My eldest daughter is 5 years old and goes to a school with a Spanish immersion program. She is most definitely English dominant. I tried to teach her Spanish on my own, but I’m the only one who speaks it at home and it became clear to me that I needed help. I was determined to get her into a public school with a Spanish program. My husband, not so much. Spanish wasn’t the most important factor in determining what school she went to for him.
I should probably add that I live in San Francisco, where we actually get a choice of what public schools we would like our kids to attend. I realize this isn’t the norm elsewhere.
She’s in kindergarten and excited about learning how to sound out words and write them. She practices on her own all the time. Sometimes with great success other times not so much success. I was cleaning up in the living room when I came across the piece of paper pictured above with the word “japi” written on it three times. It looks quite intentional so I knew she meant to write it and it wasn’t just a random bunch of letters. But japi? Geez, I thought, I hope it isn’t some kind of racial slur. She’s only 5, where the heck would she get something like that from? Then it occurred to me to sound out the word in Spanish and I realized that what she intended to write was the word happy, but since she’s being taught in Spanish, she spelled it the way it would be spelled if it were in Spanish.
I asked her what she intended to write and sure enough it was the word happy. I cannot tell you how JAPI that made me. My English-dominant daughter’s bilingual education is working! She may not answer me in Spanish yet, but she’s learning!
Awww! Just reading this made me japi too. Yay for raising bilingual kiddies! 😀
I like that you can pick what school they go to!!! Glad that the class is helping her.
It was a not the easiest process to manuever, but I am thrilled we had a choice and got our #1 pick on the second try.
I LOVE that she is learning SPANISH. This is her heritage. We should ALL know another language. Right? xx Btw, I do not!
Surely you know Pig Latin.
Oh how I love this! My daughter is doing the same thing with English words. I love when she randomly out of nowhere asks me something in Spanish. I know that would not have happened if she weren’t in a Spanish immersion school.
so adorable! http://u.to/2lrUBg
that´s cute! I’m sure you are proud and japi! 🙂
She is so fortunate to have a bilingual momma…..my daughter has had Spanish every year of school….not the same but I think it’s important for kids to know another language. When we lived in Germany I was the only one I met that only knew one language….everyone knew minimum of 3!
I really enjoyed your post. It is great that your daughter is learning
Spanish and liking it, and also so good that you found this school for
her. It is not easy to speak another
language to a child in the US but it is important for her to learn
Spanish. When my daughters were born I
tried to speak to them in French, but my husband is American, and I gave
up. Now, years later they are not pleased
that I did not try harder (I did not find a school teaching French for small
children though.) What an advantage your
daughter has with you for speaking with her in another language.
How cute… I’m JAPI for you too.
jajajajaja— that’s how I felt when I first saw my mom write “lololol” in Spanish. I was so confused and then realized it’s how we write it in Spanish. Of course, what your daughter was doing is something slightly different but in the same vain. So glad she’s picking it up! Being japi is a great feeling! No matter how you spell it!
This makes me japi, too!
🙂
Traci
So sweet…Kyle is bilingual today (literally, in Buenos Aires for a semester). He got his start in Kindergarten, with German. 🙂