Raising a Tri-Lingual Child

Someone commented that I should write a post about how I go about teaching Bear Spanish, French, and English.

First, let me say that I am not an expert in this department. I am simply doing what seems pedagogically best to me.

Spanish is covered by my husband. He speaks to her only in Spanish and since we live in Costa Rica, almost everyone around her also speaks to her in Spanish.

French and English are my department and these are more challenging. Challenging because I find it confusing for myself to switch back and forth. When Bear was born, I would alternate singing and talking to her in French and English. But I seemed to use French more. Now I speak to her mostly in English. Starting at around 12 months I wanted to focus on one language until she had started talking a bit. I felt the three languages would slow her talking. I am still speaking French, but a lot less of it. However, now that she has acquired quite a lot of words in English, I have started increasing the amount of French.

What I find works best is to say everything twice - once in French and once in English. She can tell when I switch languages because my voice sounds different in English than it does in French. Something to do with inflection.

In the car we listen to a lot of French songs. At home we listen mostly to English songs. We read a lot of French and English books. (Interestingly, we own hardly any Spanish books.)

When we start homeschool preschool next year when Bear is three, I plan on following the method of the Atlanta International School. Monday in English all day, Tuesday in French, Wednesday in English, Thursday in French, Friday in English, and then the next Monday in French...etc. The theme-based lessons continue from each other, but alternate in language, so you are never repeating the lessons. My husband will continue to speak to her in Spanish and she will have formal Spanish instruction when she starts kindergarten here.

Right now for letters and numbers, I focus on English. With colors and shapes, I waited until she had the concepts down fairly well in English then I talked about colors and shapes in French. Now she knows her colors in all three languages, and her shapes in English and French. She understands all three languages, but probably understands best in English right now.

For those of you who aren't bilingual but would like to teach your child a second language, I recommend reading them those bilingual board books and picture books and having them listen to children's music in the second language. Label the things around the house in the second language. Those of you who do letter of the week, you could talk about words in another language that also start with that letter. These are just little ideas, but they open your child's awareness to other languages.