I'm not perfect.
In the past I would get so frustrated if I didn't speak every word of the day in Spanish on our Spanish Only Days. I felt like if I wasn't perfect in my Spanish then somehow I would completely confuse my children and ruin their chance to ever learn Spanish. I had an all or nothing attitude and this frustration only led to giving up.
This time around I've taken the attitude that something is better than nothing. I may not be able to communicate everything in Spanish. And I often feel like I'm hardly speaking any on our Spanish only days because my five year old is constantly asking questions and wanting me to explain things in terms he can understand or because I get lazy and want to communicate something right away. But atleast I am trying to speak as much as I can. And there are vocabulary words that they are learning and hearing over and over again.
Maybe I've got it all wrong entirely. But above all, I want this to be a positive experience, for my boys to love the Spanish language as much as I do. If nothing else, I feel that perhaps I'm making it easier for them to one day learn to speak fluently, even if that's not right now.
After we'd been going a few days, my three year old asked me to stop speaking in Spanish. My five year old got upset and said, "No! I want to learn to speak Spanish!" I say that's progress!
It sounds like you are doing a great job introducing it as much as you can. There are lots of things that come up and we have to switch into English. My oldest understands it so it's easy to use it with her, but with my two year old, she doesn't use Spanish very much at all. I think every little bit helps and it such a fun and great thing that you are introducing them to some Spanish!
ReplyDeleteTara, you are awesome! I had the same experience when I first spoke Spanish to Garrett -- I gave up because I wasn't perfect at it. And now I wish I would have stuck with it at least a little! So I'm repenting and starting VERY slowly...like, one new word a day! I think what you're doing is great, and that's so fun to hear that E wants to learn it!!
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