How to Get (and Keep) Your Bilingual Child Writing

I've been living in the Netherlands for more than fifteen years and although my daily life is conducted in Dutch, writing remains the weakest area of my Dutch language skills. I need to really think about every single word and sentence I write. So it's no wonder that this is also the area I find hardest whilst raising my children to be bilingual. And it's the topic I have chosen for the Multicultural Kid Blogs carnival about raising multicultural children.

Why Bother with Writing in a Second Language?

The first question you may be asking yourself is why bother. Gone are the days when we hand write everything; we have computers now. We have auto correct and spelling check. Why spend so much time trying to teach our children to write in a second or third language? The Russian Step by Step team sum it up:

"Yes, everyone will agree that in the modern world we have a lot less opportunities to use handwriting than even 50 years ago. Everyone, even toddlers, use the “screens” and start typing at a very early age." Russian Step by Step

But there are still many reason whys handwriting is today still an important tool to help your children improve their language skills. Russian Step by Step give four great reasons in their post Why Learn the Russian Handwriting? which apply to other languages too.

The European Mama also points out just how far handwriting is cultural - it differs across the world, and not just because of the different alphabets:

Writing is something special!

How Do Children Learn to Write

Bilingual Avenue has a whole podcast dedicated to helping you understand How do kids really learn to write, as well as this one to support you in teaching your child to write in the home language.

Of course, to be able to write in a language a child also needs to be able to read, which is the theme of a great post on Spanish Playground, tips to help teach those first steps to reading: Spanish Syllables: Learning to Read.

Multilingual Parenting shares tips in a post called 'From bilingual to biliterate':

"What you can do as a parent to nurture this interest is being a great role model for literacy. Read lots of books to (and later with) your child. Following the words with your finger while reading allows your child to make the connection between the sounds, letters and words. Write notes, cards and letters. If you have nothing else to write on a day, make writing the shopping list something that you do together." Multilingual Parenting

Use day to day chores to practice writing, make use of technology and get your children writing emails to family members in their second language.

Make Writing Fun to Keep Children Engaged

Being able to write in a language is important and there are ways to encourage, motivate and help your children develop an enthusiasm for writing in a language that is not their native tongue. 

Adam Beck (Bilingual Monkeys) advocates making literacy development fun - and as far as I'm concerned keeping it fun is one of the best tips for parents raising multilingual children. His idea of Silly Stories is a sure fire way to get children laughing and learning! 

Another idea over on the blog Family Life in Spain is to use story cubes to create stories that can also be written. My children love story cubes but we have only used them to make up verbal stories so I love this idea of taking it further and actually writing down the little tales we make up.

Fun is also the key to this post by Raising a Trilingual Child - not just fun but food too!

"Apparently there is nothing as easy and fun as teaching your child letters using an aromatic Italian mortadella! One evening I was preparing appetizer for kids, I took a big piece of  mortadella, the Italian heat-cured meat sausage,  and started slicing it and cutting it in cubes and sticks." Raising a Trilingual Child

There are eight more creative tips on Discovering the World Through my Son's Eyes to keep your children engaged in reading and writing from bingo to mini books. She realises that as parents raising bilingual children we sometimes need to think out a little outside the box:

There are other ideas and tips in the post "Easy way of teaching your bilingual kids to write in a minority language" on how to get your child writing in their second (or third) language over on Raising a Trilingual Child, who also reminds us of something important:

Just Start Writing

I journal. I write daily. I read daily. I read with my children on an almost daily basis (if not me then my husband does so we alternate between Dutch and English books). And I hope by doing these things the importance of reading and writing, in both languages, becomes engrained in my children - that practicing these skills just come naturally to my boys.

Writing can be in many forms:

Journaling - I am currently exchanging journal entries with my eldest boys using The Time Capsule and Between Mom and Me, journals that have been made especially for children. I have written before about how to use journals to encourage writing in a second language - and it's a tool that really works for us.

A Pen Pal - Read why everyone should have a pen pal here.

I have five more ways in this post: 5 Ways to Encourage a Child to Write in a Second Language

And finally, in his blog post "Do This One Simple Thing and I Guarantee You Greater Success On Your Bilingual Journey" Adam Beck explains just how important writing is as a tool on your bilingual journey, not just for our children but for us too, to help us raise our bilinguals:

"Just start writing: No matter who you are, or what your circumstances are like, if you make writing about your bilingual journey a priority in your life—a firm and regular routine—you will inevitably strengthen your awareness and your actions, and accordingly, your children’s bilingual development." Bilingual Monkeys

The Little (and Big!) Changes Expat Life Brings

When I boarded a ferry more than fifteeen years ago and left the UK to start a new life in the Netherlands, I never really stopped to consider how different my life would actually be.

I knew there was a new language to learn, one that I'd mistaken for a strange German dialect during a summer holiday in Turkey. 

I was, of course, aware of the typical Dutch associations with clogs, windmills, cheese and tulips but I shrugged that off as stereotypes. I learnt that the old adage 'no smoke without fire' is alive and well and there are actually a fair few windmills in the Netherlands, some farmers do wear clogs (as well as father-in-laws working in gardens) and the Dutch do happen to grow a tremendous number of tulips.... and they like cheese. But these turned out to be the least of the differences thrown at me when I embraced an expat life in the Netherlands. 

Dutch Primary Schools Lag Behind with Foreign Language Teaching

Platform Onderwijs2032 is looking at the future of the education system in the Netherlands. One of the conclusions drawn from their work to date is that English should be taught from group 1, from the start of a child's school journey.

