I am part of two groups – one of them with organized monthly meetings which we’ve started to attend a few months ago. My daughter likes it, though she has yet to speak German to anyone there The other group has just about fizzled out. I am one of the founding members, though it sort of happened by accident, and am very much in the process of trying to revive it – but so far most parents are only interested in pub nights and say they don’t want to give up their weekends (we’ve pretty much all gone back to work now) for activities designated to help their kids become bilingual. There still are a handful of members who are a bit more committed to this undertaking and once summer is over, I’ll try to get something going.

It’s a bit of an uphill battle – but if this group is not to be revived, I will look elsewhere, that’s for sure. My daughter and husband will start classes at a German Saturday school as of September and I am hoping that we can find some more people that way, for example. I’m thinking of all those little siblings that are too small for Saturday classes and that sort of thing… We’ll see how it goes

I’m glad I found you, you’ve got a ton of useful stuff here! I should have some time to update my links next week and will definitely return the favour

Cheers! And yes, let’s stay in touch.

thanks for stopping by. I looked at your blog and I really like it! I added the link below… You are not the first person who mentions indifference if not hostility from family and/or society. I have to be honest, I think for me it’s easy because our second language is English, and everybody wants to speak English. But as your comment confirms, children are always very open to any kind of diversity, adults are the problem…

I’ve seen on your blog that you are in contact with a german community, have you thought of trying to organize a German playgroup yourself?
Also I have seen that you also started the blog as a way to focus on what you were trying to achieve, well done! I started for the same reason and find it really useful.
Let’s keep in touch,
L.

P.S.
Nice to know that Google is working for me now… I still have to do some SEO work though…

I can totally relate to this

We’re raising our kids to be bilingual (German and English) in an English-speaking environment and yes, they do stick out when I speak to them in German. Recently, I’ve started to expect them, especially the older one as the little one isn’t quite clear on the difference between his two languages, to speak German back to me. After a bit of a struggle (she’s very stubborn), this is beginning to work out quite nicely. It’s gotten to the point where she speaks German to me even in situations in which we have always spoken English (e.g., daycare pick-up and when visiting our monolingual relatives).

I didn’t expect this at all. It worried me a bit at first as I didn’t know whether her cousins would think she was weird or something. But quite the opposite, they’ve totally accepted it and don’t bat an eye when she speaks English to them and on occasion switches to German when she speaks to me.

Good for you for organizing your little beach community into an English playgroup Most of my in-laws are either indifferent or opposed to bilingualism (I don’t get it either), so it always encourages me when I come across situations, other people’s experiences, etc. in which bilingualism is so accepted and even promoted.

Oh, and I stumbled upon your blog via Google alerts