K had a playdate with a friend from school this week. We've been planning it for several weeks, waiting for everyone to be in town and healthy, so when it finally came she was thrilled. She went home from school with the friend and her mom, and I came over after about two hours to have coffee and let the little boys play (we both have an older girl and younger boy).
It's been so miserable outside that we haven't even been able to go to the park or for longer walks since last fall, so I'm glad K had the opportunity to spend the afternoon with a friend. We have toys and things to do at home, but for such a people-oriented child as K, that just isn't enough. I know it can't be easy being the lone extrovert in a family of introverts (I even think M might lean more toward introversion when he gets older, but we'll see).
I'm sure it can't be as exhausting as it is being the introvert parent of an extrovert child who just - can't - understand why anyone would want to be alone with their own thoughts, though. :)
Anyway, I'm pleased the girls had fun, because I like this mom and talk to her a few times a week. She lives on our route home so we often walk home together and talk while the girls play together like maniacs as if they hadn't just spent all morning together at school.
I still need to make arrangements to meet with Russian Friend, K's best friend since she started at this school two years ago, when neither one of them spoke Czech. Her mother is also very nice.
***
In reading news, K is still getting more confident and less frustrated as we go along. She has started spontaneously trying to read signs or words in books. Over the weekend we went to Starbucks and she read "coffee", "bus", "tram", "push" and "tam" (the last two on a door). It is kind of hard to find English (or short Czech) words in public, but there are some. One afternoon this week she spontaneously read "Angry Duck" (on Happy Hippo book) and tried to read a children's encyclopedia (managed a few words, but the reading level was too high otherwise).
I think this is important because she is starting to see that reading is both useful and possible, and most of all it is her own initiative. She is very motivated to do her lessons, of course, but that is still guided by me. I love that she is starting to see the benefit on her own by finding "real" things to read. She is determined to learn among other reasons because she plans to teach M to read next. After he learns to talk.
Showing posts with label challenges. Show all posts
Showing posts with label challenges. Show all posts
Friday, February 22, 2013
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
When Reading Becomes a Mind Game
I always thought I would want my children to be early readers. I remember being 8 and coaching my 2-year-old sister on her letter sounds, or 10 and making up worksheets for her to practice writing at 4. I think it improved my handwriting but didn't have much effect on her.
Then I grew up and had children. I started reading and thinking about early childhood development and education, and changed my mind. I decided to neither deny nor force learning on my child, teaching her what she asked, when she asked. In Europe (at least our part) preschool and kindergarten are about play-based learning with no pressure to learn to read before first grade (fall 2014 for us), so we haven't had any outside pressure to step up the academics.
Then K asked me to teach her to write when she was less than 2. So we started a very slow introduction into formal learning, mainly using things like Kumon workbooks. They're great for the very young child who wants to 'do school'.
We eventually got to the point where K knows most/all of her letters and can write simple words by sounding them out, but she couldn't read by sounding out (or by word recognition). I wondered if she had some kind of block or if she just wasn't developmentally ready for it yet.
Then she started developing this kind of love-hate relationship with learning and reading in particular. She would passionately insist that I teach her something, wanting to keep going and going instead of just doing a short session, and then she would turn on a dime and say she hated learning and never wanted to go to big kid school, ever, not even a little bit. Often this happened when she made a mistake, even the tiniest mistake.
She went from yearning to go to big kid school (first grade) to regularly saying that she is afraid of big kid school and doesn't ever want to go. She wants to stay in preschool until she grows up and enter the workforce straight from there.
She finds it difficult to articulate why she is afraid of big kid school, but the main factors seem to be that she will not be able to learn to read, the other children will know more than her, she doesn't want to make new friends and she doesn't want to sit down at a desk and not play.
I believe other complicating factors are a strain of perfectionism, high expectations of herself and a tendency to be easily discouraged. Not to point fingers, but the Slovak has also been known to make dramatic NEVER statements when frustrated. And, of course, high expectations and emotional intensity also describes me as a child, though according to my mother I didn't really lose my temper, I just wouldn't give up until I mastered whatever I was trying.
I first decided to slow down the 'reading lessons' (occasionally we would sit down and practice writing or reading some simple words) and focus on me reading to her instead, since she seemed to be getting more and more anxious, but that didn't work. It still came up at odd times and she would break down during the day or at bedtime, saying she would never learn to read and didn't want to go to school.
Then it occurred to me that maybe by not teaching her to read properly I was just dragging things out and contributing to her anxiety, allowing her to build it up in her mind as this impossible, terrifying thing. Maybe instead of backing off I should just TEACH HER TO READ now so that she would see she can do it and stop being afraid.
That's my current theory.
I had already ordered Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons and brought it back with us, because several people, including Perogyo, recommended it specifically.
When we got home from our trip I decided to make time every day (with a jealous 15-month-old and as little as a one-hour window between Apo coming home and bedtime, this is an issue), buckle down and go through the book one lesson per day.
The first day K breezed through Lesson 1 with no difficulty and wanted to do the next lesson right away (as usual). I said no, let's keep it short and just do one per day. She lost it. She went in a heartbeat from 'please can we do more, it's all I've ever wanted' to 'fine, I won't do any more lessons ever, I don't want to learn to read, I don't want to go to big kid school, I don't like words, I only like dressing up and playing and I do like writing because that's different, but not reading...'
It was not a very coherent rant but I did like the part about not liking words. I talked her down from the ledge and she cheerfully drew a few pictures before putting the book and paper away. The next day she skipped in from being outside and asked if we can do our lesson now please.
Yesterday we did Lesson 11 and I have to say - it works! I can see the logic in the way things are presented and within two or three lessons, when you start actually sounding out two to three letter words, K could do it. She had a couple of specific difficulties with the concept of sounding out and the book addresses these straight away (probably common problems then). She still gets frustrated sometimes but not as badly and she is very encouraged by her success when she reads words on her own.
I hope to report in three months' time that we have finished the book and K is reading with confidence!
Then I grew up and had children. I started reading and thinking about early childhood development and education, and changed my mind. I decided to neither deny nor force learning on my child, teaching her what she asked, when she asked. In Europe (at least our part) preschool and kindergarten are about play-based learning with no pressure to learn to read before first grade (fall 2014 for us), so we haven't had any outside pressure to step up the academics.
Then K asked me to teach her to write when she was less than 2. So we started a very slow introduction into formal learning, mainly using things like Kumon workbooks. They're great for the very young child who wants to 'do school'.
We eventually got to the point where K knows most/all of her letters and can write simple words by sounding them out, but she couldn't read by sounding out (or by word recognition). I wondered if she had some kind of block or if she just wasn't developmentally ready for it yet.
Then she started developing this kind of love-hate relationship with learning and reading in particular. She would passionately insist that I teach her something, wanting to keep going and going instead of just doing a short session, and then she would turn on a dime and say she hated learning and never wanted to go to big kid school, ever, not even a little bit. Often this happened when she made a mistake, even the tiniest mistake.
She went from yearning to go to big kid school (first grade) to regularly saying that she is afraid of big kid school and doesn't ever want to go. She wants to stay in preschool until she grows up and enter the workforce straight from there.
She finds it difficult to articulate why she is afraid of big kid school, but the main factors seem to be that she will not be able to learn to read, the other children will know more than her, she doesn't want to make new friends and she doesn't want to sit down at a desk and not play.
I believe other complicating factors are a strain of perfectionism, high expectations of herself and a tendency to be easily discouraged. Not to point fingers, but the Slovak has also been known to make dramatic NEVER statements when frustrated. And, of course, high expectations and emotional intensity also describes me as a child, though according to my mother I didn't really lose my temper, I just wouldn't give up until I mastered whatever I was trying.
I first decided to slow down the 'reading lessons' (occasionally we would sit down and practice writing or reading some simple words) and focus on me reading to her instead, since she seemed to be getting more and more anxious, but that didn't work. It still came up at odd times and she would break down during the day or at bedtime, saying she would never learn to read and didn't want to go to school.
Then it occurred to me that maybe by not teaching her to read properly I was just dragging things out and contributing to her anxiety, allowing her to build it up in her mind as this impossible, terrifying thing. Maybe instead of backing off I should just TEACH HER TO READ now so that she would see she can do it and stop being afraid.
That's my current theory.
I had already ordered Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons and brought it back with us, because several people, including Perogyo, recommended it specifically.
When we got home from our trip I decided to make time every day (with a jealous 15-month-old and as little as a one-hour window between Apo coming home and bedtime, this is an issue), buckle down and go through the book one lesson per day.
The first day K breezed through Lesson 1 with no difficulty and wanted to do the next lesson right away (as usual). I said no, let's keep it short and just do one per day. She lost it. She went in a heartbeat from 'please can we do more, it's all I've ever wanted' to 'fine, I won't do any more lessons ever, I don't want to learn to read, I don't want to go to big kid school, I don't like words, I only like dressing up and playing and I do like writing because that's different, but not reading...'
It was not a very coherent rant but I did like the part about not liking words. I talked her down from the ledge and she cheerfully drew a few pictures before putting the book and paper away. The next day she skipped in from being outside and asked if we can do our lesson now please.
Yesterday we did Lesson 11 and I have to say - it works! I can see the logic in the way things are presented and within two or three lessons, when you start actually sounding out two to three letter words, K could do it. She had a couple of specific difficulties with the concept of sounding out and the book addresses these straight away (probably common problems then). She still gets frustrated sometimes but not as badly and she is very encouraged by her success when she reads words on her own.
I hope to report in three months' time that we have finished the book and K is reading with confidence!
Friday, November 16, 2012
WAHM
This week's lack of posts has been brought to you by Work. I got slammed on Tuesday and have been slinging off translations left and right since then.
I just submitted the final one but will not have time for a nap before picking up the girl child from preschool. Maybe I'll go pick up a chai latte and vanilla steamer for us instead.
Yes, our daughter has her own coffee* order. Recently she even got her own thermos cup to drink it from (we both have our own and decided she could use a small one).
* No actual coffee in it, just like mine, but it's from a coffee shop so we call it coffee.
Anyway, work. It's been crazy. I don't even try to get anything done in the afternoons any more, because it takes five hours to get one hour of work done with both children home. Morning and after-bedtime work is better for the family but worse for me due to lost sleep and no free time. I can be awfully efficient with limited working hours, though, I have to say.
I will still be happy to switch to days in a couple of years when I can.
This afternoon and evening I can get reacquainted with things like dishes, showers, tidying up, and reading something other than reference sites. Maybe even a BOOK!
Unless I take another assignment before the end of the day, of course. :)
I just submitted the final one but will not have time for a nap before picking up the girl child from preschool. Maybe I'll go pick up a chai latte and vanilla steamer for us instead.
Yes, our daughter has her own coffee* order. Recently she even got her own thermos cup to drink it from (we both have our own and decided she could use a small one).
* No actual coffee in it, just like mine, but it's from a coffee shop so we call it coffee.
Anyway, work. It's been crazy. I don't even try to get anything done in the afternoons any more, because it takes five hours to get one hour of work done with both children home. Morning and after-bedtime work is better for the family but worse for me due to lost sleep and no free time. I can be awfully efficient with limited working hours, though, I have to say.
I will still be happy to switch to days in a couple of years when I can.
This afternoon and evening I can get reacquainted with things like dishes, showers, tidying up, and reading something other than reference sites. Maybe even a BOOK!
Unless I take another assignment before the end of the day, of course. :)
Monday, October 15, 2012
Two Years and Ready to Move On
The beginning of this month marks two years that we have been living in Prague again.
The move has been great for our language, because I'm not sure K would have started using actual Slovak sentences if we had stayed in an English environment (she was pretty young at the time, but she could only say individual words in CZ/SK). As it is she now speaks fluent Czech, understands Slovak perfectly and is able to have a normal relationship with her father and grandparents in their native language.
On a language level I'd say the move has been a complete success, because we've also maintained English (so far) without much effort. It's a lot easier having English as a minority language when the children spend more time with me.
There are a few other ways in which living here again has simplified our lives, but in a lot of other ways it is more difficult than it was in UK. When we lived in Prague before, it was as singles and then as a married couple without children. We moved to UK when K was less than 6 months old, so we never really experienced life in Prague with children.
Some of the differences seem kind of superficial (more things to do with children, playgroups, availability of certain services like LoveFilm, better shopping, better customer service), but they kind of add up when you take them as a whole.
And the one that's currently making my life difficult: availability of childcare for under-3s. In UK (and other places) you have the option of nursery (daycare) or childminders (home daycare) for pretty much any age. In the Czech Republic školka (preschool/nursery) starts at 3 and good luck finding a jesle (for younger children) - there are very few.
I don't want to put my children in full-time care, far from it, but a few hours a week for the younger one would give me time to work and time to think. Time that I don't have at present.
Three-year maternity leave is (really) great, but I would so appreciate some systemic support for those of us who can't take it for whatever reason. It's all very well for a person living in their home town to say there should be no need to leave a one year old with anyone but a relative! If I COULD call my mother or sister or mother-in-law, believe me, I WOULD!
Essentially my only option is to hire someone privately for in-home babysitting. I have been resisting this idea (logistic difficulties mainly) but I think the time may be coming unless something changes.
That's not the only thing that's got me feeling tired and worn, but it's one of them.
The Slovak had a quite difficult time adjusting to being back here - reverse culture shock. I can't remember if I blogged about it then, but it lasted quite a while. It was easier for me since as a foreigner, I had already had to get used to life here once, so I knew I could do it again.
He has been wanting to move away again pretty much since we got back, but I thought we just needed to give it time and maybe it would get better. That's why the two-year anniversary feels kind of significant, because now we have given it a chance. And it hasn't really gotten better. Some parts have, of course, but not enough.
One thing is that between being pregnant, having a baby and actually having paid work to do during the day I don't have the time to find and attend a playgroup that will be expensive and on the other side of Prague anyway. If I weren't working and had been less physically tied down for the past two years I might have found us something, but it would have taken more effort than I could give.
