I read this post this morning and was so encouraged by it.
Our Sunday gathering starts at almost exactly the time that J and S eat lunch and S usually goes down for his nap. So almost every week usually involves L or I dealing with a tired, but stimulated enough by everything going on that he has no intention of sleeping, toddler who keeps going until well past his normal nap time then crashes out in the car on the way home but only sleeps the 15 minute length of the car journey.
So it was good to remember the day after that what was, for various reasons, a particularly hard Sunday, that Sundays are good for our small children.
"Sundays may mean disrupted naps and delayed meals, but our children are trading earthly provision for something far better for their undying souls. On Sundays, everything is rearranged so that they might hear the Word proclaimed in the power of the Spirit. On Sundays, every ordinary thing takes a lesser place in favor of “the one thing necessary”." (article linked above)
Monday 25 February 2019
Six months
We've been in this city for just a few days over six months now. I know this because legally we can only drive in Turkey on our British licences for six months after coming into Turkey. We're hoping to have our Turkish licences come through in the next few weeks (thankfully there's a process to swap our British licences for Turkish ones rather than having to sit a driving test here) but until then I can't drive. L did a weekend hop to the UK a couple of weeks back, which starts him off on another 6 month period, so he's now the official family chauffeur.
Six months. That time has flown by. We still get asked fairly regularly if we've got used to life here. Our answer is usually 'yes and no'. On one hand, we have settled here. This is home. We have pictures hanging on the walls and a flat full of the messiness and paraphernalia that comes with family life - artwork on the fridge, drawers with odd socks in them, Duplo bricks behind the sofa and random objects stuffed down the side of sofa cushions. We have different names to distinguish the different parks within walking distance of our flat. The employees at the little supermarket we go to most regularly know the boys by name. We have routines, regular places that we go and know when our preferred city centre car park is most likely to be full and when we're likely to find a space. Our life in Istanbul feels a long time ago.
On the other hand, it's only six months. Six months is not a long time. We're still discovering lots of new places in the city and get caught out by road systems that do unexpected things. And if we were in the UK and moved area, I wouldn't generally expect six months to be long enough to establish good friendships (unless of course you're a student or maybe a young-ish single person). And that applies even more so when the friendships we are slowly forming are cross-cultural, so it is not a surprise that six months does not feel long at all.
Last Friday L's work permit arrived, valid for a year, and this morning we submitted the paperwork for the boys' new residence permits. My residence permit application will be done in the next couple of weeks. With that work permit comes a sense of stability, or at least a sense of temporary stability, in knowing that we can be here until at least next February. As foreigners, our ability to live here will always remain fragile. But the last six months have seemed particularly fragile, as we moved to this city, started building our lives here, establishing a business, on the hope and expectation that we'd be able to stay.
Our first six months here has gone. I remember when we marked six months living in Istanbul and it was with the realisation that a quarter of our Istanbul-allotted time had gone. Now we have the privilege of marking six months here and knowing that we have permission to be here for another year, and God willing, for a long time after that.
Six months. That time has flown by. We still get asked fairly regularly if we've got used to life here. Our answer is usually 'yes and no'. On one hand, we have settled here. This is home. We have pictures hanging on the walls and a flat full of the messiness and paraphernalia that comes with family life - artwork on the fridge, drawers with odd socks in them, Duplo bricks behind the sofa and random objects stuffed down the side of sofa cushions. We have different names to distinguish the different parks within walking distance of our flat. The employees at the little supermarket we go to most regularly know the boys by name. We have routines, regular places that we go and know when our preferred city centre car park is most likely to be full and when we're likely to find a space. Our life in Istanbul feels a long time ago.
On the other hand, it's only six months. Six months is not a long time. We're still discovering lots of new places in the city and get caught out by road systems that do unexpected things. And if we were in the UK and moved area, I wouldn't generally expect six months to be long enough to establish good friendships (unless of course you're a student or maybe a young-ish single person). And that applies even more so when the friendships we are slowly forming are cross-cultural, so it is not a surprise that six months does not feel long at all.
Last Friday L's work permit arrived, valid for a year, and this morning we submitted the paperwork for the boys' new residence permits. My residence permit application will be done in the next couple of weeks. With that work permit comes a sense of stability, or at least a sense of temporary stability, in knowing that we can be here until at least next February. As foreigners, our ability to live here will always remain fragile. But the last six months have seemed particularly fragile, as we moved to this city, started building our lives here, establishing a business, on the hope and expectation that we'd be able to stay.
Our first six months here has gone. I remember when we marked six months living in Istanbul and it was with the realisation that a quarter of our Istanbul-allotted time had gone. Now we have the privilege of marking six months here and knowing that we have permission to be here for another year, and God willing, for a long time after that.
Saturday 2 February 2019
TCK myths: language learning by osmosis
If our children spend their formative years in Turkey, which is our plan, they will be Third Culture Kids - TCKs for short. One of the most commonly used definitions of a TCK is:
“A Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents’ culture. The TCK builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the TCK’s life experience, a sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background.” (Pollock and Van Reken)
J and S are growing up in a culture that is not mine and L's culture or their passport culture. Because they are growing up in a different culture to the UK, they will never feel fully British. But with British parents and a British passport, they will never feel fully Turkish either. They will develop a strong relationship with both British and Turkish cultures but their sense of belonging and identity will be to a third culture i.e. to the group of people who have also grown up in different cultures from their parents. In other words, J and S are likely to find more in common with other TCKs (even if they are, for example, American but grew up in South Asia) than they will with those who are British and have lived in the UK their whole lives.
There are many, many things that have been written about the advantages and challenges of being a TCK by people far more knowledgeable than me so I'm not going to repeat them. But I do want to dispel some of the myths about TCKs.