According to an article on Expatica, just over half of Dutch children are taught a second language in primary school. This falls below the European average.

The government is busy with measures to rectify this situation. It is well acknowledged that children learn languages more easily from a younger age. The reality though is that many of them are not formally introduced to a second language until they are in secondary school.

It's a story that surprised me when I first read it. Lagging behind in foreign language teaching and the Dutch isn't something that struck me as going hand in hand. Let's be clear, the Dutch, on the whole, have excellent foreign language skills. Most of the population can hold a decent conversation in English.

"Amongst nations where English is considered the best-known foreign tongue, the study noted that the Netherlands also had a high proportion of working-age adults "proficient" in the language (36 per cent). This places the Dutch fourth in Europe, with only Malta, Sweden and Cyprus boasting more proficient English speakers. An additional 45 per cent of Dutch adults rated themselves as "good" speakers of English. This means that over 80 per cent of the Netherlands' working population has good English skills" 

(Taken from a 2013 I Am Expat article)

But the content of the Expatica article certainly doesn't contradict my own personal experience with three children in primary school.

My eldest son is in group 5, is eight years old, but as yet has had no formal second language lessons in school. My youngest son recently had a morning of singing English songs, and my middle son has had exposure to a few words of English vocabulary in the classroom. Their English skills are certainly not attributable to their hours in school.

However, they have classmates who are also adept at speaking some English despite not having the benefit of a British mother as my sons do. There are many five year old walking the school corridors with more than a sprinkling of English vocabulary - picked up from their parents, radio and TV. There is exposure to English outside the classroom, even if it is minimal. (I'm pretty sure you'd be hard pressed to find an eight year old who doesn't know the word shit for example...)

The debate at the moment is about the teaching of a second language at primary school level, not about the overall ability of the Dutch to speak foreign languages. Somewhere along the way it comes good. There's no mistake about that - something echoed by the Dutch respondents on my Facebook page to this issue.

My only concern is that if English was taught to the Dutch from group 1 by the time they reach adulthood their English would be more proficient than the English language skills of most English people.......

So over to you: at what age do children start earning a second language in school where you are? What language(s) do they learn? At what age do you think children should start learning languages in school?

5 Expat Life Lessons From 'Global Mom'

Melissa Dalton-Bradford has lived in more countries than most of us would even dare to think about moving to - eight to be precise, and has had twice as many addresses. Her memoir, Global Mom, published by Familius, starts in Paris with a beautiful pine Norwegian table that proves to be a family anchor during twenty years on the move, two decades during which her family grows, as does Melissa, as am individual, a wife and as a mother.

From a typical Norwegian barnepark (a word and a concept I will never forget) to desperate poverty on Tonle Sap Lake in Singapore, Dalton-Bradford takes us on an unforgettable journey.

Global Mom is the story of one family physically moving from one country to another, about Dalton-Bradford's journey as a mother, about how a family grows and moulds together. It's a book about community and about home. It's about thriving with no roots. It's about loss and living and surviving in the frightening, dark land of grief. And it's about everything in-between.

(Amazon UK link)

Here are five life lessons I took away from reading Global Mom:

1. Expats Need to Adapt to Thrive 

What resonated with me more than anything else was the fact that living overseas is a story of adaptation. Dalton-Bradford illustrates beautifully that thriving abroad is about resilience, about going with the host country flow. It's about accepting an alternative culture, learning the local language, and fitting in as best you can - embracing the local way of life rather than shunning it and trying to live like you would in your base country.

This is no better highlighted than when Melissa's family move from Norway to France. From a Norwegian barnepark where a child's independence is a priority, where people co-exist with the dominating force of Mother Nature and where no-nonsense and practical goes above appearance, the Bradford family suddenly finds themselves immersed in a school system where restrictions, bureaucracy, rules, regulations and traditions are everything, where the imperfect loops a child makes when learning to write is cause for more teacher concern than it should be.

A fiery Norwegian winter dawn - where Mother Nature rules
Photo Credit: Grethe Boe

Melissa's experiences of child birth in the two countries also serve as a mirror for the contrast between the Norwegian lifestyle and the French way of doing things. Describing her natural birth in Norway with the assistance of her earth mother to her French friends made them "slap their foreheads and drag their hands over their eyes in disbelief" she recounts.

"Those poor Nordic women are too naive to know they have modern options. Right?" said one French friend.

Two worlds - set apart by culture, yet the Bradford family adapt to both, Paris in fact transforming into a haven for the family, a place they could later picture themselves permanently living.

2. Living Globally is Not Easy

To be able to travel around the world and set up home in several countries, to live globally, is an honour. However, it is no bed of roses when a family has to pack up and relocate time after time. Melissa sums it up wonderfully (P168),

"Every time I built something - established myself and our family in Norway, penetrated Versailles with my children in local activities, or renovated our first home ever and buttressed and held up my children - in the very instant I'd gotten to that spot, this international job track levelled what I'd built."

Saying goodbye to friends that have accumulated over the years, feeling rootless, the stress of organising a move and re-establishing a life. Melissa dealt with stress-induced depression on more than one occasion. A global life is about falling and then picking yourself up, dusting yourself off and trying all over again.

3. Retaining Your Personal Identity Needs Work

A life on the move means putting a tremendous amount of energy into setting up the day to day every few years - and then building on those foundations. As a mother of three, Melissa was busy setting up a home, helping her children establish themselves, emotionally and physically, getting the practical things organised in each new country they moved to. She orchestrated re-building a life from the ground up with every new address; she was the driving force behind reshaping their lives to adapt to their new surroundings.

