I am in my office this morning, in my own little world, trying to concentrate on the paperwork I am working on completing, when Stinkerbell's voice breaks into my consciousness. I stop what I am doing and listen for a minute. Nani and Stinkerbell are working together to make the bed in my room next door. They always keep up a chatter when they work together. You really have no choice but to chatter when there is a 2 year old around. You either talk to her or hear the same sentence over and over (and over) until you finally give in and talk to her... So, I stop typing for a minute to really listen to what they are saying, and I realize that Nani is teaching Stinkerbell her vowels in Spanish. Nani says "ah" and I hear a pipsqueak "ah" in return, "eh" and "eh" is echoed back a heartbeat later...and so on. I smile and that smile is for many reasons. First, I know that my daughter is safe and loved and happy and that always makes any mother smile. And I smile because hearing her chipmunk voice always makes me smile. But it makes my smile even wider when I realize that she is learning a new language in that voice, from a native speaker and doing it in a way that is so natural that she will never remember how much work it really was. Most of all though, I smile because it takes me back to my childhood and how I spent my days the same way she is right now. Working alongside my Nani, loving every minute of it and learning a second language without even trying.
Learning spanish was one of the reasons that B and I decided to become expats. Not the only one, but it did rank pretty far up the list, probably higher up the list than most families would put it. Our reasoning is this: B's family is from South America, so more than half of the girls' extended family speaks Spanish as a first, and sometimes only, language. We just couldn't pass up the opportunity to have them become fluent at such young ages (trust me, it gets a lot harder when you are in your 30's). We are adamant that both girls will leave here years from now thinking they were born speaking both languages We already have a head start. B has always spoken to the girls in Spanish exclusively while I speak to them in English. They understand everything said to them in either language, though they have always only spoken in English. Now, we just need to get them speaking Spanish. With that in mind, we knew we wanted to put MadHatter in a Spanish speaking pre-school since she would be forced to understand AND speak. Hmmmm, it was a good thought but try finding a pre-school in Santiago that isn't English immersion! It makes sense. Everyone here wants their kids to be bilingual too...We just have opposite language needs.
We did end up finding a great place for MadHatter. Mostly Spanish speaking with some English lessons during the day. We are still in a bit of a quandary about what to do when she hits Kindergarten a year from now (or 2 depending on if we use U.S. based schools or Chilean as their years start exactly 6 months apart and have different age cutoffs). I have a couple of months to make the final choice but it is daunting. You want the best for your children, but what is the best? Would it be better for her to become fluent first and then go to the best school for academics, or is it better to sacrifice fluency for better academics? I'll keep you posted on our decision.
As for Stinkerbell, I don't think fluency will be a problem. I was exactly the same age as she is when I moved to Central America, and I learned both languages concurrently. I was fluent in both well before I started school, thanks in a large part to my Nana. And my mom, who let me spend a lot of time with her so I could pick up the language naturally. (I surely wasn't going to pick it up from my mom - just as Stinkerbell won't be able to learn from me). I don't worry about her becoming fluent, as much as I worry about her not keeping it up. I am proof positive that if you don't keep up with it, you will forget it (and no, it is not somewhere in the back of my mind, hiding, just waiting for me to tap into it...it is GONE). And having to start over is no fun...because it is time consuming, and it is frustrating that you already did this once, and you end up with a Spanglish Accent.
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