Thursday 20 September 2012

Bilingual Bubbas: Setting up a bilingual playgroup

As the city I live in is fairly small and there aren´t any bilingual playgroups, my friends and I decided to set up our own with our bilingual bubbas.Seeing that there is only a few of us, we´ve decided to take it in turns holding it at each other´s houses and that we are going to meet every Saturday at 11am as due to work commitments etc, that is the only day that we can all get together at the same time.

At the moment there are only the six of us, 3 mums and 3 babies, although I did mention it to two other British friends who have babies but they haven´t shown much interest yet unfortunately!I suppose I could advertise but then we might be inundated with Spanish parents wanting to bring their children and really I just wanted to keep it only for native speakers and their children or in other words, proper bilingual children as it just wouldn´t be the same with parents who don´t speak English or don´t always speak to their children in English as then the majority language might start creeping in or worse our children could pick up grammatical mistakes or mispronunciation errors from the Spanish parents. Don´t get me wrong, I´m not trying to exclude people here and I have nothing against Spanish parents joining but I´m just concerned about what effect it could have on our children´s own language. In fact, one of my friends´ Spanish friend and her child may be joining us for awhile or until her second child is born (She´s due in October so not long!)We could do with a few more people though so the whole thing just doesn´t fizzle out.

The first "meeting" took place at my house and we sang Five Little Monkeys and did some actions to it which I think they enjoyed....unfortunately there is a bit of a gap between my daughter and Bilingual Bubba 1 to Bilingual Bubba 3, a difference of a year but anyway at least Bilingual Bubba 3 can listen and take it in subconsiously!I then read "Dear Zoo" to them and my daughter and Bilingual Bubba 1 enjoyed seeing the animals,making the animal noises and opening or lifting the flaps.We then let them have free play while we had a chat and refreshments!It was fun and seemed quite successful. Bilingual Bubba 1 calls my daughter Coco as she can´t pronounce Chloe yet and Chloe seems to have picked that up off her so I think it´s working although it´s still early doors so we´ll have to wait and see!

The following week Chloe was ill so we called it off and then the next week one of the Bilingual Bubbas couldn´t make it but we still went ahead with the playgroup with my daughter and Bilingual Bubba 3, otherwise the playgroup will definitely just die its death particularly if we keep cancelling it every time someone can´t make it!Anyway, I´ll be reporting on our activites and updating the progress of our bilingual playgroup from time to time and we´ll see how it all pans out! I´d love to hear from any of you who go to a bilingual playgroup and your experiences or if you set up your own bilingual playgroup!

11 comments:

  1. Good for you! It takes a lot of effort to set up - and stick to - any playgroup. My one friend and I have tried to get a German playdate off the ground, but it never seems to stick. At least we keep trying, though. Also, there is a German playgroup that has come out of my earlier attempt to start a German story hour. It meets once or twice a month at our local library. We're so fortunate to have the support of the library. We decided to meet once a month, so that it seemed like an easier commitment. So far, that is working for me. If I had to go every week, I'd probably slack off. But knowing that it's only once a month, I do make more of an effort to go. We're a mix of native and non-native speakers, ranging in ability. But we're all there to make a real effort, so English only slips in with the kids! Even though there is a lot of German spoken in most of the homes, the kids still tend to speak more English. I still think it's worth it, though. It's great to have another arena for Aleksander to hear German, and I can learn some new things, too!
    Good luck to you!! I hope it has continued success!

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  2. Thanks Kate! At the moment the playgroup is going well...lets hope we don´t start to lose our commitment and it slackens off as it´d be a real shame! It´s great to get the kids together and try to create a totally English environment for them and it´s great for them to play together and us mums to have a chat at the same time!!! ; )

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  3. What a great idea! For a bilingual kid, it can really help for him to have peers that also speak the language, and to see them talking to their parents in Spanish as well. Keep us posted on how it goes! And as a note, I've run into a similar problem with small playgroups - one just petered out, but with the more recent one we finally decided we would meet rain or shine as long as two of us were able to make it. Fingers crossed!

    Thanks for sharing at this month's Bilingualism Carnival!

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  4. Thanks AlldoneMonkey! Yep, we decided to meet up rain or shine even if it was only the two of us too otherwise we know that it´d just peter out!!Thanks for including my post in this month´s Bilingualism Carnival!

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  5. Hi Tracey! Great idea!! I was struggling to find some way of introducing French to Little Imp outside of the home and so set up a mums and toddler group. We are all non-native French speakers but all have an interest in early second language acquisition. We meet every Friday morning and the sessions are structured around a sing-song in French also with some action rhymes and stories. Each week we introduce a new song/rhyme and do a craft activity relating to it which provides something to take home and a reason to keep using the new vocabulary at home during the week. We started off small - just 3 of us but have gradually grown and now we sometimes have as many as 10 plus mummies and baby siblings!! And in the school holidays the bigger siblings join in too. My blog is all about what we do each week and so if you want any inspiration for adding some crafts to your group please feel free to check it out www.frenchfortoddlers.blogspot.co.uk
    Hope your playgroup continues to thrive,
    Emma :o)

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  6. Thanks Emma for sharing your experiences. Your playgroup sounds great and I´ll definitely be checking your blog out for some craft ideas!!

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    Replies
    1. Set up an obstacle course using things to jump over, go around, and even under. See how fast you can do it.

      Children Playgroup

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  7. This is such a great resource that you are providing and you give it away free. I love seeing website that understands the value of providing a quality resource for free. It’s the old what goes around comes around routine.
    Regards
    Kindergarten School - Little Millennium

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  8. Aanthony, thank you for your wonderful sggestion! Unfortunately as most of us live in flats we don´t have an outdoor space or even the indoor space to do an obstacle course. Maybe one day!!

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  9. Nilima, thank you for your lovely comments and hope you continue to enjoy my blog!

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  10. Yes surely will continue reading the updates on your blog site. keep doing the good posts.
    Regards
    Pre Primary Education in India

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