Question

Build a story with
your family
members in your
mother tongue.

Answer 1

To me, my mother tongue is very important. It helps me to understand and communicate with my grandparents, even some of relatives whose strongest languages is not English. My mother tongue is my identity, it identifies me as an Indian. No matter how many other languages I learn, my mother tongue will always be the language that shows where I come from. No matter wherever I travel to, my mother tongue is the one thing that keeps me connected to my home country and religion.

I have been speaking in English ever since a kid as I have lived in many different countries and have always been going to an international school. As essential as my mother tongue is, english is as important as well. English is one of the widely spoken languages around the world and has allowed me to live overseas. While I communicate with my family members in my mother tongue, english has allowed me to communicate with people from many different countries. Although I sometimes feel like I am losing my mother tongue. I know how to speak, read and write in english, but I can only speak in my mother tongue. Living overseas for most of my life has made english a more dominant language for me, but I will never lose touch of my mother tongue.

Answer 2

Answer:

One of the main challenges to successful bilingualism is the lack of opportunities for the child to hear and use the language that is not spoken by the majority or in the school. Normal daily routines can be full of activities, and some parents struggle to find what I call “the special time” to be in conversation with the child, with no distraction, focused on a single activity in the parent’s language.

In some families this special time may be difficult to find if parents speak different languages and the common language is the country’s and the school language. For example, I am the only Italian speaker in my family, and our common language at home is English, so for me to create the special time focusing on a task with my children, with no interference from their dad, is to create a physical space where we focus on a game or a story and we only speak Italian.

Sharing stories has been my favourite tool for bonding with my children through my native language, and this is why I think this is the best topic to start this series of blog posts.