: Image by teddY-riseD via Flickr

This week I finally managed to get a new template up for Dominique’s Desk. I had been trying to tweak the previous template that I used – Firebug. You can read about my experience in modifying that template over at WPThoughts.com After using that template for a while I stared getting bored with it and it’s limitations. The preset columns and structure made it quite difficult to add in tabbed views. Even though the Firebug template was sleek and more streamline it took a long time to load and I wanted one that looks more professional and could incorporate all the tweaks that I wanted to do with it.

You can see the outcome here with the current template I am using. How do you find it? Any comments?

Now I only need to work on a new header for Valentines Day.:)

January 30, 2009

Multilingual Parenting- A sharing experience

Dominique Thoughts Education, English language, Japanese language, Language, Linguistics

Last year I started on this project. I had this idea of documenting my experience of teaching the boys to speak, read and write in three or more languages. However as the year progressed I got caught up with other projects that this particular one got shelved.

This year I am taking it out of the cupboard and shaking off the dust on it. Hopefully even with my more taxing work schedule I will be able to complete this e-book by Christmas 2009.

Just a run down on my experiement so far. My boys have been introduced to English, Mandarin and Cantonese since birth.

Ryan can now speak and read very fluently in English. He too knows how to read and write in Mandarin. His Cantonese, however, is not as good. He does understand perfectly well when we speak to him in Cantonese but is very hesitant to reply in the same language. He often opts to answer in English as he is more comfortable with it.

He will be learning Japanese this year with Roy and will be taught how to read and write Japanese while I will only focus on spoken and recognition of Japanese words with Roy.( No writing till he is 3.5 to 4yrs old)

Roy can speak and read English. He understands when we talk to him in Mandarin and Cantonese too. I feel that he has more affinity with Cantonese as he is more willing to talk in Cantonese as compared to Ryan.

I intend to introduce the boys to other languages like French, German later on as they progress through elementary/secondary school.

I am looking for contributors to share their stories on how they teach their children in their native language/second or third language and the difficulties /achievements that they went through. If you are interested in sharing your story please drop me an e-mail at admin@dominiquegoh.com and I will get in contact with you.

Dominique's Desk

TT- This week’s achivement

Roy

Multilingual Parenting- A sharing experience