That takes a lot out of a person, but Melissa, once the basics were in place, learnt to look after herself too. Eventually. She reached out to those around her, busied herself with the local church community, continued with her singing where she could (having left a stage career behind in the US when the family first moved overseas). She embraced her musical talents wherever she lived, and used them to build up a community around her. Melissa put herself out there, even when she didn't have the heart or energy to do so. And by doing so it felt whilst reading that she retained her identity - albeit reshaped and adapted. 'Be true to yourself' I hear her whisper from the pages of her memoir.

4. We Make a Home Wherever We Go

A home is more than bricks and mortar
Photo Credit: vannmarie

Melissa reminds me, in a poetic way, that the extraordinary lies in the ordinary. She reminds us how important it is to appreciate the beauty of where we are at this point in our lives. The memorable moments of life lie in our struggles to get through the day to day, particularly when you are doing it in in an unknown culture, in a foreign tongue, in a country you don't know well.

And every time we leave a place we take a little of that place with us, and we leave our mark on the place we left. 'Global Mom' reminds us that home is a place we create in the most unexpected of circumstances. It is so much more than the bricks and mortar that give us a place to shelter. Home is about family, about people, about cultures and history, about traditions - about coming together to grow and learn. Home is the place we are surrounded by those we love, no matter where on the globe that physical address may be.

5. Tragedy Takes You to a New Land

When a family tragedy strikes it takes you to a new unchartered land, to the land of grief. Once entered, life is never the same again. This book is not a light read, it is heartbreaking. You will cry, but it is an integral part of the journey that this beautifully written memoir takes the reader on. It is a brave and courageous account of a mother's loss, of a family torn apart.

Melissa tells us how grieving whilst on the move means travelling on a lonely road - surrounded by new faces that do not know or understand what you have been through, who did not live through your life stopping tragedy with you. The grieving process knows even more complications because of a life lived in different countries. The memories are based elsewhere, the connections to your loss in another country.

"The nomadic lifestyle, with all its pluses has one glaring lacuna: community. You are again and again ripped up, ripped out, and replanted amid strangers. There is little if any continuous community. Now, as never before in our life. our family needed people who had more than a vague inkling of our story....." (P236 Global Mom)

To end, for me,  'Global Mom' is how you write a memoir. It is set apart by the weight it carries, by the emotions it instills in the reader - from smirks and giggles to floods of tears.

There is a sense of history, culture, and a feeling of the sights and sounds of every country the Bradford family lives in. There is the reality check that a nomadic lifestyle is a double edged sword, and a life lived well overseas takes work, emotional resilience and a lot of adapting. There is friendship, community, family and most of all, love.

This book is a great read for expats, wannabe expats, global nomads, parents and those with a curiosity for the power of the human spirit.

You can get a copy of Global Mom from the following outlets:

5 Ways to Encourage a Child to Write in a Second Language

My three boys are bilingual, speaking Dutch as their mother tongue and English as their second language. It struck me recently that even though we talk and read in English at home every day my eldest hardly gets any writing practice in his second language. So I'm making an all out concerted effort to change that and I have been thinking of ways that he'll find interesting to encourage him to pick up a pen to write in English.

Long Dutch Words - You Can't Make This Stuff Up

My latest article has just been published on expatsHaarlem on the topic of long Dutch words. The Dutch string words together (that have meaning on their own) to make uber words.

This is a great example:

Appelbanaanperenaardbeienframbozengrapefuitdruivenbramensinaasappelgranaatappelmandarijncitroenroomgebakje 

Although of course it's not a word you would hear being uttered in day to day life, it is a real word. And in case you were wondering, it's a fruit cake with every kind of fruit imaginable in it - but listed individually.

As children my dad and Gran used to wow my brother and me by reciting the longest place name in Wales (they are both Welsh):

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwll-llantysiliogogogoch 

And no, I won't repeat that. (Thank goodness for copy and paste).

Thinking back on this made me curious to know what the longest place name in the Netherlands is. Turns out it is Gasselterboerveenschemond. Say that after a glass or two of wine.

For more Dutch scrabble tips, and to learn which word is officially the longest Dutch word (the fruit cake one above doesn't count) head on over to expatsHarleem: http://expatshaarlem.nl/mastering-dutch-words-longer-arm

I would love to know - what's the longest word in your mother tongue (or second language) and the longest place name in your home or host country?

Bilingual Children: How Rumours Start

When you are raising bilingual children there will undoubtedly be frustrations, but there will also be laughs.

When we are out and about people outside our home obviously expect to consistently hear Dutch from my sons once they have struck up conversation in Dutch. They are not expecting them to suddenly switch to English. But sometimes it happens.

The funniest moment so far was when a pediatric nurse cast serious aspersions on Bert’s sexuality, the grumpier of the Bert and Ernie duo.

My son, two at the time, had to go for an appointment at our local hospital. Whilst we waited for the nurse, he was busy with various toys scattered around the waiting room. He picked up an Ernie, of Sesame Street fame, and began to play.

The nurse appeared and to get him comfortable with her (some two year olds are not too happy when a stranger wants to poke and prod them) she asked about the cuddly toy he was holding,

“Nou, wie is dat?” ("So, who's that?")

“Ernie,” replied my son looking at her as if she had landed from an alien planet.

“En waar is Bert?,” she continued. ("And where is Bert?")

“Bert’s at home,” he replied, turning around to get back to the important business of playing with Ernie.

The nurse looked a little shocked and turned to us and asked,

“Wat zegt hij nou?” ("What did he just say?")

