I know teaching the kids Spanish has become a complete fail for me.
My kids need to learn Spanish. I don’t know how many times I’ve said this before probably a billion, but it isn’t a complete parent fail on my part.
I realized that many of the reasons I had “failed” to do what I wanted was because of ME!
- I felt embarrassed to speak Spanish (sorry tata i know your frowning on this one) I didn’t want people to laugh.
- I knew no one was understanding me.
- I wanted fast results from my kids who can bearly speak English.
- I wasn’t consistent.
- I gave up
The article is titled Do bilinguals have equal and perfect knowledge of both languages?
Part of the reason it’s been difficult to teach my kids Spanish is because i am not perfect in both languages. I only speak about certain things or to certain people in Spanish. That doesn’t mean I don’t have the knowledge to learn about things I don’t know but it just a habit.
For instance I pray in Spanish tho all my sacrament classes have been in English. I know the prayers in English and can probably recite them if I thought about them hard but it comes natural in Spanish because my grandfather taught me in Spanish.
When speaking to my parents over the phone(usually both on speaker) they both understand and speak both languages but i find my self answer to my dad in Spanish and to my mother in English and they respond the same yet we are all in the same conversation.
So when I try to parent something isn’t triggering. Spanish was my first language so much comes naturally. I don’t remember how I learned it but i can assume it all was from my parents and grandparents speaking Spanish.
I really want to give OPOL a try again and this time for my children. I know being on the east coast makes things a lot harder since i really have no one to speak Spanish with. Where in California my whole family spoke Spanish.
I have made two goals this time around
- Be consistent!
- find/join a Spanish speaking playgroup!
I feel the more interaction we have the better it will be.
On another note look at what my Valentines made!
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