Our Prague friends have mostly moved away over the years and while our real friends live in this region (Central Europe), none are in this city. After a while we start looking around and wondering what actually holds us here, and the answers aren't very compelling.
We would really like to convince several of our friends from surrounding countries to pick a place for us to all move together, because that would be awesome. (Seriously, guys, let's make it happen!) Actually, if that place ended up being Prague I think it would make life in Prague start looking a lot more attractive. Isolation is a big part of the problem.
We go through waves of mildly wanting to move and REALLY wanting to move, but we're pretty much both in the same place now, I think. We don't see ourselves here in ten years. We don't really see ourselves here in three years, in fact.
I think that coming back was the right thing to do, because it gave K a strong grasp on Czech that we can build on in future years and it crystallized our thinking on whether we want to live here long-term or not. It would be good if we could hold out a few more years here so that M will have the same strong foundation K has had, but it may or may not work out that way.
I do love this country and there are definite positives to living here, but I can't deny some things are difficult here, and I am kind of ready for something easy. Which really just means a different set of challenges.
But I'd like to take my children to see the lambing. I'd like to take them to a toystore without fearing the staff will shout at them. I'd like some local friends. I'd like to be able to order in. And I could really, really do with a childminder a couple of times a week.
The move has been great for our language, because I'm not sure K would have started using actual Slovak sentences if we had stayed in an English environment (she was pretty young at the time, but she could only say individual words in CZ/SK). As it is she now speaks fluent Czech, understands Slovak perfectly and is able to have a normal relationship with her father and grandparents in their native language.
On a language level I'd say the move has been a complete success, because we've also maintained English (so far) without much effort. It's a lot easier having English as a minority language when the children spend more time with me.
There are a few other ways in which living here again has simplified our lives, but in a lot of other ways it is more difficult than it was in UK. When we lived in Prague before, it was as singles and then as a married couple without children. We moved to UK when K was less than 6 months old, so we never really experienced life in Prague with children.
Some of the differences seem kind of superficial (more things to do with children, playgroups, availability of certain services like LoveFilm, better shopping, better customer service), but they kind of add up when you take them as a whole.
And the one that's currently making my life difficult: availability of childcare for under-3s. In UK (and other places) you have the option of nursery (daycare) or childminders (home daycare) for pretty much any age. In the Czech Republic školka (preschool/nursery) starts at 3 and good luck finding a jesle (for younger children) - there are very few.
I don't want to put my children in full-time care, far from it, but a few hours a week for the younger one would give me time to work and time to think. Time that I don't have at present.
Three-year maternity leave is (really) great, but I would so appreciate some systemic support for those of us who can't take it for whatever reason. It's all very well for a person living in their home town to say there should be no need to leave a one year old with anyone but a relative! If I COULD call my mother or sister or mother-in-law, believe me, I WOULD!
Essentially my only option is to hire someone privately for in-home babysitting. I have been resisting this idea (logistic difficulties mainly) but I think the time may be coming unless something changes.
That's not the only thing that's got me feeling tired and worn, but it's one of them.
The Slovak had a quite difficult time adjusting to being back here - reverse culture shock. I can't remember if I blogged about it then, but it lasted quite a while. It was easier for me since as a foreigner, I had already had to get used to life here once, so I knew I could do it again.
He has been wanting to move away again pretty much since we got back, but I thought we just needed to give it time and maybe it would get better. That's why the two-year anniversary feels kind of significant, because now we have given it a chance. And it hasn't really gotten better. Some parts have, of course, but not enough.
One thing is that between being pregnant, having a baby and actually having paid work to do during the day I don't have the time to find and attend a playgroup that will be expensive and on the other side of Prague anyway. If I weren't working and had been less physically tied down for the past two years I might have found us something, but it would have taken more effort than I could give.
Our Prague friends have mostly moved away over the years and while our real friends live in this region (Central Europe), none are in this city. After a while we start looking around and wondering what actually holds us here, and the answers aren't very compelling.
We would really like to convince several of our friends from surrounding countries to pick a place for us to all move together, because that would be awesome. (Seriously, guys, let's make it happen!) Actually, if that place ended up being Prague I think it would make life in Prague start looking a lot more attractive. Isolation is a big part of the problem.
We go through waves of mildly wanting to move and REALLY wanting to move, but we're pretty much both in the same place now, I think. We don't see ourselves here in ten years. We don't really see ourselves here in three years, in fact.
I think that coming back was the right thing to do, because it gave K a strong grasp on Czech that we can build on in future years and it crystallized our thinking on whether we want to live here long-term or not. It would be good if we could hold out a few more years here so that M will have the same strong foundation K has had, but it may or may not work out that way.
I do love this country and there are definite positives to living here, but I can't deny some things are difficult here, and I am kind of ready for something easy. Which really just means a different set of challenges.
But I'd like to take my children to see the lambing. I'd like to take them to a toystore without fearing the staff will shout at them. I'd like some local friends. I'd like to be able to order in. And I could really, really do with a childminder a couple of times a week.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Surprise!
At the end of this month it will be two years since we moved back to Prague. It's gone pretty well, but not so perfectly that we're not open to the idea of a change.
K is four (and a half, she would want me to add) and fluent in Czech. She has trouble with a few sounds and she's still working the kinks out of her grammar, but a lot of children her age do the same. She loves her school and has become very Czech in some funny ways. She mixes Slovak into her Czech a lot and does not distinguish between the two very well, but I imagine that will come with time and continued exposure. The languages are really so similar that it would take a great deal of linguistic sophistication to draw the line between the two clearly.
M is ten months and the chillest baby ever. He is not yet walking, but that doesn't stop him from getting into everything in reach. He is a champion climber. He is starting to babble (ba, da) and can wave, clap, use a bit of baby signing and seems to recognize a few words but it's hard to tell. I feel like at this age K was making more sounds but understanding less, but we'll just have to wait and see what the next year brings as far as actual speech development for him.
I am confronting the classic problem of balancing two children and working from home and finding that anything else (blogging, playdates, housework...) tends to go by the wayside. The good news is I have enough business to work full time if I chose, but the bad news is I really can't until M is big enough to go to preschool. I'm really missing England and its nurseries right about now (before three years old you have to make private arrangements here, and I don't really want to hire a nanny). I wouldn't want to put him in full time, but two mornings a week or so would give me some time to work - and think - in peace. I think I'm getting grumpier in my old age. (Insert the Slovak nodding emphatically here.)
I need to let loose of the idea that each post has to be a production, because I would probably have time for mini-posts. I am active on Facebook, after all. :) But I always feel like if I don't have time to cover everything that has happened since my last post then I might as well not write at all, so the more time passes the harder it is to write.
It's not that we aren't still bilingual, though - in fact, things have been pretty peaceful on that front. K has a great command of Czech, occasionally uses a word I don't know, frequently comes home singing songs I don't know, and has developed a fascination with Hungarian in the last week so now knows several words in Hungarian. A girl from Hungary started at her preschool and K wants to talk to her, even more when she found out that the Slovak actually knows that language. So now she can say szia, igen, nem and koszi. (Pardon the spelling.) So we may be embarking on another language mini-adventure.
We have also recently started reading Little House in the Big Woods (first chapter book) and I'm building up K's repertoire of nursery rhymes and folk songs in English, since she knows a bunch in Czech and Slovak. She has a great memory for lyrics and the beginnings of an ear for music.
The Slovak is also doing fine - he had a hard time adjusting to living here again (reverse culture shock, his first experience with it) and still gets worked up about things once in a while, but in general he likes his job and likes talking to his daughter in his native language (um, more or less). I'm sure he will also be delighted to see this post, because he frequently hassles me about when I'm going to write again. And yet he seems oddly unwilling to do a guest post; he prefers me to do the work so he can read it. :)
So here you go, sweetie.
K is four (and a half, she would want me to add) and fluent in Czech. She has trouble with a few sounds and she's still working the kinks out of her grammar, but a lot of children her age do the same. She loves her school and has become very Czech in some funny ways. She mixes Slovak into her Czech a lot and does not distinguish between the two very well, but I imagine that will come with time and continued exposure. The languages are really so similar that it would take a great deal of linguistic sophistication to draw the line between the two clearly.
M is ten months and the chillest baby ever. He is not yet walking, but that doesn't stop him from getting into everything in reach. He is a champion climber. He is starting to babble (ba, da) and can wave, clap, use a bit of baby signing and seems to recognize a few words but it's hard to tell. I feel like at this age K was making more sounds but understanding less, but we'll just have to wait and see what the next year brings as far as actual speech development for him.
I am confronting the classic problem of balancing two children and working from home and finding that anything else (blogging, playdates, housework...) tends to go by the wayside. The good news is I have enough business to work full time if I chose, but the bad news is I really can't until M is big enough to go to preschool. I'm really missing England and its nurseries right about now (before three years old you have to make private arrangements here, and I don't really want to hire a nanny). I wouldn't want to put him in full time, but two mornings a week or so would give me some time to work - and think - in peace. I think I'm getting grumpier in my old age. (Insert the Slovak nodding emphatically here.)
I need to let loose of the idea that each post has to be a production, because I would probably have time for mini-posts. I am active on Facebook, after all. :) But I always feel like if I don't have time to cover everything that has happened since my last post then I might as well not write at all, so the more time passes the harder it is to write.
It's not that we aren't still bilingual, though - in fact, things have been pretty peaceful on that front. K has a great command of Czech, occasionally uses a word I don't know, frequently comes home singing songs I don't know, and has developed a fascination with Hungarian in the last week so now knows several words in Hungarian. A girl from Hungary started at her preschool and K wants to talk to her, even more when she found out that the Slovak actually knows that language. So now she can say szia, igen, nem and koszi. (Pardon the spelling.) So we may be embarking on another language mini-adventure.
We have also recently started reading Little House in the Big Woods (first chapter book) and I'm building up K's repertoire of nursery rhymes and folk songs in English, since she knows a bunch in Czech and Slovak. She has a great memory for lyrics and the beginnings of an ear for music.
The Slovak is also doing fine - he had a hard time adjusting to living here again (reverse culture shock, his first experience with it) and still gets worked up about things once in a while, but in general he likes his job and likes talking to his daughter in his native language (um, more or less). I'm sure he will also be delighted to see this post, because he frequently hassles me about when I'm going to write again. And yet he seems oddly unwilling to do a guest post; he prefers me to do the work so he can read it. :)
So here you go, sweetie.
Friday, October 28, 2011
I only like your English
This past Sunday night, my daughter and I had the following conversation:
"It's time to go to bed so you can get up for school in the morning."
"I don't want to go to school tomorrow. I'm not going to go there any more."
"Why not? You love going to school."
"I don't like my teachers or my friends or toys."
"But you like your teacher Lida."
"I do like Lida but not the other teachers."
"And you like your friends M [Russian] and L [New Zealand]."
"I do like M but not L. I don't want to be her friend any more. I bite L."
(K has claimed not to like L several times in the past several weeks, and actually did bite her at school a month or so ago.)
"That's not very kind, is it? L is your friend and we don't bite our friends."
"But I don't like L any more, because L speaks English and I don't want to speak English at school. I want to speak Czech like all the other kids. I don't like English."
"You don't like English?? But you and I speak English together."
"I do like your English, Mommy, I just don't like L's English."
"Well, that makes sense. You don't have to speak English at school if you don't want to, because everybody else speaks Czech there. Maybe you could tell L you want to speak Czech together."
"But L doesn't speak Czech."
"She does speak Czech actually - she just doesn't like to. But you know, even if L speaks English to you, you could answer her in Czech. You don't have to speak English if you don't want to, and if you want to play with someone else, just tell L that."
"I did tell L I want to play with somebody else, but she said no. So I bite her."
"It really isn't kind to bite people. Maybe you could tell your teacher if you want to play with someone else and L won't leave you alone, because you should be able to play with whoever you want."
---
I had suspected in the past several weeks that L might be more attached to K than K is to L, but I didn't know it was bothering her to this extent. I couldn't believe she was able to put into words at her age that it bothers her to stand out by speaking another language at preschool from the rest of her friends. It had occurred to me that she might feel that way (at least eventually), but I didn't want to suggest it to her by asking. I can't agree with her way of handling the issue - biting and telling L she isn't her friend - but I really can't fault the desire to use her languages in the appropriate contexts. That's completely understandable! After all, the rest of us get to choose when and where to use our languages. And I would hate for K to feel so self-conscious about it that she started to actually dislike English. Basically she is getting pulled into another child's language rebellion.
I brought up the key points from the above conversation with K's teachers at school on Monday, and they confirmed my feeling that L is more attached to K than K to L. They also added a new bit of information, which is that, in addition to preferring English, L is a bit bossy - always wants to choose what and how to play - and K is the only child agreeable enough to put up with it. K isn't a passive child, but she is obliging and typically doesn't insist on her own way, so I can see that dynamic existing. Being easy-going and adaptable is a good trait and evidence of a good heart, I think, but I don't want K to be so overwhelmed that she lets herself be pushed around until she feels the need to lash out in order to escape. Which seems to be what is happening.
We are reminding K regularly now (as are her teachers, once they found out how much it bothers her) that she can choose who to play with and what language to speak - she doesn't have to speak English if she isn't comfortable with it, even if L addresses her in English. And she doesn't have to go along with everything someone else wants in general, either. That's the trick, I suppose: taking charge of your own languages and your own life, and learning to stand up for yourself without biting people...
"It's time to go to bed so you can get up for school in the morning."
"I don't want to go to school tomorrow. I'm not going to go there any more."
"Why not? You love going to school."
"I don't like my teachers or my friends or toys."
"But you like your teacher Lida."
"I do like Lida but not the other teachers."
"And you like your friends M [Russian] and L [New Zealand]."
"I do like M but not L. I don't want to be her friend any more. I bite L."