“Bert is thuis,” my husband said “maar dan in het Engels. Hij heeft een Bert knuffel thuis.” (Bert is at home, but then in English. He has a Bert toy at home.")

The nurse broke in to hysterics and the three of us looked at her as if maybe she needed an appointment in a different section of the hospital. Until she explained,

“Ik dacht dat hij zei ‘Bert is een homo’.” ("I thought he said Bert is a 'homo'.")

It wasn't the first time I had heard that rumour, but in the sterile surroundings of a hospital examination room, it certainly broke the ice.

Through the Keyhole - An Expat Brit Lives Here

Photo Credit: Bill Davenport

As a British expat in the Netherlands I stick out like a sore thumb. Just by opening my mouth I am easy to pick out as different from the locals. (See Stuart's fabulous Invading Holland post "Oh, You're English" if you want to know a little bit more about what I mean). But most of the time it doesn't feel like it's entirely a bad thing. Not at all.

What seems like many moons ago I wrote a guest post for Meghan's wonderful Bringing Up Brits site about how my three sons, who are Dutch through and through, stand out a little from other Dutch boys because their mother is British. It got me thinking about how I stand out as British when Dutch people come to our house.

Magazine Rack: At any given time our magazine rack has old copies of some British magazine or other that friends have kindly donated to me, or that have been picked up on our travels. There was a time when it was hard for any Dutch guest to find something they could read but over the years the tables have turned. 

Music: Many of the CDs I own wouldn't have made their way into the average Dutch home. I'm talking about the very British music that never really made a name over here, those bands and singers I mention that make my husband screw his face up in confusion.

Food: My food cupboards and fridge contain jars of Colman's Mustard, boxes of Paxo stuffing, Marmite, Branston pickle, Hayward's pickled onions, mint sauce, Ambrosia pudding rice and custard and Bisto. These are not every day items from the local Dutch supermarket. They are expat shop specials, or brought lovingly over by visitors from England or hoarded in a squirrel like manner whenever I am back in England for transport back to my Dutch kitchen cupboards. 

Recipe books: You can't beat a good apple crumble, Yorkshire puddings or scone recipe so my kitchen shelves are filled with the type of recipe book you won't find in a Dutch bookshop. My shelves were once lined with weaning books and recipe books written by Gina Ford and Annabel Karmel. Most Dutch people looked blankly at me if I mentioned those baby and child (food and nutrition) specialists. Contrary to the rest of the Dutch population, my Jamie Oliver books are in English. I also have lots of curry recipe books. You can take a Brit out of Britain and all that.........

Affilate link: The Magic Faraway Tree Collection by Enid Blyton
Capturing childhood memories!

Books: The books I own are mainly in English. I read to relax, and I relax better in my mother tongue. That's not to say I don't read books in Dutch because I do, but the truth is most of my book collection is in English. Amazon.co.uk and I used to be best friends until they changed their free delivery policy. Now my best friend is The Book Depository. And it's not just my book collection that is in English; my three boys also have an extensive collection of books in English to make sure their English keeps improving, and that they know British nursery rhymes and classic stories. My eldest and I have just read "The Magic Faraway Tree" series together - and it was hands down his favourite book ever - so far. I read the very same series as a child so it was a wonderful experience to read the three Enid Blyton books with my own son. We've just started "The Wishing Chair".

Affiliate Link to Amazon.co.uk

DVDs: Way back when we first moved in together my husband and I amalgamated our DVD collection. We got rid of the duplicates but interestingly enough many of the Dutch DVDs survived the cull because they have Dutch subtitles and British DVDs don't. However, our DVD shelves are still lined with many a notable British film title.

Board Games: Our games collection gives me away too. The British version of word board games is always different to the Dutch version by way of the compilation of letters. For example the Dutch scrabble version contains 2 'J' tiles, whereas the British version contains 1. Playing Scrabble in Dutch with my British version and vice versa adds an extra challenge to the game which isn't wholly necessary. And of course British childhood classics like 'Snakes n Ladders' is unknown in the Netherlands (although I have seen versions of the game popping up quite regularly in recent years).

Bags: Giving a guest a carrier bag from Tesco, Marks & Spencers or John Lewis rather than an Albert Heijn or C1000 plastic bag to take items home in seems almost exotic. There's nothing like a Tesco carrier bag to say, "I'm foreign."

Look around you in your home - what gives you away as an expat to local eyes?

Straying From The Path to Now

Unknown to my younger self, I am sure that the path I have been on since I was a teenager was one leading me to a life abroad. It just wasn't a direct path. Sure, there were signs, hints and indications in my youth that a life beyond the borders of my birth country was something I should prepare for. That my later life would involve speaking a second language should have been clear to me at an early age.

My first trip abroad was a family holiday to Tangiers in Morocco. The unfamiliar sounds of an unknown language spoken all around me, the rich vivid colours of North African wedding attire sparkling in the glaring evening sun, the enchantment of a music so different to Western pop, the smells of exotic food cooking in the streets all served to pique my curiosity about life beyond the borders of my home land.

A school trip abroad to La Rochelle started my long lasting love affair with France. I homed in on modern languages, namely French and German for my GCSEs and continued my French to A-Level. My love of the French language went beyond the allure of my Liverpudlian French teacher. A school trip to Berlin a year after the wall fell enticed me to be a part of something bigger, it lured me to take a closer look at the world away from my own doorstep. Foreign languages became an integral part of who I was, who I was to be.

