
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| sublunari wrote: |
| Our kid right now is almost fourteen months old. He was such a handful for us that we threw him into daycare at four months |
Wow! Wtf!? |
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PatrickGHBusan
Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Location: Busan (1997-2008) Canada 2008 -
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| Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 3:54 am Post subject: |
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| nero wrote: |
| sublunari wrote: |
| Our kid right now is almost fourteen months old. He was such a handful for us that we threw him into daycare at four months |
Wow! Wtf!? |
It happens. My friends put both their daughters in daycare at ages 6 months and 10 months respectively. Their daughters thrived.
We put our son in daycare at 18 months and our daughter at 13 months and they thrived.... |
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sublunari
Joined: 11 Jun 2009
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| Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 4:37 pm Post subject: |
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| nero wrote: |
| sublunari wrote: |
| Our kid right now is almost fourteen months old. He was such a handful for us that we threw him into daycare at four months |
Wow! Wtf!? |
Allow me to show my kid off for just a moment (and as this is the internet you're free to disbelieve): you should see how well he turned out. Months ahead of almost every milestone, decent behavior at restaurants for over an hour each time, and he wasn't even that bad on the flight over to America. I got back into reading with him yesterday after a hiatus of a few months, had a little resistance, and then bam, today he loves it, and he even turns the page when I tell him to. Having a toddler definitely isn't easy but our kid is a pretty awesome guy. |
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chrisblank
Joined: 14 Aug 2009
Location: Incheon
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| Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 10:16 pm Post subject: |
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| NilesQ wrote: |
Your example of the Kyopo doesnt say his Korean is better than his English. Just says he speaks Korean very well. I think if you asked him to give an hour long presentation on an academic subject, he'd choose to do it in English. |
I've seen him do both. Once a year he will come and do a 2~3 hour presentation on the job market/ job hunting for seniors. He usually does about 1.5hrs in English, then as the kids' questions become more specific he will switch to Korean and do about 1.5hrs in Korean.
I've also seen him do a few lectures on Int'l Marketing in Korean. |
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NilesQ
Joined: 27 Nov 2006
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| Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2012 4:58 am Post subject: |
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| chrisblank wrote: |
| NilesQ wrote: |
Your example of the Kyopo doesnt say his Korean is better than his English. Just says he speaks Korean very well. I think if you asked him to give an hour long presentation on an academic subject, he'd choose to do it in English. |
I've seen him do both. Once a year he will come and do a 2~3 hour presentation on the job market/ job hunting for seniors. He usually does about 1.5hrs in English, then as the kids' questions become more specific he will switch to Korean and do about 1.5hrs in Korean.
I've also seen him do a few lectures on Int'l Marketing in Korean. |
Again, not saying he cant do both. I'm wondering about which he feels more comfortable with. If he is equally comfortable, then he's one of the lucky few children of immigrants who is truly bilingual at an academic level.
My point is that kids become most profficient in the language tehy use the most. My kyopo buddy grew up in Canada. He spoke Korean at home with his mom and dad, but he and his siblings always spoke English to one another. Keep in mind we come from a town with a tiny Korean community, so he didnt have a Korean circle of friends and he came to Canada at 2 years old. English is his "best" language. He is quite proficient in Korean, but, given the choice, he reverts to English.
Every individual is different, but, in general, language of learning and most exposure are the most advanced in a given individual. If they are the same language, it will most certainly be their most profficient language. |
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sml7285
Joined: 26 Apr 2012
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| Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2012 6:59 am Post subject: |
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| NilesQ wrote: |
| chrisblank wrote: |
| NilesQ wrote: |
Your example of the Kyopo doesnt say his Korean is better than his English. Just says he speaks Korean very well. I think if you asked him to give an hour long presentation on an academic subject, he'd choose to do it in English. |
I've seen him do both. Once a year he will come and do a 2~3 hour presentation on the job market/ job hunting for seniors. He usually does about 1.5hrs in English, then as the kids' questions become more specific he will switch to Korean and do about 1.5hrs in Korean.