(K has claimed not to like L several times in the past several weeks, and actually did bite her at school a month or so ago.)
"That's not very kind, is it? L is your friend and we don't bite our friends."
"But I don't like L any more, because L speaks English and I don't want to speak English at school. I want to speak Czech like all the other kids. I don't like English."
"You don't like English?? But you and I speak English together."
"I do like your English, Mommy, I just don't like L's English."
"Well, that makes sense. You don't have to speak English at school if you don't want to, because everybody else speaks Czech there. Maybe you could tell L you want to speak Czech together."
"But L doesn't speak Czech."
"She does speak Czech actually - she just doesn't like to. But you know, even if L speaks English to you, you could answer her in Czech. You don't have to speak English if you don't want to, and if you want to play with someone else, just tell L that."
"I did tell L I want to play with somebody else, but she said no. So I bite her."
"It really isn't kind to bite people. Maybe you could tell your teacher if you want to play with someone else and L won't leave you alone, because you should be able to play with whoever you want."
---
I had suspected in the past several weeks that L might be more attached to K than K is to L, but I didn't know it was bothering her to this extent. I couldn't believe she was able to put into words at her age that it bothers her to stand out by speaking another language at preschool from the rest of her friends. It had occurred to me that she might feel that way (at least eventually), but I didn't want to suggest it to her by asking. I can't agree with her way of handling the issue - biting and telling L she isn't her friend - but I really can't fault the desire to use her languages in the appropriate contexts. That's completely understandable! After all, the rest of us get to choose when and where to use our languages. And I would hate for K to feel so self-conscious about it that she started to actually dislike English. Basically she is getting pulled into another child's language rebellion.
I brought up the key points from the above conversation with K's teachers at school on Monday, and they confirmed my feeling that L is more attached to K than K to L. They also added a new bit of information, which is that, in addition to preferring English, L is a bit bossy - always wants to choose what and how to play - and K is the only child agreeable enough to put up with it. K isn't a passive child, but she is obliging and typically doesn't insist on her own way, so I can see that dynamic existing. Being easy-going and adaptable is a good trait and evidence of a good heart, I think, but I don't want K to be so overwhelmed that she lets herself be pushed around until she feels the need to lash out in order to escape. Which seems to be what is happening.
We are reminding K regularly now (as are her teachers, once they found out how much it bothers her) that she can choose who to play with and what language to speak - she doesn't have to speak English if she isn't comfortable with it, even if L addresses her in English. And she doesn't have to go along with everything someone else wants in general, either. That's the trick, I suppose: taking charge of your own languages and your own life, and learning to stand up for yourself without biting people...
Monday, October 10, 2011
Buried Under a Mountain of Laundry
...and the baby isn't even born yet.
On which point don't get me started (yes, due date has passed).
I never expected that the transition from three to four family members would be entirely stress-free, and I was definitely expecting some level of regression from K - AFTER the baby was born. I didn't realize that the adjustment and anxiety can start even before the baby is born, but...apparently it totally can.
I'd say it's been at least a month of increased wetting (from a child who NEVER wet), going from twice a week a month ago to twice a night last night. And then there's the daytime.
And then there's the increased clinginess and weepiness at pick-up and drop-off at school, although, interestingly, never actually during school. Presumably because the stress and changes are at home, not school.
And then there's the difficulty listening, which is what kicked everything off - back before I made the connection with the upcoming baby. Since I was expecting all of this more like now, not a month ago.
Generally we've been fielding a lot of emotional issues in our parenting recently. If you ask K, she is perfectly happy and not at all worried about anything. But then she tells a sad, sad story about being lost, alone in the woods, surrounded by lions (levs), tigers and spiders, having left the house in the night when Apo and I didn't hear her, and calling and calling us but we don't hear her so she gets eaten by the spiders. Alone. In the dark. And I think, could you tell me 'fear of abandonment' any more clearly?
I remind her that she's never been outside alone in her life, and she replies, "I know, it's PRETEND! And I was really sad about it..." I amend the story to say that nothing like that ever happened or ever will happen, but if it did, then we would hear her opening the door to leave and we would come to get her in the forest and protect her from the lions, tigers and spiders. She objects, "But we couldn't run away fast enough, so we got eaten." - "No, I picked you up and carried you while I ran." - "But your tummy is too big to pick me up or to run fast." - "Well, Apo came and found us and HE picked you up and rescued us both." She seems to like that ending, but it doesn't stop the stories entirely.
Despite the somewhat increased defiance and refusal to listen, K is actually still pretty sweet and affectionate - in between non-listening episodes, which seem to frustrate her afterward as much as they do us. Like she can't help herself. And the wetting isn't defiant; it seems genuinely involuntary and distressing/embarrassing to her. It's almost enough to make me think it's a physical rather than emotional issue, but the timing seems too coincidental to be a random infection at the same time as a major change at home.
I've tried to dial up the affection and reassurance and dial down the frustration, but it isn't easy. Especially knowing that the baby hasn't even been born yet, so we have at LEAST another several weeks to few months of this ahead. Our mattresses, and possibly our nerves, may never recover.
On which point don't get me started (yes, due date has passed).
I never expected that the transition from three to four family members would be entirely stress-free, and I was definitely expecting some level of regression from K - AFTER the baby was born. I didn't realize that the adjustment and anxiety can start even before the baby is born, but...apparently it totally can.
I'd say it's been at least a month of increased wetting (from a child who NEVER wet), going from twice a week a month ago to twice a night last night. And then there's the daytime.
And then there's the increased clinginess and weepiness at pick-up and drop-off at school, although, interestingly, never actually during school. Presumably because the stress and changes are at home, not school.
And then there's the difficulty listening, which is what kicked everything off - back before I made the connection with the upcoming baby. Since I was expecting all of this more like now, not a month ago.
Generally we've been fielding a lot of emotional issues in our parenting recently. If you ask K, she is perfectly happy and not at all worried about anything. But then she tells a sad, sad story about being lost, alone in the woods, surrounded by lions (levs), tigers and spiders, having left the house in the night when Apo and I didn't hear her, and calling and calling us but we don't hear her so she gets eaten by the spiders. Alone. In the dark. And I think, could you tell me 'fear of abandonment' any more clearly?
I remind her that she's never been outside alone in her life, and she replies, "I know, it's PRETEND! And I was really sad about it..." I amend the story to say that nothing like that ever happened or ever will happen, but if it did, then we would hear her opening the door to leave and we would come to get her in the forest and protect her from the lions, tigers and spiders. She objects, "But we couldn't run away fast enough, so we got eaten." - "No, I picked you up and carried you while I ran." - "But your tummy is too big to pick me up or to run fast." - "Well, Apo came and found us and HE picked you up and rescued us both." She seems to like that ending, but it doesn't stop the stories entirely.
Despite the somewhat increased defiance and refusal to listen, K is actually still pretty sweet and affectionate - in between non-listening episodes, which seem to frustrate her afterward as much as they do us. Like she can't help herself. And the wetting isn't defiant; it seems genuinely involuntary and distressing/embarrassing to her. It's almost enough to make me think it's a physical rather than emotional issue, but the timing seems too coincidental to be a random infection at the same time as a major change at home.
I've tried to dial up the affection and reassurance and dial down the frustration, but it isn't easy. Especially knowing that the baby hasn't even been born yet, so we have at LEAST another several weeks to few months of this ahead. Our mattresses, and possibly our nerves, may never recover.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Translation please!
The Slovak and I have always had a buffer between our families and our other culture, more or less by default, since we live so far away. By this I mean that we introduce certain cultural or language elements to the other side of the family, but always in a controlled and limited way and the families aren't living with The Foreign on a daily basis.
For example, my family is familiar with the Slovak/Hungarian family names we use (Apo, Babka, Dedo) and we've talked about various Foreign customs we keep and cooked Foreign food for them. At the Slovak's parents' house this past Christmas we set out a snack for Santa (and had to save it from Dedo clearing it away after 3 minutes). That kind of thing.
We don't often speak the other language when our parents are around, either, though we do when on our own or even in the next room. Or trying to make my sister uncomfortable. Because we're mature adults, we are.
...but that's all in person. A big part of our communication is obviously online, through Skype and - this is key - Facebook. Skype, of course, is still individual contact, but on Facebook all your friends see what you're saying (unless you take measures so they don't).
This becomes significant for us because both our parents have Facebook accounts and regularly look at our various updates. Obviously. We, in the meantime, have a very international circle of friends, a large number of whom speak both English and Czech or Slovak, so the conversations on our pages tend to be...multilingual.
I do a lot of conversation recording there, for instance, so a lot of my updates are half English, half CZ/SK, or all Czech, or all English except the one key word in Czech... Or else 3/4 of the comments to an English status are in CZ/SK...after all these years in Prague most of my close friends are here or in Slovakia, anyway!
Which brings us to the title of this post: the most frequent recent comment on the Slovak's and my pages is "Translation please!!" from my mother. Especially when she sees that it involves the word "K", of course. She wants to know what's going on in her granddaughter's life, or what funny thing she said today, and she can't understand the language it's in! How frustrating.
I brought it up to laugh at her on Skype the other day after several "Translation!!" comments in a row. "You don't like it when we have something on there that's not in English, do you?" She laughed and said, "It's frustrating!! The Slovak hardly ever has any English on his page any more, I just scroll down once in a while to check..." She understands that we live a multilingual life, but it's one thing to be aware of and another thing to witness.
So I go back and provide a translation when requested, though of course The Funny is sometimes lost when explained, and recently half the "translations" have been "The Slovak is talking about hockey again" (world championships in Slovakia!).
We actually get fairly regular comments from various people, asking for translations or mentioning they don't understand - or pretending they do understand - although I've been concentrating on my mom's reactions in this post because with K's recent Czech explosion this is really the first experience my family has had of what Babka and Dedo have all the time: a grandchild saying funny things (and inspiring Facebook updates) in a language they don't understand. I love that my mother wants to know even the things that are strange to her, though.
So basically, this is another stage of the grandparents learning to live with the reality of a new, Foreign element in the family. I've written about other aspects before, and no doubt will again.
This multilingual family thing, it is a balancing act. And the balancing always fascinates me.
For example, my family is familiar with the Slovak/Hungarian family names we use (Apo, Babka, Dedo) and we've talked about various Foreign customs we keep and cooked Foreign food for them. At the Slovak's parents' house this past Christmas we set out a snack for Santa (and had to save it from Dedo clearing it away after 3 minutes). That kind of thing.
We don't often speak the other language when our parents are around, either, though we do when on our own or even in the next room. Or trying to make my sister uncomfortable. Because we're mature adults, we are.
...but that's all in person. A big part of our communication is obviously online, through Skype and - this is key - Facebook. Skype, of course, is still individual contact, but on Facebook all your friends see what you're saying (unless you take measures so they don't).
This becomes significant for us because both our parents have Facebook accounts and regularly look at our various updates. Obviously. We, in the meantime, have a very international circle of friends, a large number of whom speak both English and Czech or Slovak, so the conversations on our pages tend to be...multilingual.
I do a lot of conversation recording there, for instance, so a lot of my updates are half English, half CZ/SK, or all Czech, or all English except the one key word in Czech... Or else 3/4 of the comments to an English status are in CZ/SK...after all these years in Prague most of my close friends are here or in Slovakia, anyway!
Which brings us to the title of this post: the most frequent recent comment on the Slovak's and my pages is "Translation please!!" from my mother. Especially when she sees that it involves the word "K", of course. She wants to know what's going on in her granddaughter's life, or what funny thing she said today, and she can't understand the language it's in! How frustrating.
I brought it up to laugh at her on Skype the other day after several "Translation!!" comments in a row. "You don't like it when we have something on there that's not in English, do you?" She laughed and said, "It's frustrating!! The Slovak hardly ever has any English on his page any more, I just scroll down once in a while to check..." She understands that we live a multilingual life, but it's one thing to be aware of and another thing to witness.
So I go back and provide a translation when requested, though of course The Funny is sometimes lost when explained, and recently half the "translations" have been "The Slovak is talking about hockey again" (world championships in Slovakia!).
We actually get fairly regular comments from various people, asking for translations or mentioning they don't understand - or pretending they do understand - although I've been concentrating on my mom's reactions in this post because with K's recent Czech explosion this is really the first experience my family has had of what Babka and Dedo have all the time: a grandchild saying funny things (and inspiring Facebook updates) in a language they don't understand. I love that my mother wants to know even the things that are strange to her, though.
So basically, this is another stage of the grandparents learning to live with the reality of a new, Foreign element in the family. I've written about other aspects before, and no doubt will again.
This multilingual family thing, it is a balancing act. And the balancing always fascinates me.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Montessori: Our final verdict
I haven't written about K's school in quite a while. The short answer being that we aren't too thrilled with it...
We had reservations from the beginning (see "education" tab for a few, though I didn't mention them all) but didn't have many options and thought a bilingual school might be a good halfway house before Czech schools.
The "bilingual" aspect was disappointing, since the classroom teachers are non-native speakers of both Czech and English and seem to spend all their time speaking to the children in English, anyway. I noticed that at pick-up the "Czech" teacher always spoke English to K, which made me suspect that she might ALWAYS speak English to K, and when I went for parent observation in November that was confirmed in the classroom. Then I went for K's birthday celebration and saw that again, everything was in English (birthday celebration during morning circle time) except what was addressed specifically to K's grandmother, who came with me and doesn't speak English.
So "bilingual" = "actually we pretty much speak English", which is great for Czech parents wanting their kids to learn English and probably ok for foreign parents who don't much care whether their kids learn Czech or not, but for a Czech-speaking family wanting to help their child learn Czech after a few years abroad (it's us! it's us!), not so helpful.
More problematic than that, though, was the atmosphere at the school. I'm not sure if all Montessori schools are like this or if it's just this one, but the classroom sessions we observed were incredibly sterile, controlled and not very engaging. A classroom full of preschoolers working was almost completely silent: the teachers whispered to the students, who were also expected to whisper.