I centred my university degree search around being able to use my French. I eventually picked a European Studies course in Bradford, which included a study year in Toulouse. I use the word study lightly. It was less of an academic study year, more of a cultural immersion. I loved the smell and bustling of the local bakery every morning, I loved watching the old man in a beret that shuffled to the local supermarket in his well worn but clearly loved checked slippers, I loved browsing at the snails in the freezer compartment as I did my grocery shop - week after week failing miserably to pluck up the courage to actually give them a try.

After graduation jobs with companies like Michelin kept my French alive but when I later chose a career in Human Resources the need to speak a second language soon dissipated. My path seemed to change, leading away from where I had been sure I would go.

As a teenager I’d envisioned a life for myself abroad, in France, where I spoke the language and loved the culture. Somewhere along the way I got distracted and forgot where I was headed. My linguistic mind stayed with me, laying dormant but patiently waiting whilst I strayed from the path I should have been on.

And then one day my little brother met an American girl, online in a chat room. I was clueless. I had no computer of my own and had no idea how you could ‘meet’ someone in a chat room. After what seemed like no time at all he announced he was moving to Long Island, NY to get married. One family globetrotter fled the nest. But my own path kept me firmly rooted in England.

I needed to write a dissertation to finish my Post Graduate Diploma in Human Resources but the absence of a computer at home made progress slow but Father Christmas (disguised as my father) saved the day and I became the proud owner of a personal computer. It became my indispensable companion. It was to put me back on the right path.

For a reason I no longer remember nor can imagine looking back, my brother’s once uttered words, “go try a chat room. It’s fun” popped into my head one evening. I did a search and ended in a chat room talking to a Mexican. Just as I was getting bored with the whole 'chat room' experience a pop up appeared from another chatter. This time it was a Dutchman. My boredom vanished.

Christmas and the millennium were closing in and my days were filled with MSN Messenger and an endless string of emails. After that fateful evening I never entered a chat room again. Online chatting turned into a phone call on New Year’s Eve. Talking on the telephone turned in to visits to each other’s homes in foreign lands.

Seven months later my wonderful boss moved on and in his place came a woman who had a reputation for clearing the decks and bringing in her own people wherever she went. Business trips that were planned months ahead were suddenly superfluous and I whispered to my dad that something was afoot. I knew something bad was looming. He told me I was being paranoid.

Then one evening, sure enough, I was summoned to the dragon’s den. She informed me that my position would end in two months. Walking home with tears streaming down my face I made a call to the Netherlands with my mobile phone. I shared the lowlights of my evening and told my Dutch partner that I needed to find a job fast so that my mortgage didn’t become a problem.

“Or instead of finding a new job there, you could move to the Netherlands…” he said and I could hear the smile on his face.

And suddenly I was back on the path I was destined to walk on.

How Do Children Address Their Teachers Across the Globe?

A BBC article back in May relayed that Prof Jennifer Coates stated that calling males teachers 'sir' but addressing female teachers as 'miss' gives female teachers a lower status than males in British schools, and is sexist. In general, British teachers are indeed referred to as Miss or Sir or Miss/Mrs or Mr and their last names. Apparently (and those of you in Britain can clarify better than I can) some schools are moving towards pupils addressing teachers by their first names, trying to close the distance between teachers and their students, which is how it is in the Netherlands.

In the Dutch education system children address teachers by their first name, using juf or juffrouw in front for a female and meester for a male teacher. When I was in school it was quite the game to try and find out our teachers first names - and if we did it was an occasion for hilarity. Looking back I have no idea why - maybe a sense of taboo in that we weren't supposed to know their names. No such fun for Dutch school goers.

But it got me wondering. How do children in other countries address their teachers? So I asked the amazing Multicultural Kids Blogs bloggers.... and this is how teachers are addressed in countries across the globe - showing that how we address our teachers is truly cultural.

Australia

"I'm a teacher in an Australian primary school (ages 6 to 12)and we always are addressed Mr/Mrs/Ms and surname. Sometimes if a teacher has a long or difficult to pronounce name it is shortened to Mr P etc." Anonymous

Brazil

"Generally in Brazil students use the first name of their teacher. If the students are still quite young they often put 'tia/tio' ('aunt/uncle') in front of the name. Tia/tio is a universal term of respect that young young people use for their elders, regardless of relationship." Stephen Greene, Head of the Herd

China

In China children use teacher's last name and add Lao Shi (teacher) after it. If it is a foreign teacher then they say "teacher" and add teacher's first name (e.g. teacher Varya - well, I go by teacher V because no one can pronounce my name properly!). Varya of Little Artists

Equador

"In Ecuador they say Miss _____ (first name) an Mister ________ where I went to school." Diana Limongi Gabriele of Spanglish baby

Finland

"In Finland it's first names or even nick-names all the way with teachers, no titles or surnames. The whole society is very informal - I don't think that even the president would flinch if someone called him by his first name." Rita Rosenback of Multilingual Parenting 

France

"In France, it depends on the teacher. It can be "Madame/ Mademoiselle/ Monsieur X" or it can also be the first name and adressed as "vous" or first name and tu (=you) (but the last one is more for the kids in pre-school)" Eolia Scarlett Disler

"My niece in France uses the polite form "vous" and mrs C: Madame C. She is in primary school." Annabelle Humanes

"It's also very common for kids to use the terms "maîtresse" and "maître" for female and male teachers respectively, meaning simply "teacher" (for primary school age 6-10). Pre-school (3-6) usually use first names and secondary use Monsieur and Madame." Phoebe from The Lou Messugo Blog  

