A week ago, when one of my youngest son's teacher praised his language development in German, I mentioned that we are now speaking this language during our daily lunches at home.
Maybe I should not have done so, since the teacher in question quickly shut the door and, in private, explained that she was not going to stop me, but that I needed to know that this was against the instructional theory adopted by the school.
As if I did not already know that? That you must not use any language but your mother tongue with your children is the prevailing popular rule and it is just as accepted in Sweden as here in Switzerland.
But our situation does not match with the theory.
Firstly, our children certainly are not just about to start talking, but seven and ten years old, respectively, and so mature that there is not the slightest risk that they will mix up the languages.
Secondly, they have already got a clearly defined first language and, not without pride, I can say that their Swedish is very good.
Thirdly, they begin to have quite a vocabulary in German but both of them run into problems as soon as they have to put together full sentences.
And, finally, they have a father who also must get a chance to practice!
So practice we do, in fact so much so that both children claim that they now speak more German at home than at school. I really hope that that is not the case. But should the school decide to complain about my instructional method, they had better be prepared for me protesting back... ;)
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Deutsche Version
Svensk version
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