Trixity
17 Sep 2011
UK, Ireland / Raising Bilingual Children - How are you teaching your children? Your experiences? [74]
Thanks for the replies so far - there's some really interesting feedback and I get the impression that the way that we're approaching things is fine and that I don't have too much to worry about - just let things happen naturally.
A few comments:
EdWilczynski - I'd love to hear your experiences when you get back.
Mafketis - I think you're right about not worrying - she is making progress and I get the feeling that right now she's starting to go through some kind of learning spurt - she's really progressing (almost by the day). I'm curious about what you said about preferring Polish once she hits the playground - I am really curious to see how that's going to pan out.
Phil_C - Thanks for your feedback. You wrote "allow the child to communicate freely in which ever language they wish" - I'm curious about that. My initial feeling is that children will naturally go with the easiest option for them, which on the one hand might be English (it's easier to say "car" than it is to say "samochod") but on the other hand, with 90% exposure to Polish and 10% English, eventually Polish will become the easier option purely through more exposure. On the premise that the children should be allowed to go with whichever language they wish English would soon become defunt wouldn't it? It's great to hear that your children have picked up both English and Chinese. That's encouraging
Bavarian - you asked where I found the information that said by 2 years old a child should know 200-300 words...I can't find the specific link, but I found a similar one here that quoted 150-200 words:
multilingualchildren.org/milestones/second_year.html
(It looks like a really interesting site by the way).
dhrynio - Of all the replies, your situation sounds closest to ours, so I'm really happy that your little ones are doing really well. It's really interesting that after their trip to the US they preferred to play mainly in English and now they're switching back to Polish since they're back - makes sense I suppose!
Thanks again for this great feedback!
Thanks for the replies so far - there's some really interesting feedback and I get the impression that the way that we're approaching things is fine and that I don't have too much to worry about - just let things happen naturally.
A few comments:
EdWilczynski - I'd love to hear your experiences when you get back.
Mafketis - I think you're right about not worrying - she is making progress and I get the feeling that right now she's starting to go through some kind of learning spurt - she's really progressing (almost by the day). I'm curious about what you said about preferring Polish once she hits the playground - I am really curious to see how that's going to pan out.
Phil_C - Thanks for your feedback. You wrote "allow the child to communicate freely in which ever language they wish" - I'm curious about that. My initial feeling is that children will naturally go with the easiest option for them, which on the one hand might be English (it's easier to say "car" than it is to say "samochod") but on the other hand, with 90% exposure to Polish and 10% English, eventually Polish will become the easier option purely through more exposure. On the premise that the children should be allowed to go with whichever language they wish English would soon become defunt wouldn't it? It's great to hear that your children have picked up both English and Chinese. That's encouraging
Bavarian - you asked where I found the information that said by 2 years old a child should know 200-300 words...I can't find the specific link, but I found a similar one here that quoted 150-200 words:
multilingualchildren.org/milestones/second_year.html
(It looks like a really interesting site by the way).
dhrynio - Of all the replies, your situation sounds closest to ours, so I'm really happy that your little ones are doing really well. It's really interesting that after their trip to the US they preferred to play mainly in English and now they're switching back to Polish since they're back - makes sense I suppose!
Thanks again for this great feedback!