Sorry if I'm repeating myself but I was going through my groups and noticed that I did join. I thought I was unsuccessful for some reason.
I'm Sharon. I have three kids and live in Alsace, France. I'm from California originally but have lived in London, Hong Kong and Israel. We can see the Black Forest from our front porch. My dh Daniel speaks French to the kids but he's equally fluent in Alsatian, the local dialect and German. He has no French accent in German but speaks with the Black Forest accent. He can pass as a local since their dialect is close to Alsatian. He also doesn't have an Alsatian accent in French since his mom spoke to him in accentless French. He can't really speak English. He has a pretty good accent in English but he doesn't try to improve it and says things like "I am looking TV now", which my children have picked up. He also can't understand anything ressembling normal speech. My mom talks to him really slowly and he says "Why can't you speak clearly like that!" Ugh. I wanted him to use Alsatian with the kids but French is definately his stronger language and he prefers to use that with the kids. His mother was also going on about "confusing" them. Ronan is 5 and in a bilingual French-German program. I ignored my in- law's protests. There are actually a lot of already-bilinguals in his class including a Moroccan boy and a Kzak (sp?)girl. Ronnie took ages to speak. At 2 1/2, he was silent and people were telling me to take him somewhere. At 5, he's perfectly trilingual and no one tells me to do anything with him lol! Talia is three and in her first year of school, which is really preschool here (PS). She spoke much younger than her brother. They fight in French, which is fun if we're in a California grocery store. As long as they're not fighting, they pass as real Californians. I put them in a local preschool on visits and they thought we were expats. All three were born there and I actually was already living in Paris when I met my dh. I only use English with the kids. It works well as we can tell who is speaking to whom. It's really helped Daniel's comprehension, even if he's not trying to improve his speech! I'm a flight attendant and since we go back about every 6 months, I wrote an article which I just blogged. If you'd like advice on flying with children, feel free to visit http://flyingwithchildren.blogspot.com I know it needs a little editing but most parents looking for that sort of advice are not looking for great works of literature. It's hard to write about diapering and packing and make it sound interesting. Feel free to comment. Thanks! Sharon ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Give underprivileged students the materials they need to learn. Bring education to life by funding a specific classroom project. http://us.click.yahoo.com/LZzaMD/_WnJAA/HwKMAA/W_NqlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/multilingualmunchkin/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
