[AdoptAmiga]

WannabeMomof2: Best of luckwith your Spanish. You'll do fine. The hard part is being consistent in the language. Also, it's hard to compete with English tv, playgroups, relatives, etc. If possible, try to hire a native Spanish speaker as a babysitter or "playfriend" so your child can interact w/someone else (and also to give you a break). If you live near a decent size college, you probably can find quite a few Spanish speakers. Have fun practicing those verb drills..lol!

[WannabeMomof2]

Originally Posted by AdoptAmiga

WannabeMomof2: Best of luckwith your Spanish. You'll do fine. The hard part is being consistent in the language. Also, it's hard to compete with English tv, playgroups, relatives, etc. If possible, try to hire a native Spanish speaker as a babysitter or "playfriend" so your child can interact w/someone else (and also to give you a break). If you live near a decent size college, you probably can find quite a few Spanish speakers. Have fun practicing those verb drills..lol!

Thanks- I do speak it ok- although I do stumble on the some of the tenses. I was thinking of taking some classes in conversational spanish at the university just to help out..but omg- I was in school for 8 years..the thought of going back..LOL

[vivismom]

Yeah I love thie thread. My husband and are are raising our daughter to be bilingual (Spanish/English) and of course plan on raising our second child bilingual when he/she comes home to us from Colombia. Isn't it fun!?

[kittymom]

My husband and I are considering adoption from Guatemala. If we do, I hope to give my child at least a basic familiarity with his/her native language. I took four years of Spanish in school but am very rusty. My husband knows ZERO Spanish. Maybe we could all learn it together.

[hermitgirl]

Although DH and I aren't old enough to adopt from China for quite a while, we both have recently started Mandarin lessons, and plan to continue them even after we have our little girl. Her language and culture may be as important to her as she is to us, and we would never want to deny her that privilige; and instead make every effort to learn with her!

We are learning both the spoken language, Pinyin, and characters, knowing that each Sunday (lesson day) brings us one step closer to China, and to her!

I think if you choose to adopt internationally, making an attempt to raise your child bilingual or at the least making the opportunity avaliable when he/she wishes to learn is so important as adoptive parents. That's just my opinion however.

[Emeraldgems]

I'm an international adoptee and I don't understand the need to teach the child their bparents language unless you intend to live there, the child will have dual citizenship, stay in contact with birth family, or you intend to travel there often. If any of the above apply, then cool

As far as raising any child, adopted or not, billingual. In general, I think it's worth it even if it delays their linguistic development. I think that's a very little price to pay for such a big gift. At least I'm happy my aparents spoke both Danish and English to me although my English is no longer fluent.

I wish I spoke German though. Practical when I live in Denmark and they're our closest trade partner and neighbors. Knowing Thai isn't really useful in my life so I don't miss not speaking my bparents language.

If you can't go through with the bilingual plans, don't feel bad about it. I'm sure your kids will do just fine and be just as happy without their bparents language.

My aparents were really open about my birth culture and my mom took me to Thailand some 20 years ago. My interest in Thailand was the same as for any other foreign country so my mom finally accepted that.

As late as last fall when my dad came to Denmark from California, we had a row over my ethnic identity/cultural background/cultural and social identity. I kept insisting I was Danish he said I was Thai which I took great offense to since he obviously had the wrong definition of ethnicity and further more, proceeded to shove something down my throat/throw over my head, despite my objections.

Oh, so typical me to go off on a long rant and repeat myself from other threads. Sorry!

[SingleMiamiMom]

I am native italian, and I learned english in kindergarden and watching Sesame Street. lol

I plan on teaching my child both as well...will probably use an au pair from italy also to make sure italian will be a main language for her. School will teach them english.

[Shai's Mom]

I'm an A-mom of two beautiful boys, living in Israel. My children are growing up bi-lingual. I speak only English to them, my husband only Hebrew. My 4 year old is fluent in Hebrew, understands English perfectly, but doesn't want to speak it. When he does speak English it's usually mixed with Hebrew and he'll conjugate English verbs according to Hebrew rules. The results have given us quite a few laughs.

The little one is still to small, as of today he's 7 months old.

I also have a grown-up b-daughter who spoke 3 languages by the time she was 10 years old.

I think it's great for kids to grow up bi-lingual. They don't know they're learning yet, they simply absorb the new language. I do feel that a third language shouldn't be introduced until the child is secure with the first language.

