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Bilingual Babies!
Teaching Your Child a Foreign Language
By Katherine Bontrager
The key is in the daily immersion of the Spanish language. Flores' nanny talks her daughter through whatever they're doing. "The sitter was a teacher and ultimately a principal for many years back in her country, so I think she has the professional experience in dealing with small children," Flores says. "She teaches letters, colors and numbers."
Flores and her husband are in the midst of figuring out what the next move is for their daughter: keep their sitter or look into a daycare that offers Spanish-speaking caretakers. "It's time for her to start interacting with other children," Flores says. "We have considered daycare or preschool as a very likely option, but we don't want her to lose the momentum she has with the Spanish."
Claudia Bloom and her husband have likewise relied on a few foreign-speaking sitters since their son's birth. Their son, now almost 8, was first exposed to Spanish as an infant, but the family chose to not aggressively teach him a second language until he was older. As an infant, the use of Spanish was not an issue, but as Bloom's son started to get a little older they asked their sitter if she could use some Spanish in his presence.
The decision was not an easy one to make, and Bloom was admittedly a little nervous about the shift. "My husband was very interested when he was 2 and 3, but I was very concerned about him using English and Spanish at the same time," she says. "My feeling was if it wasn't our native language, he would just get confused."
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