I've also seen him do a few lectures on Int'l Marketing in Korean. |
Again, not saying he cant do both. I'm wondering about which he feels more comfortable with. If he is equally comfortable, then he's one of the lucky few children of immigrants who is truly bilingual at an academic level.
My point is that kids become most profficient in the language tehy use the most. My kyopo buddy grew up in Canada. He spoke Korean at home with his mom and dad, but he and his siblings always spoke English to one another. Keep in mind we come from a town with a tiny Korean community, so he didnt have a Korean circle of friends and he came to Canada at 2 years old. English is his "best" language. He is quite proficient in Korean, but, given the choice, he reverts to English.
Every individual is different, but, in general, language of learning and most exposure are the most advanced in a given individual. If they are the same language, it will most certainly be their most profficient language. |
Agreed. I am very proficient at Korean. I can hold a conversation about most subjects in Korean with almost anyone, but after coming to Hyundai for my internship, I was completely lost. I never studied terminology (in Korean) that was related to the field I am working in and having never studied Hanja, I was unable to quickly pick up on the definitions of many words that were thrown around where I work. I picked up on many of the definitions of words after about a week, but if I were to go into a different field tomorrow, I'd be just as lost again. |
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GJoeM
Joined: 05 Oct 2012
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| Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2012 4:26 am Post subject: |
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| Excellent information here -- thanks for sharing. These are major topics in my household right now with our daughter too. |
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Eedoryeong
Joined: 10 Dec 2007
Location: Jeju
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| Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2012 8:30 pm Post subject: |
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I'm a bit late writing in but I wanted to speak to the home-language part of this thread. When our little one was born I bought a bunch of books on raising bilingual families. I went through the various theories one book proposed (because I didn't want sticking to practicing a language to be based on emotion i.e. one-parent, one-language) so I talked it over with my wife and we agreed to one idea, and I really have to give it praise: everybody in the home speaks one language (Korean in our case) until naptime. That fits in with the daycare nicely. Then after naptime, everybody in the house switches over to Englsh until bed. This system works really well for us, and seeing daddy trying to express himself in Korean does a lot for morale. We also have at-home games and a sticker award system (I'm a big fan of posterboard charts) for achievements related to a few things (writing, numbers, manners, etc). You bet your 부어빵 language item benchmarks get tossed in there quite frequently. We did in fact spend a year in the west, and we kept the same system but flipped i.e. all English at home, and then Korean after supper (outgrew naps). Korean did not progress nearly as much for a few months. But we kept at it and now our child is equally fluent in Korean and English but it's been a lopsided progression. That's to be expected, though. The planing and progressing periods are not going to coincide in each language. But we're happy with where our child has arrived developmentally right now.
I think during those planing periods you need to let it ride so you can get other subjects in before the next leap forward. I say this because the books talk about how there can be developmental delays in other areas because the bilingual child's expressivity in any one language may be less than that of a monolingual peer. But I have witnessed that this can be conquered so long as the parents have a home plan that works with the daycare/preschool/teacher onboard. |
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fosterman
Joined: 16 Nov 2011
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| Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2012 12:44 am Post subject: |
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"Education is a marathon , not a sprint. "
"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child. " |
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PatrickGHBusan
Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Location: Busan (1997-2008) Canada 2008 -
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| Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2012 3:45 am Post subject: |
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| Eedoryeong wrote: |
I'm a bit late writing in but I wanted to speak to the home-language part of this thread. When our little one was born I bought a bunch of books on raising bilingual families. I went through the various theories one book proposed (because I didn't want sticking to practicing a language to be based on emotion i.e. one-parent, one-language) so I talked it over with my wife and we agreed to one idea, and I really have to give it praise: everybody in the home speaks one language (Korean in our case) until naptime. That fits in with the daycare nicely. Then after naptime, everybody in the house switches over to Englsh until bed. This system works really well for us, and seeing daddy trying to express himself in Korean does a lot for morale. We also have at-home games and a sticker award system (I'm a big fan of posterboard charts) for achievements related to a few things (writing, numbers, manners, etc). You bet your 부어빵 language item benchmarks get tossed in there quite frequently. We did in fact spend a year in the west, and we kept the same system but flipped i.e. all English at home, and then Korean after supper (outgrew naps). Korean did not progress nearly as much for a few months. But we kept at it and now our child is equally fluent in Korean and English but it's been a lopsided progression. That's to be expected, though. The planing and progressing periods are not going to coincide in each language. But we're happy with where our child has arrived developmentally right now.