"In France students will say simply -maîtresse or maître (meaning teacher - femine/masculine) by itself when asking a question or trying to get his/her attention. In Maternelle (Pre-school) the teachers went by their first names for the students. Beginning at Elementary..it changes to to Madame or Monsieur (plus last name of teacher)." Jennifer Poe-Faugere

Germany

"In Germany at kindergarten, kids use the first names and Du."Annabelle Humanes

"In Germany, students adress teachers by using Herr/Frau and surname, using "Sie" as the polite form (Herr Schmidt, koennen Sie...). Teachers address students by their names, but when the students are over 16 years old, they also get "sietzt"- address using "Sie". Sometimes teachers would use first name and Sie." Olga Mecking

Italy

"In preschool (3-5) in Italy children use just teachers' first names." Galina Nikitina of Raising a Trilingual Child 

Korea

"Similar to China, my students in Korean added the word for teacher - seonsaengnim or the abbreviated saem - after the full/first name. Or sometimes they just used "saem." It felt strange to have students address me by my first name (I'm American)." Marielle

Latvia

"In Latvia you commonly avoid using name or surname but simply address them as teacher (skolotāj) and use the polite form "jūs" which is akin to the German "Sie" or French "vous". Talking to a third person you'd say teacher and then add the last name, though by high-school when talking with other students you'd just use the surname or name of the teacher. But you'd never address a teacher that way as it would be considered disrespectful." Ilze Ievina 

Morocco

"In Arabic class it's usted or usteda and French maitresse. No names just the word teacher." Amanda Ponzio Mouttaki

Poland 

"In Poland, it's Pan/Pani (Sir/Madam) and the pupils get called by their names. In secondary school, the students sometimes adress their teachers with, "pan profesor", or "pani profesor"- even if the teachers are not professors" Olga Mecking 

Portugal

"In Portugal, in primary school, children refer to the teachers as Sra. Professora(female)/Sr. Professor (male)or by their first name. In high school they call them 'stora' and 'stor', which is an abbreviation of Professora/Professor." Joanna

Russia

"In Russia children use full names to address teachers: first name + patronymic. How does a patronymic form? Let's say a teacher's name is Ivan, and his father's name is Mikhail. His full name will be Ivan Mikhailovich (which is rather like "Mikhail's"). Last name + first name + patronymic is what you will find in Russian documents. It is very common to use full names when addressing an older person, co-worker or a stranger, though less common than in the past. In the last couple of decades there is a tendency to use only first names, but not for teachers." Liska Myers at Adventure in a Box 

"In Russia we address by first name with patronymic (a variation of father's name that is added after 1st name in our passports -it is a general official way of calling people)." Varya of Little Artists

Spain

"In Spain our kids just use the teachers' first names." Kara Haberbush Suro of Our Whole Village

USA 

"When we lived in the US kids used first names but we lived in San Francisco and it really varies by region. In other parts of the US, kids use either Ms./Mr. and the first name or the last name." Kara Haberbush Suro of Our Whole Village

"Ms. First Name in Berkeley California." Stephanie Meade of InCulture Parent 

"In the US, children (elementary school age and up) typically refer to their teachers as Mr. or Mrs. My children go to a French International School where the elementary school English teachers are referred to as Mr. and Mrs. and the French teachers go by their first names." Aimee, of Raising World Citizens

"My children go to a Mandarin immersion school in California, and they call Chinese teachers their name (given or surname depending on teachers' preference. I believe in mainland China they would always use surname) + Laoshi, which means Teacher. Their English teachers use Miss/Ms/Mr + given (first) name." Sophie Beach

"East coast US, more old-school: Mrs./Dr./Mr. (Last Name). I think calling them by first names would get them in big trouble!" Homa Sabet Tavangar

Thoughts of Home: Banishing the Expat Blues

It's been a long time since I suffered the expat blues, the REAL expat blues, that point when life sucks, nothing is as good as it is back 'home', and you wonder what the hell you have gotten yourself in to. When I say a long time, I mean years. At least eight. But there were five years before that which were at times tough. 

 

I remember the countless times, driving on the M25 around London, leaving from my mum's or my dad's house back to one ferry port or another, feeling dismal. Feeling like it wouldn't take much to make me ask my Dutch partner to stop the car and let me out. It wouldn't take much to run in the opposite direction from the port. Tears would stream. Leaving again every time I went back to England was the hardest thing I had to do. But I kept doing it. 

And eventually, as life got easier and more comfortable in the Netherlands, leaving England each time got easier. Instead of feeling like I was leaving home to go back to 'the Netherlands' it started to feel like I was leaving England to go back home. Each boat or plan trip took me home, instead of merely taking me away from my family and friends, from everything familiar. 

And now, more than thirteen years after leaving England, I find it hard to imagine living back there. I would miss the Netherlands. I would miss my Dutch life. 

But that doesn't mean I don't miss things from my previous life, my British life. The obvious is family and friends - that is something that doesn't fade, but I have got to a state of acceptance. My best friend no longer lives in England, she too leads an expat life, so there are no guarantees, no matter where you live, that you'll be close to loved ones. People move. Things change. Expats know that better than anyone. 

I still miss the sight of miles of green, rolling hills. Sometimes, I miss being able to think in my mother tongue. I miss understanding why things are the way they are, I miss having the historical cultural knowledge to understand a bit more about why people do what they do. The culture in the Netherlands is not mine. I didn't live here through previous decades to know why things have evolved as they have - it's like taking a test on something you never studied. But I'm learning. I'm trying to understand. I'm trying to integrate as far as I can. And in doing so, I seem to have banished those expat blues for good. It doesn't mean I never miss some things in England, but I don't see it as home anymore. The Netherlands is my home. It's a mindset change.

