This is my
story. It is simple, common and formed by a mixture of improvised and
premeditated events. My life can be “easy peasy” for many people, and “chaotic”
for some others. I’ve got three lovely children (a 6 and a 4 year-old boy, and
a 20 months baby-girl).
I’ve been working as a teacher of English for 15 years
now, but teaching English to my own kids it’s been a difficult job. My husband
doesn’t speak English at all, and nobody else around us does.
It’s
disappointing seeing that I’m able to teach other kids, but that I’m not
getting the results expected with mine.
Any way,
I’ve talked to many teachers, all of them native English speakers married to
Spanish speakers, and it happens the same in their families.
Maybe, the
power of “mother tongue” is bigger that we had imagined. Maybe, we need to
disconnect from work and so we speak in a different language when we finish.
But the
truth is that a lot of Spanish children whose parents are (both of them)
Spanish native speakers, being one of them a teacher of English, hardly speak this
foreign language.
I’m definitely
determined to change all this, so I’ve made the decision of bilingualising my
family this year.
