Friday, July 25, 2008

Wanna Jugar with Mee-go?

For those of you who do not speak Spanish, "Wanna jugar with mee-go" is Spanish and English very badly mixed together. As we have taught our girls Spanish, we hear a lot of Spanglish. When my oldest daughter, A, was two years old, she asked her little 4 month old sister if she wanted to play with her using this Spanglish phrase.

Journaling in Scrapbook page says: Anna has started to speak Spanglish since we have started to teach her Spanish. She understand Spanish, but mostly responds in English. She will say "esta dormida" "la leche se cayo" "esta en el carro" Her favorite words are tobogan, columpio, carro, patito, agua, leche and pan.

Lessons Learned: Motivation is Key for Language Learning

Yesterday, my two daughters aged 4 and 2 played with a 3 year old girl from Mexico. My 4 year old is now speaking in full sentences in Spanish and can really communicate. My 2 year old understand a lot of Spanish, but really only says 10-15 words in Spanish. I heard her speak the most ever last night because she wanted to play with the older two girls. She would repeat things they said in full sentences, but would add some Spanglish to it. The girl from Mexico said, "Tengo dos hermanas" and T would say "Tengo two hermanas, too." At least I know she is understanding because she translated dos into two.

Some other ways I am trying to motivate my children to speak Spanish:

1. We go to fun Spanish storytimes at the library even if it is a drive.
2. We listen to fun Spanish music in the car.
3. We watch fun movies dubbed in Spanish.
4. I search for anyone that speaks Spanish and invite them over to develop a friendship with them. We found this neighbor who has a daughter that speaks Spanish (mentioned above), so we try to have her over a lot.
5. We get at least 5 new Spanish books from the library a week.
6. We have a Spanish speaking babysitter from Chile who only speaks to them in Spanish.
7. We search and go to any type of Latin cultural events in the area. We have gone to a Latin festival in the park and a Celebracion de Los Ninos activity.
8. They impress grandparents by showing off singing and speaking in Spanish.

What do you do to motivate your children to learn another foreign language?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hola mamacita!!!

Welcome to the world of blogging.

I just started my blog as well. If you start a "blog list", please add my blog. I will add your blog to my blog list. Giving our children the gift of languages is one of the best gifts we as parents can give. Please stop by my blog... I'll post activity ideas, resources and my own experience raising my two boys bilingual.

Hablamos pronto!
Maribel Suardy
www.wearelittleamigos.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

To motivate my kids... well, right now I've set up a point system and at the end of a certain period of time, if they have enough points, then they can choose a book from our local bookstore. Also, I try to set up playdates, but it gets a little harder when they get older.