I owe you an explanation, I know… What’s up with me? Lot’s actually…

Now as most of you know, to be true to my mission to bilingualism I run two blogs, Bilingual for Fun, in EN, and Bilingue per Gioco, in Italian. Well I realised I wasn’t getting what I wanted out of either and decided to invest time and energy to bring at least on of the two blogs to the next level, to make something really impactful out of it. I chose Bilingue per Gioco because I felt that’s where I could make the most difference. There are great bloggers on bilingualism in English, but it’s a virtually unknown subject in Italy.

I think I can now say the efforts where well worth it! Please have a look and judge yourself: www.bilinguepergioco.com. Have a look even if you don’t speak/read italian, just to see what it’s like, please! I promise I’ll soon put the same work into Bilingual for Fun too, just give me the time to recover…

I am also starting a couple of projects in Italy, making playgroups a reality, and that takes a tremendous amount of work and passion and a vision. And quite a bit of stupidity too one might say, at least that’s what I say when I feel overwhelmed. I do happen to feel overwhelmed a lot lately, so you get the drift…

And I have written an E-Book!!! Yes I did! It’s in Italian though… I’d love to get it translated. It went out yesterday and I’m checking emails and stuff like crazy. The title is In che lingua giochiamo? Which in English would read something like Which language shall we play in? In other words it’s one those things that really don’t translate well. I’d have to find a decent English title, ideas welcome… Anyway as you can imagine it’s a book on bilingualism, specifically on all the incredible tool we have (but rarely use) to give children exposure to the minority language in a fun and natural way. It’s 66 pages, including Cover, Index, and Bibliography, granted, but still…!

I am giving away the Ebook for free to those who are registered in Bilingue per Gioco’s newsletter as a way to say Thank-you-for-sharing-the-journey-with-me, but I know that also among Bilingual for Fun’s readers there are quite a few people who read Italian, so I’ll give away a copy here too. To get the copy just comment on this post or on FB and share the link to this page In che lingua giochiamo? with your contacts on FB, Twitter, blogs, anything by Sunday next week, Jan 31st. Which happens to be my birthday too… Go figure! I’ll then do the usual thing of picking a lucky winner!

What else… I’ve been missing my fellow bloggers a lot. I’ve been missing the Carnivals and all the really interesting interactions I used to have with the broad bloggers community. I’m back, and looking forward to this new year!

Thanks for everything, I hope you are all well!

Related posts:

1. Summer vacation options for Italian-English bilingual children
2. Learning a second language is good childhood mind medicine, studies find
3. English, French, German (etc.) Playgroups for Bilingual Children in Italy

Have a look!

Related posts:

1. Second Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism
2. 10 bloggers and a Carnival, on Bilingualism

Today my 2 year old had a tantrum, or rather I thought he had a tantrum, until I read this definition of tantrum.

Ok so let’s say that today my 2 year old made a fuss, and I don’t like fussy children, and at first I got a bit annoyed, then I ignored him, then I got rid of it with 1 question! It was the first time I ever tried this trick and it worked wonders… So what did I say? Bear with me and let me explain…

I was giving him his yogurt, he had a toy in his hands, a duck. He threw the duck up in the air and the thing landed on the floor. I stopped and said quitely he should pick the toy up, NO. I talked to him to explain that he can’t throw things in the air and expect others to pick them up… , NO. I then refused to give him the rest of his yogurt and the thing started.

He started to cry and scream and wouldn’t stop, eventually I allowed him to reach for the yogurt and said he could help himself with it, but he kept crying holding his yogurt…

And then I remembered about Active Listening, and I thought to myself, ok, let’s try it…:

Mum: You are angry, aren’t you?
A.: Si (yes), crying
M: and why are you angry?
A.: crying some more…
M: are you angry because mummy is not playing with you?
A.: Yogurt, crying..
M: oh you are angry because mummy is not giving you the yogurt?
A.: Si
M: and do you know why mummy is not giving you the yogurt?
A. stops crying… looks at the duck on the floor…: Duck
M.: right, mummy was angry because you threw the duck and you should pick it up, shouldn’t you?
A.: Si’. now calm, he goes, pickes the duck up, puts it on the shelf (a step I hadn’t even requested), and comes back happy and smiling.
and then Mummy and A. happy again start eating yogurt together in full armony.

So simple! All it took was one question: You are really angry, aren’t you?

WOW!

Many people talked about Active Listening, I learned the trick from this book which I highly recommend: How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk, by Faber and Mazlish. By the way, Active Listening works at any age, in fact it is widely used also in professional environments.

Image from A Journey Round my Skull

Related posts:

1. How to praise to boost motivation

Playgroups are kicking off in Rome, at  S.Saba, thursdays at 17.30.

