If I will be the only one around here whom Sasha can hear speaking Russian, the chances are he will not value Russian language as highly as English.
I am still reading "Raising a bilingual child" by Barbara Zurer Pearson, PhD, and she stresses many times throughout the book that the status of a certain language in a certain community pretty much decides its destiny. She advices to surround the bilingual child with as many opportunities to speak the minority language as possible.
Well, so far, I found only one Russian speaking mom who is as interested in teaching her daughter Russian as I am, and she lives pretty far from here. Probably, 30 minutes to an hour by car. Regular play dates in this case are unlikely. Correction (10/05/2010): We met and decided to try to meet every Tuesday. More to come in my next post.
That's too bad, because if I could rally up some 1-4 Russian speaking parents, we could build a pretty nice play group with outings, craft projects and story times. I have tons of ideas and no audience.
In the meantime, I have posted an add about a possible playgroup on multilingualliving.com. By the way, that website is full of great activity ideas for you and your bilingual child.
Hi Natalia,
ReplyDeleteHave you thought about stopping by the Russian store on Monaco (near Hobby Lobby) and seeing if they have (or know of) a community bulletin board? I'm just sure there are young Russian speaking moms out there, you just have to find the "motherlode"! -I love your blog!-
- Sue Pip (Greg's coworker)
Dear Sue:
ReplyDeleteIt's nice to meet you! There are a bunch of Russian stores I am aware of, and I have been to 2 of them. I do not recall a board there, but it is a possibility.
You are right. I should look in the community where there is a large Russian speaking population. The problem is that that neighborhood is mostly older immigrant generation. Not many young moms.
Thank you for the idea!
(I think you will like my next post that I am working on for tomorrow)
Natalia