Thursday, 30 May 2013

Bilingual Tots: 22-24 months

I haven´t blogged on here for awhile for two reasons: Firstly, I´m finding it hard to find time to blog anything these days especially as I have two blogs and now my new project, a Facebook page, and as I hardly have time for anything,then it´s been falling a bit by the wayside and secondly, I haven´t had much inspiration about posts and what I could write about!!!A case of writer´s block,you could say!!

Anyway, I´m back with an update about my daughter´s language progress and I am increasingly amazed at how quickly she seems to be acquiring language,processing and assimilating language now. It´s like a little language explosion has taken place! She appears to pick up at least one new word in both languages per day  (this is a rough guesstimate and maybe I´m exaggarating but that´s what it seems like!). She constantly repeats or tries to repeat what we say, sometimes with amusing and cute-sounding results, and is quite a little parrot.She can say her name now more or less although the pronunciation is a little off but it´s sooooo cute. She has also learnt to say "Abuelo", "Abuela" and "Granny"....she even managed a "Grandad" a couple of times but then reverted back to "Abuelo". She is also starting to mix languages a little as a couple of times,she  called my Mum "Abuela" but then self-corrected or later referred to her once again as "Ganny"(she can´t quite pronounce Granny clearly yet!)

She is also starting to string words and phrases together to make short sentences such as "Sientaté" (although she can´t pronounce it properly), ".....a la calle" "...a comer".(sounds more like "a mamer") "It´s cold"etc. She seems to say more short phrases in Spanish than in English at the moment. She also says "a co" for "cogerme"...pick me up! As I mentioned she also likes singing and will often join in or initiate songs and does the actions,especially "Hokey Cokey"-she particularly likes the in-out-in-out line!, The Wheels On the Bus-she is quite good at the last line: "All day long",Head, Shoulders Knees and Toes and Ring-A Ring a Roses. The other day she was singing something and we eventually made out that it was Happy Birthday to you.It was so cute and on the final line of the song she flung her arms out as if she were on stage!!

One of her favourite games to play is Hide and Seek.We all take turns to count while the others go and hide and she has even started joining in with the counting, at least up to 3. It sounds more like she is counting in Spanish as opposed to English. We are continuing to read in both languages and she likes to take the book off you and "read" it herself!

As for the Bilingual Playgroup despite my worries...it has taken off again and we also have a new member, which makes 5 adults and 5 children,not counting the two babies,who I´m sure will be participating more actively in the Playgroup when they are a bit older so it´s going well!