I also watched my daughter working with one of the activities and trying to play with it in a different way: building a tower out of the blocks instead of lining them up in the determined way. The teacher, who was sitting right there, didn't exactly chastise her, but redirected her and when K persisted in building, the teacher suggested she go and get the tower-building blocks. I was surprised that the expectations were so rigid and that there wasn't more support for thinking outside the box, which to me says good things like Creativity and Resourcefulness and I Am Not Even Three Years Old, What Do You Expect? Haha.
The birthday observation was also instructive, since I got to see how "ellipse time" looks at least loosely. There was a lot more sterility and long stretches of silence. K was thrilled to be sitting in the special birthday chair, but was otherwise obviously uncomfortable with the extra attention and didn't understand what was expected of her. The teacher did not, in my opinion, do a good job of explaining what was expected, either. That is, she explained, but not fully enough for a newly turned 3 year old to understand. The expectations weren't complicated, but were expressed in sentences too complex for a child this age under stressful conditions to fully grasp. When I touched K's arm and told her the same thing in a different way, also in English, she responded instantly. Or, for example, when the teacher brought out the birthday cards the children had made, she showed each one to the class and set it on the floor in front of her. K, predictably, wanted to get the cards herself - they were HER cards! Since the teacher didn't let her have them and didn't explain (first we all look and then I give them to you), K spent that time pouting and wanting to leave the circle. They didn't actually do the full Montessori birthday ceremony, either because there wasn't time with all the long, long pauses or because they thought K wasn't being cooperative enough (since she was uncomfortable and confused).
Any time the children moved off the designated ellipse or raised their voices above a quiet indoor voice, the teacher got their attention by chanting a quiet two-tone "thank you" or the child's name. I found the chant-singing oddly creepy, if effective. Also when the teacher randomly asked a child to pick a song (I think because the child was being too active or wanted to sing?), that child was the only one who sang it while everyone else listened. Is that a Montessori thing?
I also went for a parent-teacher conference a few weeks ago. They gave us an evaluation of the child in advance that assessed skills in various areas, graded on a scale of beginner - making progress - advanced (or similar). The only area where K had top marks was in "speaking English". Guess I'm doing my job on that front! The other areas, though, were all marked as beginner or at most making progress - even areas where I know K's abilities to be at or above age level. It made me wonder what standards they were using, if children are judged against the whole age range of the class (3-6 year olds) or if each age is judged separately (separate standards just for 3 year olds). Because, sure, my daughter's knowledge of, say, colors is probably not as advanced as a 5 or 6 year old, but she knows them all and mixes them up rarely, which to me is where a 3 year old should be. Either the standards are impossibly high or quite possibly K, like many other children, doesn't demonstrate the same abilities in the classroom as she does at home. That's fair enough, so I didn't give it much more thought. In the conference itself the teacher made a few observations that I thought were accurate and a few I thought weren't, which is probably pretty typical.
I do admire the level of discipline the teachers are able to keep in the classroom, but it's not my style. There were things I did like in the few glimpses I had into the classroom, like looking at the map and talking about different countries or making a poster with the birthday girl's name, picture and age for the classroom door. We still have it hanging up at home.
But overall, too controlled, too sterile, too rigid. Not Our Style. K seemed to like it at first, but over time has been more and more reluctant to go. She's also been going through a major mommy-phase recently, which I only this week realized could be connected to being unhappy at school. She is unusually clingy and wants me to dress her, read to her, etc. - not anyone else. Most tellingly, when I tell her she's going to school tomorrow, she says, "I don't want to go, Mama, I want to stay home with you." That, people, is NOT my Baby K. If she said that at 7 am when she doesn't want to get out of bed that would be one thing, but in the afternoon the day before it seems more like she really means it.
I could get over the seaweed they feed them at lunchtime (oh, how I WISH that was an exaggeration), I could get over the not great English, I could get over the very, very difficult daily commute (takes 45-60 minutes one way), I could get over the very high school fees, I could get over pretty much any one of these negative points, but taken all together it just becomes too much to accept. K isn't happy there, I'm not happy sending her there. This particular Montessori school gets a thumbs down from the entire Where Going Havo family.
But! Coming up next time (because this one got long), the happy ending. We found a new school...
We had reservations from the beginning (see "education" tab for a few, though I didn't mention them all) but didn't have many options and thought a bilingual school might be a good halfway house before Czech schools.
The "bilingual" aspect was disappointing, since the classroom teachers are non-native speakers of both Czech and English and seem to spend all their time speaking to the children in English, anyway. I noticed that at pick-up the "Czech" teacher always spoke English to K, which made me suspect that she might ALWAYS speak English to K, and when I went for parent observation in November that was confirmed in the classroom. Then I went for K's birthday celebration and saw that again, everything was in English (birthday celebration during morning circle time) except what was addressed specifically to K's grandmother, who came with me and doesn't speak English.
So "bilingual" = "actually we pretty much speak English", which is great for Czech parents wanting their kids to learn English and probably ok for foreign parents who don't much care whether their kids learn Czech or not, but for a Czech-speaking family wanting to help their child learn Czech after a few years abroad (it's us! it's us!), not so helpful.
More problematic than that, though, was the atmosphere at the school. I'm not sure if all Montessori schools are like this or if it's just this one, but the classroom sessions we observed were incredibly sterile, controlled and not very engaging. A classroom full of preschoolers working was almost completely silent: the teachers whispered to the students, who were also expected to whisper.
I also watched my daughter working with one of the activities and trying to play with it in a different way: building a tower out of the blocks instead of lining them up in the determined way. The teacher, who was sitting right there, didn't exactly chastise her, but redirected her and when K persisted in building, the teacher suggested she go and get the tower-building blocks. I was surprised that the expectations were so rigid and that there wasn't more support for thinking outside the box, which to me says good things like Creativity and Resourcefulness and I Am Not Even Three Years Old, What Do You Expect? Haha.
The birthday observation was also instructive, since I got to see how "ellipse time" looks at least loosely. There was a lot more sterility and long stretches of silence. K was thrilled to be sitting in the special birthday chair, but was otherwise obviously uncomfortable with the extra attention and didn't understand what was expected of her. The teacher did not, in my opinion, do a good job of explaining what was expected, either. That is, she explained, but not fully enough for a newly turned 3 year old to understand. The expectations weren't complicated, but were expressed in sentences too complex for a child this age under stressful conditions to fully grasp. When I touched K's arm and told her the same thing in a different way, also in English, she responded instantly. Or, for example, when the teacher brought out the birthday cards the children had made, she showed each one to the class and set it on the floor in front of her. K, predictably, wanted to get the cards herself - they were HER cards! Since the teacher didn't let her have them and didn't explain (first we all look and then I give them to you), K spent that time pouting and wanting to leave the circle. They didn't actually do the full Montessori birthday ceremony, either because there wasn't time with all the long, long pauses or because they thought K wasn't being cooperative enough (since she was uncomfortable and confused).
Any time the children moved off the designated ellipse or raised their voices above a quiet indoor voice, the teacher got their attention by chanting a quiet two-tone "thank you" or the child's name. I found the chant-singing oddly creepy, if effective. Also when the teacher randomly asked a child to pick a song (I think because the child was being too active or wanted to sing?), that child was the only one who sang it while everyone else listened. Is that a Montessori thing?
I also went for a parent-teacher conference a few weeks ago. They gave us an evaluation of the child in advance that assessed skills in various areas, graded on a scale of beginner - making progress - advanced (or similar). The only area where K had top marks was in "speaking English". Guess I'm doing my job on that front! The other areas, though, were all marked as beginner or at most making progress - even areas where I know K's abilities to be at or above age level. It made me wonder what standards they were using, if children are judged against the whole age range of the class (3-6 year olds) or if each age is judged separately (separate standards just for 3 year olds). Because, sure, my daughter's knowledge of, say, colors is probably not as advanced as a 5 or 6 year old, but she knows them all and mixes them up rarely, which to me is where a 3 year old should be. Either the standards are impossibly high or quite possibly K, like many other children, doesn't demonstrate the same abilities in the classroom as she does at home. That's fair enough, so I didn't give it much more thought. In the conference itself the teacher made a few observations that I thought were accurate and a few I thought weren't, which is probably pretty typical.
I do admire the level of discipline the teachers are able to keep in the classroom, but it's not my style. There were things I did like in the few glimpses I had into the classroom, like looking at the map and talking about different countries or making a poster with the birthday girl's name, picture and age for the classroom door. We still have it hanging up at home.
But overall, too controlled, too sterile, too rigid. Not Our Style. K seemed to like it at first, but over time has been more and more reluctant to go. She's also been going through a major mommy-phase recently, which I only this week realized could be connected to being unhappy at school. She is unusually clingy and wants me to dress her, read to her, etc. - not anyone else. Most tellingly, when I tell her she's going to school tomorrow, she says, "I don't want to go, Mama, I want to stay home with you." That, people, is NOT my Baby K. If she said that at 7 am when she doesn't want to get out of bed that would be one thing, but in the afternoon the day before it seems more like she really means it.
I could get over the seaweed they feed them at lunchtime (oh, how I WISH that was an exaggeration), I could get over the not great English, I could get over the very, very difficult daily commute (takes 45-60 minutes one way), I could get over the very high school fees, I could get over pretty much any one of these negative points, but taken all together it just becomes too much to accept. K isn't happy there, I'm not happy sending her there. This particular Montessori school gets a thumbs down from the entire Where Going Havo family.
But! Coming up next time (because this one got long), the happy ending. We found a new school...
Monday, November 29, 2010
This and That
OK, I can breathe again. I'm still recovering from this weekend. As it turns out, 3rd birthday with associated outing, cake baking, present wrapping and unwrapping + (Slovak) grandmother visiting + big translation project due Monday = very late nights over the weekend for mama.
---
K had fun playing with Babka for the five days she was here. It was supposed to be six, but with the big snowfall predicted she decided to take the train back yesterday, instead. Possibly a good thing she did, because it started coming down yesterday and hasn't really stopped since.
At one point last week I looked over at where K and Babka were sitting in chairs (kid and adult sized), both with cushions under their bottoms. Babka because it helps her stand up from the chair, and K because, well, Babka has one, doesn't she?
K communicated with Babka occasionally in Slovak but mostly continued her English immersion policy (teaching the rest of the country English instead of learning Czech herself, that is). Several times we reminded her that Babka doesn't understand English so K needs to speak Slovak to her, and K would say the one word she needed and then go back to chattering in English.
The stubbornness, she gets it from her father.
---
K has been doing some stuttering lately that I don't really like. More like she just gets stuck on one word and can't get past it - "Mama, why you, why you, why you, why you, why you do that?" I noticed it before we left UK, which is a good thing because if I'd noticed it once we got here I'd probably be panicking that the shock of the move or change in language environment was giving my child a stutter. So at least I know it wasn't caused by the change of environment.
Dr. Google informed me that a lot of children actually go through a stuttering stage at about this age and that most of them grow out of it. So that's comforting. I haven't been making an issue of it, of course, but it is occasionally trying to stand there patiently and let K finish her sentence instead of jumping in and finishing it for her. I think in K's case it's probably related to the huge jump in sophistication of her speech (putting in all the connecting words, etc.) recently: she is probably getting stuck trying to get the more complicated grammar and vocabulary out. She's gone from "Mama! Hep!" to "Mama, can you help me please?" in a very short time.
Still. I'll be happy when I see that she's grown out of it.
---
Annnnnnd in the time it took me to write this I got another longish assignment for this week. Off to work.
---
K had fun playing with Babka for the five days she was here. It was supposed to be six, but with the big snowfall predicted she decided to take the train back yesterday, instead. Possibly a good thing she did, because it started coming down yesterday and hasn't really stopped since.
At one point last week I looked over at where K and Babka were sitting in chairs (kid and adult sized), both with cushions under their bottoms. Babka because it helps her stand up from the chair, and K because, well, Babka has one, doesn't she?
K communicated with Babka occasionally in Slovak but mostly continued her English immersion policy (teaching the rest of the country English instead of learning Czech herself, that is). Several times we reminded her that Babka doesn't understand English so K needs to speak Slovak to her, and K would say the one word she needed and then go back to chattering in English.
The stubbornness, she gets it from her father.
---
K has been doing some stuttering lately that I don't really like. More like she just gets stuck on one word and can't get past it - "Mama, why you, why you, why you, why you, why you do that?" I noticed it before we left UK, which is a good thing because if I'd noticed it once we got here I'd probably be panicking that the shock of the move or change in language environment was giving my child a stutter. So at least I know it wasn't caused by the change of environment.
Dr. Google informed me that a lot of children actually go through a stuttering stage at about this age and that most of them grow out of it. So that's comforting. I haven't been making an issue of it, of course, but it is occasionally trying to stand there patiently and let K finish her sentence instead of jumping in and finishing it for her. I think in K's case it's probably related to the huge jump in sophistication of her speech (putting in all the connecting words, etc.) recently: she is probably getting stuck trying to get the more complicated grammar and vocabulary out. She's gone from "Mama! Hep!" to "Mama, can you help me please?" in a very short time.
Still. I'll be happy when I see that she's grown out of it.
---
Annnnnnd in the time it took me to write this I got another longish assignment for this week. Off to work.
Monday, October 25, 2010
One Month In
It's been almost a month since we packed up and set off for lands unknown. Unknown, that is, as far as our daughter was concerned. She was born here but that doesn't mean much to her as she doesn't remember anything but England!
One month in, I'd say it's going well. K adapts well to changes and is an experienced traveler. She still asks about her friends in England, for example if they will go to her new preschool. She takes it well, though, when I explain that England is too far a commute.