Playgroups motivate children to speak the minority language, which is normally the language spoken just by mom or dad and becomes instead the language spoken by children too as well as a necessary means to communicate in an environment where no other language is spoken.

However Playgrous are important for parents too, as they find an opportunity to share experiences about raising bilingual children and boost their own motivation. In fact demotivation and the consequent inconsistency in applying the chosen method is the main reason why many families are disappointed about their children’s bilingualism.

The Playgroups are for preschooler, i.e. up to 6 years old, max 7, and take place on Thursday at 17.30 in S. Saba, Rome of course.

For more information please contant Bilingue Per Gioco at 320 1156419 or bilinguepergioco AT yahoo DOT com.

Image from A Journey Round My Skull

Related posts:

1. English, French, German (etc.) Playgroups for Bilingual Children in Italy
2. More information about Playgroups. What, When, Where and most of all Who
3. Tv, children and language, part 2

This is a very interesting article, it shows that as they are born children already “speak” their mothertongue, i.e. the way they cry depends on the language they have been exposed to in the womb: The crying song.

Now this is very interesting for me… I’ve been living in London and speaking practically only English throughout my pregnancy, so really English is my son’s mothertongue… Or was he born bilingual? hmmmm…

I’ve seen the article mentioned on Blogging On Bilingualism, so let me give them credit for finfing it out.

Image from A Journey Round My Skull

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1. English Speaking Playgroups Starting in S. Saba, Rome
2. Tv, children and language, part 2
3. TV, children and language, part 1

Raising bilingual children is seldom as straightforward as one would think, or hope, and it can be a bit lonely if you live in a monolingual society, however we also came to realise that the experience of raising a bilingual child has some common aspects no matter where one lives and which languages one speaks. So by sharing our views, doubts and tricks we all grow wiser, stronger, more motivated, which implies that growing up bilingual should be a better experience for our own children (conditional in not an optional here, those little things can be sneaky!).

Every month the Carnival is hosted at a different blog, here you can find the schedule and book your turn for hosting (next available slot seems to be March, so if you’re interested you should let us know as soon as possible). If you’d like to be updated about future issues, know when and how to submit your posts to the carnival, or just make sure you won’t miss any, please sign up to this newsletter, which will be used only for the bare minimum of communication needed to get the Carnival going, normally 2 emails per month, nothing else.

Excellent let’s start! Today we have a rich Carnival!

0. Well, It’s not quite 10 bloggers, but 10+1, because I managed to leave one out by mistake. How silly… And the point is that this is a VERY GOOD post, and it touches a point that is often overlooked but can be really tricky. What if your child’s second language is taught also in school and your child has a better command of the language than the teacher? It’s very common, and difficult to handle.  Kathryn from ourprivateblog talks about her experience with a her boy speaking a better, although less formal, English than his English teacher. Sorry Kathryn.

1. Laura from Bububooks with her post gave us much more info than she thought, I believe. The really astonishing piece on information is that in Illinois there are publicly funded Bilingual Parents Advisory Councils, where parents go to receive advice on raising their children bilingual. The second very valuable piece of information is that they also publish tip sheets, like the one Laura is posting.  It’s simple but effective advice and it shows a real committment to bilingualism.
2. Maria from Fabmums talks of a really tough problem that sooner or later will hit all bilingual families: ok we kind of manage the understanding and talking bit, but how about literacy? When and how should a child learn to read and write in the minority language? Maria got her answer sorted.
3. Eve from Blogging on Bilingualism made a list of all the things they do to support French, the minority language. Now that’s a really interesting idea! Just by going through the list you realize how diversified is their approach, how much effort and thinking they put into raising their children bilingual, and how this results in their kids having a rich exposure to the language, both in terms of quantity and quality. A good food for thought.  
4. Jan and Souad from Babelkid tell us quite an amazing story. Their little girl managed to form a 4 words long sentence using 4 different languages (that’d make the One Word One Language approach, wouldn’t it?) AND, here comes the really interesting bit, without breaking any grammatical rule in any of the 4 languages. Isn’t that something? Go here for the most impressive 4 words sentence ever.
5. Than there’s my post here at Bilingual For Fun. I want to challenge your assumptions. Raising a bilingual child can only be done if your mothetoungue is different from the majority language? Who said so?  As a matter of fact many non native speaker parents are raising bilingual children, and here are 8 reasons why anybody could raise a bilingual child (providing they want it hard enough).
6. Steffi at Mummy do that! went home, like back home, for 4 days. Now 4 days aren’t that long, but when you go back home and bring your child with you and are seeing your family and and and… then those 4 days expand, grow  and become a really important experience, for language developmenttoo, among other things…   
7. Deanna from Bilingual Readers touches on a point that is as important as widely underestimated: the powerful impact of playing pretend. She brings to us reasearch that shows how playing pretend, using imagination and storytelling are really important for the linguistic development of a child, on top of being fun and etertaining that is.
8. Smashedpea from Intrepidly Bilingual has a lot of thinking going… Choosing the schooling system and the actual school for a bilingual child can be really difficult, there are lot’s of criteria to take into consideration and way too many questions for which there isn’t a clear cut answer. I’m sure that reading this post many families will recognize their own dilemmas.
9. Ana from Spanglishbaby has a really important message, no matter how much effort you put into raising a child bilingual at home, that’s not enough, you need to give the child opportunities to speak the language also outside the house and manage carefully the child’s perception of the language status (or coolness).
10. Sylke from Sylkeweb seems to be pretty sorted, for once. Bilingualism works just fine in their family but they also allowed time for things to develop.

