Please, sir, may I read some more?

This morning I asked J to read a couple of pages in a German story called "Der Monster-Fänger." At work I get the following text from him: 

Moments like this make me believe that this whole L2 project of mine might actually even work in the long term!

Texting in German

A new era has begun in J's life, including his life in L2: texting! Here we are (me = green, J = white) corresponding about a Minecraft world we are working on together:

He uses his mommy's phone. Gonna be awhile before he gets his own! 

Würfelwelt

Just over a year ago we tried reading/listening to Karl Olsberg's novel Würfelwelt. J wasn't ready for it then. 

Well, he is now! We've just finished listening to the first story (also reading several chapters in the kindle version) and have started in on the second, Zurück in die Würfelwelt. 

J loves the story. It is suspenseful and well-told, and the quality of the German is high. From an L2 perspective it is very valuable; since J knows the videogame well, which is richly described in the book, he can visualize everything, picking up an enormous amount of vocabulary as he does so. 

Another L2 multiplier is that Gronkh, a well-known German YouTube artist of "Let's Play" whose Mincraft-videos J knows, is a character in the novel. So J has gone back and watched many of those old videos. In the last couple of days, I've noticed that when J has been playing Minecraft, he seems to be trying to imitate a Let's Play video by keeping up a constant stream of game-chat—in German!

Media update 297

J reading with me: Inge Meyer-Dietrich, Almud Kunert, Der kleine Drache und der Monsterhund.

Me Reading: R. Goscinny, A. Uderzo, Asterix der Gallier; Karl Olsberg, Würfelwelt (selections); DK Penguin Random House, Naturwissenschaften für clevere Kids (various pages) 

Listening: Ich weiß was, "Albert E. erklärt die großen Entdecker (49 min.); "Karl Olsberg, Würfelwelt (4.36 min.)

Viewing: RoxasLP SoraHerz, Let's Play Ratatouille, episodes 1-11 (x 2, 540 min.); IOCUZ, Let's Play Kung Fu Panda (various episodes, 230 min); Gronkh, Let's Play Mincraft (337 min).

2016
Total audio: 48.49
Total video: 66.35
Total gamplay: 6.40
Age 6.12.24 

Nutcracker reloaded

J started learning a piano piece from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker today. Tonight he asked me if we could start reading the story again, since Christmas is  approaching. "And Gustav doesn't know it yet!", he informed me. 

We had a grand time with Nutcracker last year (here, here, here, here, here, and here). 

"I'm especially excited about the battle," he told his mommy.

Asterix und Obelix

 We've just started with this:

J is really enjoying it. I had to leave the house for the afternoon after reading a section; my wife messaged me and said that he was continuing to read by himself, "standing there transfixed for about 15 mins."  

Later she added: "J just told me that France used to be called Gallien."

Anhaltspunkt

This afternoon while listening to Harry Potter, I told J that since it had been about ten years since I had read the story, I had forgotten a lot of the details and was excited about experiencing the suspense of the story again. 

When I said I didn't recall how Harry finally got hold of the first Hogwarts letter, J said: "Ok, ich gebe dir einen Anhaltspunkt: Das hat mit Hagrid zu tun!"

Major L2 acquisition goals achieved

The latest media update represents the achievement of two major goals I set for myself and my son when we first began the second-language project nearly five years ago. The first goal was that J would eventually be able and willing—and really like—to read German books on his own, without my help. 

Well, this afternoon J sat read a German story all by himself. I had asked him to work through five pages, but instead he read over 30, in deep absorption for about 40-45 minutes. When I asked him why he kept going, he said: "Weil die Geschichte sehr sehr spannend war" (because the story was very very exciting). 

The second goal was ... Harry Potter! 

Five years ago, I thought to myself that if I could get J to the point where he can fully understand and enjoy this story, we will have reached a major language (and literature!) benchmark. Well, my wife started reading the first book to him several weeks ago, and we've been following that up with audiobook listening in German (my wife insisted English must take priority here!). He loves it, and he seems to understand everything.  

Media update 296

J Reading alone: Manfred Mai, "Jonas der starke Ritter." In: Das große Buch der Abenteuer, S. 63-98. 

