Tearlach61 wrote:Saoilidh gu bheil TIP gu math freagarrach do shuidheachadh mar seo. Faodaidh am pàrant am briathrachas ionnsachadh ann an òrdugh sa bheil feum aice air.
I'm not convinced about that. It's really very difficult to anticipate language needs. I felt like a fraud whenever asked to teach English "for specific purposes" (mostly business English, in fact) because I knew that the language I was teaching was of restricted usefulness. Phrases for holding a meeting? Fine, they will be understood if they use them, but there are so many different ways that meetings are held in the real world that I couldn't imagine that they were ever going to hear anyone else use the phrases that I was teaching them. And were they going to remember them? Probably not, because it's nigh on impossible to anticipate needs with any reasonable accuracy.
In the case of parenting, and at the risk of sounding frivolous, there is no advance warning of needing "Ye've skint yer knee? Ye puir soul. I'll awa an get the magic sponge."
Tearlach61 wrote:Tha aon rud eile agam ri ràdh, 's tha sin a' sealltainn mar cho mòr sa tha am beàrnn eadar Niall 's mi-fhìn. Cuir ceart mi mas fheudar a Neill, ach a reir esan, cha bu chòir mathraichean an clann a thogail sa Gàidhlig mur do dh' ionnsaich iad fhèin i mar phrìomh chànan.
Uill, tha suas ri leth-dhusan boireanaich a dh' fhaodainn ainmeachadh an sreath a chèile o bhàrr mo chinn (cuid dhiubh as aithne do Niall cuideachd)a th' aig aois breith cloinne, aig a bheil fìor deagh Ghàidhlig ach nach bu chòir an clann a thogail sa Ghàidhlig air sàilleamh gun do dh'ionnsaich iad an cuid Gàidhlig mar inbhe.
Dhomhsa, chan eil adhbhar fon grèin nach bu chòir dhaibh sin a dheanamh ma se sin an toil 's bu chòir dhan choimhearsnachd Ghàidhlig a dhìcheall taic a thoirt dhaibh. 'S e cuspair eile a tha seo, ach tha mòran mòran a ghabhas dheanamh san dòigh seo.
The reason I say this is because the so-called "primary caregiver" ("mother figure" in pre-PC speak) is not just the model for
a language, but also the model for
language.
More important than what language(s) a child learns, a child must learn to express him/herself. If the primary caregiver has any hesitation in expressing any concepts, particularly emotional ones, this hesitation is likely to result in a reluctance for the child to express such ideas. It leads to repression of emotions and psychological problems later in life.
There are very few adult learners who ever get to the stage of being 100% native-like, and I don't mean in accent -- the adult learner will always have holes in areas of the language that aren't used much in public: very few adult learners can truly express the subtlety of emotions in their second language as in their first. That means a gap, a break, a hesitation when trying to comfort an upset child. That's the sort of thing I was talking about above.
This is nothing to do with English or Gaelic. We may as well be talking about Kiswahili and Mongolian because the same thing stands with any language.
And this is why I keep saying that your experience, Chuck, worked. Your wife was primary caregiver, and I don't know if she went back to work and left your daughter with a childminder as a surrogate primary caregiver, but either way, your daughter got a full fluent model of language while (incidentally) learning English. The fact that there are/were things that she could express in English that she couldn't express in Gaelic isn't a problem because she could express herself -- there was never anything she needed to keep bottled up.
Fionnlagh wrote:
Am bu chorr dhut neo nach bu chorr dhuit toiseachadh air Gaidhlig a bhruidhinn ri leanaban o'n cheud latha is tu gun Gaidhlig fhileant' agad. Freagairt a bheirinn sa seachad; gum bu chorr ach a bhith dol air cursaichean mar an Cursa Altruim cho trath sa ghabhas agus chan e aon pharant ach na dithis.
Why both?
There's a broad agreement on the question of bilingual/multilingual childrearing and that is that the two languages should be separated by context, as given a choice a child will always use his/her strongest language.
The most commonly accepted means by which this is achieved is by splitting the languages between parents. If you want to bring a child up trilingually, the advice is quite simple:
- Mother speaks language 1 exclusively in private conversations with the child.
Father speaks language 2 exclusively in private conversations with the child.
Mother and Father speak language 3 to each other in the presence of the child and in three-way conversations with the child.
Bringing up a child bilingually, you just replace language 3 with either of language 1 or 2.
But if you pick a weak language for language 3, then you'll be forced to switch at times. Suddenly the idea of context is broken and the child realises that there's a choice of language, and switches to the path of least resistance -- the kid isn't a language activist, remember: he/she just wants to express him/herself and be understood.
Chuck's daughter likes Gaelic, because it's "Daddy"; if it was something that drifted in and out of family conversations, I firmly believe that she'd have seen it as a nuisance.
Fionnlagh wrote:Se an cuspair eile gu bheil sinn ag iarraidh air caraidean ionnsachadh na Gaidhlig cho luath sa ghabhas as deidh a choinnicheas iad sons gum bi iad ga bruidhinn gu siubhalach rim paisde bho'n cheud la.
And now we're back to my main concern: are you suggesting monolingualism? That doesn't work: it's not just the bilingual infants who go on to speak English in the playground at Gaelic-medium schools -- the few who were brought up speaking English do too. If the bilingual model is strictly adhered to in the home, the child will continue to use Gaelic because it still seems natural. But kids aren't stupid -- they know we all understand English and we cannot keep English out of the home. They will use it. If we allow English in the home
in certain contexts then we will be able to control the situation better and keep the kids using their Gaelic.
Alternatively, maybe you are suggesting that both parents code-switch between English and Gaelic, but I can't believe you would suggest that as this is known to lead to confusion, frustration and ultimately monolingualism as Gaelic becomes perceived as an obstacle.
Fionnlagh wrote:Feumaidh iad a bhith deonach ionnsachadh a chainnt a tha ceangailte ri altruim chloinne leis nach eil sin ri fhaighinn anns na cursaichean abhaisteach
And this goes back to my point about English for Specific Purposes: this sort of thing risks being phrase-book language.
We've discussed this here before, and I've said I would be OK with it if you were teaching specific language to speakers of Gaelic, but your website suggests the "altruim" course is available to absolute beginners. Again here you seem to be conflating two distinctly different topics.
This leads to a fundamental question:
Are you teaching language, or are you teaching phrases?
Now, can the learner usefully and efficiently internalise phrases without having developed an internal model of the language? I'd say no. To demonstrate, I'd like you to try to read and memorise the following sentence, then write it out:
No creo que sea fácil para ti recordar esta frase porqué no hablas español.
Easy? I think not. Now try the following, which I think you'll find a bit easier:
I don't think it'll be easy for you to remember this sentence because you don't speak Spanish.
You may think that this is invalid because it's written rather than spoken, but I assure you that you would experience the same difficulties if I was to ask you to do this in person.
So my fear is that you jump the gun by loading the students with fixed phrases and limit their ability to manipulate them to suit.