I think during those planing periods you need to let it ride so you can get other subjects in before the next leap forward. I say this because the books talk about how there can be developmental delays in other areas because the bilingual child's expressivity in any one language may be less than that of a monolingual peer. But I have witnessed that this can be conquered so long as the parents have a home plan that works with the daycare/preschool/teacher onboard. |
Interesting.
We used (still use) the one-parent/one-language method and it worked great for us. The point is that parents should choose a method that they are happy with and that they are confortable with, otherwise it will not work.
We adjusted our approach when we moved from Korea to Canada because the dominant language/cultural environment changed (Korean towards English-Canadian). In Korea we looked for ways to supplement our kids English outside of practice and learning with me. Now in Canada this has been reversed and we have to focus a bit more on Korean.
What worked for us in Korea was me speaking in English only to our kids until a certain age and supplementing that with reading to them in English, English language movies, TV, some music and regular Skype video chats with their grandparents in Canada and their uncle in Japan (my brother).
In Canada we had to go the other way and used skype to connect with the Korean grandparents, uncles and our kids cousins. This works wonders. We also take our kids to a Korean school on saturday mornings and attend some activities at the K-cultural center where the kids can use their Korean skills.
This has worked superbly for us, our son can switch seamlessly from English to Korean (he is in elementary school now) and our daughter is on the same path (daycare age). We tweaked the one-parent, one-language method when our son started school and I speak in Korean with my son now if it so happens he speaks to me in that language.
Our kids also started working on learning French and our son is picking up at a surprising pace. |
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Dodge7
Joined: 21 Oct 2011
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| Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2012 4:23 am Post subject: |
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posters who do the one language one parent system, how are your kids' vocabulary? I imagine they lag severely behind kids their own age back home in the West.
I am not doing the one parent/language, I'm greedy and will have everyone speak English AT ALL TIMES when I'm around. I don't want to miss a word my child says--ever. Plus I don't want it to turn into a team English vs. team Korean under one roof. |
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PatrickGHBusan
Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Location: Busan (1997-2008) Canada 2008 -
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| Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2012 4:36 am Post subject: |
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| Dodge7 wrote: |
posters who do the one language one parent system, how are your kids' vocabulary? I imagine they lag severely behind kids their own age back home in the West.
I am not doing the one parent/language, I'm greedy and will have everyone speak English AT ALL TIMES when I'm around. I don't want to miss a word my child says--ever. Plus I don't want it to turn into a team English vs. team Korean under one roof. |
Our kids have no vocabulary lag Dodge, sorry.
One language will be more "dominant" due to context but we managed to reinforce the other language so that our kids are not lagging. It CAN happen however if the parents do not make the effort to encourage the kids to learn.
There is no "team English vs team Korean" under our roof either Dodge, that is just a silly notion, sorry.
I have no idea why you see this as an adversarial issue when it is not. For what it is worth, I think your approach of "all English, all the time" when you are around is more likely to create this adversarial issue that what others have done. Learning the two languages is a good thing and should not be seen as some sort of confrontation issue. |
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Newbie
Joined: 07 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2012 6:15 am Post subject: |
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| Dodge7 wrote: |
posters who do the one language one parent system, how are your kids' vocabulary? I imagine they lag severely behind kids their own age back home in the West.
I am not doing the one parent/language, I'm greedy and will have everyone speak English AT ALL TIMES when I'm around. I don't want to miss a word my child says--ever. Plus I don't want it to turn into a team English vs. team Korean under one roof. |
Hi Dodge,
My daughter was born in Korea and we lived there the first two years of her life. I was never forceful with the "All English" thing, but like you (when I lived in Korea, not anymore) I was very anti-Korean. Hated the nationalism, hated the BS, and wanted my daughter to be Canadian first, Korean second. I think everyone around me knew that was my preference. Our plan was always to move back to Canada, so I wanted her English to be up to snuff. I didn't care when the in-laws, neighbours etc, spoke to her in Korean, but my wife, when it was just three of us, spoke mostly in English and that made me happy. I never told her this is what I wanted, and I never got upset if she did use Korean. But this is what she did. I regret this now.