J Reading with me: Die schönsten Rittergeschichten zum ersten Selberlesen, S. 65-107. 
Me reading: Michael Ende, Der satanarchäolügenialkohöllische Wunschpunsch; DK Penguin Random House, Naturwissenschaften für clevere Kids (various pages) 

Listening: J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen (narr. Beck)(100 min.); Ich weiß was, Albert E. erklärt Taschengeld: Umgang mit Geld (47 min). 

Viewing: RoxasLP SoraHerz, Let's Play Ratatouille, episodes 1-11 (270 min.); Let's Play ICE AGE 2 Jetzt Taut's, episodes 1-4 (81 min.); RoxasLP SoraHerz, Let's Play Ratatouille, episodes 1-5 (103 min.); episode 1 (19 min); episode 3 (18 min.).

2016
Total audio: 43.24
Total video: 48.08
Total gamplay: 5.40
Age 6.11.23 

L2 Writing 3: Ritter Döskopp

statt + genitive case

J with the grammar skillz: "Ich baue jetzt statt eines Hauses ein Loch in den Berg hinein."

And then in a following sentence he says "Statt Lichtern baue ich Fackeln ...", Which is a switch to the more colloquial dative, but it makes sense because with the genitive there would be no lexical case marker (statt Lichter) and obviously his little mind senses it needs to be marked!

The uses of adversity

J is sick today. 

When this happens on a weekend, we don't let him play videogames (since they can nauseate), but usually let him watch movies and videos to his heart's content. Today he watched some of Angriff der Klonkrieger, Ratatouille, and now the Ratatouille Let's Play videos I just wrote about. I'm happy because this is the first major dose of L2 media J has had in a long time.

These days I often find myself in the unusual position of worrying that my son doesn't spend enough time watching television! (Only in German, of course.)

Schnurpse

J loves the "Schnurps" poems by Michael Ende:

Especially "Das Schnurpsenkonzert":

And this one about two Schnurpse fighting:

New Let's Play video in L2

The Let's Play Ratatouille by RoxasLP SoraHerz from the last media update is very high-quality and substantial. Two years ago J watched another Let's Play of the same game, which was ok, but this is much better because the player comments throughout.

As I've discussed before, Let's Play videos are fabulous for L2 acquisition because they offer thick description of the visual material in real time, with (usually) lively commentary to boot. This one has the additional advantage of subtitles when the characters speak, which J is actually able to follow now. 

Media update 295

J reading: Manfred Mai, "Jonas der starke Ritter." In: Das große Buch der Abenteuer, S. 59-101; Die schönsten Rittergeschichten zum ersten Selberlesen, S. 9-64.

Me reading: Fabian Lenk, Die Zeitdetektive. Band 1. Verschwörung in der Totenstadt; Michael Ende, Das große Michael Ende Vorlesebuch (herumgelesen); Roger Hargreaves, Mister Fies; Miss Hokuspokus; Miss Zwilling.

Listening: Ralph Erdenberger, Robin Hood (134 min.); Torben Kuhlmann, Lindbergh (43 min.); Ich weiß was, "Albert E. erklärt Rekorde" (45 min.), "Albert E. erklärt schlaue Tiere" (49 min.).

Viewing: Dreamworks Dragons: Auf zu neuen Ufern, vol. 2 (22 min., = one episode); Star Wars: Das Erwachen der Macht (135 min.); Star Wars: Angriff der Klonkrieger (142 min.); Ratatouille (111 min.); Es war einmal der Mensch, "Die ersten Weltreiche" (25 min.); RoxasLP SoraHerz, Let's Play Ratatouille, episodes 1-11 (270 min.)

2016
Total audio: 41.7
Total video: 40.57
Total gamplay: 5.40
Age 6.12.8

Denglish 5

J: "Mommy, you have to kitzel me!"
K: "No I don't have to kitzel you."
J: "Kitzel my foot!"

Denglish 4

This evening we were talking about archery and J went to the closet to look for his bow (der Bogen, a masculine word). At first he couldn't find it, so he called out. My wife went to help. Thinking it was me coming up behind him, J said: "Ich habe ihn gefunden aber ich kann ihn nicht ..." Then he saw who it was and continued: "Mommy, I found him but I can't reach him; can you get him for me?"

