My post on blog where I work: Connecting Kids With Culture

Please see my entry in Eleventh Stack, the blog of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

Our kids and Spanish, not always a love story.

We have 2 amazingly awesome girls, age 3 and 5.  My wife being from Panama and me being bilingual, it’s always been our hope to raise bilingual kids.  We always heard the common refrains “kids learn easy”,  “if mom only speaks to them in Spanish, they’ll learn easy”, and “of course they’ll learn with no effort on either their part or yours”.  In recent years we’ve come to find out that many of those assumptions are not true, or only partially true.  

Things were going swimmingly with our older daughter until when she was about to turn 4 years old.  Prior to that, she actually had been speaking Spanish.  When she first learned to talk, she would speak some words in Spanish and some words in English.  When she was around 3, I remember she had the ability to say something to my mother in English, and then to turn and say something to my mother-in-law in Spanish.  Then it all changed.  When she was approaching 4, she noticed that her peers only spoke English.  All of the sudden she didn’t want to consume Spanish media (Plaza Sésamo), she didn’t respond to us in Spanish anymore, and even with coaxing she just plain didn’t seem to want to have anything to do with the Spanish language.  

Thus began our quest to maintain her ability to speak Spanish, and to raise her younger sister speaking as well.  We’ve always read stories in Spanish, spoke with the kids in Spanish, listened to Latin music around the house, and have done many other things to encourage their speaking and comprehension.  We’ve also been fortunate enough to travel to Panama to visit our in-laws on several occasions over the last few years, and are actually just getting back from a trip now.  This is a huge brightspot.  When the girls get around their cousins and other kids, they naturally start speaking a little more, and learn very rapidly.  In 2014, when we came back from our trip, to help the girls maintain their skill level we joined El Cículo Juvenil de Cultura, a program for Spanish speaking children in Pittsburgh PA to provide a place for kids to learn in Spanish with other Spanish speaking children and Spanish volunteers.  It is an excellent program that incorporates many aspects of Latin American culture. That program happens to conflict with another family obligation, so we only did it for one semester.  After that, the girls interest in Spanish plummeted again, although we continued reading to them, speaking to them, listening to music, and trying to use Spanish in the house in any way we possibly could.  

A year and a half passed before our most recent trip to Panama.  This time, we all went together for 3 weeks, but then we left the girls with their abuela for an extra 2 weeks.  Even during the time we were there together, the girls started speaking more Spanish, mostly mixing sentences in Spanish and English (“Mira what I can hago” or “Do you want to jugar conmigo?”).  Now that the girls have returned they are speaking considerably more, translating their thoughts to abuela, who is staying with us for a month.  So, how do we plan on maintaining it this time?  

For one, we’re going to try to always speak Spanish at home.  We’re going to put our dvds on in Spanish at least half of the time (they do always ask for them in English).  We’re going to buy kids music cds in Spanish, as well as the Speak Spanish with Dora and Diego cds  and play them in the car.  We’ll continue to go to all of the Latino community events in Pittsburgh that we possibly can (although those events usually mean adults speaking Spanish with all of the kids playing in English).   Another great thing for us is some of the kids’ cousins are coming up from Panama in January, this will give the kids an opportunity to be around Spanish more, although we will try to make it an immersive English experience for them!

I’ll be posting our progress here on this blog.  Do any of you have any experience with having kids speak non-dominant languages?  What strategies do you use?  I’d love to hear your feedback!   

Also, look forward to reviews on some raising your kids bilingual books that I'll be reading in the near future.

Re Introduction

So, I’ve been off of the blogging wagon for quite some time now, but I’d like to get back into it.  I want to write this blog for several reasons, which I want to spell out here, and I want to re-introduce myself.  

My name is Scott Meneely, I’m 34, married, father of 2 and living in Pittsburgh PA.  The target audience of my blog are adult learners of the Spanish language, and parents trying to help their kids speak a second language at home.  I began my Spanish journey at 24 years old and reached fluency within a couple years.  How do I define fluency?  To me I generally define it as being able to have conversations about a multitude of topics with native speakers without having to ask too many comprehension questions, while at the same time being able to express yourself clearly and be understood.  

So why do I care about Spanish so much?  My wife is from Panama, and we want to raise our kids to be bilingual and bi-cultural.  This has not been as easy as one would think it is.  I always hear that “kids learn languages easily” and “kids soak up languages like sponges”.  This has not been the case in our household.  Our kids understand Spanish but do not want to speak it.  Their peers don't speak it, so they have very little interest in it.  In this blog I plan on writing about some of the ways my wife and I are trying to encourage and trick our kids into speaking Spanish.  I’ve also been fortunate enough to meet many Spanish speaking friends from all over the Spanish speaking world.  It is truly a great experience to speak with someone in their language, and it immediately takes your friendship with them to another level.  Another thing that I’m incredibly grateful for is having been able to travel to Latin America regularly for the past several years.  Every time I go my language skills grow by leaps and bounds. This month we actually left the kids with mi suegra for 2 extra weeks in Panama, they're coming home tomorrow and I can't wait to see how their Spanish has improved! Immersion in a language certainly leads to rapid learning. That kind of growth is possible for people living anywhere where there is a Spanish speaking community.  You can learn without traveling, I know it is not realistic for everyone who wants to learn Spanish to get on a plane and go (although if you can, that is a great idea)!    

This blog will include my experience with language learning products, study methods and skills, strategies, observations, and I hope some generally fun stuff as well.  I’ve used many language learning products on my journey; university classes, podcasts, audio cds, books, and much more.  My journey is by no means complete and I continue to study Spanish daily, so intend to keep reviewing the books I read and the products I use.  I also want to talk about some of the attributes of success, like this post where I address the need for the language learner to come out of their shell.   I’d love to communicate more with readers, so if you have a comment, suggestion, or idea, I’d love to talk about it.