Teaching your child to speak another language especially when it's your second language is quite challenging. For me, learning Spanish was easy. I spent a lot of time with my grandparents who only spoke Spanish in the house. There were also several summers where I accompanied my grandmother to Puerto Rico and was surrounding by Spanish speaking relatives. Unfortunately, it's different for C. I have to make a conscious effort to speak Spanish to him and it doesn't come naturally. But I'm trying. It's so important to me that he knows Spanish. I'm happy to say that he at least understands about 80 to 85% of the things I say in Spanish but he's apprehensive about speaking. Which I understand. I feel the same way about French.
The other day I was talking to my sister about it and she recommended I approach it like a mini Spanish course. Choose a few words for the week and practice making sentences with those words every day. As a reward if C creates sentences using these words or any other words in Spanish he receives money. Monoply money of course... which can be used to buy some of the things he enjoys like Coca-Cola, marshmallows, and bubble gum. So far it's working out pretty well. I've also purchased a few workbooks in Spanish that are helping me choose which words we work on each week. I can then use the exercises to reinforce what he's learning each week.
During dinner last night we practiced making sentences with our flashcards and I think C had fun. We were making up crazy sentences like... Do you like to eat spider sandwiches? And then we'd poke fun at S (who knows very little Spanish) and ask him the same question in Spanish but of course C told him "araña" meant mushrooms so S said, "Sure, I like arañas". lol!
Kudos to trying to teach your son Spanish. My husband is trying to teach our daughter Swedish, even though at this point, it's his second language. She's not talking yet, so he's mostly reading Swedish books to her and incorporating it into their play. By the way, I love that bicycle-face picture. Is that by C? I could totally see that hanging in a trendy coffee shop in San Francisco.
Posted by: Dallas | 09 November 2011 at 20:47
Hi Dallas, That's great that you're husband is teaching your daughter Swedish. She'll be all set once she starts speaking. ;)
No, C didn't make the bicycle face picture. Isn't is so cute! I love it. Although I love all fun things related to bicycles. It's actually a postcard I bought at the International Children's Museum of Art in Oslo, Norway.
Posted by: Javacurls | 10 November 2011 at 10:36
When I learned Latin from an eccentric high school Vice-Principal, I actually enjoyed it because it helped me understand and remember French and Spanish words and structure. Now, I am trying to teach my daughter Filipino which has many Spanish words in it. So relatives won't take advantage of him anymore, my husband is learning along too. So far, I've been teaching them "tastes good", "thank you", "yes" and "no" among others. I have to keep it up though…so "salamat" (thank you) for the reminder.
Posted by: Maye | 11 November 2011 at 20:34