My husband is Saudi, so Arabic is his first language. I am -trying- to learn Arabic and have recently gotten more serious about it. I know how to read and write the alphabet, but without any vocabulary that really doesn't do me a whole lot of good.We want our son (9 months old presently) to be bilingual Arabic/English. There is NO Arabic speaking community or school programs around here, though, so it's all on us. AND my husband's at work all day so a lot of the responsibility to teach our son goes to me....but I don't know Arabic! How can I teach my son a language I do not know?
It's very important to my husband because his mom doesn't speak English, and he feels that he can better say what he wants in Arabic, so he wants our son to be able to speak his childhood language. It's important to me, too, because it will help him learn about Islam, and I think it's super important for him to cherish his arab culture while growing up in America. (also, it really is beneficial for children to be bilingual...believe me, I've studied it extensively in college for my minor)
Has anybody else tried or succeeded in raising a bilingual child? Is anyone planning to raise their (future) children bilingual?
I'm reading a book called "Raising a Bilingual Child," and it keeps stressing the importance of making the minority language accessible to children. For this reason I've bought a lot of Arabic children's books, flashcards, and workbooks. I ordered a lot yesterday from online-Islamic-store.com.
Here are the items I ordered for my son:
An Arabic alphabet floor puzzle,
Arabic alphabet/word flash cards,
An Arabic workbook,
Magnetic Arabic letters (that have ALL forms of each letter which is GREAT),
and another Arabic writing workbook.
And I bought the following for myself from the same site:
Books on Reverts (I eat these stories up),
and an Arabic book for me.
My dad and sister have complained to me about how I buy my son only Arabic books and flashcards (we have hundreds of English children's books at home from my childhood). I try to explain that he will learn English AT SCHOOL and simply because it is the community language. Arabic has to always be a constant effort for him to feel comfortable. They drive me nuts. They complain about Islam, as I understand because they're Christian, but what do they have against the Arabic language? I have no doubt that my son will speak, read, and write English. But with Arabic it all depends on mine and hubby's effort to implement it in our lives.