Speaking in Tongues
Since I can remember, I have been fascinated by how languages are learned. I studied Early Childhood Elementary Education at Concordia University in Montreal and then earned a post graduate certificate in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) from McGill University. I put theory into practice by teaching ESL at all levels of primary school in Quebec. I am fully bilingual in English and French which I will explain later. Subsequently, I completed a certificate in Espanol Avanzado at Université de Québec a Montréal (UQAM) which enabled me to experience language learning from the student’s perspective. The purpose of this blog post is not to gloat about all my degrees, or for you to start speaking in tongues, but instead I would like to share some insightful as well as hilarious anecdotes of language learning situations which I have experienced while living here in Central America with my young children. Get ready for hilarious examples of toddlers who are learning multiple languages simultaneously. In turn, I hope that you the reader may be compelled to share stories of your own language learning experiences in the comment section below.
J’aime le français
I’ll start, from the beginning, with my childhood experience of learning a new language. Growing up in Montréal, Québec, Canada with parents who were recent immigrants from the United Kingdom, had its unique opportunities and challenges. My British parents spoke only English to me at home. We lived in Québec where Bill 101 stipulates that children whose parents are recent immigrants (after 1980) who had never studied English in Canada – must complete their primary and secondary education in French. As a consequence of this regulation, from the age of 5 to 16, I studied all the subjects at school in French (from in grade onwards 3, we had English class once a week.)
My mother likes to tell the story of my first day of Kindergarten. I was very anxious to start “big school.” I entered a French immersion program for recent immigrants knowing only how to say “Bonjour!” and “Merci.” The first day was a bit overwhelming to say the least. That morning, my mother received a phone call from the principal. They asked that she come and pick me up early from school since I was biting and kicking the other children! He told her that I was hiding out in the bathroom…
With some help from Passe-Partout (a popular French television show for children) and kind neighbors who helped me with my French homework; I eventually got over my fears of this new language and became fully bilingual. Nowadays, I easily switch between English and French according to the particular situation we are in. I am grateful for having studied both French and English grammar. My knowledge and handle of these languages made it easier for me to learn Spanish later on in life. I can also empathize with my ESL and FSL (French as a Second Language) learners be they young children or adults. There are many different learning styles or intelligences as coined by Howard Garner. These impact the type of approaches used when teaching a language. My emphasis as a teacher is on making the learning fun and meaningful so that the student can easily grasp the purpose of the new vocabulary he or she is learning.
Yo hablo espanol un poquito
Ideally, the best way to learn a new language in through full immersion. My own case in point. I studied Spanish half-heartedly in high school. At the time, I was more interested in learning about countries than memorizing any vocabulary words. All this changed after my first fill immersion experience in Latin America. When I first went to live in Mexico at the age of 19, I travelled alone and stayed with a community of nuns at Colegio Marcelina in Querétaro. None of my hosts knew any English or French. In the beginning, I managed to get by with lots of hand gestures and simple verbs in the infinitive tense. This was all fine and dandy until the day I ran out of toilet paper… Imagine my embarrassment, as I struggled to explain to the elderly nun in charge of supplies, the problem of my lack of toilet paper -through hand gestures! From then on, I made sure to religiously write down the new vocabulary in my diary before going to bed. (By the way the Spanish word for toilet paper is papel hygienico which literally translates to “hygiene paper.”)
Y los ninos tambien
Fast forward a few years to our posting as a family in Honduras. Our little blond children often turn heads in this predominantly Latin American country. I once overheard a mother at the supermarket telling her child: “Ellos son gringos, no entienden espanol, solo hablan ingles.” (They are American, they don’t understand Spanish, since they only speak English.) Imagine her surprise when my young daughter had a meltdown in the middle of the aisle screaming: “Quiero sandiiiiiiaaaaaaa!!” (I want watermelon!)
The first question we are asked by curious strangers is: “
-“Where are you from?” I answer.
-“Quebec, the French part of Canada”.
-“How many languages do your children speak?”