She loves her bilingual preschool and has a pack of friends, both Czech and foreign. She refers to the teachers as "teta" in Slovak and "that lady" in English. Unfortunately we don't have any neighborhood friends or playgroup type activities yet, but then it took us a very long time to hit our stride when we moved to UK, too. We'll find out where the fun people are eventually!
She still speaks to people in English and seems to feel that if anyone doesn't understand her, well that is THEIR problem and has nothing to do with HER. She is, however, using more and more Slovak and Czech words when talking to Czech speakers. Last week she called me "Maminko!" - correct Czech ending and all. I still wouldn't call it a Czech explosion at this point, but that would be a little premature to expect, anyway.
K's English is still developing in amusing ways. Her imagination is wild and her use of language is more and more able to express it. She breaks out with new phrases I haven't taught her even now in a Czech environment. Most recently "ages and ages" - "I did that ages and ages [ago]." She started talking about "good choices" and "bad choices" this month - I think they must talk about that at preschool. K's approach is usually to do something naughty and then insist, "That not a bad choice." If I suggest that it was maybe not such a good choice after all, she can get kind of defensive, insisting at the top of her lungs, "I GOOD CHOICE, THAT NOT A BAD CHOICE."
We've had to work on adapting to new rules, like teaching K the rules of traveling on public transportation or other aspects of city life. I don't really like it, but I have to shush her more than I did before. Living in an apartment building you can't jump up and down repeatedly on a wooden floor without annoying the neighbors. Can't shout in the hallway, no matter how fun the echo is. Not to mention the different rules once you leave home. K is an agreeable little girl and is picking up on what is expected, but it's still an adjustment.
The adjustments aren't just on her part, either. My poor husband is going through reverse culture shock for essentially the first time (he's traveled very extensively but never lived abroad [i.e. not Czech Republic or Slovakia] before). I'm going through the adjustment, too, but as a foreigner I remember what it took to get used to life here the first time, so I can do it again. The Slovak gets worked up about things, like "The waiters! They're rude! How dare they be rude!" and I pretty much answer, "I know, they've always been rude!" The good thing is I think I'm a little more relaxed this time around, even if I do require the Slovak to give me a refresher course on random things and how they work once in a while. I never claimed to have ALL the kinks worked out. :)
All in all...not a bad start to Life In Prague, Take 2. No major breakthroughs or setbacks to report, just steady forward progress. And we have yet to get tired of fresh Czech bread for dinner.
One month in, I'd say it's going well. K adapts well to changes and is an experienced traveler. She still asks about her friends in England, for example if they will go to her new preschool. She takes it well, though, when I explain that England is too far a commute.
She loves her bilingual preschool and has a pack of friends, both Czech and foreign. She refers to the teachers as "teta" in Slovak and "that lady" in English. Unfortunately we don't have any neighborhood friends or playgroup type activities yet, but then it took us a very long time to hit our stride when we moved to UK, too. We'll find out where the fun people are eventually!
She still speaks to people in English and seems to feel that if anyone doesn't understand her, well that is THEIR problem and has nothing to do with HER. She is, however, using more and more Slovak and Czech words when talking to Czech speakers. Last week she called me "Maminko!" - correct Czech ending and all. I still wouldn't call it a Czech explosion at this point, but that would be a little premature to expect, anyway.
K's English is still developing in amusing ways. Her imagination is wild and her use of language is more and more able to express it. She breaks out with new phrases I haven't taught her even now in a Czech environment. Most recently "ages and ages" - "I did that ages and ages [ago]." She started talking about "good choices" and "bad choices" this month - I think they must talk about that at preschool. K's approach is usually to do something naughty and then insist, "That not a bad choice." If I suggest that it was maybe not such a good choice after all, she can get kind of defensive, insisting at the top of her lungs, "I GOOD CHOICE, THAT NOT A BAD CHOICE."
We've had to work on adapting to new rules, like teaching K the rules of traveling on public transportation or other aspects of city life. I don't really like it, but I have to shush her more than I did before. Living in an apartment building you can't jump up and down repeatedly on a wooden floor without annoying the neighbors. Can't shout in the hallway, no matter how fun the echo is. Not to mention the different rules once you leave home. K is an agreeable little girl and is picking up on what is expected, but it's still an adjustment.
The adjustments aren't just on her part, either. My poor husband is going through reverse culture shock for essentially the first time (he's traveled very extensively but never lived abroad [i.e. not Czech Republic or Slovakia] before). I'm going through the adjustment, too, but as a foreigner I remember what it took to get used to life here the first time, so I can do it again. The Slovak gets worked up about things, like "The waiters! They're rude! How dare they be rude!" and I pretty much answer, "I know, they've always been rude!" The good thing is I think I'm a little more relaxed this time around, even if I do require the Slovak to give me a refresher course on random things and how they work once in a while. I never claimed to have ALL the kinks worked out. :)
All in all...not a bad start to Life In Prague, Take 2. No major breakthroughs or setbacks to report, just steady forward progress. And we have yet to get tired of fresh Czech bread for dinner.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Parenting Now
This post is part of the September Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism, hosted this month by Maria at Fab Mums.
In talking and reading about bilingual (or potentially bilingual) families, I have often been struck by the conflict between an overly long-term and overly short-term view.
What I mean by that is those parents who give up on speaking an additional language to their kids for reasons in the short term like inconvenience, refusal to respond in the language, child not understanding the language as well so parent quits entirely, speaking majority language so the child will get on in school, and all sorts of other relatively short-term concerns. For example, in the short term it would have been easier for the Slovak to just speak English to her, or for me to speak Czech to her while we're in UK (so she would speak it when we move back), but I think in the long run those solutions wouldn't hold up.
I don't think that any of these are problems so insurmountable that the family should give up its language (because truly, stick with it and the child WILL almost certainly be fine in the end), but unlike a lot of the popular advice floating around, I DO think they are valid concerns and shouldn't be dismissed off-hand.
Then at the other end of the spectrum is the over-emphasis on long-term development. Every conversation I have about moving to a country where my daughter doesn't speak the language well includes the repeated reassurance, "She's so young, she'll be fine!" I have taken to saying it first, actually: "I know that at her age she'll be fine eventually, but [insert mild concern here]..." It is true! At her age we will ultimately be more concerned with keeping Czech from taking over completely as her dominant language. But.
What has struck me in the last year, faced with long-term reassurances like "She will be fine in the end," is that while she WILL be fine in the end and maybe even in the middle, I can't focus solely on the end result and ignore the present. I am her mother now. It is my job to be concerned about her welfare both present and future. I can't blithely go on, assuming she'll be "fine in the end", and ignore the real girl struggling today.
She will be fine in the end, but today she is sad because the children on the playground ignored her. She will be fine in the end, but today she is confused because the stranger on the bus didn't smile at her greeting.
She will be fine in the end, but today she kicks the ground and says with self-disgust, "I can't talk!" because she can't get the words out right in the other language.
I really believe that the long-term benefits will make the struggle getting there worth it, but I can't just casually dismiss the process without acknowledging it CAN be a struggle. I can look ahead to sending my trilingual third-grader off to Czech school with a smile, but in my haste to get there I can't overlook the tiny preschooler who is my today - and an over-hasty rush to say "fine in the end!" feels to me like overlooking and trivializing the tiny preschooler's real and current feelings. She won't even remember this, but I'm not just responsible for the parts of her life she remembers, am I? I have to watch and guide her and shield her from unproductive pain even if it is just transient.
She will be fine in the end, but I am not her mother just "in the end" - I am her mother now and every day until we reach that end in which we will be fine.
In talking and reading about bilingual (or potentially bilingual) families, I have often been struck by the conflict between an overly long-term and overly short-term view.
What I mean by that is those parents who give up on speaking an additional language to their kids for reasons in the short term like inconvenience, refusal to respond in the language, child not understanding the language as well so parent quits entirely, speaking majority language so the child will get on in school, and all sorts of other relatively short-term concerns. For example, in the short term it would have been easier for the Slovak to just speak English to her, or for me to speak Czech to her while we're in UK (so she would speak it when we move back), but I think in the long run those solutions wouldn't hold up.
I don't think that any of these are problems so insurmountable that the family should give up its language (because truly, stick with it and the child WILL almost certainly be fine in the end), but unlike a lot of the popular advice floating around, I DO think they are valid concerns and shouldn't be dismissed off-hand.
Then at the other end of the spectrum is the over-emphasis on long-term development. Every conversation I have about moving to a country where my daughter doesn't speak the language well includes the repeated reassurance, "She's so young, she'll be fine!" I have taken to saying it first, actually: "I know that at her age she'll be fine eventually, but [insert mild concern here]..." It is true! At her age we will ultimately be more concerned with keeping Czech from taking over completely as her dominant language. But.
What has struck me in the last year, faced with long-term reassurances like "She will be fine in the end," is that while she WILL be fine in the end and maybe even in the middle, I can't focus solely on the end result and ignore the present. I am her mother now. It is my job to be concerned about her welfare both present and future. I can't blithely go on, assuming she'll be "fine in the end", and ignore the real girl struggling today.
She will be fine in the end, but today she is sad because the children on the playground ignored her. She will be fine in the end, but today she is confused because the stranger on the bus didn't smile at her greeting.
She will be fine in the end, but today she kicks the ground and says with self-disgust, "I can't talk!" because she can't get the words out right in the other language.
I really believe that the long-term benefits will make the struggle getting there worth it, but I can't just casually dismiss the process without acknowledging it CAN be a struggle. I can look ahead to sending my trilingual third-grader off to Czech school with a smile, but in my haste to get there I can't overlook the tiny preschooler who is my today - and an over-hasty rush to say "fine in the end!" feels to me like overlooking and trivializing the tiny preschooler's real and current feelings. She won't even remember this, but I'm not just responsible for the parts of her life she remembers, am I? I have to watch and guide her and shield her from unproductive pain even if it is just transient.
She will be fine in the end, but I am not her mother just "in the end" - I am her mother now and every day until we reach that end in which we will be fine.
Friday, August 13, 2010
The essence of being a bilingual child
"Ticho. That mean quiet."
"That's right, ticho means quiet. Does mama say ticho?"
"Maybe."
"Does Apo say quiet?"
"Maybe."
"Mama says quiet, right?"
"Yes. A Apo ticho."
"Which one do you say?"
"I say quiet. *long pause* I say ticho. *long pause* ...and quiet."
---
Yesterday or so K said in tones of great frustration, "I can't talk!!" Apo had asked her to answer him in Slovak and she was frustrated that she couldn't say in Slovak what she had just said in English. That's the first time I remember her explicitly expressing that thought, that she can't speak Slovak.
After that, she used "I can't talk!!" again when she wasn't able to say what she wanted in English. It was sad to see my upbeat, communicative little girl feeling so defeated. Both times I comforted her and told her that she can talk and she will get even better at talking with practice. And she will, in English and Slovak both.
At the moment, though, her understanding and complexity of thought exceeds her ability to form effective responses in words. Goodness, do I ever know what that feels like! Sadly, though, there's not much I can do to help her through it other than what I'm already doing.
Be patient, Baby K. It will come soon enough.
"That's right, ticho means quiet. Does mama say ticho?"
"Maybe."
"Does Apo say quiet?"
"Maybe."
"Mama says quiet, right?"
"Yes. A Apo ticho."
"Which one do you say?"
"I say quiet. *long pause* I say ticho. *long pause* ...and quiet."
---
Yesterday or so K said in tones of great frustration, "I can't talk!!" Apo had asked her to answer him in Slovak and she was frustrated that she couldn't say in Slovak what she had just said in English. That's the first time I remember her explicitly expressing that thought, that she can't speak Slovak.
After that, she used "I can't talk!!" again when she wasn't able to say what she wanted in English. It was sad to see my upbeat, communicative little girl feeling so defeated. Both times I comforted her and told her that she can talk and she will get even better at talking with practice. And she will, in English and Slovak both.
At the moment, though, her understanding and complexity of thought exceeds her ability to form effective responses in words. Goodness, do I ever know what that feels like! Sadly, though, there's not much I can do to help her through it other than what I'm already doing.
Be patient, Baby K. It will come soon enough.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Don't mess with Babka. She will take you down.
I never did the post-visit debriefing. Babka left last Tuesday after ten days with us, and I have to say it was the most pleasant, least stressful for everyone visit we've had yet. I think we're finding our stride.
I didn't keep up the all Czech at home the whole time, but there was a lot of CZ/SK flying around. It mostly depended on how much energy I had at any given moment to deal with addressing K in Czech, but I did still have to do a whole lot of translating. This because K is talking a lot more sense than last time we saw Babka, so I have to clue Babka in to what K is telling her. I would let K clue Babka in herself, but K is holding firm to her position that if K understands a word, everyone should understand it. Which basically adds up to me doing a lot of interpreting for a little girl who cuts no slack for anyone who can't keep up!
My favorite part of Babka's visit, during the trip to lovely Scotland, was how the Slovak of my dreams and I convinced her to think back and tell us everything she remembers about her family background and childhood. It isn't something she talks about much, so he learned almost as much as I did. Like that his grandfather was the dance master for the town, leading all the dances and teaching the dance classes. Maybe that's where his grandson got his dancing talent?
I think the best part was her stories about her own mother-in-law. We never met any of the Slovak's grandparents, because the last of them died when he was K's age, but his paternal grandmother sounds like a piece of work. Once Babka picked up and left with her little son in tow - without telling her husband - because his mother gave all the children chocolate, "Except for you, [Apo], you don't like chocolate anyway." So of course he cried and cried at being left out. So Babka took him and left, and when her husband came back from mushrooming with the brothers-in-law, no one could tell him where they'd gone! Apparently, the last straw came when her husband's mother was staying with them (her five children took turns keeping her for a month each). Babka had to bring her meals in bed because she was ill and bedridden - supposedly. One day when Babka got home from work, her mother-in-law told her the plates were in the wrong cupboard and the cups should be over there and the towels were folded wrong blah blah blah. Babka asked how she knew what was in the cupboards if she couldn't get out of bed, and it turned out maybe old granny isn't QUITE as bedridden as she claims...
