Second Language Education

In other countries it seems the norm to introduce more than one language to children before the age of formal education in a traditional school setting; hence the increased numbers of bilingual citizens coming from other countries. Here in the United States it has typically been middle school where a student is finally given the opportunity to choose an academic course of another world language.

I know! I know! Some of you private schools offer early second language instruction, and even some of the public schools have ventured into a weekly visit from a world language instructor or maybe even started a dual language program. Today I want to discuss the masses, those who are touched by mainstream America which represents the majority of the

I felt this would give our child exposure to Spanish for a few hours at a time since our home was mainly English with a new Anglo husband and two bilingual sons from my former Latino husband.

What I did not realize was that such exposure to Spanish in an immersion format caused our daughter to become selectively mute only months later. To this day I still do not know for certain why she would shut down verbally for hours on end when in the presence of Spanish. It could be as simple as a server in a restaurant, a neighbor, or a child care provider in her new preschool. If any of them were Latino, she would not verbalize, she would not utter one word while in their presence.

It took us months and months of observation, research, investigating and pure agony as parents until we finally had the casual diagnosis made. And sure enough, once we removed our daughter from an environment that presented Spanish in an immersion setting, she would verbalize fine for a two year old. I continued to give her the gift of Spanish as her second language; I just never presented Spanish without English alongside it. This presentation of two languages is known as a true bilingual

What would you have done? I had known for a long time that the ideal situation to help my child become fluent and biliterate in Spanish and English would be to have me speak Spanish in our home while my husband spoke English. It is truly the best of both worlds experts agree, but I had agonized for months over what I felt I had done to our daughter. I had exposed her to Spanish using an immersion format which seemed to have resulted in her becoming selectively mute.

I could not feel good any longer about my belief in immersion for my daughter. Then I went on to teach at local preschools as a music resource teacher, and these children helped me to realize that immersion was not a successful format for the majority of young children who were hoping to get a fun jump start on learning a second language. Here is what happened in a nutshell: I went into the preschool and was ready to sing a new bilingual song about the days of the week I had written to the tune of a classic children melody called The Ten Little