My husband (Ecuadorian) and I (American) live in the US and have tried to do OPOL since our daughter was born. Originally she picked up Spanish very well and could speak fluently with both of us since she was about 2 years old. Occasionally her Spanish has fallen behind English, but we’ve been able to remedy that by introducing more Spanish cartoons and things like that.
However, in the last few months my daughter has been actively rejecting Spanish a lot more. It’s now been several months since she has spoken more than a few phrases in Spanish. I think there are a few reasons for this: her Spanish-speaking grandparents who used to visit often left the country for several months (now they’re back but she’s now talking to them mostly in English even though they have only limited English proficiency); she is doing more hours in preschool where Spanish is not used; and her dad has been reading more English-language books with her that supplant some of the time for interacting in Spanish [ETA he reads English books when she chooses them as her bedtime story and so on].
In response I’ve been trying to ramp up Spanish in other ways, but she resists it a lot. (I have more time to devote to this than my husband does because I’m with our children full-time while he works a different job.) For example, we have a program that allows us to check out digital audiobooks through our library, and I suggest looking for Spanish books there, but she says, “no, English only.” I tried starting to speak Spanish also when my husband is around to model responding that way, but my daughter says, “I don’t want you to speak Spanish” or “I don’t want to hear Spanish right now, Mom.” While I can understand Spanish pretty well, I’m horrible at speaking it, so maybe that’s part of the problem, but I’m not sure that’s the main issue. Today at dinner she said the line from the title of my post—“I don’t like Spanish.”
Another thing we’ve tried is bringing in a couple Spanish-speaking babysitters and asking them to pretend they can’t understand English well, but she still speaks to them in English like she does with her grandparents. I’d like to try to get her in a playgroup with children her age speaking Spanish, but I suspect they might just end up speaking English there as well.
I’m mainly having a hard time trying to think of feasible ways to make it a true necessity for her to use Spanish to communicate and/or make it more appealing. I’m wondering if anyone has ideas we maybe haven’t thought of or experiences to share. I’m also wondering how likely is it that my daughter will grow out of this phase as she matures more—should we relax or should we panic? Lol.
As a side note, we also have a 15-month-old daughter, but so far she’s only speaking a few words, so that’s why I didn’t mention her in the rest of the post.
However, in the last few months my daughter has been actively rejecting Spanish a lot more. It’s now been several months since she has spoken more than a few phrases in Spanish. I think there are a few reasons for this: her Spanish-speaking grandparents who used to visit often left the country for several months (now they’re back but she’s now talking to them mostly in English even though they have only limited English proficiency); she is doing more hours in preschool where Spanish is not used; and her dad has been reading more English-language books with her that supplant some of the time for interacting in Spanish [ETA he reads English books when she chooses them as her bedtime story and so on].
In response I’ve been trying to ramp up Spanish in other ways, but she resists it a lot. (I have more time to devote to this than my husband does because I’m with our children full-time while he works a different job.) For example, we have a program that allows us to check out digital audiobooks through our library, and I suggest looking for Spanish books there, but she says, “no, English only.” I tried starting to speak Spanish also when my husband is around to model responding that way, but my daughter says, “I don’t want you to speak Spanish” or “I don’t want to hear Spanish right now, Mom.” While I can understand Spanish pretty well, I’m horrible at speaking it, so maybe that’s part of the problem, but I’m not sure that’s the main issue. Today at dinner she said the line from the title of my post—“I don’t like Spanish.”
Another thing we’ve tried is bringing in a couple Spanish-speaking babysitters and asking them to pretend they can’t understand English well, but she still speaks to them in English like she does with her grandparents. I’d like to try to get her in a playgroup with children her age speaking Spanish, but I suspect they might just end up speaking English there as well.
I’m mainly having a hard time trying to think of feasible ways to make it a true necessity for her to use Spanish to communicate and/or make it more appealing. I’m wondering if anyone has ideas we maybe haven’t thought of or experiences to share. I’m also wondering how likely is it that my daughter will grow out of this phase as she matures more—should we relax or should we panic? Lol.
As a side note, we also have a 15-month-old daughter, but so far she’s only speaking a few words, so that’s why I didn’t mention her in the rest of the post.