How times have changed

When I was teaching high school Spanish in the early 90s, I invariably heard the question “When am I ever going to need this?”  It was a familiar question that I often heard my own classmates utter when I was in high school in the mid-80s.  At the time, living in the northwest suburbs, I wasn’t all that sure myself when Spanish would be useful to me, but I had a sense that it was important anyway.

It’s hard to imagine that our kids, when they get to 9^th grade, will be asking that same question.  They may not like Spanish – or whatever second language they’re studying – but I highly doubt as they walk down the streets of our ever-more multicultural city that they’ll wonder why a second language would come in handy.  But even more than that, I hope that they’ll have been exposed to a second (if not third!) language long before they reach 9^th grade.

Mommy, she doesn’t have an accent!

So at this point I’m updating this blog about once every three months – not quite the ideal pace! I had started writing this entry when we were finishing our third week in Oaxaca, Mexico, back in late December.  Henry had been exploring Oaxaca like a champ, trying different foods, happily drinking hot chocolate in them main square (el zócalo), going to daily Spanish class with his cousins and introducing himself – in Spanish – to every police offer he saw.  Henry describes himself as a “policeman doctor mechanic chef” whenever prompted about his career aspirations, so he would casually mention to these police offers with semi-automatic weapons “Soy policía también” (I’m a police offer too) as they shook hands.

Last year in Mexico, Henry became acutely aware that people spoke different languages, and he would often point out who spoke what – and would enthusiastically note those who spoke both English AND Spanish.  This year was the first time that he focused on accents.  I’ll backtrack by saying that one day, over a year ago, he jokingly told me that ‘mittens’ in Spanish were ‘MEE-tehns’.  I was amazed at the time that he could imitate a Spanish accent, as he was not even 2 1/2, but he never explicitly mentioned the concept of accents until our trip.  We were walking down the street and stopped to ask someone directions (pretty obviously [to us] a North American, but not so to Henry).  As we walked away, he proclaimed with astonishment, “Mommy, she doesn’t have an accent!”.

Henry knows that most people in Mexico speak Spanish, and that in the US most speak English (although he’s consistently exposed to lots of people here that speak many other languages, too), and he’s interested to know why that is.  And now, his interest lies in understanding why some people speak with accents.  He also prides himself on correctly people’s pronunciation of Spanish (he actually considers himself to be a Spanish teacher, too – just not as often).  The other evening while visiting some friends, I asked Henry’s 3-year old pal if she knew how to say ‘butterfly’ in Spanish.  She didn’t, so I asked Henry.  He turned to her and commanded “Say ‘mah’” (and waited until she did), “ree” (repeated), “poh” (repeated), “sah” (repeated also), and then repeated “mariposa”.

Henry’s comprehension is still much better than his production, and expect that will always be the case.  He’s using more and more Spanish at school, though, and it continues to warm my heart to hear him declare his love for me in Spanish.

How language can change social perceptions

So between Henry and my business, I manage to read about one book a quarter – if I’m lucky. For the last few months, whenever I get a few minutes, I pick up Raising a Bilingual Child by Barbara Zurer Pearson. I was fascinated to read the section How Language Can Change Social Perceptions (p. 32), which describes an experiment by social psychologists at University of Massachusetts.

In the experiment, researchers sought to understand perceptions of English-speaking kids in three different classroom settings:

1. monolingual English speakers
2. bilingual (English/Spanish) speakers, together with monolingual English-speakers, where the classroom language was English
3. bilinguals (both English-dominant and Spanish-dominant), where the classroom language was both English and Spanish

The kids in each setting were asked to look at pictures of kids – some of whom appeared to be Latino, while others appeared to be of US/European background – and identify which looked smart, which looked like they would have a lot of friends and which looked like someone the kids would want to be friends with.

The results? The kids in the first group only selected pictures of Latino kids 10% of the time. In the second group, despite having Latino classmates, English-speaking kids only associated positive traits with the Latino kids pictured 12-13% of the time. In the third group, however, English-dominant kids associated positive traits with Latinos 40% of the time.

All kids, despite ethnic background, associated positive traits with kids from their own group more often than those from other groups, but those who studied and spoke Spanish developed a much more positive perception of their Latino classmates than kids in other classrooms.

The lessons here are pretty obvious: sharing a language is a crucial step in identifying with others and building bridges. Don’t wait until your kids are freshmen in high school to expose them to another language; start as soon as you can. Don’t just rely on a nice demographic pie chart on the website of the school you’re considering; research dual language programs that will have your kids learning in two languages and interacting with non-English dominant speakers in a meaningful way. Travel internationally with your kids. Send them to language immersion summer camps. Register them in after school or weekend language classes. The greater the exposure, the better!

The cognitive benefits of bilingualism are tremendous, but the social benefits are pretty incredible, too.

To be or not to be – in Spanish?

The dreaded ser vs. estar:  a struggle all adolescents and adults encounter when they study Spanish as a second language.  One verb typically refers to essential characteristics (ser), while the other, to conditions (estar).

I assumed (hoped) that by exposing Henry to Spanish from birth, he’d learn these two verbs in context and have no issue with using them appropriately.  The bad news?  He does confuse them (“Yo estoy un príncipe” = I am a prince).  The good news?  He’s using SO much more Spanish these days!  He’s just under 3 1/2.  His English narrative skills are exploding, and while his Spanish skills don’t hold a candle to his English skills, it’s been incredible to hear how much he can say these days.  We were reading a book about a principe, and he commented in Spanish, unsolicited, that he was a prince.  I asked about princesas (princesses), and he said something to the effect of “No estoy una princesa. Soy un niño.”

