It's the Thought that Counts...

The challenge of truly learning a foreign language is not the vocabulary, grammar, or even the fear of making a fool of yourself.  For me, the biggest challenge is taking the leap and really "feeling" the language.  

What do I mean by that?  Let me give you an example:

Last Thursday, a group of us went to Schenley Plaza to listen to Flamenco Music.  While Flamenco is generally more popular in the south of Spain in the Andalusian region, it really penetrates a lot of even popular culture throughout the country.

For example, when going to a nightclub, you can see people dancing and doing what I like to call la manzana, (the hand movements tend to look like you grab an apple, eat it, and then throw it away) or even clapping and stomping in time to flamenco rhythms.

I secretly hope one day that the Spanish culture will have penetrated so deep as to enable me to "feel" the music and participate without looking like a complete gringa.

The same goes for some of Spanish words.  I can now more or less hold my own when arguing (which took me several years to master), and I remember the first time that I said joder like a true Spaniard.  But certain words still elude me.  Even my attempts at using the simple "Ole!" has my husband rolling on the floor in hysterical laughter.

I am hoping that spending a month with the family in Spain this summer will help the boys begin the process of "living" the language and starting to absorb the culture and idiosyncrasies that I am either too old or too American to truly understand.  I am hoping that this vacation will be the start of them being perfect Spaniards and Americans.

The Family Language / Community Language Method

A second, highly recommended way to encourage your family to become bilingual uses what are called the "Family Language" and "Community Language". This method also goes by other names such as "Minority Language at Home" (ML@H or MLaH), Foreign Home Pattern, etc.

Basically, when the parents are alone with the kid(s), they use the "family language" and when others are around, the "community language" is used. There are several variations on this (for example, using the family language only inside the house and the community language while out and about, etc)


Again with the "Pros" and "Concerns":

PROS:
1. This method, like OPOL, is extremely common and encourages an active use of both languages.

2. It will allow the entire family to speak in both languages, using the environment as the driver. It is said to be one of the most consistent of the methods as the child hears and interacts with both parents in both languages from birth.

3. Again, I know that this works--from my very own family!:

My mother is from Latvia, but left when she was a small child. Her parents used this method with her and her sister and they still speak Latvian to this day (this is especially encouraging as Latvian is not the most common language and they were not able to visit their home country for over 40 years!)

4. This method relieves one of my concerns with OPOL in that we will not be alienating friends and family by speaking to our children in a language they cannot understand. It will also be easy to be consistent speaking with my husband as we will not need to "pick" a language (as in OPOL).


CONCERNS:

1. I am already seeing that the vocabulary varies depending on if we are at home or if we are in the park, at a restaurant, with friends, etc. I can only imagine that once the little guys start school their English vocabulary will have a different focus (notebooks, pop quiz, etc) than what they use with us and vice versa. How can we even this out? (note to self: once I learn that, I'll need to apply that to my life. There are still words/stories that are more automatic for me in one language or another!)

2. According to my reading, if you follow this method strictly, your child will lag behind during the first 6 months of school until the other language "kicks in". Will this give our children a disadvantage?