Hi all,My wife and I are native Spanish speakers (from Mexico). We recently moved to Montreal and are expecting our first baby. We both speak English fluently and are currently working in improving our French.
Our plan is for our baby to start in daycare when he’s one year old, so that’s when he’ll start being surrounded by the majority language which in our case is French.
Obviously the best method for us is the ML@H. We’ll be speaking to him in Spanish only, watching some films in Spanish and reading him in Spanish. Now, we normally watch TV both in English and in French. I know that TV doesn’t provide enough interaction to learn a language, but is it a good way to at least provide exposure to these languages? Or does that go against having a standard language at home?
And what about books? Would it be counterproductive to read him from time to time in English? I’m not too worried about French, since that’s the majority language, but I do worry a little about English. Montreal is a very bilingual city, so that’s a big advantage, but certainly we need to find a way to promote English since the public schools and daycare are mostly in French.
Thanks in advance for your answers.