Babka packed up her mother-in-law's things and set the suitcase outside. When her husband got home, she told him, "Take your mother to a hotel, and if you don't like it, you can go too!" I'm telling you. You do not mess with our Babka!
We also asked about how it was that they went from a Hungarian-speaking family to speaking only Slovak later. She has mentioned before that in school they were harshly disciplined for speaking Hungarian, which surely makes a strong impression on a young child. She also talked now about a time, walking with her mother and sister in the street, when a group of men came up and slapped her mother across the face and said, "In Slovakia, you only speak Slovak." This was during the Slovak protectorate during the war. That incident, combined with the beatings in school, combined with the natural inclination of a child to speak the school and neighborhood language, made Babka more and more resistant to speak Hungarian at all that eventually she couldn't even when she tried. She said her parents gradually spoke more Slovak to their daughters, because the girls refused to speak Hungarian with them (they were able to speak it perfectly well, actually - it wasn't that they were immigrants who didn't know the language) to the point that the younger girl never even learned Hungarian.
Now Babka is able to understand some Hungarian, I think, but refuses to even try to speak. Her son, our Apo, learned Hungarian not from his parents but from the older couple who took care of him in lieu of daycare. Once he stopped going to their house, he had very little opportunity to use it and never learned to properly read or write.
And that is why we don't speak Hungarian today. I don't know about you, but I find it a very sad story. Babka still carries the hurt from being mistreated by the ignorant and misguided and from losing her language. I wish I could say that attitudes across the world have entirely changed in our generation - but they haven't, have they?
I can tell you, though, Hungarian speaking or not, I don't ever want to get on our Babka's bad side! And neither do you.
Keep that in mind, people!
I didn't keep up the all Czech at home the whole time, but there was a lot of CZ/SK flying around. It mostly depended on how much energy I had at any given moment to deal with addressing K in Czech, but I did still have to do a whole lot of translating. This because K is talking a lot more sense than last time we saw Babka, so I have to clue Babka in to what K is telling her. I would let K clue Babka in herself, but K is holding firm to her position that if K understands a word, everyone should understand it. Which basically adds up to me doing a lot of interpreting for a little girl who cuts no slack for anyone who can't keep up!
My favorite part of Babka's visit, during the trip to lovely Scotland, was how the Slovak of my dreams and I convinced her to think back and tell us everything she remembers about her family background and childhood. It isn't something she talks about much, so he learned almost as much as I did. Like that his grandfather was the dance master for the town, leading all the dances and teaching the dance classes. Maybe that's where his grandson got his dancing talent?
I think the best part was her stories about her own mother-in-law. We never met any of the Slovak's grandparents, because the last of them died when he was K's age, but his paternal grandmother sounds like a piece of work. Once Babka picked up and left with her little son in tow - without telling her husband - because his mother gave all the children chocolate, "Except for you, [Apo], you don't like chocolate anyway." So of course he cried and cried at being left out. So Babka took him and left, and when her husband came back from mushrooming with the brothers-in-law, no one could tell him where they'd gone! Apparently, the last straw came when her husband's mother was staying with them (her five children took turns keeping her for a month each). Babka had to bring her meals in bed because she was ill and bedridden - supposedly. One day when Babka got home from work, her mother-in-law told her the plates were in the wrong cupboard and the cups should be over there and the towels were folded wrong blah blah blah. Babka asked how she knew what was in the cupboards if she couldn't get out of bed, and it turned out maybe old granny isn't QUITE as bedridden as she claims...
Babka packed up her mother-in-law's things and set the suitcase outside. When her husband got home, she told him, "Take your mother to a hotel, and if you don't like it, you can go too!" I'm telling you. You do not mess with our Babka!
We also asked about how it was that they went from a Hungarian-speaking family to speaking only Slovak later. She has mentioned before that in school they were harshly disciplined for speaking Hungarian, which surely makes a strong impression on a young child. She also talked now about a time, walking with her mother and sister in the street, when a group of men came up and slapped her mother across the face and said, "In Slovakia, you only speak Slovak." This was during the Slovak protectorate during the war. That incident, combined with the beatings in school, combined with the natural inclination of a child to speak the school and neighborhood language, made Babka more and more resistant to speak Hungarian at all that eventually she couldn't even when she tried. She said her parents gradually spoke more Slovak to their daughters, because the girls refused to speak Hungarian with them (they were able to speak it perfectly well, actually - it wasn't that they were immigrants who didn't know the language) to the point that the younger girl never even learned Hungarian.
Now Babka is able to understand some Hungarian, I think, but refuses to even try to speak. Her son, our Apo, learned Hungarian not from his parents but from the older couple who took care of him in lieu of daycare. Once he stopped going to their house, he had very little opportunity to use it and never learned to properly read or write.
And that is why we don't speak Hungarian today. I don't know about you, but I find it a very sad story. Babka still carries the hurt from being mistreated by the ignorant and misguided and from losing her language. I wish I could say that attitudes across the world have entirely changed in our generation - but they haven't, have they?
I can tell you, though, Hungarian speaking or not, I don't ever want to get on our Babka's bad side! And neither do you.
Keep that in mind, people!
Friday, July 23, 2010
Extended Family and the Multilingual Child
Questions and answers, part 1! I'll try to answer these one or two at a time over the next several days.
veronica.maria.rojasdelaparra asked in the comments to my question and answer post
We used to visit the USA about every 18 months, but when K was born it quickly became clear that my mother would never get over it if we kept her grandchild from her for that long at a time. Now we try to make it more like once a year, with three trips since last November for various unavoidable reasons (wedding and funeral). K has been to America four times so far, I think, though under normal circumstances it would have been just two. My mother has been to see us once and a few other members of the family have been at different times.
We’ve been fortunate so far that parts of my family made the effort to come see us, and that we could make the trip across the ocean ourselves, especially now before we are tied to the school schedule and can go whenever we want. Still, though, it’s obviously not enough to maintain a relationship like when you live in the same city. So far, however, our trips have always gone well.
One thing is that K is simply an outgoing, people-oriented little kid, so she is pretty agreeable to meeting new people, sitting on their laps and giving them kisses. She is also a really good traveler and (almost always) adapts well to new surroundings without too much fuss. That sort of thing just depends a lot on personality, I would think.
Another key thing is that we try to keep the grandparents’ memory alive, so to speak, even between visits. For example, we have pictures of all the extended family on display and often talk about them, and K likes to point to the pictures and name Apo, Mama, K, Grandmama, Babka, Dedo, uncles and aunts… We also talk about what is Grandmama doing right now, what we did when we visited last, anything to encourage a feeling of attachment.
Probably the most significant element, though, is SKYPE! We usually Skype with both sides of the family at least a couple of times a week, so they get to talk and, most importantly, see each other. This means that when we step off the plane in America, it’s not a total stranger greeting us, but the friendly face from the computer who watches while K sings and dances. I also let K talk on the phone when we call that way, even before she could talk and all she did was babble. That communication and especially video calling really does seem to make a difference.
Even so, K is always a little standoffish with both sets of grandparents at first, until she gets used to them. I know both grandmothers are a little sad when she doesn’t jump straight into their arms and have sleepovers with them and all that. I actually think this may improve with age, since just-turned-2 is a difficult time: old enough to object to being loved on by just anybody, and not old enough to understand the concept of “grandparents”. I wonder if your next visit will be smoother, with an older child and plenty of preparation for travel and how fun grandparents are. I think it's probably also important not to put too much pressure on your child, parents or yourself to "force" more intimacy than the child is ready for. Our families are pretty good about holding themselves back and going at K's pace, even when all the grandmothers want to do is pick her up and smother her with kisses. And just to recognize that it might take a while (a few visits/years) to build a comfortable grandparent-grandchild relationship. That may take some managing of expectations on the grandparents' part!
The good thing about relations with my side of the family is that K is most proficient in English, so my mom could understand her on our most recent visit (with some translation of “baby” English and Slovak-English the way K speaks it, of course). They were able to talk and play games, which will in turn help their next meeting to be even more fun, I think. K is old enough now to remember and start to form the emotional ties to extended family, even though I know it will never be the same as if we lived close by. That is a regret that I have, but there is no way we could satisfy both sides of the family, and we have to live our own life, too. It’s just a consequence of international living, it seems.
The flip side of that is that currently Slovak is K’s weaker language, so her Slovak grandparents really DON’T understand her. My mother-in-law is visiting now and I am providing a running translation of what K says, since K understands Babka but Babka doesn’t understand K. (And K seems DETERMINED that she will speak English to whomever she pleases, thank you very much, and that if someone doesn’t understand, then that is hardly her problem.)
Was language a factor for you? Like that your son didn’t understand Spanish well, so he – or grandma – was uncomfortable or unable to really connect? It really makes the Slovak of my dreams and I sad when we see that with his parents. Of course, part of the problem there is that they don’t understand even the Slovak that K does speak, because she talks too softly or they aren’t listening properly. It is pretty frustrating. However, we aren’t all that worried about it in the long term, since we know we’ll be moving and K will be learning Czech (close enough to understand Slovak) soon enough.
In short, I feel very fortunate that K and her grandparents on both sides have had as many opportunities to meet as they have, even though it is not as many as we could wish for. It gets harder and harder to walk away from them after a visit, knowing that K will be different next time, and that her grandparents are aging, too. I'm glad they have as good a relationship as possible under the circumstances, though, and I hope that it will continue to improve over time. I really hope that your next visit to Mexico will be more fun and relaxing for everybody!
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Stay tuned for more answers next time. Thanks for asking and especially for de-lurking, since I didn't know you were there!
veronica.maria.rojasdelaparra asked in the comments to my question and answer post
“I'd like to know how do you handle K's relationship with your family in the US. Have you ever visited? How do you feel about it? I ask because we visited my family (in Mexico) last Christmas when my son had just turned 2 and it was a disaster! He couldn't get used to the new environment and the new people, and I ended up feeling quite sad that my son and my mom couldn't get along as I had hoped they would. (we live in Belgium -married to the Fleming of my dreams-, BTW, so we only get so see my family every couple of years).”
We used to visit the USA about every 18 months, but when K was born it quickly became clear that my mother would never get over it if we kept her grandchild from her for that long at a time. Now we try to make it more like once a year, with three trips since last November for various unavoidable reasons (wedding and funeral). K has been to America four times so far, I think, though under normal circumstances it would have been just two. My mother has been to see us once and a few other members of the family have been at different times.
We’ve been fortunate so far that parts of my family made the effort to come see us, and that we could make the trip across the ocean ourselves, especially now before we are tied to the school schedule and can go whenever we want. Still, though, it’s obviously not enough to maintain a relationship like when you live in the same city. So far, however, our trips have always gone well.
One thing is that K is simply an outgoing, people-oriented little kid, so she is pretty agreeable to meeting new people, sitting on their laps and giving them kisses. She is also a really good traveler and (almost always) adapts well to new surroundings without too much fuss. That sort of thing just depends a lot on personality, I would think.
Another key thing is that we try to keep the grandparents’ memory alive, so to speak, even between visits. For example, we have pictures of all the extended family on display and often talk about them, and K likes to point to the pictures and name Apo, Mama, K, Grandmama, Babka, Dedo, uncles and aunts… We also talk about what is Grandmama doing right now, what we did when we visited last, anything to encourage a feeling of attachment.
Probably the most significant element, though, is SKYPE! We usually Skype with both sides of the family at least a couple of times a week, so they get to talk and, most importantly, see each other. This means that when we step off the plane in America, it’s not a total stranger greeting us, but the friendly face from the computer who watches while K sings and dances. I also let K talk on the phone when we call that way, even before she could talk and all she did was babble. That communication and especially video calling really does seem to make a difference.
Even so, K is always a little standoffish with both sets of grandparents at first, until she gets used to them. I know both grandmothers are a little sad when she doesn’t jump straight into their arms and have sleepovers with them and all that. I actually think this may improve with age, since just-turned-2 is a difficult time: old enough to object to being loved on by just anybody, and not old enough to understand the concept of “grandparents”. I wonder if your next visit will be smoother, with an older child and plenty of preparation for travel and how fun grandparents are. I think it's probably also important not to put too much pressure on your child, parents or yourself to "force" more intimacy than the child is ready for. Our families are pretty good about holding themselves back and going at K's pace, even when all the grandmothers want to do is pick her up and smother her with kisses. And just to recognize that it might take a while (a few visits/years) to build a comfortable grandparent-grandchild relationship. That may take some managing of expectations on the grandparents' part!
The good thing about relations with my side of the family is that K is most proficient in English, so my mom could understand her on our most recent visit (with some translation of “baby” English and Slovak-English the way K speaks it, of course). They were able to talk and play games, which will in turn help their next meeting to be even more fun, I think. K is old enough now to remember and start to form the emotional ties to extended family, even though I know it will never be the same as if we lived close by. That is a regret that I have, but there is no way we could satisfy both sides of the family, and we have to live our own life, too. It’s just a consequence of international living, it seems.
The flip side of that is that currently Slovak is K’s weaker language, so her Slovak grandparents really DON’T understand her. My mother-in-law is visiting now and I am providing a running translation of what K says, since K understands Babka but Babka doesn’t understand K. (And K seems DETERMINED that she will speak English to whomever she pleases, thank you very much, and that if someone doesn’t understand, then that is hardly her problem.)
Was language a factor for you? Like that your son didn’t understand Spanish well, so he – or grandma – was uncomfortable or unable to really connect? It really makes the Slovak of my dreams and I sad when we see that with his parents. Of course, part of the problem there is that they don’t understand even the Slovak that K does speak, because she talks too softly or they aren’t listening properly. It is pretty frustrating. However, we aren’t all that worried about it in the long term, since we know we’ll be moving and K will be learning Czech (close enough to understand Slovak) soon enough.