We're in Canada now, my daughter is 5, and her Korean is just okay. I really wish we had my wife focus on more Korean when we were there, and since we've moved here. Now we're stuck playing catch up. My wife speaks Korean to her more often, but still not enough. I am frequently reminding her to do more. I read Korean kids' books to her now and use more Korean as well. Also she takes Korean lessons at the big Korean Catholic church in Toronto. But it would have been much better if there was more Korean in the house from the start.
Now that I'm in Canada, I'm not so anti-Korean. Part of this I know, is that it's much easier to be that way when I'm not faced with the rabid nationalism day in and day out, but most of it is maturity. I've really been able to step back and say, "Yes, Korea annoyed the hell out of me when I was there. The nationalism, the anger from Korean men, etc. But not all, not even most, Koreans are like that." I really want my daughter's Korean language skills to improve. Perhaps one day, when you move back West you might find yourself in my shoes: more forgiving of the annoyances of Korea, and more hopeful that your spawn has a better understanding of the language.
But then again, maybe not!  |
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PatrickGHBusan
Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Location: Busan (1997-2008) Canada 2008 -
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| Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2012 7:14 am Post subject: |
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| Newbie wrote: |
| Dodge7 wrote: |
posters who do the one language one parent system, how are your kids' vocabulary? I imagine they lag severely behind kids their own age back home in the West.
I am not doing the one parent/language, I'm greedy and will have everyone speak English AT ALL TIMES when I'm around. I don't want to miss a word my child says--ever. Plus I don't want it to turn into a team English vs. team Korean under one roof. |
Hi Dodge,
My daughter was born in Korea and we lived there the first two years of her life. I was never forceful with the "All English" thing, but like you (when I lived in Korea, not anymore) I was very anti-Korean. Hated the nationalism, hated the BS, and wanted my daughter to be Canadian first, Korean second. I think everyone around me knew that was my preference. Our plan was always to move back to Canada, so I wanted her English to be up to snuff. I didn't care when the in-laws, neighbours etc, spoke to her in Korean, but my wife, when it was just three of us, spoke mostly in English and that made me happy. I never told her this is what I wanted, and I never got upset if she did use Korean. But this is what she did. I regret this now.
We're in Canada now, my daughter is 5, and her Korean is just okay. I really wish we had my wife focus on more Korean when we were there, and since we've moved here. Now we're stuck playing catch up. My wife speaks Korean to her more often, but still not enough. I am frequently reminding her to do more. I read Korean kids' books to her now and use more Korean as well. Also she takes Korean lessons at the big Korean Catholic church in Toronto. But it would have been much better if there was more Korean in the house from the start.
Now that I'm in Canada, I'm not so anti-Korean. Part of this I know, is that it's much easier to be that way when I'm not faced with the rabid nationalism day in and day out, but most of it is maturity. I've really been able to step back and say, "Yes, Korea annoyed the hell out of me when I was there. The nationalism, the anger from Korean men, etc. But not all, not even most, Koreans are like that." I really want my daughter's Korean language skills to improve. Perhaps one day, when you move back West you might find yourself in my shoes: more forgiving of the annoyances of Korea, and more hopeful that your spawn has a better understanding of the language.
But then again, maybe not! |
There is a great point in all of this. Whether you like Korea or not, your mixed kid derives half his or her heritage from that culture. Your spouse is from that culture. That needs to be respected and put before any personal petty dislikes so that you do not transfer your own prejudices onto your kid. This holds true for your spouse as she needs to do the same towards your culture. Not to do so means you are just like any other intolerant racist-bigot out there: you pass on your own limitations to your kids.
That was a great post Newbie. This is not about liking or loving a culture/place. This about not passing on our own limitations to our kids if at all possible.
Personally, I am damn glad my kids speak Korean well. It allows them to communicate with their Korean grandparents freely and share their lives with these important people. |
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