Bilingual environment

Sat Oct 8 20:20:53 UTC 2005

 Dear Nino,

 I am attaching a short list of bibliographic items on raising children 
bilingually which you may find to be of interest.

Best wishes,

 Edith Moravcsik

> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm" <tamm at LING.SU.SE>
> To: <LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
> Sent: Wednesday, October 05, 2005 2:52 AM
> Subject: Re: Bilingual environment
>
>
> I have a good experience of raizing three bilingual (Russian-Swedish)
> kids in a Swedish setting. My situation is slightly different from
> Nino's, since we are a mixed marriage (my husband is a Swede and I am
> Russian),  each of us speaks his / her native tongue to the kids and
> accepts replies only in the same language. However, I think the main
> strategy in all such situations is to be consistent with the languages
> one uses. I am personally not completely sure that the "one hour a
> day"-practice is a good thing to do, but there might be other opinions
> and results. Those who read Russian and are interested in practical
> questions related to raizing bilingual kids in "diasphora" might
> perhaps be interested in a paper where I discuss my experience: it can
> be downloaded from my home page,
> http://www.ling.su.se/staff/tamm/publ-r03.html
>
> Best,
> Masha Koptjevskaja Tamm
>
> 2005-10-05 kl. 09.40 skrev Amiridze, Nino:
>
>> Dear colleagues,
>>
>> I would appreciate it if you could give me any advice on a problem 
>> related
>> with a biligual environment.
>>
>> Because of my husband's job we together with our two daughters (5 and 7,5
>> years old) live in a small Upper Austrian village where my husband's
>> reserach institute is located.
>>
>> Although some co-villagers are xenophobic, we did not really have serious
>> problems untill recently when our older daughter started visiting the
>> primary school (Volksschule) there. The teachers seem to be nice and our
>> daughter seems to be one of the best students according to their records.
>> But the main teacher who leads their class has started asking us to speak
>> German at home. We are Georgian nationals and although speak also other
>> languages including German we always speak only Georgian to our kids.
>> First
>> of all because it is the most natural thing to do to speak a native
>> language. Second, here there is no one else but us who could address our
>> kids in Georgian and the only chance to learn the language they have only
>> with us.
>>
>> Apart from the school subjects, at home we read with our kids books both
>> in
>> German and Georgian. But it seems that just reading is not satifactory 
>> for
>> the teacher and she repeatedly asks us to speak German ``at least one 
>> hour
>> per day".
>>
>> I tried this several times and I think this is a dangerous experiment, at
>> least it seems to me to be so. My daughters started asking me why are we
>> different, why don't we speak German like others. Even when carefully
>> having
>> explained that they started apologizing for us in the shops, buses, and 
>> at
>> many occasions that their parents, you know, don't really speak the 
>> German
>> language properly, and so on. I think they are developing a kind of
>> complex
>> not only because of the teacher but also because of the peoples attitude
>> towards foreigners at the place of our residence.
>>
>> Every time we meet the teacher, even if away from the school, she reminds
>> us
>> to use German at home. Last year my husband and I explained to her that
>> they
>> need to hear Georgian at least from somebody and perhaps the German 
>> spoken
>> by a native speaker is more important for their language development than
>> our German which is after all learned during the last 3 years. But we got
>> a
>> sarcastic smile probably meaning that she simply didn't believe us
>> thinking
>> we were avoiding her advice because of the lack of time or for some other
>> reason.
>>
>> Could you please let me know your opinion about the use of languages with
>> bilingual kids and what results might follow. Could you give me the
>> refernces for popular articles written in German to show them to the
>> teacher? Does an educational offical have any right to plan a language 
>> use
>> in non-native families? I think we have a right to preserve our language
>> and
>> culture and we think one of the most important ways to do so is to use 
>> the
>> native language at home.
>>
>> Thank you very much.
>>
>> With best regards,
>>
>> Nino Amiridze
>>
>> Utrecht Institute of Linguistics
>> Utrecht University
>>
> Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm
> Off.: Dept. of linguistics, SU university, H.: Västerled 166,
> 106 91, Stockholm, Sweden      167 72, Bromma, Sweden
> Tel.: +46-8-16 26 20       +46-8-26 90 91
> http://www.ling.su.se/staff/tamm
> 
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