What a difference 3 weeks makes ! At the beginning of
the summer, I was so disheartened when I came back after a 2 day business trip
and found my little boy speaking to me in French. Only French. Not even a
smiggin of English. I was picking my brain, banging my head against the wall
trying to figure out where OPOL had gone wrong. Was I less consistent with him
then with Suzanne? No. Was I less strict? No. So what happened? As it turns
out, nothing went wrong because Max is bilingual!
In June and July, Max was on a hitting and biting spree. My
mother was here watching the kids for the better half of August. And just like
that he stopped physically harming his entourage. It is definitely no
coincidence that his English came out and his hitting stopped. Yes, boys tend
to hit more (warning : major stereotype!) but they also say that kids hit when
they don’t have the means to express themselves otherwise. Max, although very
able to make himself understood, was having some sort of communication
breakdown which was cleared up by solidifying his English…and thus his overall
language skills.
It reminded me of when Suzanne started school. I was so
worried that French schooling would improve her French to the detriment of her
English. But, what actually happened was that as her French improved, she
looked for ways to make more complex sentences in English. This is exactly what
seems to have happened to Max, but in reverse order since Suzanne’s English was
stronger than her French before school whereas Max’s French seems to be the
stronger language.
On top of that, it seems that Max, like his sister has a musical ear, which no doubts helps with the dual language acquisition. From a very young age, Suzanne has been able to sing songs completely on key after only hearing them once. The other day, Max said "music crying" when he heard a violin in re minor. We thought that was pretty cool...
Needless to say, I'm proud of both my kids. But, sometimes, I'd like to stop speaking for just a couple minutes...
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