Das Volk der Murinae 3

We've gotten a good chunk more written about the Murinae, the rodent people Jamie is planning on proposing to Blizzard. Today we started working on the pantheon.

Die Götter und Göttinnen der Murinen 

Eine wichtige Göttin heißt Pallas Murina. Sie ist die Göttin des Krieges. Sie hat ein kleines Häschen als Gefährte. Das ist ein Kampfhäschen. Eine von ihren Fähigkeiten ist, dass sie fliegen kann. Pallas Murina ist die Gemahlin von Schweizo. 

Schweizo ist der Käsegott. Er ist der Gemahl von Pallas Murina. Sein Tempel steht in der Mitte des Käsewaldes. Die Murinen opfern dem Gott Schweizo Käse und bekommen von ihm Käse zurück.

J himself came up with "Pallas Murina" (he loves the goddess Athena); "Schweizo" was my suggestion, based on J's reference to Schweizer Käse.

New readers

Since there have been some new readers recently, in the next few days I'm going to be reposting some older material highlighting aspects of this L2 project that have proven important and are ongoing. 

Little conversation starters (first posted November 16, 2014)

If you speak to your child in the L2, and they understand and respond in the L1, that's good. We should never lose sight of the fact that this qualifies as L2 success and if it never gets beyond this, you have accomplished something major: Your child understands a second language!

However, if you speak to your child in the L2, and they understand and respond in the L2, that's obviously much better. It's awesome. It's huge. But it's so awesome that I think a lot of people consider it the very definition of L2 success. It isn't. 

Best of all is when your child to speaks to you in the L2, and you understand and respond in the L2. That is, when your child actively initiates new L2 conversations of their own accord and in their own terms and about things on their own little mind. 

Ideally, there should be no difference in the frequency with which they do this in the L2 compared to the L1. 

A lot of very simple and concrete things can serve to empower children in this way. I'll have more on this later, but one thing that has worked for me from very early on is to seed daily interactions with spontaneous little conversation starters like the following: 

Hey Kleiner, weißt du, was mir aufgefallen ist? ("Hey little man, you know what I've noticed?" Then I point out some—any!—funny or interesting thing I have observed, and we talk and/or laugh about it.)

Hey Kleiner, weißt du, was mir eingefallen ist? ("Hey little man, you know what's just occurred to me?" Then I describe some—any!—funny or interesting thought, etc.)  

Hey Kleiner, weißt du noch, wie ...? ("Hey little man, remember how ... ?" Then I recall some—any!—meaningful experience, and we reminisce.)  

Once I had modeled these enough (first with the puppets), my son began to use them himself, and he does to this day. In my experience, if you make a habit of keeping the thoughts that follow these intros quite short (one or two sentences), the child is more likely to use them. 

Audiobooks and Hörspiele (fist posted November 15, 2014)

It would be difficult to overstate the importance of audiobooks for my son's L2 development. Since I am not a native speaker of the L2 and learned it in an academic context, my own L2 production was initially deficient with regard to the linguistic strata associated with childhood: specific idioms and euphemisms of all kinds, especially for bodily experiences and activities; language of concrete physical description, especially of how simple devices work; onomatopoeic words; animal sounds, etc. 

German children's audiobooks made up for these deficiencies for my son and simultaneously taught me a great deal. Furthermore, audio materials, especially multicharacter Hörspiele, allow for regular exposure to a wide variety of different voice types, regional accents, and modes of oral speech, as well as to imitations of everyday communicative phenomena like mutiple people speaking at the same time, interruptions, voices from a distance, etc. 

  
My son has been listening to audiobooks ever since he began German at age 2.2. For the past two years, between ages 2.8 and 4.11, he has been listening about 90 minutes per week. At the time I am writing this, he has done about 250-300 hours of listening to about 70 audiobooks and Hörspiele in the three years he has been learning German. 

There is a major logistical qualification. I have found only one way to get my son to engage in sustained and concentrated listening: in the car, while strapped into his seat. All those hundreds of hours were logged on the road. In fact, much of this driving was for no other purpose than for listening to audiobooks. 

