Bilingual Kid Raised by a Non-native! My Successful Experience

Yes! I guess it is about time to put it out there, I am so proud of myself and of the outcome! My now 4 year-old girl is bilingual. I can say it, I can show it, I can prove it. She is able to speak fluently in English exclusively to her mommy and to her little sister;  and in Spanish, to everyone else around. Spanish is daddy's  language and her community language, but at home and with mom around we do it our way in English. 

This is my situation: we are an Argentinian family, living in Argentina since forever. My husband and I have Spanish as our mother tongue, but I am an ESL teacher and translator, and since I was in college, this "crazy" idea of raising my kids bilingually has been buzzing in my head. So when I got pregnant I embarked on this magical ship, followed the OPOL method (one parent one language) and I can say that it blew my mind! Llulabies, rhymes and songs were running through my head and out loud to my baby when in and when out of my belly. In addition to a ton of material, like flashcards, toys, story books and videos. It all worked out amazingly, mainly because I enjoyed it and I still do, but also because we spent all day together as I had always dreamed it would be and on top of everything because we had a blast. I guess that at one point, I had to struggle to make her understand that she was sometimes supposed to play on her own, especially when my second baby came along. I was busier than before and I also resumed my work. However, by that time, she was already attending kindergarten (Spanish only) which is why the three of us settled down well. 

Regarding my second child and her language acquisition experience, I must say that I have not been able to find as much time as I spent with my first baby to play, to read and to sing, we do have our bonding moments though, but in a smaller proportion compared to the first case. Nevertheless, that valuable playtime she gets to spend it from her older sister, who amazingly speaks in English to address her, all the time. And the little one has already begun to pick up some words and expressions.

Up next, I am going to share some 

Some Facts about My 4 year-old English Language Acquistion Monitoring:

She utters not only words, but complex sentences with connectors, 

She can retell a story and talk about a movie she has watched,

She is able to make up dialogues when playing dollies,

She is already using colloquial expressions and phrasal verbs, like "give me a break" or "to pass away"

She can conjugate the third person singular verbs by adding the "s"

She does not code-switch, she does not mix languages any more

Some Facts about My 2 year-old English Language Acquistion Monitoring:

She utters nouns like: mom, video, yes, ball, bag, etc.

She utters some everyday word combinations like: let´s go, open it, bath time, lunch time, I don't know, good morning.

She "sings" songs in English like: "Frozen's Let it go", "Happy b-day"

She does code-switch.

As extra support to our language at home, we are attending the ALLMethod.com classes once a week and we follow some American families on Youtube.

I would love to hear about your experiences, so please share your thoughts and comment below!

Kindly,

Lucrecia