When I prompt him now to ask for things in Spanish, like grapes, he says “Yo quiero las uvas por favor”. He’s a bit more tolerant of me speaking Spanish to him – and of course I’m more encouraged to do so, given his increased output.  The best thing so far?  Telling him “Te quiero mucho” (I love you a lot) and hearing him say “Yo también te quiero mucho” (I love you a lot too).  It’s música to my ears.

Baby steps – or not so babyish…

So just in the last month or so, Henry has started using more Spanish with me (he turned three in June).  It started with him starting to answer yes/no questions with ‘sí’ or ‘no’, and then saying ‘mira’ when he wanted me to look at something and ‘ven aquí’ when he wanted me to come.  He’ll also say ‘Te quiero mucho’ (I love you a lot) when prompted – and that fills my heart.

But yesterday, I went into his room when he woke up from his nap, and he picked up his little stuffed blue dog and said, ‘El perro está azul’.  Now granted, he used the wrong form of the verb ‘to be’ (estar instead of ser – a common mistake), but I was amazed that he could say it – and that he did!  For a while, when I’d pick him up from school (bilingual daycare with a Columbian family), he would use a silly voice for Spanish, but that’s definitely changing.

Very exciting stuff.  And that’s all for today.

Metalinguistic awareness: what is it, and why should I care?

So I’ll start by saying that my background is not in child language acquisition.  My BA was in the Teaching of Spanish, so obviously there was a bit of L2 (second language) acquisition theory, but relatively little – and what there was focused on adults.  My MA/PhD were in Linguistic Anthropology with a focus on language and identity within the Judeo-Spanish (a dialect of Spanish spoken by descendants of the Jews who were exiled from Spain in 1492) revitalization effort.  So not a lot of academic background or training on how to make a bilingual baby (when both parents are English-dominant).

And now I’m a mom, and Henry – my 3-year old – has been with Spanish-speaking caregivers since he was a few months old.  I initially tried speaking to him in Spanish, but it didn’t feel natural, not only because I’m increasingly rusty from not having lived in a Spanish-speaking country since 1994 and not teaching it consistently since 1996, but also because I didn’t know how to talk baby talk in Spanish.  I didn’t know how to sound like I thought I should sound and wanted to sound as the mom of a newborn.  So I quickly stopped and hope I’d pick it back up at some point.

Fast-forward a few years, and it was interesting for me to watch Henry’s language development.  When he first started talking, he used a mixture of English and Spanish words (‘arriba’ = up, ‘agua’ = water AND milk), but then he stopped, and I don’t remember hearing much for a while.  I knew he understood, but his production was  very low.  He would occasionally translate discrete words from/to English<>Spanish when I requested it, but not that much.  What was fascinating was what happened when we spent 3 weeks in Mexico last December, when Henry was 2 1/2.  And with this, I return to the purported topic of this post: metalinguistic awareness.

We were in Merida, in the Yucatan, walking around the main plaza the Sunday after we arrived, and Henry pointed to a man and asked, ‘He talkin’ Spanish?’.  It was one of the first times I could recall him explicitly talking about Spanish, and it just continued from there.  ’He talkin’ English and Spanish?’ was another question soon after.  And then his incessant prompting: ‘In English, window.  In Spanish?’  I would supply him with the requested translation, which he would repeat, satisfied to have an answer to his question.  This continued after we returned home, and one winter day, as he was getting dressed for school, he took out his mittens and declared: ‘In English, mittens.  In Spanish, MEE-tehns.’  He understood enough about Spanish pronunciation to engage in multilingual word-play.  I was astonished.  And of course I kvelled.

So, you may ask, what does this have to do with metalinguistic awareness, and what the hell is it, anyway?!  Metalinguistic awareness is exactly what I’ve been describing: knowledge about language.  Barbara Zurer Pearson, in her book Raising a Bilingual Child (Living Language Series), notes that one of the advantages of bilingualism in children is that these bilingual kids become metalinguistically aware at an earlier age then monolingual children.  They are forced to think about language more often, as they constantly choose which language to use and interpret what they hear.  They are more aware of the formal properties and structures of language, and as a result, they are able to think abstractly about language at an earlier age.  They are also able to make connections between letters and sounds, which helps with reading, and their understanding of how language works often makes them better writers, too.  And abstract thought is important not just for reading and writing, but for academic success in general.

And remind me again why it is that we typically wait until high school before teaching kids a second language?

Welcome to Multilingual Kids!

Linguistic anthropologist.  Business owner. Mom.  Most of the time these different parts of who I am work against each other (e.g. I’m busy running a business so don’t have time to read up on the latest ling anth stuff, my son has a dentist appointment so I have to take off half a day of work), but I’m excited that my latest venture unites all three.  Multilingual Chicago is a new division of my 4 1/2 year old business, Workforce Language Services, which provides multilingual translation services and corporate language/diversity training.  This fall, we’ll be offering a variety of Spanish classes for adults and kids, and come January, we hope to add other languages to the mix.

Watching the language development of my 3-year old son, Henry, has been fascinating in general, but given that he’s been in bilingual daycare since he was an infant, I’m keeping a close watch on his Spanish development too.  Here’s a video of him in Mexico back in December of last year, where he was showing off his translation skills – and he loves to correct my ‘mistakes’!

He’s finally starting to use a little Spanish spontaneously – especially when he knows it’ll get my attention (‘Mami, ven aqui’ gets fewer ‘Just a minute!’ responses from me than ‘Mommy, come here’).

I’m excited to research more on raising a bilingual child for my own knowledge, but also to share with friends/clients and help support their efforts.

I welcome ideas, comments and suggestions as I take my first steps into bloggerland!