Immerse yourself

While waiting outside Morgan’s gymnastics class I observed an effortless exchange of words amongst acquaintances in the community space. They spoke Korean freely and fluently like many of the families in Northern VA’s booming Asian population. One family on their way out, another checking in, a third arriving late; I watched their easy rapport in what I assumed to be their first language. Their young children chimed in (in Korean) without missing a beat and then went on to participate with equal effortless ease in the English run gymnastics class.

I waited for a lull in the conversation between the Korean mothers, when I might pick their brains on the secrets to bilingual child rearing, but that pause never came (I’ll ask next week!) Instead I connected with the reality of what the Korean speaking families had inherently, a something that my family must seek out, cultivate, and sometimes pay for. Community. Shared language community.

I can’t pretend to believe that this weeks hack is as easily done as said.  But Spanish immersion preschool has been instrumental in creating a linguistically rich community to allow Morgan’s Spanish to expand beyond just a special language used between her and her dad. I live in the states most supportive county when it comes to bilingual public education opportunities and still even I had a tough time finding a program with just the right balance to meet our family’s needs. Be that as it may my Many of you can do it language immersion hack of the week is: Find an outlet for your second language efforts within your community. Find a means for functional and practical immersion for yourself and/or your kids.

The kids of the monolingual born are naturally at a disadvantage for really internalizing and intrinsically valuing the minority language here in the States. My kids have no cultural or familial ties to the second language we’ve introduced. There is no real communicative consequence should Emory choose not to speak Spanish. Vincent’s strict adherence to one parent one language coupled with feigned inability to speak English were key in years 1-2. However Morgan quickly caught on that daddy does in fact speak English at which point transitioning into a Spanish preschool helped to promote the utility of her minority language and gave her real consequences for not using Spanish (her first preschool teacher spoke very little English).  With Immersion preschool has come opportunities to connect with like-minded families who value bilingualism as much as we do. I’ve networked and play dated a whole host of families in my community including children of native speakers, children of bilingual-curious parents, children of parents who speak no Spanish at all, but hope to equip their kids with the skills they lack. The nanny we hired during our brief stay in Chile was our preschool directors aunt who still keeps in touch to this day.  We attend monthly playgroups for bilingual families hosted by a former preschool teacher who also hosts conversation groups for parents hoping to keep up and mommy and me for newly verbal not quite school aged kiddos. My fledgling shared language community all growing out of enrollment into total immersion schools.  It has been a worthwhile investment.

Morgan (second from left) singing in chorus with her shared language community