Raising Bilingual Children

by Growing Flowers

I spent a cozy morning in bed catching up reading some of the blogs I haven’t read for quite a while. I decided to peruse a bit and to comment here and there. I know I love getting comments especially from readers I haven’t heard from yet. So off I went into blog land, feeling mildly guilty enjoying the quiet of our studio bedroom under the bright patchwork quilt that I happily and newly acquired. I love reading the thoughts of all these mamas and women. There is so much authenticity out there, such thought and consciousness and a striving. It seems that behind so many of these blogs there is a woman working so hard to be a great mama, gardener, teacher, midwife and person. I have such admiration for the musings, thoughts and depth I read in these sweet blogs. Today, I discovered an entire new genre of mama blogs! I am so thrilled and excited to have entered the world of “raising children bilingually” blogs. It’s a thrill and, once again, also a little bittersweet.  My children are always so much older than most of the kiddos in the blogs I am reading about. (And I hope I receive a ton of links to other blogs with teen children…..)  Gosh – I would have just LOVED  to have some of this confirmation and reassurance when my daughters were young.

We raised our children bilingual. My husband is from former East Germany and I from the states. I majored in German Studies at Bard College in the late 80s and early 90s. When my daughters were born in Germany it was clear that we would have two languages. This was so exciting to me and timely. I had newly graduated after passionately struggling through a deep language immersion and a move to Germany (Bavaria!) where it definitely took about two years to feel absolutely fluent.

I subscribed to the one person, one language theory. I spoke only English with my girls – but, by golly, they were surrounded by German. I didn’t have many English-speaking friends. A few, for sure, but not many. Falko’s English was, let’s say, um…. adorable.  It was really up to me to talk English all the time. They did well. We went on a few vacations to the states and that helped for sure. I read books to them in English all the time. I sang lots of nursery rhyme songs to them. I was never aware of any accent or any problems. I wasn’t too worried about it and didn’t think about it too much until we moved to the states when they were 2 and 4 years old.

After living in Germany for almost 8 years, falling in love in German and very rarely speaking English it was hard, even for me, to make the transition to English. Here we were, suddenly, in the desert of New Mexico. I had become an adult in Germany, learned vocabulary for adult-like things in Germany and sometimes I was left searching and struggling for the word in English. I knew all the birthing words in German and was dumbfounded to find that some words didn’t and still don’t translate into English. (Presswehen zum beispiel…..) In fact, my Midwife preceptor, Kate, asked me, six months into my program, “Where, in Germany are you from again?” That’s how strange I was speaking.

The girls continued having German as their primary language, we switched to the “one language with family, one language out of the home” philosophy. (Did I make that one up? I don’t know….)  Kaya, basically, only and always spoke German. Treska began Kindergarten shortly after arriving – within the year. It was there that she really blossomed with her English. Kaya, still, spoke mostly German. When she spoke to English-speaking adults she often threw a million German words into the sentence. She was mixing a lot. It worried me a bunch. But not as much as I would have thought, knowing me now! I think I was so consumed by my midwifery education and training that I just didn’t worry too much. I figured it would sort itself out. (Those of you who know me, know this is not very typical for me! I dedicate myself, too often, too worrying. So it is truly incredible that I didn’t then.)

While I was a student of Midwifery, I was on-call 24/7. Literally.  I never had a day off. I never took one. (But that is another blog entry – perhaps….) We were definitely in a challenging situation. I worked so much and was called to births so often that we needed help with childcare. Falko was working, often, 12 or more hour days in the Ski Valley to support us and pay for my education. It was a wild time – me flying off to births in the middle of the night, exhausted, thrilled and sometimes feeling guilty too. Falko put on Lederhosen to work in a German ski lodge. (I won’t comment…..:) ) The girls were thriving though. We had invited students from Germany to come live with us for the 3 month visa period. In exchange for room and board, a flight and as much time off as possible, they would help with the girls. They would be available when I had to dash off to a birth. It was a sweet time with these women.  My ulterior motive was, however, to expose the children and keep them immersed in German the majority of the day. I knew that English would become dominant very quickly.

We had such lovely women come stay with us. We had a singer, an artist, a euro-hippy, a traveler and a wanderer. There was not one that we didn’t treasure. It doesn’t mean that it was not, sometimes, challenging to share our home with new people every three months, but it enhanced all of our lives immensely. (We did have one male au pair come and leave after two weeks. It was, definitely, not a good match.)  Having a live-in German speaker  was fantastic for really keeping the German going at home in the States. I am so grateful for this experience. I think it really made the difference.

Once Kaya went to school, her English quickly improved. I have only heard one person, in all of these years, say that they could hear an accent in either of the girl’s English. I can’t hear anything at all.

So what did I do during the challenging times I have been reading about in everyone’s blog. The times when my daughters only wanted to speak English. Falko went through a time where he spoke a lot of English in the home and I was quite the nag. I would always say, “Was? Ich habe das nicht verstanden…..” (What? I didn’t understand that…..) I would constantly refuse to listen to someone unless it was in German. It was a bit hard. Sometimes the girls hated it. Treska started calling me the “Deutsche Polizei!” (The German Police). As all of you readers know, that is NOT a compliment. I persisted and I can only tell this story now, because it was successful. Treska has often thanked me for “forcing” the language at home. She very much identifies as a German and as a German speaker. She speaks it often at home and both girls only speak German with Falko now. Especially when I am not around, the language at home is still German. They talk with their grandparents in Germany on the phone. (Probably not as often as they would all like, but when they do talk, it’s for hours!)  They truly love it. In fact, I have to often ask them to speak English when we are around other people!

Tips for Raising Bilingual Children:

• Continue speaking the language. Always. Even when your children are responding to you in the dominant language, answer in the desired language.
• Read to them in the language
• Audio-cassettes in the language. (I’m dating myself  here.) The girls listened to bedtime stories every evening after our bedtime ritual. They were always allowed to listen to German, for as long as they wanted to.
• Let them watch movies in the desired language. (We finally, later in the years, got a DVD player that allowed us to play German movies. My parents-in-law recorded tons and TONS of German animal documentaries and kids films. We still are only 1/16th of the way through. I generally don’t allow much movie-watching, but German movies were an exception.)
• CDs in the car
• Play music in the language – the repetition will work wonders!
• Regular phone calls with speakers of the language.
• Write letters to native speakers.
• When they are old enough to read the language, make sure they do. The written word will greatly improve their writing.
• Travel to the country. Immerse them in the language and the culture for as much time as possible each and every year!

Gosh – I have so much to say and think about on this topic! I look forward to reading other blogs about this very same thing. I’m sure I will write more about this again…..