"Ya 'ta"...All Done!

This is an exciting time with AR. Actually, every living, waking and sleeping moment with him has been exciting...But now we are in communication mode and it is fascinating to watch him pick up two languages simultaneously. This is the extent of his vocabulary so far (at least what we can understand of it):

English
ma-ma (mommy, of course)
da-da (daddy)
duh (duck)

Spanish
gua gua (agua)
Papá
ya 'ta! (ya está -- all done!)

Mommy has been really good about following the OPOL (one parent, one language) method. Papá, on the other hand, will find himself in hot water one day. The theory is that if the parents follow the OPOL method, the child will learn to separate the two languages and know who he should speak which language to. So in my case, if the theory is right, AR will always speak to me in English (at least intially).

However, since Papá speaks to him in both English and Spanish, AR will grow up thinking that Papá really speaks both languages. In reality, Papá just picks up on a few key sentences he hears me say ("give me a kiss", "pick it up", "mmmmmm yummy apple", etc.) and when he sees that I get a positive response, he also uses them! He gets frustrated at times because he feels that AR understands English much better than Spanish which is why he reverts to the simple English sentences. I have to laugh when Angel tells me that AR brings him books to read...but they are all in English!

I highly doubt that AR understands English better than Spanish. I am the only one who really speaks it to him on a consistent basis and we are only together in the mornings. Then he heads off to his daycare, which is all in Spanish, until his father or his abuelos pick him up around 7pm and continue communicating to AR in Spanish. Next year the daycare has programmed to change their curriculum to bilingual instruction...or at the very least, will have some English incorporated into the day's activities.

It is never to early to start worrying about the education of your child here in Spain, and especially if you want to raise him bilingually. We just learned that the public school in our neighborhood started bilingual education with this year's (Sept. 06) entering class. By the time AR is ready to go (Sept. '09) they will have had a couple of years under their belts to get the wrinkles out of the program. I am breathing a big sigh of relief because the only other option would be to send him to a private English school...to the tune of 700-800€ per month ($953-$1,090) ouch. We had already pulled him out of his English speaking daycare when the director announced that the rates were going to increase to $680 per month next year (with the surcharges for extra hours, snack, etc). Actually, our reasons for pulling him out were others, but the money factor certainly did not help the situation.

We are not completely out of the woods since spaces in the public school system are limited and with the boom in immigration lately -- both legal and illegal, the competition has become fierce. Of course the spaces in the public schools are awarded on a point-based system with those having the highest number of points the greater advantage. Points are awarded on the basis of your income (the lower the better), siblings (if you already have a child enrolled in the public school), where you live (your proximity to the school...the closer, the better), etc. Someone told me that with me being a native English speaker, AR will stand a better chance of getting into the public bilingual school. I have yet to confirm the rumor.

Anyway, for now we will continue our language development at home and with his friends through the Northern Stars Playgroup!