Multiilingualism; Getting stared (Part 1)

     Oddly enough, the only person in our household who actually speaks more than one language (fluently) is my (Egyptian) husband George, who speaks Egyptian Arabic and English, so he is really only bilingual, not multilingual... And up until about a week ago he only spoke to me and the boys in English... so my boys obviously, much to my dismay, speak only English!  (Well, that is, spoke only English up until about 3 weeks ago anyway, but more on that later! For now we'll stick with  monolingual mommy's sad emoticon here...>) :-(

What could I possibly know about multilingualism?!?! Well, in short, a lot... yet nothing at all!

I always knew I wanted to raise my children to be bilingual, at LEAST. Even before I met my husband, I had a passion and (now dormant) knack for foreign languages that had developed around 10 or 11 years of age when my parents enrolled me and one of my younger sisters in an afterschool Spanish program. The teacher (Senora Lemon) was very enthusiastic, she made learning fun and easy, and from there I just started to fall in love.... not with my teacher, with Spanish! Lol. In fact, if it weren't for my love of foreign languages, I would not have met my husband at all, but that's a story for another day! With my love for languages, even as a young teenager, I would imagine what it would be like to have multilingual children, along with being a mother, it was and is one of my dream goals!

I remember when I was pregnant with my first, I did a lot of research on "How to raise a bilingual child." I was adamant about our baby learning both English and Egyptian Arabic. When I did my research, the most successful method of raising a child with more than one language seemed to be the "one parent: one language" technique and I thought "We've got this in the bag!" George is a native Egyptian, so obviously he could and would speak to our baby only in his mother tongue, we would buy movies and toys to support the Arabic language as well, and I would speak to him in only English, or perhaps I would brush up on my Spanish and use that with Cruz while relying on my family and community to take care of the English. I knew everything I needed to know about raising multilingual children. George agreed with my plan, he was on board... or so I thought, but when Cruz finally made his debut, we BOTH spoke to him in English, ONLY IN ENGLISH and we KEPT SPEAKING ENGLISH!!! Occasionally I would ask George to speak to Cruz in Arabic, as he was the native speaker, where I had poor pronunciation and spoke the language much much less than fluently; I had never been interested in the Arabic language, even with my love for languages. When I would ask my husband to use his native language with our son, I would also remind him that it was crucial and that our son could only learn Egyptian Arabic properly through him, with all of George's family still being in Egypt and with the resources available to me to learn Arabic would all be proper Arabic, not Egyptian, that was the best and only option! Sometimes when I told George to speak to Cruz in Arabic, it almost seemed like I was asking him to perform an unpleasant task and other times when he would actually speak Arabic to him, it way very brief and inconsistent, lasting no more than a few minutes. Eventually I got tired of the nagging it took to get my husband to speak Arabic with our son, by the time he was one, pretty much all of the bilingual aspirations I held for him had fallen by the wayside.

 I had assured myself that Geo could and WOULD teach our son Arabic when he started speaking and interacting more in English. I had this idea in my head, that my husband would be jealous and upset that our son wasn't speaking Egyptian Arabic, when he was dominating in English and interacting more with me so he would (suddenly) become motivated to teach Cruz his language, but alas, it took Cruz much longer to produce language than *I* anticipated, we had a surprise baby, and my husband worked (still works) 70+ hours a week, so with a less than vocal child, a new baby, and little time, no such eventuality ever really arrived. Of course George was/is upset about our sons not knowing his language, however, for whatever reason speaking Arabic to the boys didn't seem to come naturally to him. I'm not exactly why he didn't speak to the children in Arabic, I'm not even sure if he knows why, but he didn't and I didn't do much to facilitate second or third language learning for our boys. Neither of us ever found rhythm, neither apart nor unified, in raising our children multilingually. Looking back, we could have tried harder, and we should have, but the past is the past and we shan't waste energy looking back and dwelling on things that can't be changed. Now is the time to use positive energy and focus on the things we can change, and that's just what we're going to do!

