Year Four Update | Raising Bilingual Children

What's your name? What's your favorite color? What's your favorite activity? Are you done? Hello and welcome to Live Your Language tips and inspiration for your bilingual home. I'm Stephanie, a PhD student in second language acquisition and a mother to two children that I'm raising bilingually, trilingually actually, in my non-native languages of French and Spanish. This is a video that I've been really excited about sharing with you all. This is the year 4 update. Actually, because of when I'm filming it, it's more like year 4 and a half, just because I'm not sitting down to film this until the fall. So my first son is actually 4 and a half now. I'm really excited to share with you all of the progress that we've had over the last year and a half. I can't wait to share with you also some updates that we have, so stay tuned until the very end. I started speaking with my 4 and a half year old in French exclusively as a non-native speaker. And my husband speaks English with him. Around age 3 or so, we began introducing Spanish to him. First with me at home and then in a Spanish immersion school. My 2 year old, I did the same thing with him. I spoke French with him and my husband spoke English. And we actually have an au pair who is from Colombia and she has been watching him since he turned 1 actually. I haven't been working full time since my first son was born, so I've been able to give more French input than maybe other people might be able to. But nevertheless, that is the overall situation we have here. So the way that I'm going to structure this video is I'm just going to go into some general thoughts about the process. Then I'm going to dive into each individual language, English, French, and Spanish. So overall, I am so pleased with the way the last year has gone. I'm so, so, so pleased that I have trilingual children and that's just something that I've always wanted and I'm really happy about that. The first thing I will say is now that I have proof that it's been working, I've seen myself relax a little bit in the last year and a half. In the sense that I'm not so nervous about making sure that every book in the house is in French or Spanish or being really, really nervous when they start watching TV in English with their dad. Now that those languages are established, I've really been able to relax a lot and that feels good. But that is linked with another observation. So I have noticed that I think because I've seen the success in French that I have unfortunately gotten a little bit lazy with looking things up. You know, saying like, oh, you know that thing that we talked about yesterday? Instead of looking it up and being as diligent as I was the first time because I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders, now I'm just a little bit more laid back. Like sometimes I will in a pinch use an English word and I'm not like, you know, scolding myself for it. So I probably should be a little bit more diligent about making sure that the quality of my language is a lot higher. The third observation is that I am in a constant state of planning ahead. So, you know, I'm comfortable now. I'm happy with the way their languages are turning out, but I'm definitely looking towards the future. Like what's going to happen when our au pair leaves? What about when they go to school? I'm always thinking about these sorts of things. And I feel like as a bilingual parent, you're in this like constant state of vigilance of like, you know, where is that next source of input going to come from? And how can we keep maintaining things? Which in my opinion is a small price to pay when you already have the language acquired. I've noticed these very distinct seasons, I guess, of language learning with the kids. So the first is acquisition. Basically getting them to fluent. And that's fluency and listening and speaking. The second stage is really maintenance. And I've learned that once acquisition is taken care of, maintenance is a lot more simple. So my oldest son, obviously he's acquired French by now. He has really taken a liking to audiobooks. So I have been playing audiobooks for him while I put his younger brother to bed. And I noticed that after doing this for probably about three weeks or so, while he's playing with his cars or doing something, you know, randomly during the day, he will just start reciting that entire book. And this would not have nearly been as successful or at least internalized by him to the point that he puts meaning to those words if we were still in the acquisition phase. And I've always said from the beginning that kids really, really need interaction in that foreign language in order to acquire it and to grow. But after that acquisition period, it's a lot easier to maintain the language with some of the resources that are a lot easier to acquire, like music and audiobooks and those sorts of things. The acquisition aspect, for example, with Spanish is something that I knew I didn't want to take on myself, especially because it was going to take away from our French input, which is already limited. And I'm so, so, so glad that I was able to give this responsibility to someone else in the case of my oldest son and immersion school, in the case of my youngest with our au pair. So that language maintenance and just supplementing that language is going to be a lot easier going down the road. And another thing along these lines is I learned that once the language is well established, especially as the language of interaction, it takes a lot longer for the language to atrophy. For example, earlier this year, when we had a French au pair who was here actually for about a month and it was a lot shorter than we had planned, I felt less concerned about my ability to kind of supplement that input and stand in the gap while we waited for another au pair. It takes a longer time to atrophy when you build that base, but at the same time, it does atrophy. It's slow and it's gradual, but it does happen. So anyway, we'll talk more about that a little bit later. Let's dive into discussions about the individual languages. The first language that I want to talk about is the one that's nearest and dearest to my heart and the whole reason I started this journey, and that is French. So I am pleased, especially with my oldest son, at his French development. He has continued to speak with me consistently in French and is very verbal and just gives these really long-winded explanations in French, which I love, obviously. Yes, I have the chance that I have my room next to me in the bed and then when I wake up, the thing that I have my room next to me will be there and then if you say yes, I will play with it in my bed. If you say no, I will continue to sleep. So his French is well established and is doing really well and is, you know, really moderated by my level of French and the interaction that I have with him. We did try Saturday school about a year ago, but I pulled my son out after about three months just because we were having a lot of trouble. He was having behavior problems, going to the principal. He was just not ready for that. So that was unfortunately the only other source of French input. So I've kind of been on my own for the last year and a half after our French au pair left unexpectedly and we actually got a Colombian au pair a couple months later and then having to pull him out of Saturday school. So unfortunately, we do not have the second source of French input that I've so desperately wanted. Now I want to talk a little about my youngest son who is two and a half now. Okay, qu'est-ce que tu vois dans le livre? Now I've noticed a striking difference between the amount of French that my oldest spoke with me at his age, at two and a half or so, and the amount of French that my youngest is speaking. Everybody warned me that it's always harder with the second