A brief version of the journey thus far:
I started my own multilingual journey when I was in high school. I took French in middle school because I wanted to be different. But as a senior in high school, I decided I wanted to also learn Spanish. So I had AP French and then Spanish 1. I loved Spanish class. After graduating I went to Colorado College, in part because they offered a major in Romance Languages, meaning I could take more than one language!! I loved that idea. I ended up studying abroad a summer in Italy, a semester in Oaxaca, Mexico and a semester in Perpignan, France. I had to decide between an emphasis in French and Spanish, and I chose Spanish that time. I fell in love with the language and the cultures. I felt very at home in Mexico and a bit out of place in France. After graduating college, I joined the Peace Corps. I wanted to go to a Spanish-speaking country so that I could maybe be an interpreter or something. I was sent to Paraguay where the dominant language in the countryside is Guaraní. I loved learning Guaraní though, and was pleased to add a new language to my repertoire. After I returned to the US, I decided to teach high school Spanish because I knew I enjoyed working with people. High school wasn't quite the right fit for me though, I continued my education and got an MA in Spanish during 3 summers. I spent one summer in Spain, one in Costa Rica and Guatemala and one in Peru. Those were wonderful summers and helped cement my love of the Spanish language and the many cultures of Spanish-speakers all over the world. When I left high school teaching I moved to Madrid to teach English. I enjoyed teaching adults, but felt that I didn't really have room to grow in an environment where the classes were just a mini interlude in a business day. I moved back to the US and pursued my PhD at UC Santa Barbara. I got a PhD so that I could teach college-level classes. I was very fortunate to get a job teaching at Santa Clara University where I teach beginning, intermediate and upper division classes in Hispanic Linguistics. When I met Rob, he also had quite a mulit-lingual past and was supportive of the idea of raising our children in Spanish and English. It helps support the kids' language learning that he understands and can speak Spanish even if he speaks to them and me in English most of the time. I, personally, had always wanted to give my kids the gift of bilingualism!
One thing I hadn't realized was how hard it can be! It has been a difficult journey for multiple reasons, but so worthwhile. I speak to my kids in Spanish 5 days/week and in English on the weekends because it felt weird to me to never speak to my kids in my own native language. I think it's important for everyone to find their own unique path of what works for them. There have been moments when I've nearly given up. I was quite disappointed to find that despite all my studies and all my travels I still had MANY holes in my vocabulary. I didn't know simple things like a good way to tell a kid to flush the toilet or the many different kinds of trucks that my kids wanted to talk about. It was challenging to find books and materials that were engaging and written in Spanish. When Toby, our first child was slow to speak I worried that despite all the research saying bilingualism doesn't cause speech delays, maybe it did. When he went through a daddy phase, I wondered if he didn't want to be with me because I was the one that spoke Spanish to him. When my kids only spoke Spanglish I worried because the research claimed that kids learned to distinguish languages at 2 or 3 years old. When the research claimed grammars didn't mix and my kids did, I was a bit stressed. But now that we're a bit further along on the path and I have some clarity of hindsight, I can be more calm.
The kids are doing fine! Aside from me, they also had a nanny from Guatemala and Toby completed 2 years of immersion preschool at Mi Mundo and Ezra's in his 2nd year. They're distinguishing more between the two languages and speaking more complete sentences in both languages. Our trip to Puerto Vallarta really helped Ezra especially speak more in Spanish. Now, we're embarking on a new phase as Toby has just started Kindergarten at Mira Vista. My multilingual loving heart is panicking as he's in school in English all day. I know the power of education in the dominant language of society and I know how many kids lose their Spanish once they start school. But, I'm trying to remain hopeful and look for every opportunity I can to continue to expose and surround him with Spanish. He is at Little Tree for after school, I do have some reservations about how effective his Spanish class will be there though. He's also learning to read this year. One of my big goals is to help him learn to love reading in Spanish as well! We'll see how that goes!! I'm hoping to find more educational enrichment opportunities for Toby in Spanish so that he continues to value and use the language well into the future!
More to come!