Here are three tips to help deal with those expat blues, (all of which involve a lot of embracing):

1. Explore and Integrate

If you are an expat for the long haul get out and explore locally, and then make that circle of exploration wider. Join groups near you, both expat and local ones so you can meet others. Learn the local language. Get to know more about the local culture, even when the same language is spoken as back home there will always be other things that are vastly different - learn to recognise them and understand them so that you can in time accept them.

2. Embrace the Curve

There is no getting away from it, expat life can be rough. You will go through a huge emotional roller coaster curve when you move overseas. The first few days or weeks is the honeymoon period, you see everything through rose coloured spectacles. And then it hits, everything is different, nothing is familiar, this is NOT home. Culture shock hits. And then you'll slowly crawl your way up the curve again. Your curve maybe U shaped, it may be W shaped, but it's an inevitable process and you need to be tough. Embrace the curve, cuddle it, make it your friend. If you accept that what you are going through is perfectly normal, and that there is light at the end of the tunnel, then it makes those expat blues much easier to deal with. The mantra you should hum through the first four to twelve months after moving abroad should be "temporary, this is only temporary, life will get easier". And I promise it will. You can read a lovely example of what I mean here, written by "I Was an Expat Wife".

3. Embrace Change 

It's hard, but accepting that the only thing you can be sure of is that everything will be different will make life overseas easier. I am convinced that accepting change, and subsequently adapting to it, is what makes one expat more successful than another. It's a topic I plan to write much more about but as a summary, Aisha Ashraf puts it so beautifully in her post "Expats are Born, Not Made Discuss:

"Aspects of life in a new location may initially seem alien, even ill advised, but looking beyond pre-conceived ideas and striving to understand them is what marks out the successful expat from those ‘doing time’ abroad."

 So here's my best tip - when you move overseas, start by making the vow not to do time abroad, but to live your life abroad!

This is a link up with The Move to America as part of The Expat Experience series about missing home or suffering from the expat blues.

Awakening the Sleeping Expat Giant

Every now and then I read a blog post or article that inspires me to drop everything and put pen to paper. Aisha Ashraf's piece "Expats are Born, Not Made. Discuss." was one such gem.

"Expats are among those who realise there's more to it - no one HAS to do something they don't want to do for the rest of their life. They're more inclined to consider the previously unconsidered, to look beyond what they know to find answers, to take a leap of faith."

Truth be told I am an unlikely expat. I'm a typical introvert. I'm a homebody. I actually like the outer confines of my comfort zone. Change is no friend of mine.

Photo Credit: Jenny W. (Stock Xchng)

At the age of thirteen, my parents announced, out of the blue, that a move to Manchester was on the cards, just before I was to choose my GCSE subjects. There was an opportunity to move our lives from the south to the north of England. I froze. I can still feel the panic that filled those school going days whilst uncertainty hung above us. My friends, my school, my home - all under threat. Everything I knew could suddenly be pulled out from under me. It was a change I didn't want. I feared starting all over again, building everything back up from nothing. I shed many tears. I spoke angry words. I was relieved when the move didn't go through and life marched on for us 'as you were'.

Yet, a few years later, I chose a university degree course that took me 300 kilometres north of where I lived, away from my family and my home. In fact, I chose a course that would even take me away from my home country for a year.  Away from my base. Away from my comfort zone.

I spent a year in Toulouse, France, studying abroad for the third year of my degree course. I voluntarily packed up my suitcase and left my birth country shores for a temporary cultural immersion in to a life that was barely mine. Cultural water boarding. It was scary. It was enriching. I wanted the year to end. I wanted time to stop, so I could capture all the French cultural nuances, let them course through my body. Become part of me.

Now that I know myself better, understand who I am and accept myself, I am nothing but surprised by my life choices two decades ago. Even the decision I made in 2000 sometimes feels as if it was made by a stranger, a previous version of me.

Where did I get the courage, the idea, the drive, to want to live overseas at the tender age of twenty? There was no nomad trend during my childhood. True I called a number of places home home before my teenage years descended, but we never drifted from the British Isles, despite a chance turned down to move our family to Australia when I was small. There was no hint of an expat life waiting in the wings whilst life played centre stage.

And yet there was a longing to learn foreign languages. I lunged at any modern language course my school offered me; French, German and Italian. Italian was not a formal part of the school curriculum and brought a small group of linguist enthusiasts together in the darkness before school hours. I was the lone pupil from my school who took German A-level, ferried by minibus with the Technology course buffs a couple of times a week to another school in the area. All to quench the thirst for a new language.

Ironic that a girl who doesn't like or need to say much could say so much in other tongues by her early twenties.

Were my teenage choices driven by a romantic view, the image of a culturally richer life than Britain had on offer? Or were my choices a result of some subconscious knowledge of a life destined to be lived abroad? Was I simply preparing myself for the inevitable life as an expat?

Was the seed sown for a life beyond my home territory because of my aptitude for foreign languages? Or did learning new languages open my eyes to a world beyond the one I could see from my Hertfordshire bedroom window?  Was I made into an expat by a life choice? Or did I make a life choice because I was born to be an expat?

Aisha poses a similar question,

"Does travel broaden the mind or does a broad mind lend itself to travel?"