Before you leave make sure you register  sign up to the Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism  newsletter, so that’s you’ll know about next issues and will be able to contribute if you wish. The schedule is here, next Carnival will be November 30th at Babelkid, so make sure you don’t miss it!

Please ReTweet the carnival, you can find me @bilingualforfun.

Image by A Journey Round My Skull

Related posts:

1. Second Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism
2. January’s Carnival on Bilingualism!

More and more parents are teaching their children a second language they themselves don’t speak as native speakers. Even more parents would like to do but don’t dare. The assumption that only native speakers can teach their children a second language is deep rooted but not supported by any evidence, on the contrary, it is done (by people who forgot to ask permission for it) and many experts in the field encourage this practice. Here are 8 reasons why you should challenge this assumption, and have a go at it if you really think that’s what you want to do.

1. Language is a living organism, with time it can grow and develop. Your child won’t speak a foreig language the way you speak it, but most likely he’ll be better, often a lot better. As a parent you can lay the foundations and give the child the tools to learn a second language, later in life you’ll be able to offer more sofisticated input if you wish.
2. There’s not such a thing as a pure accent. Many native speakers speak with really think accents, some people speak a foreign language with barely any accent.  Let’s look at Englis for instance, only 2% of the UK population speaks the Queen’s English.
3. Languages are a tool to communicate. Sometimes we become so obsessed with stylistic considerations that we seem to forget what a language is about: communicating. If I understand and am understood I gainaccess to a whole new world of ideas, people, opportunities. True, the better I am undertood the more I’ll be accepted, but accent isn’t the whole thing. I know people who lived in the US for years and still have a very think italian accent, that hasn’t prevented the, from making stellar carrers in US companies and multinationals. The have both talent and the linguistic means to get that talent acknowledged.
4. You can and should provide multiple input for the second language. Teaching a child a second language is a long and demanding process but not one that you have to manage entirely by yourself, along the way you’ll be able to choose among many support tools, or people.
5. Children have an impressive ability to incorporate input from different sources, averaging away all the extremes and creating their own blend, often superior to their parents’.
6. This might be the only chance at hand. Sometimes there simply aren’t that many alternatives around. Immersion school, an au pair, a french aunty are not always available. In these cases either parents go for it or they forget about it and leave it to the standard school programme, which is seldom effective when it comes to languages.
7. Whatever your knowledge of the second language you can find the right approach for you and your family. There is not standard way, but there certainly is a way which will allow you to get the most out of your competencies without nurturing unrealistic expectations and making life hard for anybody. Identifying the right approach, right for you and your family that is, can be difficult, but once done, you are half way there akready.
8. If you really want it, you’ll make it. Motivation make anything possible, and when it comes to bilingual education motivation really is the key to success. Learning a language is such a long process, only those who stick to it will eventually make it. Plus motivation often comes with passion and fun, which are really useful ingredients too!

In conclusion, anybody can raise children bilingual, or rather anybody who really wants to raise children bilingual can do it. If that’s you, wait no further and jump to next question: How? (we”ll get there soon)

Picture by A Journey Round My Skull

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The second Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism went live today, hosted at Blogging on Bilingualism. I think this is a great resource for all bilingual parents, as Blogging on Bilingualism beautifully pointed out “the commonality of the bilingual journey ties us together”.

Enjoy the Carnival! And if you are a blogger join us, you can submit your post to the future Carnival or host it yourself in the future. Next session will take place here, on Bilingual For Fun. You can always check the schedule here, or you can receive all the new issues as well as call for submitting your posts here.

Picture by A Journey Round my Skull

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1. 10 bloggers and a Carnival, on Bilingualism
2. January’s Carnival on Bilingualism!

Another interesting article on Bilingualism: Bilingualism Makes Children Smarter.

The article reports the results of a research conducted in Belgium by Prof. Van de Craen. Funny enough last week I attended a very interesting conference on bilingualism (more on this later, a lot more actually, hopefully not a lot later) and there I attended  a speech delivered by Prof.  Van de Craen himself.

