How do you ensure that your offspring  can speak your native language?

One of the challenges of living in a country where you are trying to adapt to another language, is learning to speak another language while also trying to fit in and perfect your communication skills in the adapted language.

Is Body Language related to the the language you are speaking

The quality of the expression and the body language when you try to express some emotions, is not as effective as the energy you use in your native language and is overcome by the effort to figure out the correct words to use to ensure effective communication. In my culture when you share a joke with another female, it is customary to do an exaggerated hi-five followed by \’Hehede\’.

Having used this form of expression of enjoyment since birth, adapting to the English way of sharing a joke with another individual is only fulfilled by a hearty laugh. Personally this has made me crave spending more time with other Africans who would understand if I lifted my hand anticipating a Hi-Five after sharing a joke. These are some of the small things which end up hindering one from speaking the language they are so familiar with in order to adapt to the English body language.

 

 

How Fluent are you in your native language.

My two older children were born in Zimbabwe and they spoke Ndebele and Shona fluently by the age of 3. On arrival in the UK , my older daughter was 8 and my son was 3. My daughter at this point could also read and write English and my son could not speak English. At the time I only concentrated on trying to get my son to learn English and my daughter to read more books in English.

It never crossed my mind to get them both to continue to enhance their knowledge in our native language and within a year we all spoke English in the home and my son lost his ability to speak both Shona and Ndebele. The desire to fit in and to get my children accepted into the British culture made us all forget to continue to speak our native language. In a quest to recover their ability to speak Shona and Ndebele, when we visited Zimbabwe, I tried to get the other children in the homes we visited to speak to my children in the native languages, but the children we visited were fascinated by the British accent and therefore spoke to my children in English so that did not work. Then I realised that the strategy was not going to work.

Our final attempt to make our children desire to speak our language was when my husband and I sent them to Zimbabwe separately on their own to live with family while they waited for their their GCSE results. This strategy worked better as they had to travel on public transport and take part in various chores without us being there to oversee what they were up to and I guess at this age they were also at an age where they appreciated the need for identity and belonging. On returning to England, they both spoke Shona fluently and also even appreciated how privileged they were in this England, so when they went on to further education they were extremely focused on success.

 

 

 

Learning to use the correct words in English

A few years ago when I was looking to move to a higher position within my career, I kept failing the interviews and I never understood why. Then on sharing my frustration with my colleague whom I had worked with for a few years. She informed me that I was very good at my job but I never called items by their correct names and that hindered effective communication. I took this on board and realised that when I spoke and sometimes when the correct word evades me I tend to replace the word with \’thing\’ or \’it\’.

Sometimes it is not easy for the correct word to be at the tip of one\’s tongue when using an adapted language, and unfortunately one cannot replace that word with their own language as the other party will not understand the replaced word. However when speaking in my own language, I find it easy to replace any words or names with an English word and most of the time without even noticing that I have used English in the middle of a Ndebele or Shona sentence because most of the time the other party understands the conversation. This is what has led to me doing the best to speak one language at a time and stick to the correct words when speaking that language.

 

Tips on ways to retain your native language

• • Make an effort to speak your language within your home.
  • Make an effort to read books in your language and also encourage your children to read the language too.
  • Teach you child nursery rhymes in your language.
  • Make an effort to read books on how to learn another language.
  • Create a social network of people who speak your own language.
  • If you are blessed to have family in the same country, make an effort to have family gatherings every year for your children to meet with their extended family and encourage the children to all speak your native language.
  • Educate your children on the importance of their mother tongue in relation to their identity.
  • Listen to music in your native language.

A few books to read

 

<

Error: Contact form not found.

 

 

 

 

 [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]