Personal experience: bicultural children
'29.11.2017'
On me: denim jacket G star; blouse Rose & olive; a bag Monserrat de luca, leggings Eye Candy, sneakers Ash; earrings Alexis Bittar
With greedy journalistic interest, bringing out their customs, habits and secrets from American mothers, I tried to learn the best. A year ago, having learned that many of them attend free educational classes with children in the city library South BeachI immediately went there with a child. There were two groups: from six months to one and a half years, where we were at that time by age, and from one and a half to three years. Classes were held in Story Telling Room. Children really brought very young, but there were more than one year olds. I was waiting there for a completely different discovery ...
Parents and kids barefoot sat on the carpet, forming a circle, and sang a famous greeting song:
-Let's say hello to Alex! - they happily clapped one of the babies
-Let's clap hello to Pratibha Purushatam! - they continued as if they had long practiced chanting mantras, addressed to a little Indian baby.
- Why are they barely walking barefoot? - I wondered about myself. This thought especially often visited me on the street, where, due to the Russian mentality, I even suspected on the playground broken glass or a rusty nail. Do they not get sick if their feet are cold?
Meanwhile, Petty, bearing in mind his Russian origin, was the only one who did not smile. It looked like this: “It will be fun - I will smile. In the meantime, I do not understand what is happening - for what reason? ”. I didn’t know anything more than a Russian that unites all of us who have come in large numbers Moreover, he did not even think to stick to the circle, but, on the contrary, went out to his middle and stood up confidently there, looking at what was happening with interest. While I, pulling a smile, tried to clap happily, insincerely and flauntly.
The lesson was led by a loud, large lady, who sang a greeting hymn to all but Small, sat down to read. It hurt me. Small, apparently, too, because he immediately went to the lady and tried to pick up the book himself. Like a huge toy caterpillar, which the whole occupation lady waving from side to side. And while Petty was tearing down all the reading, I rushed to save the situation in order to return the children a fairy tale. As a result, sitting in a spectacular scuffle called “a despotic mother and her obstinate son” in the center of the ring, Melky and I left the class. Some children, for some reason, followed our example and went to the place where Petty led. On the street in our beloved park near the Bass Museum, our faces were lit up with the most honest, genetically built, inter-hooligan smile.
In the year he was just not interested in everything that spoke English - he did not understand him. He did not recognize many fairy-tale heroes and did not cause any pleasant associations with the melodies sung by the Americans. And just as we, adults, having learned English, did not always understand the local humor and did not recognize the quotes of the movie characters, in the same way the child did not know anything about the big green caterpillar, while the local children knew it.
“Remember how it was in“ When Harry Met Sally, ”my American friends asked me with emotion. - Didn't you watch this movie ???
“Is that with Timberlake? ...”
Despite the fact that Petty regularly watched cartoons in English and outside the house, he constantly heard English speech, including mine, all this remained for him in another world. The only exceptions were the most popular works, of which I decided to make my Top-5!
- The wheels of the bus - This cult American children's song led my hit parade. The whole family literally knew her, and we often sang her on the road. Absolutely all the local children only at the first notes began to draw the wheel with their hands!
- Thanks to our English-speaking nanny, we learned about the existence of a spider The Itsy Bitsy Spider - another sincere love of all American kids. We also knew this song by heart, a few words from which I translated for myself with a dictionary.
- The third most popular song was the cartoon 5 littlle Monkey jumping on the bed
- Lullaby Twinkle Twinkle Little Star I did not enjoy success with Petty, but I fell in love with her.
- And of course, the shock hit for all times, conducting a thin linguistic distinction between English-speaking piglets and ours, called Old macdonald!
In 2, Minor already did not listen to them, but he knew and smiled widely whenever he saw them in Youtube. After the episode with the library, he often went there, but every time he only looked into the hall with an increased degree of happiness, after which he left to read and examine books with me.
A year later, the Russian cultural environment in which Small grew up and brought up, has become much more obvious. We invited our friends Dr. Roslyn and Dr. Santos, parents of two daughters, to the Christmas dinner. The youngest, Lucy, who was 7 years old, came up to Melky and asked him in English:
“Will your elves come to you with gifts before Christmas?”
In response to this, Minor confidently said “yes” - for some reason he always answered “yes” to any interrogative sentence in English.
“We never tell the children about the elves,” I said to Santos. We give presents before the New Year, Santa Claus brings them and puts them under the pillow at night. There is also the Snow Maiden, his granddaughter, she helps him in all matters.
- Mila, it's okay. Children in America are growing up not only bilingual. These are children with two cultures. This is the country of immigrants. In Miami, half of the population speaks only Spanish. The parents of the children are also bicultural. Every fifth child in school is a child of immigrant parents, their cultural identity is determined at school. You shouldn't think about integrating it into American culture, it will happen by itself later.
Winnie the Pooh - According to American Art Minorities (Art Basel 2013)
“I’m a linguist by profession, a specialist in intercultural communication, it’s written on my diploma,” I told Santos. I will never forget how in the first year we were forced to read horror stories about a hospital called Final Diagnosis. But now, dear doctorsI can perfectly communicate with you!
The dinner ended on a joyous note, the girls discovered a cartoon about Carlson, who captured them, despite the fact that they did not know a word of Russian. I was overcome by doubts. Maybe give Small in the American garden? And let there, together with everyone, originally sing about the spider and learn Spanish to the heap? And about the bun and other anachronisms, I'll tell him at home. But what if he never speaks Russian and starts speaking only English? Grandmother and both grandfathers will not be able to talk to him. Suddenly all languages will mix and then it will be difficult to separate them?
Stories that children, due to the early use of two languages, began to speak only in 4-5 years or refused to speak Russian, were not uncommon in Miami. And if he speaks only Russian before school, then what? He will have to learn English additionally and somehow assimilate at school, which is even more difficult. Moreover, you will have to choose only the school where foreign children are admitted. All these questions remained to spin in my head, while I was carrying out serious intelligence among the mothers of older children, collected absolutely polar opinions and tried to compose my own. According to Masaru Ibuki, the author of the book “After three is already late”, the second language had to be learned when the child’s brain was actively studying the first. That is right now! Small every day began to speak more and more clearly, quickly memorized words and perfectly understood complex sentences.
The stage from two years was a clearly pronounced period of development of speech. Already, he wondered why some children need to say goodbye buy, and the other “bye”, and wasn't it easier to just wave the whole pen? Already, I thought about how I would teach Little to write and read in Russian if we stay in America. After all, having given him dual citizenship and the right to choose a country, we had to ensure that he could not only stay in them, but also have the opportunity to learn and work in the future ...
PS I thank my friend Olya Timoshenko, 3’s mother, Roma, for the most sunny and cheerful photo session in the park. And also Romu Tymoshenko, for the fact that Pointed by Small, to dig by hand and there is blue building sand, did not succumb to persuasion and did not run anywhere.
