Hola Amigas

That's about the extent of my Spanish.  But yesterday, we took Nat for a free trial Spanish class at a language school (it's a big national company, sort of like Berlitz, but geared to kids 2-10).  I had found it online and was a little skeptical that it might be one of those things that is fun and all, but not particularly educative.  You know, like toddler music classes or baby yoga or something.  I have nothing against those kinds of things, and in fact will be using the cheap versions offered through Parks and Rec quite a bit, I'm sure, but I didn't want to pony up big bucks for "fun but not particularly educative" seeing as how fun can be cheap and even free--right?

But it was both fun and educative.  I have some experience teaching English to adults in this model (the Berlitz-type model, but I taught for a smaller company) and basically, that's what they were doing, just geared to preschool kids.  Nat sat in on a class (they keep all classes under 8 kids) for kids aged 3-5, and even though it was the end of a session for the class, the teacher was just brilliant about giving each child (including newbie, Nat) access to success in the language at her own level.  She just kept going and going without a break for 90 minutes, changing activities about every 5-7 minutes to keep those kids engaged.  She had nary a "discipline" problem, as the kids were just always on their toes to keep up with her next activity.

I think the goal of the day was the verb "to play" and maybe also "to like."  The kids were putting balls in basketball hoops and kicking them and jumping up and down on one foot and holding hands and doing ring songs/dances and just all kinds of busy.  Nat just stared and listened with complete attention for the first half of the class then started joining in a bit in repeating words and phrases.  She absolutely loved it.

So we ponied up the cash and signed her up for one 90 minute class per week for ten weeks this summer (they also let you make up any classes you miss while on vacation or something).  I know 90 minutes a week is not enough to have her a fluent speaker in ten weeks, but it's a good start for her.  This one yesterday was the longest she's ever been in a classroom setting.  She'll be in preschool in the fall for three hours a day (though I'm thinking of keeping her home on Fridays), so this will help ease her into that classroom/peer/teacher experience.

I also plan to explore good opportunities to reinforce the Spanish just through life in our neighborhood.  We live in a neighborhood full of first-generation immigrants.  Right on our block, it's mostly African immigrants, but a couple blocks down you hit a very intensively Mexican immigrant neighborhood where all the stores have signage in Spanish and that's the dominant language on the street.  I'm thinking that I can find a playground right in that neighborhood, a grocery store where we might pick up milk every week--that kind of thing--to give Nat some natural life exposure to Spanish.

Then there's all the Spanish-language programming we can get on demand on t.v.  If the kids are going to watch 1-2 hours of t.v. per day (which is about what we average in the summer months--more like 2-3 in the winter months), an hour of it can be Plaza Sesamo, which Nat already loves to watch, even though she doesn't understand a word of it.

The school she is going to in the Fall does Spanish once or twice a week.  I doubt it's intensive immersion, but it will still be some reinforcement.  And maybe if I can find the cash, we can keep up the language school in the fall.

Overall, it does look like this is going to be a good start for Project Multilingual Kids.

Comments

[sasha]

that's so cool -- i wish i had taken spanish instead of french in high school -- seems like the whole point of language is to talk to people and aside from being broke in paris for about a week i haven't used much french (except when brett and i are trying to have an adult strategizing session in front of the kids) and always found spanish ubiquitous.

[Rebecca]

I took Spanish as a 4 and 5 year old (Montessori) and had a Spanish language babysitter, and I really do think it helped me to get fluent in Spanish later. Now I rely on it in my everyday work. So, I think it's great that you're giving Nat this tool. It's one that will become increasingly important for communicating, and she's at a great age to absorb new languages.

[StephLove]

!Buena suerte!

My 3 year old has a Sesame St. dvd with clips in all different languages. It entrances her even though she doesn't speak Hebrew, Russian, etc.

You never know what they will pick up. She was counting up to five in Spanish the other day (though now she just says cuatro, cuatro, cinco, cinco when you ask her to). I don't know if she picked it up from her older brother who's in a half-day Spanish immersion elementary school program or from a book we had out of the library ages ago. Either way would be kind of amazing since he wasn't trying to teach her and we had the book so long ago. They are really little sponges.

p.s. Stephanie Foote sent to your blog.