In short, I feel very fortunate that K and her grandparents on both sides have had as many opportunities to meet as they have, even though it is not as many as we could wish for. It gets harder and harder to walk away from them after a visit, knowing that K will be different next time, and that her grandparents are aging, too. I'm glad they have as good a relationship as possible under the circumstances, though, and I hope that it will continue to improve over time. I really hope that your next visit to Mexico will be more fun and relaxing for everybody!
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Stay tuned for more answers next time. Thanks for asking and especially for de-lurking, since I didn't know you were there!
Sunday, June 27, 2010
I No English Good, or First Language Attrition
This article, Code Mixing and Code Switching in Bilingual Children and Families gives a nice, clear rundown of the difference between code mixing and code switching. Useful, since I always get them mixed up. Basically: code switching is deliberately choosing to use a feature of one language while speaking the other, typically by bilinguals who master both languages well. This is definitely a staple in the Havo household. Code mixing, by contrast, is substituting features from your native language when you don’t master the second well enough. This is how K speaks at the moment, pulling in words and grammar from English since she doesn’t master Slovak well enough to express herself yet. She’ll get over it with time and exposure. Her parents may code mix from time to time as well, which usually results in merciless teasing (because we should KNOW better!).
One interesting point the author makes is that children who mix languages together may be perfectly aware of what they're doing. It is easy to assume that since a child uses words from both languages indiscriminately, the child isn't really aware that they are actually separate languages. However, children may choose to mix just as deliberately as adults do, and for similar reasons. Something to keep in mind.
What especially interested me, though, was that neither code mixing nor code switching as defined there managed to account for my most common problem: substituting features from my SECOND language into my NATIVE one. Of course my second language has certain limits and I sometimes use an Englishism until someone lets me know it’s wrong (ex: “Slyšela jsem od něho” instead of “ozval se mi”). In casual situations (i.e. in groups where everybody also speaks English AND I don’t care about impressing anybody) where I don’t know a word and can’t be bothered to come up with an on-the-fly workaround, I will deliberately borrow from English. That’s still code-mixing.
However, what really perplexed me was when I would use a Czech word (or literally translated expression, or word order) without realizing it. Especially with Czech words that sound like (even unrelated) English words. For example, I’ve said things like “Put it on the stůl” or “I can’t see from behind the sloup” (stůl means table but sounds like stool, sloup means column but sounds like slope). Presumably my English brain saw those as viable options because they sound like English words, but I’ve also used Czech words with a totally anglicized pronunciation that I would NEVER pronounce like that when in my right mind. I remember a Czech-speaking American friend told me about accidentally mixing when I was still in language school, like “Are you checking on me?” to mean “Are you waiting for me?” (čekat means wait). I thought that was just weird at the time…but then the next year I did the exact same thing! Part of the language acquisition process, I suppose. I don’t do this as much now, thankfully. I do still have a tendency to use the most ridiculous word order in English sometimes, or say things like “I don’t have to eat broccoli” (brokolici nemusím) instead of “I don’t like broccoli”. I’ve even mixed up “lend” and “borrow”, how embarrassing!
Another problem that goes hand in hand is forgetting words in my native language, which is still pretty common. Everybody forgets words sometimes, I just forget them significantly more often. This is kind of embarrassing when talking to family, like the chronic problem I had remembering the word “stroller” since we always used “kočárek” with my husband, so when talking about the baby pushy thing with my mom, there was always this slight pause as I frantically tried to remember: “I was walking along pushing the…stroller…” I have a similar problem in trying to translate quickly, which I think is because I crossed the self-translating bridge a while ago, so I don’t necessarily associate the Czech and English words for one thing with each other, at least not right away. So “stroller” becomes “baby pushy thing” (or with this particular word “baby carriage”, since that’s a literal translation of kočárek), or “kitten” becomes “baby cat, small and furry”. I would make such an impressive interpreter…
At first I thought all of this meant I was slowly losing it: becoming bilingual makes you crazy! Then I decided to hope and pray it was just a phase that passes once you master both languages. Then I decided it probably IS, and that probably other people experience it, too. So when it wasn’t included in the Bilingual For Fun article above, I started googling and it turns out, yes, this is a known phenomenon with a name and everything!
Take a look at this article, Learning and Forgetting Languages:
and
This article suggests that it is, in fact, a phase we go through in learning our second language. I wasn’t losing it – I was being adaptive! Also, our children growing up bilingual shouldn’t go through it. Nice to know.
More googling of “first language attrition” turned up this article.
I identify very strongly with this. I don’t even have the excuse of language isolation as the author of this piece does, since I have never immersed myself in Czech completely: I have always had a small group of people I regularly spoke English with. True, the last year or two that I was in Prague the “small group of people” contracted to include mostly just my husband and the internet, but still, I never gave up English entirely. And yet I do all the things she talks about! Comforting to know it’s not just me – and that it’s not irreversible.
One interesting point the author makes is that children who mix languages together may be perfectly aware of what they're doing. It is easy to assume that since a child uses words from both languages indiscriminately, the child isn't really aware that they are actually separate languages. However, children may choose to mix just as deliberately as adults do, and for similar reasons. Something to keep in mind.
What especially interested me, though, was that neither code mixing nor code switching as defined there managed to account for my most common problem: substituting features from my SECOND language into my NATIVE one. Of course my second language has certain limits and I sometimes use an Englishism until someone lets me know it’s wrong (ex: “Slyšela jsem od něho” instead of “ozval se mi”). In casual situations (i.e. in groups where everybody also speaks English AND I don’t care about impressing anybody) where I don’t know a word and can’t be bothered to come up with an on-the-fly workaround, I will deliberately borrow from English. That’s still code-mixing.
However, what really perplexed me was when I would use a Czech word (or literally translated expression, or word order) without realizing it. Especially with Czech words that sound like (even unrelated) English words. For example, I’ve said things like “Put it on the stůl” or “I can’t see from behind the sloup” (stůl means table but sounds like stool, sloup means column but sounds like slope). Presumably my English brain saw those as viable options because they sound like English words, but I’ve also used Czech words with a totally anglicized pronunciation that I would NEVER pronounce like that when in my right mind. I remember a Czech-speaking American friend told me about accidentally mixing when I was still in language school, like “Are you checking on me?” to mean “Are you waiting for me?” (čekat means wait). I thought that was just weird at the time…but then the next year I did the exact same thing! Part of the language acquisition process, I suppose. I don’t do this as much now, thankfully. I do still have a tendency to use the most ridiculous word order in English sometimes, or say things like “I don’t have to eat broccoli” (brokolici nemusím) instead of “I don’t like broccoli”. I’ve even mixed up “lend” and “borrow”, how embarrassing!
Another problem that goes hand in hand is forgetting words in my native language, which is still pretty common. Everybody forgets words sometimes, I just forget them significantly more often. This is kind of embarrassing when talking to family, like the chronic problem I had remembering the word “stroller” since we always used “kočárek” with my husband, so when talking about the baby pushy thing with my mom, there was always this slight pause as I frantically tried to remember: “I was walking along pushing the…stroller…” I have a similar problem in trying to translate quickly, which I think is because I crossed the self-translating bridge a while ago, so I don’t necessarily associate the Czech and English words for one thing with each other, at least not right away. So “stroller” becomes “baby pushy thing” (or with this particular word “baby carriage”, since that’s a literal translation of kočárek), or “kitten” becomes “baby cat, small and furry”. I would make such an impressive interpreter…
At first I thought all of this meant I was slowly losing it: becoming bilingual makes you crazy! Then I decided to hope and pray it was just a phase that passes once you master both languages. Then I decided it probably IS, and that probably other people experience it, too. So when it wasn’t included in the Bilingual For Fun article above, I started googling and it turns out, yes, this is a known phenomenon with a name and everything!
Take a look at this article, Learning and Forgetting Languages:
“However, they argue that it is crucial in the early stages of learning a new language when students have to actively ignore familiar native language words to progress. This becomes less necessary as fluency increases.”
and
"First-language attrition provides a striking example of how it can be adaptive to (at least temporarily) forget things one has learned."
This article suggests that it is, in fact, a phase we go through in learning our second language. I wasn’t losing it – I was being adaptive! Also, our children growing up bilingual shouldn’t go through it. Nice to know.
More googling of “first language attrition” turned up this article.
I identify very strongly with this. I don’t even have the excuse of language isolation as the author of this piece does, since I have never immersed myself in Czech completely: I have always had a small group of people I regularly spoke English with. True, the last year or two that I was in Prague the “small group of people” contracted to include mostly just my husband and the internet, but still, I never gave up English entirely. And yet I do all the things she talks about! Comforting to know it’s not just me – and that it’s not irreversible.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
OPOL Little Secret
This post is part of the Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism, this month hosted by Bringing Up Baby Bilingual!
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I’m going to tell you something today.
Lean in a little bit. Someone might overhear.
I helped my daughter learn Slovak.
I know! Right?? Don't tell anybody or the OPOL police might come get me for not being consistent.
But the thing is, she wasn't speaking any Slovak before, and now she is cheering on the Slovak team in the World Cup, in Slovak, repeating after Apo. Though she did give up towards the end of their last game and took a nap. As who could blame her.
The problem became clear sometime last year, as she was learning to talk. Most of her words were English, with just a few in Slovak, if you counted generously (classing "Apo" as Slovak even though I use it in English, too, etc.). That is to be expected, with an English-speaking primary caregiver living in an English-speaking country.
What worried me was that she wouldn't even try to repeat a word in Slovak, but she parroted everything I said (in English). On paying closer attention, I realized that she repeated words all the time - but only when I said them. Not relatives, not friends, not Apo - just me.
The Slovak would try to get her to say a word: lopta, lopta, lopta, toto je lopta. No response. Or an increasingly loud answer from K the tourist of BALL, BALL, BALL, IT'S A BALL. She wouldn't even try to pronounce a word when he said it.
But then one day, I thought, hm... "K, say lopta." "OTA!"
Good enough. It's not like she was pronouncing English that well at that point, either.
For some reason, she was willing to try speaking Slovak if I was the one demonstrating. After a while building up her vocabulary, she was confident enough in both languages to repeat after anybody and I didn't have to serve as intermediary anymore.
I also started to take out our Slovak books and read them to her, just when we were alone. Our secret. Alone in the house, under a blanket, Apo at work so he wouldn't laugh at us. Maybe a few sessions of "Čo je to? Lopta. Ruka. Noha. Kde máš nosček?" as a prep course for when Apo or Babka ask the same questions. And you know what? It worked.
I also started to sing the Slovak children's songs we know. Everyone in earshot knew about that one. And when K sang "prší prší prší prší" to her grandmother on Skype or requested "Kolo kolo mlýnske"? Totally worth it.
When people ask how we do our languages, I still give the old answer: "I only speak English to her, he only speaks Slovak to her." But now I have a slight smile on my face as I say it, because as it turns out, it's not quite that simple.
As it turns out, being flexible is just as important as being consistent.
---
I’m going to tell you something today.
Lean in a little bit. Someone might overhear.
I helped my daughter learn Slovak.
I know! Right?? Don't tell anybody or the OPOL police might come get me for not being consistent.
But the thing is, she wasn't speaking any Slovak before, and now she is cheering on the Slovak team in the World Cup, in Slovak, repeating after Apo. Though she did give up towards the end of their last game and took a nap. As who could blame her.
The problem became clear sometime last year, as she was learning to talk. Most of her words were English, with just a few in Slovak, if you counted generously (classing "Apo" as Slovak even though I use it in English, too, etc.). That is to be expected, with an English-speaking primary caregiver living in an English-speaking country.
What worried me was that she wouldn't even try to repeat a word in Slovak, but she parroted everything I said (in English). On paying closer attention, I realized that she repeated words all the time - but only when I said them. Not relatives, not friends, not Apo - just me.
The Slovak would try to get her to say a word: lopta, lopta, lopta, toto je lopta. No response. Or an increasingly loud answer from K the tourist of BALL, BALL, BALL, IT'S A BALL. She wouldn't even try to pronounce a word when he said it.
But then one day, I thought, hm... "K, say lopta." "OTA!"
Good enough. It's not like she was pronouncing English that well at that point, either.
For some reason, she was willing to try speaking Slovak if I was the one demonstrating. After a while building up her vocabulary, she was confident enough in both languages to repeat after anybody and I didn't have to serve as intermediary anymore.
I also started to take out our Slovak books and read them to her, just when we were alone. Our secret. Alone in the house, under a blanket, Apo at work so he wouldn't laugh at us. Maybe a few sessions of "Čo je to? Lopta. Ruka. Noha. Kde máš nosček?" as a prep course for when Apo or Babka ask the same questions. And you know what? It worked.
I also started to sing the Slovak children's songs we know. Everyone in earshot knew about that one. And when K sang "prší prší prší prší" to her grandmother on Skype or requested "Kolo kolo mlýnske"? Totally worth it.
When people ask how we do our languages, I still give the old answer: "I only speak English to her, he only speaks Slovak to her." But now I have a slight smile on my face as I say it, because as it turns out, it's not quite that simple.
As it turns out, being flexible is just as important as being consistent.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Grandparents and the Cost of Bilingualism
This post is part of the Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism, hosted this month by Mummy Do That!
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One particularly geeky Christmas several years ago, the Slovak and I got each other dictionaries* for Christmas, totally by coincidence. I got him an Oxford dictionary for English speakers (i.e. not a translation dictionary) and he got me essentially the same thing in Czech. We were both pumped about our gifts and amused by our parallel thinking. When our parents asked us what we got each other for Christmas, though, both sides had the same reaction: fake smiles and “Oh, how…romantic”. So we explained that no, it’s a great gift, really, and they nodded doubtfully.
