The reason why my son speaks a foreign language
Last time I have posted in Facebook a conversation that happened one boring night at the house. It was when my husband and I were watching a Tagalog movie “Sisterakas”, when the little boy saw us laughing and watched with us. Since he can’t understand Tagalog yet, he said “is that a Spanish movie?” that made daddy and I laugh.
It’s not laughable for some, because as a Filipino without no foreign blood at all, he is expected to speak Tagalog fluently. But daddy and I laughed because this is one of the “out of the blue moon” time that he was able to observe and speak his mind.
As early as 2 years old and 10 months, he was already seeing an Occupational Therapist and Speech Therapist. It is because he couldn’t speak well compared to other kids his age. The Developmental Pediatrician told us to try to communicate with him using a language that he understands better, than 2 languages at the same time. We decided to use English because we noticed him responding to it better than Tagalog. Besides, we just use simple terms.
It is not that we are maarte or feeling sosyal parents, but it is what we think is best for him that time. Of course, we know the negative impact of that. He won’t be able to understand kids who talk to him in Tagalog and my family who are not English speaking people are forced to make an English sentence to be able to get my son’s attention. But with my son’s condition, I think there are some things to sacrifice, and this is just one of them.
see it has an advantage… he is confident to talk to foreigner.
Now, that he is in Preparatory class, they already have a Filipino subject. We are now teaching him Tagalog and I know unti unti maiintindihan nya din yung ibang words.
So, I just want to say, please don’t you dare judge us. If you think we have made a bad decision, I just want to say that you have no idea what you are talking about. We love our son with all our hearts and we would do everything that we know is the best for him.
Thanks a lot reading your story give me hope for my 3 and 3 months old son beause until now H cant speak, He understand better in English and what weasked him he does it except am bothered why H ecant speak, He saw some words in English like wow but very limited so am looking for a developmental pediatrician to evaluate him, at the moment I tried to sit him to a nursery class so He can have socialization and I saw an improvement. I was wondering why am wondering its maybe because we are talking to Him in dual language because of my husband. Would love to read some messages that would help me evaluate Him while waiting for His appointment to a developmental peditrician. But a doctor told me that there is nothing wrong with Him because He talked to Him except for the delayed speech. Thanks a lot your website is very helpful.
Hi Tina,
Thank you for dropping by. I am glad that you are open minded to bring your child to a DevPed when you think there might be something wrong. But don’t worry, whatever the result is I know that just like me you can and will handle it. Just keep on praying 🙂
I don’t think there is something wrong with kids speaking in foreign language. I enrolled my kids to an international school because I also want them to learn to speak English fluently as well as to learn a third language (Mandarin). Whether its a necessity because of certain condition or not, I believe kids should speak English confidently as early as they can.
We are in a very competitive world and preparing our kids to speak in a foreign language will help them to be globally competitive and be able to survive. We are not a rich family, we are not also “maarte,” I am an ordinary employee and my husband is self-employed, but with the above reason we decided to give priority to our kids’ education and development. Being a linguist myself (I speak, read, and write Japanese and learning Korean right now), I know how important and advantageous if you have a language skill, and that is why I too want my kids to speak in foreign language.
I’m so happy reading Ren’s progress with his speech. Great job to the parents as well!