So what changed? Why has our dedication to multilingualism suddenly been renewed? Well, within the past month two things happened that provoked me to readdress this issue and the first was happened over the last weekend in September. We drove up to Grayling for my paternal grandmother's funeral; may she rest in peace! While we were there, my sister, Chelsea was there with my niece Olivia who is just less than a year older than Cruz. My sister and I, of course, spent the whole time talking about our children. I talked about how Cruz was in pre-school and really enjoying it, my sister talked about how she was unable to get Olivia into pre-school, but she was working hard to teach her daughter numbers 1-30 to prepare her for kindergarten and she had even taught her a little Spanish.... Spanish... Wait... What?!?! My monolingual niece, who has no bilingual family whatsoever is now learning a second language, and from my sister, her mother, who is decidedly beyond FAAAAR from fluent in Spanish. Shocker, right? Well, no, not really. I mean there are thousands upon thousands of children who learn Spanish and other foreign languages from family members and educators who are nowhere near fluent in the language being taught. Sure, these children might not become fluent bilingual or multilingual individuals, but that's not shocking nor is it my concern. My concern and what is so shocking is that my children have a native speaker; their father, of another language; a language that should be ONE of their mother tongues, living in our house! They have someone with them every day, albeit for a short time, but they have that access and ability to learn and communicate fluently as native speakers of Egyptian Arabic at their fingertips (well almost), yet they know nothing but English. They have a mother with a passion and knack for foreign languages who knows bits and pieces of several languages and who once considered herself near fluent in Spanish, yet still, they know nothing but English! This can't be right, with so much opportunity to learn a second and third language, and even more if desired, my children are monolingual... and my niece who has far less opportunity is starting to speak Spanish, just basic words, but still... not right... not fair!!!

I had never really given up on my children being bilingual, but I guess, somewhere along the way, I just started to (subconsciously) think/hope it would happen magically with no effort, with no
implementation on my part... But then, last month, I saw my 4 (now 5) year old niece learning Spanish and I realized that I am actually going to have to make a conscious effort to teach my children Arabic. I am not fluent in Arabic, nor have I ever been; Arabic was never one of my languages of interest, but I know my "ABC's," 1,2,3's, colors and some basic phrases and vocabulary.
Okay, so that is not going to produce fluency in my children, but it's a starting point! After that weekend, I started reciting the numbers 1-20 and the Arabic alphabet with my pre-schooler and found that, shocker:... he is absorbent and eager to learn! I also started to ask George to start speaking in Arabic to the children, yet again, he was somewhat resistant... :-(

Fast forward two weeks after seeing my sister: I went over to visit Melissa; a friend who I rarely see. She is a native Spanish-speaker and is raising her children bilingually. Her children are the same ages as mine and she speaks to them only in Spanish, they have a Spanish-speaking nanny who speaks to them only in Spanish when their parents are at work, they watch some movies in Spanish, and they learn English from their solely English-speaking father and the community. I was amazed at their speaking skills in both languages when I went to visit, especially with her four year old. The little girl switched between languages with incredible ease. When she spoke to her mom and brother, she spoke in Spanish, when she spoke with me or my sons or her father, she spoke in English. When she heard Spanish, she responded in Spanish, and in hearing English, she responded in English. I was incredibly jealous!!! Melissa and I even ended up talking about bilingualism and I expressed my struggles with getting George to speak only in Arabic to the boys, she did help give me a little perspective on why that might be, but then she told me it was too late and they wouldn't be able to do it. "Too late...." Wait... What?!? "Too late..." too late for what!?! I learned Spanish as a young teenager, it can't be too late!!! Maybe she meant it was too late to have my husband start speaking to the boys only in Arabic; but there are language immersion schools, so it can't be too late for that either! Maybe she meant it was too late for them to speak with the native pronunciation, I don't know, could be, but with the research I've done and their current stages of development, I doubt it's too late for that either. Well, whatever she meant by "too late," I refuse to accept that! "They can't," is not a valid answer. This conversation really kicked my butt into high gear. I started using more Arabic phrases and vocab with the boys in addition to reciting the numbers and letters. I resumed my research on bringing up bi/multilingual children, my insistence that George speak only in Arabic with the children has been renewed and I am consistently reminding/badgering him into doing so... And I am already seeing results!!! "Too late, they can't...." okay Melissa (I know she didn't mean it this way, but...) Challenge accepted! And because I'm so competitive, not only am I going to teach my children Egyptian Arabic, I'm going to teach them Spanish as well... Take that!!! (JK, I am not teaching them Spanish to "one-up" anyone, I'm going to do it because these recent encounters have reminded me how much I loved the language, how I had previously thought about passing the language down and that I do have the ability to give my children a third language, so I should and I will!)

Well, that's all the time I have for now, but I promise there's  much more to come, stick with me and check back often to see/read how our surely exciting journey unfolds!