child and I thought to myself, how is that possible? I don't understand. I'm the same person. And actually, I'm better than I was two and a half years ago. So how is that possible? Well, I'm seeing it and I have a couple ideas. Like I've noticed that my sons are actually not interacting as much in French as they used to. They used to interact in French all the time, especially before my youngest was speaking. But now I look around and they're speaking exclusively in English together and I don't even know how that happened because really, my youngest son is getting the least amount of exposure in English from an adult source. But I suspect actually that a lot of that input is coming now from his older brother. Overall, I would say it's a success, but I would put it solidly in the yellow range as like we really need to do something to make this work because this is not going to sustain itself. Now, the next language I want to discuss is Spanish. So introducing this language over the last year and a half was a huge success. I am so pleased with the way it has gone. The kids have taken to Spanish so quickly and it's amazing the difference really that at least one person in their lives can do in the case of my youngest with our au pair. It started with a lot of apprehension. Just within a year and a half, they've gone from zero to having complete ability, you know, to the extent of their age in Spanish. So that is a huge success. Instructors at my son's immersion school have put a lot of time and effort into this language He pulled me aside and told me so many times like he's so much more verbal than the other kids and that he's just doing really, really well. I like to think that was because I primed him and started practicing with him in Spanish a lot earlier before we introduced him officially to the Spanish-only environment. I like to think that's why, but you know, it's hard to say. The kids there, I noticed, spoke amongst each other in English. In spite of that, he's doing excellently. Now, my youngest son also is doing fantastically. I remember distinctly when our au pair I first told her that I really wanted her to speak only English and she was really suspicious. Like, I'm not sure this is going to work. I mean, I'll do it, but I'm skeptical. And then, like six months later or so, she came to me and said, So, like, we have a problem. Your son does not speak English. He's only speaking to me in Spanish. Like, what are you going to do? So yeah, I'm pleased. It's going really well. So when I'm not around, all three of them are just speaking Spanish together and it's wonderful. So now I'm going to talk quickly about English. This is the elephant in the room. English is, even though not the focus of my channel at all, this is a language that has infiltrated quickly and the degree to which it's infiltrated into my house is incredible. Like, it used to just be my husband and my husband, you know, working full time out of the house except for the evenings and the weekends, really. And English was just not a dominant language for my oldest son at all. But now, my youngest is speaking English tons. Like, it's like his default language. I suspect this might be because he and his brother are speaking a lot of English together. Like, the oldest has brought English back into the home. It's their language of play all the time. Want to loosen it? Could you say yes, please? Yes, please. Tighten it? Yeah. And the other thing that I suspect is that because I don't feel like my Spanish skills are strong enough to discuss things with my au pair, I speak to her in English too. And because of that, I think that he hears a lot of English between us as well. So overall, I believe that his English exposure is increasing and that might be why, but it's just mysterious to see somehow how a child who has never gone to school or preschool is speaking so much English. It's crazy. So this town actually has an international... So we actually moved to a new town, and this move was partially inspired by my concern. Okay, so now I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the updates that have been happening in our lives lately. So as you might notice by the different background, we have moved to a new town. And also one of the benefits is that I'm super close to a lot of my family. My dad lives really close and we see our mom and we see my mom all the time. This move was for a few reasons. First of all, wanting to be closer to family and having support, but really one of the large reasons was I realized that my son is getting older. He's four now. He'll be starting school next year. And our old town didn't have any immersion schools or anything like that. Whereas this town actually has quite a few language immersion programs, including several in Spanish. So I thought by moving here, we would increase our chances of having my son enrolled in a Spanish immersion program. In fact, this might be a little intense, but I made sure that we were in the school district that would allow for him to be districted to the Spanish immersion school. And that if we were to be accepted, that he would be able to either walk there or take the bus there. Because in these programs, a lot of times when you're accepted, it's a lottery where we are. So you're accepted, but you have to provide your own transportation. And I really didn't want transportation to be the limiting factor for us to be able to partake in something like this. The other thing is that I was hoping that by being closer to my family, I would have more opportunities for language input with my mom, with French, and then with my dad speaking Spanish. There are also a lot of resources here. It's a very multicultural, diverse area that has lots of speakers of different languages and lots of community programs and those sorts of things. That said, one thing that is not present in this town is a Spanish immersion preschool. As a bit of a compromise, now he's in part-time preschool in an English speaking school that's very close to here. And I really opted for this because I wanted him to have as little English input as possible while still developing those social skills and that sort of thing. So he goes from 9 to about 1 or so in English. And he spends the morning with our au pair and speaks Spanish with her. And then she picks him up and they're speaking Spanish until I get home at around 2 or so. The other big change that we've had is that I have gone back to work full-time. Now for the last year or so, maybe more, I've been going to work about 24 hours a week. This is a big change for all of us. So it's just been a bit of an adjustment. I'm definitely concerned about French input and I know that this is not ideal for our level of French input. So I'm definitely looking for resources in French to sort of mitigate that change. But all in all, I'm really happy with the change and really looking forward to this. Like I said, always looking forward to the next stage. So one of the big questions I have is, are we going to get another au pair when our current au pair has to go back to Colombia? If we do, will there be a Spanish speaker or a French speaker? Will I be able to maybe reduce my hours at work somehow and come home? Or can I find a way to get another French speaker involved in our kids' lives? Maybe we can do Saturday school again? Like there are a lot of questions. So definitely subscribe and stay tuned to figure out how we end up managing all these big questions in the future. So thank you so, so much for following our story, for listening, for subscribing, just for the community that has developed around this topic. And I read every single comment. I don't necessarily get the chance to respond to everyone, but I read them all and I really love hearing from you guys. So if you have any questions or comments, please leave them below and I will catch you in the next video. Salud. Pas à l'autre.