To my understanding, growing up bi-lingual doesn't impede language development, however 3 or more languages can cause the kids to start speaking later. It makes sense to me..

[linda512]

MomtoB- I think if you speak only in Japanese to your child and your husband speaks only english, that is the best way to raise a child to be bilingual. I have friends who did that with english and hebrew.
Good luck to you.

[Mindy82]

I live in Quebec, Canada as well, and bilingualism is paramount! I wouldn't even have a job if I couldn't speak French and English. My friend has a little boy called Roman, (Romy for short), and he is perfectly fluent in English, French and SPanish. He just turned 6

[sluna]

Hi-

We adopted Jack from Colombia a year ago and are raising him bilingually. His father speaks to him (and reads to him) in Spanish (his native language) and I speak/read to him in English.

Studies have shown that young children (before the age of 11 months) are developing language and it is possible for a child to "learn/aquire" any language (or two). Children associate a "language" with the person speaking it...So "Mommy speaks like this and Daddy speaks like that".

The trick is being consistant and also finding ways to provide your child with literacy (not just spoken language but written) in both languages. Your child will always be stronger in the language of the community in which he or she grows up. As the parent, you need to be sure that they also get the "content" and "literacy" support in their second language.

Research studies have also shown that bilingual children are slightly behind monolingual children in their initial language development; however, they are shown to have a better comprehension of abstract concepts (i.e. they can separate a "word" from the thing that it represents). So there is definately a great pay off for the very slight delay.

We wish you the best of luck!

[intladoptionblog]

We live in a country with three official languages...French, Creole and English. I speak only English, but my husband speaks all three. We speak English at home. We've been debating (see my blog to read about the anguish!) schooling for our oldest, now three and a half (Cambodian born and home at 13 weeks). Our choices are 1)an English only International School 2) a Creole only local school, or 3) put the whole thing off for another year.
Right now we're leaning toward the local school for a year, then the International. With this, he'll be fluent in Creole soon, get to know the kids in our area (all Creole speaking) and be closer to home.
It is important to us that our kids speak the "home language" of their home country, but as Creole is not a language that travels or is spoken widely it is also important that they can use English well. French will come later in school.

[Mihoshi]

I also find this thread amazingly interesting. I am a linguistics person and I can personally converse in English, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, and a little Vietnamese and German. Now, none of these are perfect (my Asian character writing is often horrid), and I have yet to spend time overseas to have the natural flow that native speakers do, and yes sometimes I will accidentially mix some languages together when I speak, but I think it's very important in today's world to speak more than one language. The younger you are when you begin to learn, the better you will take it all in and it helps you mimic the accents a lot more.

My son is almost two, and when he's a little older he'll be forced to take German classes (as my husband's family is German). And we plan on a similar method for any adopted children that we have so that they will always have their native tounge, culture, and history no matter where in the world they are. To use the motto of Sigma Lambda Gamma “Culture is Pride, Pride is Success.”

[Tawnya]

Originally Posted by rinabean

I was wondering if anyone out there that adopted a child from a foreign country tried to raise their children bilingual.

I am from Italy and my family still lives in Italy. I would like my baby to speak English and Italian so she can interact with her Grandparents and the rest of my extended Italian family.

I know that babies are very resilient and will adapt soon to new environments, but I am concerned of delaying my baby's speech even more.

I am in the process of adopting a baby girl from China and I am guessing that she'll be less than one year old by the time we bring her home.

I have found material that talk about how to raise biological children bilingual but nothing that applies to an older child that has been already exposed to a different language.

Can anyone give me any advice or suggest books that talk about this?

Thank you!

