Willkommen

Welcome! The purpose of this blog is to document and share my experiences raising a child bilingually, as well as to provide a platform for resources and dialogue with others with similar interests and experiences. 

For my background, a description of the circumstances and conditions of the particular second-language scenario I'm writing about, and an introduction to the main characters, scroll down to "Beginnings" (Sept. 7). 

I would really appreciate any comments, suggestions, helpful anecdotes, and advice from parents, educators, academics, and professionals. I plan on highlighting good advice and comments in my blog posts.  

The languages in my household are English (first language or L1) and German (second language or L2). While the materials I talk about and provide will mostly be in German, the general strategies can be adopted across languages. I will try to provide English translations whenever there is some kind of cross-linguistic takeaway. Unless otherwise noted, all English-language quotes from me or my son represent translations from the German. 

Apart from day-by-day documentation and discussion of L2 puppetry, reading, listening, and viewing, here are a few of the more substantive topics I plan on talking about in upcoming posts:

• How quantity can be quality: the positive emotional and relationship benefits of raising a child bilingually
• How not being a native speaker might provide certain advantages over native speakers when it comes to teaching children a second language
• Avoiding the slow spiral into child second-language passivity
• Imaginary pen-pals
• Strategies for developing a systematic approach to building a child's second-language vocabulary
• Child-L2-oriented reviews of Otfried Preußler's Der Räuber Hotzenplotz, Die kleine Hexe and Ingo Siegner's Der kleine Drache Kokosnuss, and other materials we've worked through prior to the launching of this blog