It has been a very interesting speech, informative and also funny. There is one thing on which I don’t agree with the Professor. Answering a question I asked he said parents shouldn’t really make things more complicate than they actually are; in raising their children bilingual they should just behave normal and the children will grow up bilingual. I don’t know what normal means when it comes to bilingualism. I was raised monolingual, and that’s what’s normal to me. I see that every family has a different approach (or sometimes strategy) to bilingualism, so it’s difficult to say what is normal. Moreover I see that families have questions and doubts, and telling them to behave “normal” is unlikely to answer these concerns.

Research seems to be a bit disconnected from real life and I think this is an important point. It looks like by exploring the depth and wonders of the human brain they lost track of what it is all about, i.e. helping families to raise bilingual children, which only can be achieved by listening to their questions and giving them answers they can actually make use of in their daily lives.

That said I found Prof. Van de Craen speech very interesting and his research sends really encouraging messages to all parents of bilingual children. In particular he said something I liked and which I want to cite: “A trained brain is different from an untrained brain, just like a trained muscle is different from an untrained muscle”. I hope you’ll enjoy the article.

Yet another picture from A Journey Round My Skull, Ghost in The Rain

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Children will speak a language, any language, only if they have a reason to, in other words if they are motivated, and one of the trickiest parts of raising a bilingual child is to understand what motivation is and how to trigger it. Praise and reward certainly stand out among the tools most used to motivate children at present, just as punishment was until some time ago. However praise and rewards are not always effective, and can even become counterproductive, particularly in the long run. This doesn’t mean that praise is wrong, but  certainly it needs to be handled with care.

The good news is that if used properly praise actually becomes quite powerful, only, what does “use properly mean”? There are a couple of theories on this, and they all make perfect sense, in fact they are very closely related, so keep reading and try to find what will work best for you and your family. These different theories, or methods, all have the same objective: find a way to praise that will enhance the positive effect, Encouragement, and limit the side effects, Judgment. In fact when we praise someone, as well as when we criticise them, we are judging them and claiming the right to decide what is right or wrong about them. And this can be very disturbing, the idea that anyone, even Mom, can say whether I am right or wrong is not necessarily a pleasant feeling.

So here are few alternative ways to praise without judging, they have been described to promote a balanced education of children, but apply just as well to the education of bilingual children. •

• Active Listening This is one of the most powerful tools described by Gordon in his book PET and is widely utilized in any environment, from family therapy to business training. Active listening basically means to step in another person’s shoes, make a real and sincere effort to understand what they feel (anger, frustration, fear, etc) and say it. The last passage is the key one, it’s not enough to think what the other person feels, you have to spell it out loud (you might be wrong, in that case you’ll just give it another try). BILINGUAL CHILDREN: say the child doesn’t want to speak German, or insists that Mom should speak German to him, then mom could just say: “you don’t like me to speak German to you because you don’t understand everything I say”. This technique is explained very well in this article, based on a really book I strongly recommend: How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk by Faber e Mazlish
• Praise effort, not results : if a child doesn’t believe in his ability to learn and overcome difficulties he won’t have enough confidence to try and put some effort into it. Funny enough this happens quite often to high performing children, who grow up hearing that they are good and have a natural gift may be, but think they know and they don’t know that they can learn. See this article. BILINGUAL CHILDREN: don’t praise them for what they say and how they say, but for their improvements and for how they are learning
• Descriptive Praise this comes from the Montessori school and the teaching is that instead of evaluating what children do we should just describe it. This has two implications: the child can accept praise without embarrassment, because it is not a judgement but the statement of a fact (you did this and that), secondly this way the child will learn to observe what he has done and elaborate his own judgement. see this article on Descriptive Praise. BILINGUAL CHILDREN: Mummy spoke to you in French and you answered in French. You sang the whole song on your own. This sentence you just said was correct, remember last week you got it wrong? 
• Reflective Listening is very similar to Active Listening, in fact the only reason I list it here is because I find this article very well written, and if you still have the energy definitely worth a look.

As you can see these techniques are very similar, they all point at avoiding judgment and helping the child understand and evaluate what he has done , boosting in self confidence and ability to decide. Punishment and criticism are different issues, we’ll come back to that.

BILINGUALISM STEP BY STEP

Your homework today, I’m sure you guessed already, is to think about these alternative approaches and analyze your own behaviour at the light of these info. Is there something you’d like to change in the way you praise your children? What? Make few specific examples of situation you would now address differently. As usual don’t make vague statements about how you will change everything, clearly identify few specific situations and decide what you will say when they arise.

Picture by A Journey Round My Skull

Related posts:

1. Pro and Contra of Praise
2. How to I brought my child from crying real tears to a happy smile with one question
3. 7 Strategies to use when a bilingual child doesn’t want to speak a language