My mind was open, from an early age, to other cultures, other countries, other languages. But that openness goes against the grain of who I am, my personality, my introverted self. I wasn't born to take chances, to step outside of a place I consider safe. But somehow the battle to be expat, to take a leap of faith, to embrace the unknown, was won out by my inner sleeping giant who awoke at just the right time, gave out an ear piercing roar, a wake up call to take a risk that was so out of character. Once satisfied that the right path was started upon, my inner expat giant settled down once more into a peaceful slumber. And has there remained. Content. Job done.

Sharing Our Roots - an Interview with Vinita Salome

If you don't already know Vinita Salome, let me introduce you. Vinita is a photographer. Well, actually she's not just any photographer. She's an exceptional talent behind a camera lens. She specialises in capturing the essence of families and children and creates atmospheric memories to treasure. I should know because I have a host of such pictures hanging on my wall.

Vinita is an expat here in the Netherlands with an interesting background. She was born and raised in Japan and went  back to her roots when she moved to India aged seventeen.

She now lives in the Dutch city of Gouda, where her son was born six years ago. Her son has Dutch and Indian nationality and Vinita thinks it is important that he grows up with an understanding of the countries she grew up and lived in. Vinita explains why,

"We have family in both India and Japan. My brother lives in Japan and is married to a Japanese lady and together they have a daughter. My mother lives in India."

Vinita learnt how to share the culture and traditions of the country she was born in and the country of her family roots by turning back to her own childhood and remembering how her parents shared her roots with her,

"My mother cooked delicious Indian food, we spoke Sindhi (one of the Indian languages) and English at home, and learnt Japanese when we lived there.  We were part of an Indian club where festivals were celebrated and children took part in the celebrations. We had Indian neighbours. We visited India almost every summer and met our extended family."

So Vinita is well prepared to teach her son about Japan and India. She too shares her culture and past with her son through food and language.

"I cook a mix of Asian foods, leaning towards Japanese street food. I cook mostly stir fried food and buy a lot of Japanese ingredients from the Asian supermarkets. I only cook Indian friends visit although I love to eat it. I speak to my son in Japanese when Japanese friends are around, and when I have my Indian friends here we speak together in English. In India, through prefixes, it is easy to identify who is who in the family. For example, Nani is mother’s mother and Masi is Mother’s sister and so on. Explaining these prefixes also makes him aware of things that are done differently.

On my last trip to India, I bought several comic books and dvd’s featuring many Indian mythological figures. He watches these, is curious to know more and asks questions about them. And when he is in India, or if he happens to see a Ganesh in someone’s house, he points it out to me.

We also listen to old Japanese folk tale CD’s in the car which has proved to be quite a hit with him.
He watches Japanese stuff only when he is with Japanese people, so in this way I try to build in some consistency and separation so that his mind isn’t flooded."

Vinita also highlights that communication with her family in Japan and India is an incredibly valuable tool to show her son how her life was in the countries she grew up in.

"Skype really works for communicating with my brother and his family. It’s just lovely to see how my niece and my son communicate and exchange notes. Japan also celebrates many traditions based on the seasons and when we chat we share these traditions and share so much about our different lives," she tells.

Of course, modern day technology makes it much easier for expats to keep in touch with family than in years gone by but at the end of the day nothing compares to actually visiting a country to taste the cuisine, witness the traditions in action, absorb the culture and understand what life there is like. Vinita knows this all too well and tries to visit family as much as she can.

But sharing your childhood life with your own children is not always easy. Vinita explains one problem they faced the last time they took a trip to India,

"Since I mainly cook Asian/Japanese meals at home, it was difficult to find food that my son could enjoy. We managed to introduce him to new tastes, but since I myself lean towards the Japanese cuisine, I see that the Indian cuisine gets left behind and he starts wanting food that he is used to eating like pasta and pancakes."

Sharing her childhood languages with her son is also an area Vinita has to work hard at.

"I find that I have to be consistent in all aspects of sharing my culture and traditions, but especially where language is concerned. Since my son doesn’t have an equal amount of vocabulary in English or Japanese, it’s easy to slip into Dutch while speaking to me. I notice that I’m the one who needs to keep at it."

Despite both the physical distance and the cultural differences between the Netherlands and Japan and India Vinita still finds it easy to share information about both countries with her son. She elaborates,

"I’m just fascinated how children can take in so much information where language is concerned, and their flexibility in how they adjust to cultures."

Top Tips from Vinita to Teach Your Children about Your Origins

• Use the palette and share tastes with your children by cooking traditional meals at home
• Shop together for different ingredients that represent your country of origin - we frequent Asian supermarkets. 
• Eat out in restaurants that cook the cuisine of your birth land - we go to Indian or Japanese restaurants so that he knows the difference.
• Teach the language of your birth country - in our household we speak Dutch, English and Japanese
• Use cartoons, books and DVD's to share language and culture
• Use tools like Skye to stay in regular contact with family in other countries
• Take a trip - nothing beats visiting a country and family

And a last note from Vinita, which I thinks sums up beautifully how lucky us expats and our children are,

"I feel privileged to have been exposed to so many countries, cultures, and languages and that exposure has helped me in my life. I would like to pass this on to my son and hopefully it will also help him with his endeavours."

Brainy Bilinguals

Are you making sure your children
learn at least two languages?
Photo: Mokra

According to a recent headline on NU.nl, bilingualism is the new crossword puzzle. In short, bilingualism promotes a higher level of concentration and aids memory function. This is the conclusion from research done with groups of teenagers in the United States.

Knowing and using two languages keeps your brain sharp - in the same way that doing crossword puzzles does.

This latest research adds to the already substantial confirmation that bilingualism is good for the brains!! Another reason to make sure your children grow up maintaining your home country language, whilst learning and using the local language too!