[MGSA-L] issues in early bilingual education in the U.S.

Karen Van Dyck vandyck at columbia.edu
Tue May 17 23:36:34 PDT 2011


From my own experience raising three sons bilingually, teaching Greek American students at Columbia, and being on the Board at Cathedral the Greek K-8 school in NYC I have to say that when Greek is the language spoken with at least one parent or grandparent consistently, then the motivation is there. It is a living language that can't be ignored.  Even in my weird case where I decided to raise my kids in a language I didn't come to until I was sixteen. The idea being that I really only knew Greek from the perspective of a sixteen year old and older and that I needed to cover those first sixteen years -- the songs, the games, the children's literature. Also I have noticed that when the forms of sociability in the home involve Greek speaking friends and Greek news on the TV or mavroaspres comodies for movie nights this also helps immensely. The methods of teaching are so outmoded in most Saturday Greek school programs that they unfortunately turn kids off the language even if they often create a social setting for enjoying Greek culture with peers. I think that if the kids aren't going back and forth every summer (although there are/ were programs that pay/paid for omogenia children to do this) that with the internet and skyping with cousins or children of friends/ colleagues a bilingual environment can be created. But it is a huge time commitment. I too am interested in hearing from others how they manage this. Also how we might encourage better Greek language teaching at the primary and secondary level. Thanks, Yiorgo, for asking.

Karen Van Dyck


On May 18, 2011, at 2:32 AM, Anagnostou, Georgios wrote:

> This is not strictly a scholarly topic, but perhaps one of interest to many on the list, including parents with an interest in teaching Greek to their children. 
> 
> At a recent Greek School Parents Association meeting in Columbus, parents asked how best to motivate their children for Greek Saturday school. The stories I heard were familiar: kids resisting, and teenagers rebelling against attending language classes. 
> 
> I would appreciate any suggestions on how to help parents (and children) in this predicament, particularly in regard to those families which do not have the opportunity to frequently travel to Greece. Is there any scholarship on how to motivate youngsters to learn a second language?
> 
> -Yiorgos Anagnostou
> _______________________________________________
> List-Info: https://maillists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/mgsa-l

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