Raising Bilingual Children as a Non-Native Speaker
When my daughter was born I decided that I wanted to raise her bilingual, even though I’m a non-native speaker. When I first started thinking about teaching my daughter Spanish, I realized that I needed to do something about my grammar.
I hadn’t taken a Spanish class since college, 6 years before she was born, and my Spanish was minimal at best. I didn’t want her to hear ‘grammatically incorrect’ Spanish, but at the same time, I was the only one who knew any Spanish at all.
Who else could I get to talk to her so that she would hear correct Spanish?
Since I didn’t know anyone else who spoke Spanish I knew that I’d be the one talking to her the most and trying to teach her Spanish. I also knew that I needed to find ways to make sure that she was hearing a higher level of Spanish than I was capable of.
At the time that I was deciding to teach my daughter Spanish, she was 6 months old. So far I’d only interchanged a few Spanish words into my and stumbled through a few sentences here and there.
I wasn’t consistent in my use of Spanish and, since I’m a single mother living alone, felt weird trying to talk to my daughter in Spanish all day without really knowing if I was saying anything right at all.
I decided that I really needed her to hear other voices and to have a strong exposure to the language. I set to work researching all of the things that I could to help give her the most experience possible. Here are some of the top things that helped me to teach her Spanish and to improve my own Spanish drastically:
- Spanish books
- Books on tape
- Podcasts in Spanish
- Music in Spanish
- TV in Spanish
This website is a guide to help you get started on your language learning journey or to help show you some resources that can augment your journey. I hope that you enjoy the content and keep in touch.
If you’re looking to get started on your language learning journey, use these guides to help you out!
Part 1: The Best Age To Teach Your Child A Second Language
Part 2: How To Create A Language Learning Schedule
Part 3: How To Find Resources That Maximize Your Language Learning Time
Part 4: You Can Do It! – Motivation For Bilingual Parenting
Happy Learning!
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