I avoid busy roads and traffic, either cruising very slowly around local neighborhoods (usually in the very early morning) or else out in the country. Fortunately, we live in a small town within easy reach of hundreds of miles of rural roads. If we lived in or near a big city and had difficulty escaping urban or suburban traffic conditions, I would not undertake the risk of so much unnecessary driving. As it is, I only feel guilty about increasing my carbon footprint. 

Chandler Bridge Road, 7 min. from my house

Weekly listening routine. Once per week we take long drive in the country, listening for 45 minutes to an hour. On two other weekdays, we get in 10-20 minutes of listening before I drop Jamie off at school or his grandmother's. The weekend is usually good for another chunk of 15-30 minutes. Then there are scattered bits of time here and there in the afternoon as we run errands or whatever. On longer drives or vacation roadtrips, Jamie will sometimes listen for several hours at a time. 

Technology and method. I get all our German audiobooks and Hörspiele from Audible.de, downloading them via the Audible app directly onto an Ipod touch (a smartphone would work just as well), which plugs into an Ipod jack on a cord into the car stereo. While driving slowly in a residential area or on a country road with no traffic, I have my Ipod in my right palm with my thumb hovering over the icon that makes the recording skip back ten seconds. This is because Jamie likes to hear favorite bits over and over again, a desire I encourage and indulge, since repetition is pure language-learning gold. The pause icon is right there too, which we make liberal use of in order to talk about the story as we are listening. 

(Classical guitarist fingernails!)

Repetition and discussion are a fundamental part of the experience, and the technology makes a difference here: skipping back and pausing is not as quick and easy with a CD player as it is with an Ipod. Nor is it as safe, since you need to take your eyes off the road for a split second. With a bit of practice, this is not necessary with an Ipod touch (or a smartphone) using the Audible app. 

Again, let me make safety issues clear: Only on residential streets and backroads do I do the Ipod-in-the-palm thing. If we're listening while running errands in suburban traffic, there are no pauses or playbacks until we are parked somewhere. 

Primary materials. So far I have placed the greatest emphasis on stories I first read out loud to Jamie from books or e-reader. So the audibook is already a repetition. Our listening tracks our reading very closely; usually same or next day, and we listen only as far as we have read. I do this for three main reasons. First, I like to prioritize the written medium and the intimacy of reading out loud together as the primary literary experience. Secondly, I can make sure Jamie already understands everything before the listening begins, from plot points down to important words and phrases. Thirdly, since the audiobook or Hörspiel generally represents a performative enhancement of what I am capable (with great character voices by professional narrators and actors, catchy songs and soundtracks, cool sound effects), Jamie is less interested in reading a book together that we have first experienced as an audiobook.

For the first two years, the listening was dominated by four main groups of stories:

1) Nine Hörspiele based on Hans de Beer's Der kleine Eisbär (from 2.2-3.5 years)

2) Sixteen audiobooks from Ingo Siegner's Der kleine Drache Kokosnuss (from 3.6-4.3 years)

3) Fairy tales by the Grimms (2.5-years-present). 

4) Bible stories (3.10 years-present)

Beginning at age 4.8, the focus has shifted to longer chapter books. We have been working our way through Otfried Preußler's stories (so far Der Räuber Hotzenplotz 1, 2, and 3; Das kleine Gespenst, and Die kleine Hexe) and German audio productions of Roald Dahl's Charlie und die Schokoladenfabrik and Sophiechen und der Riese. In the case of the latter, Jamie first reads the stories with my wife in the original English. 

Other great serials we have dipped into for which great audio productions are avaliable include the Findus und Petterson tales by Sven Nordquist, Max Kruse's Urmel stories, and the endless Benjamin Blümchen Hörspiele. There are dozens more we have not listened to. 

Secondary materials. There is also a massive amount of high-quality German children's non-fiction to be had in audio production. The Random House/cbj audio series "Ich weiß was" is fabulous, covering most areas of basic knowledge in a very entertaining manner. The science and philosophy-oriented Hörspiele by the German astronomer Harald Lesch are truly stellar, managing to broach deep existential and ethical questions in a manner understandable and entertaining for a four-year-old. 