Rineabean, many families raise their children in bilingual or even trilingual homes. My husband, for example, was educated and raised in Sri Lanka where in the home and community, three languages were used. The research on bilingual or multilingual development is positive, especially for a child or children who are older whereby they already have language skills in the first language. The difficulties or caution come to play for children who are language impaired (speech language pathologist diagnoses this). These are children who have difficulties with language in their first language, thus have difficulties acquiring and understanding any language, even their first language. These children would have great difficulties learning a second language. Also, children with learning disabilities or dyslexia in reading will have difficulties learning a second language, particularly the reading/writing portion of the language. For most other children, what happens is that it takes several years to learn the Basic Interpersonal Communications Skills (BICS) of a language, which is necessary for social communication. Children who are raised in multilingual homes will have good BICS in the languages they are exposed to; however, their vocabulary will be narrowly applied to the situations and settings where they are using the language. This means that vocabulary might be limited to the home setting if they do not use the language with friends outside the home or in school. The Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) form of language only comes with direct instruction in reading, writing, and academic vocabulary language use, primarily found in schools. There are schools that offer dual language programs. For example, in border states in the USA, there might be a dual language school program for Spanish and English. These are not bilingual education programs to teach English. These are programs whereby the students are proficient in both languages yet are being educated in both languages to read, write, and use the language in an academic manner. In Seattle, Washington, I understand there are dual language programs in the school for Chinese. Check in your area. If a child goes to school and does not receive serious academic instruction in one of the languages spoken in the home, there will be a deficit in that language in the CALP type of language. This typically happens for children who are able to speak two languages, yet only read, write, and do academic work in one of the languages. For some immigrant communities, you might find that there are weekend schools for the children to teach and educate the child in the other language not available at the public school. I have seen this for many different languages; however, you have to live near a large community for that language. In the USA, for example, Italian language classes are offered at some universities, at various Italian cultural centers in the USA (like Los Angeles, CA), and in some public high schools in select areas. Taking a language as if an American learning the language for the first time is not the same as serious studying of the language to be able to read, write, and use the language in an academic context like one might do in Italy. Foreign language departments and classes in a junior high or high school are not always given the same respect or status as the English department, classes, and teachers in the USA. Living in the USA, it might be very difficult for most to really develop true CALP in a language other than English. There may be some possibilities for Spanish due to the influx of Spanish immigrants and resources. You will find that immigrants who come to the USA to study at the universities and then do not return back home often find that their confidence level for CALP level use of their first language diminished since they did not receive their university education in their first language and they are not using their first language in their professional work. Thus, they do not know the vocabulary needed or have the university level of proficiency of the language to work and study at a level necessary in their profession. So, my brother-in-law who came to the USA to study at the university in 1993 and is now finishing his doctorate degree by December 2006 and wants to be a professor... told me that he does not have the confidence to teach and write journal articles at a university using his first language. He is more confident using English, his second language. I imagine that if you are Italian living in USA adopting from China that you might even consider your child learning three languages: Chinese, English, and Italian. I imagine that if living in the USA, the child will be most proficient in English, Italian second (you're fluent), and Chinese last (weekend school maybe). The other suggestion is that you might also start researching Chinese communities in Italy. After all, Marco Polo is famous for his travels between Venice and China. These communities might help you with the three languages. I used to live in Italy myself for several years while growing up and my husband has a cousin who married a Sri Lankan-Tamil-Italian. Their children speak English, Italian, and Tamil. Their best language is Italian. They speak Tamil in the home, yet learned English as a second language at school. The eldest is now studying at the university in Italy studying electronic engineering. I have another friend who was raised in Lebanon with a mother with first language of English (family was Lebanese immigrated to USA during WWII) and a father with Arabic as first language. In the home, they spoke both languages. They were educated at school in French language. The children attended university in the USA in English. My friend later went to Italy to medical school where she learned Italian while at medical school in Ancona. She is now married to a Dutch professor and has just passed her Dutch language proficiency exam and is a Dutch citizen now. She is finishing up her medical license in the country so she can practice as a doctor there. Many people speak multiple languages, many of them while growing up, some while as a child or teenager, and others learn as adults. It's possible, just a bit of instruction, practice, and hard work... The only people who cannot do it are those who have difficulties with language acquisition of their first language (e.g., language impairments, learning disabilities).

[mybaby]

We finalized the adoption of my daughter when she was 3-1/2 years old and a Spanish speaker. We had only spoken to her in Spanish for months during the adoption process, so we did not know how to introduce English.

We also did not want to send her to pre-school as soon as we arrived, as recommended by a social worker, eventhough my daughter is very social. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but being a stay at home mom allows me some flexibility so I wanted a smoother transition.

Our solution? For 5 weeks before sending her to pre-school I introduced lots of nouns and used them repeatedly during the day. Then slowly I introduced some verbs and cartoons in English and Spanish. Dora the Explorer in both languages was incredibly helpful.

I cried when I dropped her off at pre-school, but in 4 months she was "80 percent" fluent in English. She loves speaking two languages! Two more months and she is now "95 percent" there.

My husband also speaks French, so we will probably use the same technique in a few more months once she solidifies her English. It will be harder though since she will not be going to a French school.

No idea how and when she will learn Creole. I will probably be exhausted by then!