-“They speak three languages”, I patiently explain,
-“French with papa, English with me and Spanish with everyone else”.
-“That must be difficult?”
-“Actually, they are like sponges. They repeat everything they hear”.
-“Which language do they speak the most?”
-“I would say they speak Spanish most of the time since this is the language spoken by most of the people around them.”
-“Do they get confused?”
-“Rarely, since most of the time they are able to associate the correct language with their audience.”
I am surprised everyday by their vast vocabulary and can’t help but smile when they blurt out a sentence using all three languages:
Nowadays, our son tends to speak mainly in Spanish and sometimes “fragnol” where he takes a verb in French which he says in a Spanish accent with a Spanish verb ending.
I wish I could write them all down…
- Je want agua! (I want water)
- Papa je veux jugar un petit peu with toi. (Dad I want to play with you a little bit.)
- While playing with his lego blocks, he makes a house: There is juste une porte in the casa for granny and ga. (The house has only one door for granny and grandpa.)
- Which books are en français with papa? (Which books are in French for dad?)
- Vengase outside Maman! (Come outside mom.)
- Mama! Look at the leafo (he made up his own rule here as the Spanish word for “leaf” is “hoja”)
- Donde esta the libro? (Where is the book?)
- Quiero cover and leche! (I want my blanket and some milk)
- Mama moi je gonna be cuidado avec this cuchillo. (Mom, I am going to be careful using this knife.)
- Mira! Hay muchos enfants. Por que hay uno en la poussette y otro en la baby carrier? (Look! There are a lot of children. Why is one in the stroller and the other in the baby carrier?)
- “Mama, can you get my socks upstairs?” Ask your papa. So he switches to French and says:
Papa, peux-tu aller chercher mis calcetines? (Papa, can you go and get my socks, please?)
The theory in language acquisition is that the adult should constantly speak in the same language to the child. In this way, the child associates the language with the person and is eventually able to distinguish the different languages (How Languages are Learned, Oxford University Press.) In practice, I find this hard to implement. I feel self-conscious and rude speaking French to my children around my British cousins. I don’t want them to feel excluded or embarrassed that they do not know the language. At the same time, I find it hard to constantly switch between languages and from one conversation to the next. The children are aware that not everyone understands all three languages and this can lead to frustration and confusion when they mix several languages in the same sentence. We love to read and books are an important element of the nighttime routine. Since we organized the books on separate shelves in the playroom, my son is able to differentiate which books are for in French (for papa), English (for mama) and finally which ones are to read with Delmi (the Spanish speaking nanny.)
I observed my son tell the story “Little Blue Truck“by Alice Schertle to his little sister. He named the farm animals and even their sounds. This is not an easy feat: did you know that the sound a rooster makes depends on the language spoken?
- English: cock-a-doodle-doo
- Spanish: kirikiri
- French: cocorico
I wonder, which one actually imitates the sound of a rooster at 4am?
What comes next?
I am concerned about what will happen to their Spanish once we return to Canada. I really hope to maintain the children’s Spanish when our posting is over. For now, we have agreed to speak Spanish at home together on the weekends as well as invite our Spanish speaking friends for a pot luck get together every month. I really hope to stick to this goal as I feel the children will easily loose the language if they don’t have the opportunity to practice in a meaningful context. On our recent trip to Nicaragua for the long weekend, we choses as a family to speak only Spanish all day and it went really well! There are so many benefits to being bilingual. At the moment, I am collecting as many books, songs and resources in Spanish as I can. While in Mexico, we went to the Ghandi bookstore. It is a large chain which sells books. I especially liked the ones which touched on Latin American themes such as pinatas and animals from the cloud forest. Maybe one day our children will turn into the likes of Montrealer George Awaad, who at the tender age of 20 can speak 19 languages and counting!
I’d love to hear your experiences with language learning. Especially your personal examples of learning multiple languages simultaneously.
Do you have any tips or suggestions on how to maintain several languages in at once in the household?
Very well expressed Amy . Bravo ! 🈵