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We usually listen to these sorts of things in shorter snippets, since as not-fiction they do not hold Jamie's attention for very long. We have also listened to a good deal of poetry and mythology. 

Tie-ins to visual media. The more media through which a child can experience a story, the better for language-learning purposes. This factor also partly guides my choice of what we listen to. Of the above materials, many are available as films, television shows, or plays, either free via YouTube or at sites like Kinderkino.de.

In my experience, however, it is best to wait until one has read the book and listened to the audiobook before getting to the visual media. I have found that once J has seen the movie or show, he is less interested in a repeated reading of or listening to the story.  

"Habt ihr das können?"

J asked me this the other day. It's an Austrian way of putting it. In Germany one would say "Habt ihr das gekonnt?" I'm pretty sure I use only formulations of the latter type, so I'm not sure where he got it from. 

  

Runic 3, L2 writing 3

This reads Finde die Runen / by [= bei] Jamie. This is also, I believe, the first time he has just sat down an written a German sentence entirely on his own without being asked or encouraged by me. 

Runic 3

Next day J wanted to try his own hand at runescrivening:

"Ulli und Sabine"

Runic 2

Reading some words and sentences in runic: 

Below the line it's:

cat bat sat fat mat

the cat sat on the mat

die katze sass auf der Matte 

Runic 1

I work on old Germanic literature, and occasionally I get to teach runes. J has long expressed an interest in learning them, so we're going to start now. 

Even though I know the runes pretty well, my runic has never been good enough such that I can just look at runic words and immediately "see" the phonology; I still always have to decipher to a certain extent. I'm excited that J, being so young, has an opportunity to really learn them. If he wishes! 

L2 writing 2

Star Wars party

This evening J and I and the animals watched the rest of "Das Erwachen der Macht," which we had started over the weekend.

I like to have the animals make commentary and ask J questions during the film to get him to explain stuff. Later I read a bunch of quotes from various "Star Wars quotes" web pages in German and had him guess who said what. He got them all right.

Error correction

As a non-native speaker, I occasionally get word-gender wrong, and J sometimes corrects me. Today I couldn't spontaneously recall if it is das Gas or der Gas. So I asked J. "Das Gas," he said without the slightest hesitation. 

Puppets and piano practice 9

It's a challenge getting J to keep his eyes on the music while he's practicing. When I nag him about it, he gets upset. Today I found a partial solution, which I should have thought of earlier: delegate the job to Thusnelda:

I told her to watch J like a hawk and make sure the eyes don't stray down to the keys, and that she's to give him a nasty look if they do. Thusnelda gives a good nasty look. Check this out. Normal:  

NASTY: 

It worked very well. Unfortunately it's only a partial solution, because of course I have to be right there.

L2 reading 4

J has been having some trouble distinguishing ei from ie vowel combinations. We've gone over this numerous times. Today I started using an old strategy again, which is to have the puppets make mistakes (in this case pronounce incorrectly), eliciting correction from J. It seems to help. He loves correcting! 

He's also been all about Friedel and Thusnelda again in the last several days, after Gustav has been at center stage for so long. I still love doing the piggies, though I must confess it took me awhile to get back into character. 

Gustav as friend and confidante

J was treated rather shabbily by a friend today. He was quite upset. On the way home, he asked that we "drive around for awhile and talk about it with Gustav." We had about a 20 minute, very interesting three-way conversation, and hashed it all out. 

L3 learning with puppets 2

This morning we worked on Spanish numbers 1-20 and the days of the week. J really enjoys learning with Gustav. He especially likes it when I model pronunciation and he and Gustav reply in chorus.

Selberfertiglesen 1

Behold the first German book J has read entirely on his own (with my support, i.e., not yet "by himself"). 

39 pages, large print.

L2 writing 1

J obviously does a lot of writing in school, so I haven't been having him do extra writing in German at home. We're starting that now, in a very limited way. 

In order to make it enjoyable, J will be writing only one small thing at a time, any word, expression, phrase, or short sentence from his reading that he finds particularly good or funny. Today it is a sentence with the expression in die Zange nehmen, "to take somebody in a pincer movement."