Teaching children a second language

[barretom]

I have wondered if it would be better (or worse) for my children to learn Spanish at home. As a child I learned from my family and it made learning in school difficult for me. I wasn't taught at home grammatically correct Spanish so when I began studying the language in school it was difficult to unlearn all that I had picked up at home.

I don't want to do the same to my children. I haven't push the issue with learning Spanish because I do not want them confused. They would be third generation born in New York and Spanish isn't necessary to communicate with family but I do want them to learn our culture and traditions.

Any suggestions?

[cuky]

I have wondered if it would be better (or worse) for my children to learn Spanish at home. As a child I learned from my family and it made learning in school difficult for me. I wasn't taught at home grammatically correct Spanish so when I began studying the language in school it was difficult to unlearn all that I had picked up at home.

I don't want to do the same to my children. I haven't push the issue with learning Spanish because I do not want them confused. They would be third generation born in New York and Spanish isn't necessary to communicate with family but I do want them to learn our culture and traditions.

Any suggestions?

Kudos for caring My viewpoint and past experience (which may be totally wrong ) is as follows:

I would immerse my children as much as possible in Spanish at home to increase their vocabulary. (This is what I did with my own son.) Personally, I then placed my son in bilingual classes (opt-in option) all through elementary school. He is now finishing 10th grade and has excelled in school.

An important qualifying issue is how strong are the bilingual classes or dual language classes in your school system. Are they academically rigorous? Or, are they designed only as a quick transitional program without fully developing the academic vocabulary and grammar structure in BOTH languages as should be?

As far as the grammar at home being incorrect, this issue occurs in the homes of English speakers as well. Quality classroom instruction and interaction addresses this issue in both English and Spanish. I would think your children would be much better postioned to fully acquire Spanish if they received the additional language input at home. Even though as previously mentioned this would mean corrections made at school.


As an aside, I wanted to mention that here in Dallas we are using Gomez and Gomez as our Dual Language Program and have effectively replaced the transitional Bilingual Eduation program here with this dual language program. It is new here, so time will tell how well it works in a big school system. However, from their website I pulled this:

A15: Academic and linguistic data is so consistently positive for DLE programs that it has gone far beyond concerns with "skewing" of the data. In fact, it was more common for schools to explain away poor academic performance based on factors such as transient students. When little else changes, not the principals, not the teachers, not the curriculum, not the parents, but rather the only significant change is the instructional model (DLE program) and it produces the consistent academic and linguistic results that it does in school after school, it is difficult to find any other factor to explain the results. Of course we are not suggesting here that it is an easy task to go from a traditional instructional program (TBE or ESL) to a DLE Enrichment program. Not at all, but once the teachers, and administration understand the research and program model and work diligently to implement it, positive results have become easy to predict. Also, keep in mind that the T & C longitudinal research has been approved by the current administration’s NCLB definition as meeting scientifically-based research.

Their link is:

http://dlti.us/8.html

ONCE AGAIN THESE VIEWS I AM SHARING MAY BE TOTALLY WRONG!!

I KNOW your children are going to be doing better than others in the same situation because of the parental concern I am seeing with your post here.

My view in a nutshell. Use the Spanish at home to increase vocabulary and cultural appreciation. Look into the quality of the instruction they receive at the your local school. Grammar mistakes will be corrected with a good instructional program at school while the increased vocabulary will benefit your children.

I wish you well in your decision making.

[barretom]

Thank you for your thorough response. I am not exactly sure about the bilingual education program in our district bu tI will definately look into it. Although considering we live in upstate NY, I doubt if the program is like the one you speak of. I will continue to work through this as I speak with others and will keep your thought in mind.

[quanshuangcnu]

The earlier a child begins to learn a language, the easier it will be. Bilingual education is necessary to children I think. When they grow up, they will never come across language barriers. Children’s potentials in language acquisition are beyond our imagination, so parents should utilize them fully. As long as children receive correct language input, they can learn it very well. If you are afraid that your children may get incorrect language input at home, you could send them to a bilingual education school.