But it highlighted a critical element in our relationship with our families, one that takes on new dimensions now that we have a child. My family speaks only English. My husband’s family speaks Slovak and some Hungarian, learned as children and largely unused in later life. They never learned a language as an adult they way my husband and I have. Milestones that are significant to us are just white noise to them: I read a novel in my second language. I had a conversation with someone who didn’t know I was foreign. I taught a class in the second language. I came up with an awesome bilingual play on words that will lose all humor if I translate it. You know, that kind of thing.
They aren’t opposed to us speaking another language, but I think that on a basic level they don’t get it. It’s an experience they don’t share. They support us in our desire to raise our daughter speaking both her heritage languages, but it leads her somewhere they can’t follow. The same place her parents have gone before her. I think they feel this to some degree, but I know they don’t realize the extent of it.
I don’t mean that we adults need coddling for every accomplishment we make in our new world. We can share those things with others in similar circumstances. And how many of us have had that same experience, that we fit in best with other multilinguals, other third culture adults, regardless of language combinations? Learning a new language changes you, in predictable and unpredictable ways. The specific languages you speak shape who you are, the way you think about the world, the way you categorize things. The simple fact that you speak more than one shapes you as well, teaching you that not everyone thinks the same way. It doesn't change your whole personality, but it adds a side of you that is only really accessible in that language. A child raised multilingually grows up thinking all these things are natural and normal - what a wonderful gift to our children!
But now we are talking about a child and her grandparents. Grandparents who only understand part of what she can say and what she can do. Who have the persistent idea that her babble at 1.5 or 2 years old is actually fluent conversation in the other language, and feel left out that she doesn’t speak their language so well. Or, other times, thinking she can’t talk at all because they don’t recognize half her vocabulary and so don’t realize it’s there. Who can’t join in when she talks about her favorite song or cartoon character from the other language. It’s not exactly the end of the world, but it is there. Without learning the other language, they simply can’t be included in all aspects of her life. She, like her parents, is a whole person her grandparents don’t fully know, and they don’t know they don’t know it.
Don’t get me wrong: Baby K’s grandparents adore her and think she’s a genius, just like proper grandparents should. And I think this will improve some as she learns to communicate better in both languages and learns that you have to speak THIS way to Babka but THIS way to Grandmama. Of course, we are making every effort to make sure our child’s grandparents will be part of her life and that she will speak each of their languages fluently, which I suppose not all families do.** But it is still a little sad when they don’t respond to what she’s said because they don’t understand, and she doesn’t know why.
And for the rest of her life, there will be a part of her that her grandparents don’t know, and it is our fault, for moving between worlds the way we do, for not choosing just one, and for creating a sweet American-Slovak child who moves between worlds, too, who thinks everyone has a Mama and an Apo (not a Daddy) and who lives in a country far, far away.
I may not regret it enough to change any of my decisions (oh, never), but I do recognize the cost. I do.
* We have a whole shelf of dictionaries at home: English-Czech, English-Slovak, Slovak-French, English-Spanish, all sorts of combinations. In the end it turns out we never use any of them because it is too easy to turn to the other and just ask. Or I like to use the dictionary function at www.seznam.cz for a fast and dirty thesaurus.
** Actually, I know not all families do. My father-in-law has a son from his first marriage who lives in America and whose only son does not understand Slovak. So I think my in-laws are quite happy with us for teaching our child Slovak, and with me for not stealing their son away to my country. When we had been married a few years and I STILL hadn’t stolen him away from them, I think they relaxed a little about having a foreign daughter-in-law, haha.
---
One particularly geeky Christmas several years ago, the Slovak and I got each other dictionaries* for Christmas, totally by coincidence. I got him an Oxford dictionary for English speakers (i.e. not a translation dictionary) and he got me essentially the same thing in Czech. We were both pumped about our gifts and amused by our parallel thinking. When our parents asked us what we got each other for Christmas, though, both sides had the same reaction: fake smiles and “Oh, how…romantic”. So we explained that no, it’s a great gift, really, and they nodded doubtfully.
But it highlighted a critical element in our relationship with our families, one that takes on new dimensions now that we have a child. My family speaks only English. My husband’s family speaks Slovak and some Hungarian, learned as children and largely unused in later life. They never learned a language as an adult they way my husband and I have. Milestones that are significant to us are just white noise to them: I read a novel in my second language. I had a conversation with someone who didn’t know I was foreign. I taught a class in the second language. I came up with an awesome bilingual play on words that will lose all humor if I translate it. You know, that kind of thing.
They aren’t opposed to us speaking another language, but I think that on a basic level they don’t get it. It’s an experience they don’t share. They support us in our desire to raise our daughter speaking both her heritage languages, but it leads her somewhere they can’t follow. The same place her parents have gone before her. I think they feel this to some degree, but I know they don’t realize the extent of it.
I don’t mean that we adults need coddling for every accomplishment we make in our new world. We can share those things with others in similar circumstances. And how many of us have had that same experience, that we fit in best with other multilinguals, other third culture adults, regardless of language combinations? Learning a new language changes you, in predictable and unpredictable ways. The specific languages you speak shape who you are, the way you think about the world, the way you categorize things. The simple fact that you speak more than one shapes you as well, teaching you that not everyone thinks the same way. It doesn't change your whole personality, but it adds a side of you that is only really accessible in that language. A child raised multilingually grows up thinking all these things are natural and normal - what a wonderful gift to our children!
But now we are talking about a child and her grandparents. Grandparents who only understand part of what she can say and what she can do. Who have the persistent idea that her babble at 1.5 or 2 years old is actually fluent conversation in the other language, and feel left out that she doesn’t speak their language so well. Or, other times, thinking she can’t talk at all because they don’t recognize half her vocabulary and so don’t realize it’s there. Who can’t join in when she talks about her favorite song or cartoon character from the other language. It’s not exactly the end of the world, but it is there. Without learning the other language, they simply can’t be included in all aspects of her life. She, like her parents, is a whole person her grandparents don’t fully know, and they don’t know they don’t know it.
Don’t get me wrong: Baby K’s grandparents adore her and think she’s a genius, just like proper grandparents should. And I think this will improve some as she learns to communicate better in both languages and learns that you have to speak THIS way to Babka but THIS way to Grandmama. Of course, we are making every effort to make sure our child’s grandparents will be part of her life and that she will speak each of their languages fluently, which I suppose not all families do.** But it is still a little sad when they don’t respond to what she’s said because they don’t understand, and she doesn’t know why.
And for the rest of her life, there will be a part of her that her grandparents don’t know, and it is our fault, for moving between worlds the way we do, for not choosing just one, and for creating a sweet American-Slovak child who moves between worlds, too, who thinks everyone has a Mama and an Apo (not a Daddy) and who lives in a country far, far away.
I may not regret it enough to change any of my decisions (oh, never), but I do recognize the cost. I do.
* We have a whole shelf of dictionaries at home: English-Czech, English-Slovak, Slovak-French, English-Spanish, all sorts of combinations. In the end it turns out we never use any of them because it is too easy to turn to the other and just ask. Or I like to use the dictionary function at www.seznam.cz for a fast and dirty thesaurus.
** Actually, I know not all families do. My father-in-law has a son from his first marriage who lives in America and whose only son does not understand Slovak. So I think my in-laws are quite happy with us for teaching our child Slovak, and with me for not stealing their son away to my country. When we had been married a few years and I STILL hadn’t stolen him away from them, I think they relaxed a little about having a foreign daughter-in-law, haha.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
British Influence
I love living in the UK and it’s been a great experience for us as a family. The Slovak has had the opportunity to live in a Western country, not bad for a boy born in the workers’ paradise. I get treated like an alien invasion at passport control, but I love CBeebies and the concept of meat wrapped in pastry, so I cope. And Baby K doesn’t care one way or the other. (Except about CBeebies and meat wrapped in pastry, which she is entirely on board with.) The timing is pretty good, too, since we’ll return to Czech Republic before my maternity leave runs out* and K starts preschool.
One thing I’m not crazy about with spending our daughter’s first few years here is her accent getting muddled. I know, I know, proper English and all that, but I don’t really like mixed accents. I want my child to speak like other children from (all) her native countries, which I think is fairly reasonable.
When I agreed to move here, I told my husband that as soon as Baby K came home from the playground saying “Mummy, let’s pop round to the shop”, we have to move. She doesn’t call me Mummy yet**, but she does come home from nursery talking about playing in the garden and other Britishisms. Or at the playground, another child asked if she wanted to go fast (tall a) or slow, and she said fast (tall a), though usually she says fast (short a). She also has a couple of particular intonations that she uses all the time that she’s heard on TV and at nursery.
So when she talks about the “pahk” and “gahden” and all, is it just that she can’t say her R’s yet (true), that she can’t say two consonants together yet (true), or is it also the beginnings of a non-rhotic accent??
All in all pretty cute, frankly, but I guess what I’m saying is I don’t really want my child to sound like this guy.
* You read that right. Three years of maternity leave, baby.
** I wrote this a few weeks ago. Since then she has started to call me "Mummaaaaaaaayy" exactly like the kids at her school and her intonations are distinctly British. Cute, but it's time to move!
One thing I’m not crazy about with spending our daughter’s first few years here is her accent getting muddled. I know, I know, proper English and all that, but I don’t really like mixed accents. I want my child to speak like other children from (all) her native countries, which I think is fairly reasonable.
When I agreed to move here, I told my husband that as soon as Baby K came home from the playground saying “Mummy, let’s pop round to the shop”, we have to move. She doesn’t call me Mummy yet**, but she does come home from nursery talking about playing in the garden and other Britishisms. Or at the playground, another child asked if she wanted to go fast (tall a) or slow, and she said fast (tall a), though usually she says fast (short a). She also has a couple of particular intonations that she uses all the time that she’s heard on TV and at nursery.
So when she talks about the “pahk” and “gahden” and all, is it just that she can’t say her R’s yet (true), that she can’t say two consonants together yet (true), or is it also the beginnings of a non-rhotic accent??
All in all pretty cute, frankly, but I guess what I’m saying is I don’t really want my child to sound like this guy.
* You read that right. Three years of maternity leave, baby.
** I wrote this a few weeks ago. Since then she has started to call me "Mummaaaaaaaayy" exactly like the kids at her school and her intonations are distinctly British. Cute, but it's time to move!
Monday, May 17, 2010
On praise
Well, I'm back in UK, visa in hand, after two weeks in rainy Prague. K's CZ/SK took an upswing but nothing too terribly dramatic. Sadly I forgot to keep a list of new words or anything like that.
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In going through Bilingual for Fun's archives recently I happened upon this article and it reminded me of this post that I had read a while before and stuck with me. Smashedpea's daughter went on strike for days anytime someone praised her or commented positively on her German. But…praise is good, right? I pondered that one for a while.
When I started thinking about how I react to praise with regard to language, it suddenly made a bit more sense. Praise IS good. I like praise and if someone compliments my language ability it can make my day. BUT – praise also singles me out from others (native speakers). It marks me as other . It means I still have improvement to make: if I spoke perfectly, no one would compliment me because they wouldn’t know there was anything unusual about it. What praise in this case really says is, “I caught you! I notice you are foreign/different/not as good at this as me. Good job though.”
So I guess I can see quite well why a child might be embarrassed and annoyed about being singled out, maybe. There could be countless other reasons feeding into it, too.
I haven’t had a similar experience with my daughter, probably because of her age, but I know it could come up at some point. And actually, thinking about it, I don’t think that we do praise K for using Slovak. I didn’t really consider it. Writing that makes me feel like a bad mother…we do praise her for other things, really!
Maybe it’s because we don’t name the languages to her yet, so we would have to compliment her on “saying something the way Apo says it”…which sounds kind of awkward. I think I may have praised her for using language in general – thank you for using your words (and not your screams) – but not for saying something in her weaker language. Ideally, it should just be part of life, right? I guess we’ll see how far that attitude takes us.
I always notice it when she says something particularly good in Slovak, but I don’t make a big deal of it to her. Like when she said her first two-word Slovak sentence, Apo and I pointed at her and mouthed WOW at each other behind her back, and later probably put it on Facebook and told our parents and whatever. And I may have blogged about it after that. But I guess I didn’t mention it to her. So maybe I have taken smashedpea's lesson to heart.
---
In going through Bilingual for Fun's archives recently I happened upon this article and it reminded me of this post that I had read a while before and stuck with me. Smashedpea's daughter went on strike for days anytime someone praised her or commented positively on her German. But…praise is good, right? I pondered that one for a while.
When I started thinking about how I react to praise with regard to language, it suddenly made a bit more sense. Praise IS good. I like praise and if someone compliments my language ability it can make my day. BUT – praise also singles me out from others (native speakers). It marks me as other . It means I still have improvement to make: if I spoke perfectly, no one would compliment me because they wouldn’t know there was anything unusual about it. What praise in this case really says is, “I caught you! I notice you are foreign/different/not as good at this as me. Good job though.”
So I guess I can see quite well why a child might be embarrassed and annoyed about being singled out, maybe. There could be countless other reasons feeding into it, too.
I haven’t had a similar experience with my daughter, probably because of her age, but I know it could come up at some point. And actually, thinking about it, I don’t think that we do praise K for using Slovak. I didn’t really consider it. Writing that makes me feel like a bad mother…we do praise her for other things, really!
Maybe it’s because we don’t name the languages to her yet, so we would have to compliment her on “saying something the way Apo says it”…which sounds kind of awkward. I think I may have praised her for using language in general – thank you for using your words (and not your screams) – but not for saying something in her weaker language. Ideally, it should just be part of life, right? I guess we’ll see how far that attitude takes us.
I always notice it when she says something particularly good in Slovak, but I don’t make a big deal of it to her. Like when she said her first two-word Slovak sentence, Apo and I pointed at her and mouthed WOW at each other behind her back, and later probably put it on Facebook and told our parents and whatever. And I may have blogged about it after that. But I guess I didn’t mention it to her. So maybe I have taken smashedpea's lesson to heart.
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