One that I have heard several times relates to TCKs naturally achieving fluency in the language of their host country. It's the different variants of 'your children will be so privileged, they'll grow up speaking Turkish', with the assumption that just because we live in Turkey, our children will learn to speak Turkish fluently and be bilingual.
Unfortunately, this is not true. Language learning by osmosis is sadly not a recognised method of language acquisition, much as I wish it were. I think that the view is that because children learn and grow so fast, they will just automatically 'pick up' a second (or third etc.) language by being around it and hearing it.
However, it takes time and effort for anyone, including children, to learn a language. Unsurprisingly, children who are immersed from a young age in a day care setting or school where the second language is the main language spoken do learn the second language well. But that is because they are spending eight hours a day hearing that language, five days a week for the entire academic year! I have no doubt that if I were to spend that amount of time in a Turkish speaking environment, my Turkish proficiency (at least in listening and comprehension) would improve significantly. Even then, despite the immersion, it is very common for a child not to speak the second language at all for a year or so.
The advantage young children do have in learning a language is that they may be less self conscious about speaking the second language, feel less pressure to be perfect and speak with a better accent. But it is not necessarily true that the younger a child is, the quicker they will learn a second language. Language skills transfer from one language to another and a young child may not yet have training or skills in their mother tongue to transfer to a second language.
We hope that our children will speak Turkish well. We're not actually aiming for them to be bilingual or to be academically fluent in Turkish. The ability to speak more than one language is a great advantage - as well as the practical benefits of speaking a second language, it also stretches and develops the brain in different ways. But we are realistic enough to know that English will be their first language and that mastery of English, not just proficiency, is vital. So we are planning and aiming for the boys to be fluent at a conversational level in Turkish but accepting that they will not have the academic fluency to complete their education in Turkish or be at the same level as their Turkish peers in reading and writing.
As our children are still young and spent most of their time at home with me, they naturally hear a lot of English and we have to work hard on their Turkish. It's been suggested that we could put J in a creche or preschool to improve his Turkish but for various reasons that's not something we're considering at the moment. The boys hear Turkish a fair amount on Sundays and if we go to Turkish people's houses or people come to us. But that is not enough for them to learn Turkish. Sometimes L and I will speak Turkish at home and try and encourage the boys by speaking to them in Turkish. Generally if I'm out in public with the boys and there are other people around, I'll try and talk to them in Turkish. We also have books and songs in Turkish, a lot of the (limited) screen time they are allowed is in Turkish (thank goodness for Thomas the Tank Engine dubbed into Turkish!). They are also currently using an online program called DinoLingo which is designed to teach a second language through videos and animated stories. And one of the most useful things we are now doing is that the boys have an oyun ablası ("play big sister") who comes one morning a week. She looks after the boys, plays with them and speaks to them entirely in Turkish which allows me a couple of hours to get some admin work/language study/rest in. From next week, J will also start a twice weekly gymnastics lesson at a local sports centre. This will obviously be entirely in Turkish, which I think will be quite a learning curve for him and maybe not very easy to start with, but should be good for him.
And with all that, so far J is actually able to understand some basic Turkish. He'll speak some odd words and phrases but generally prefers not to speak in Turkish right now, which is very normal. S doesn't speak at all yet in any comprehensible language, although he understands a fair amount of English and I'm pretty sure he understands 'yapma!' in Turkish (which translates as 'don't do that!).
We understand that learning a language is a process, it takes time and children learn in their own time and we're grateful for the progress that they are making. But we are definitely conscious that TCKs do not automatically learn the language of the country they live in and that it will take time, effort and active work on our part to help J and S learn Turkish.
“A Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents’ culture. The TCK builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the TCK’s life experience, a sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background.” (Pollock and Van Reken)
There are many, many things that have been written about the advantages and challenges of being a TCK by people far more knowledgeable than me so I'm not going to repeat them. But I do want to dispel some of the myths about TCKs.
One that I have heard several times relates to TCKs naturally achieving fluency in the language of their host country. It's the different variants of 'your children will be so privileged, they'll grow up speaking Turkish', with the assumption that just because we live in Turkey, our children will learn to speak Turkish fluently and be bilingual.
Unfortunately, this is not true. Language learning by osmosis is sadly not a recognised method of language acquisition, much as I wish it were. I think that the view is that because children learn and grow so fast, they will just automatically 'pick up' a second (or third etc.) language by being around it and hearing it.
However, it takes time and effort for anyone, including children, to learn a language. Unsurprisingly, children who are immersed from a young age in a day care setting or school where the second language is the main language spoken do learn the second language well. But that is because they are spending eight hours a day hearing that language, five days a week for the entire academic year! I have no doubt that if I were to spend that amount of time in a Turkish speaking environment, my Turkish proficiency (at least in listening and comprehension) would improve significantly. Even then, despite the immersion, it is very common for a child not to speak the second language at all for a year or so.
The advantage young children do have in learning a language is that they may be less self conscious about speaking the second language, feel less pressure to be perfect and speak with a better accent. But it is not necessarily true that the younger a child is, the quicker they will learn a second language. Language skills transfer from one language to another and a young child may not yet have training or skills in their mother tongue to transfer to a second language.
We hope that our children will speak Turkish well. We're not actually aiming for them to be bilingual or to be academically fluent in Turkish. The ability to speak more than one language is a great advantage - as well as the practical benefits of speaking a second language, it also stretches and develops the brain in different ways. But we are realistic enough to know that English will be their first language and that mastery of English, not just proficiency, is vital. So we are planning and aiming for the boys to be fluent at a conversational level in Turkish but accepting that they will not have the academic fluency to complete their education in Turkish or be at the same level as their Turkish peers in reading and writing.
As our children are still young and spent most of their time at home with me, they naturally hear a lot of English and we have to work hard on their Turkish. It's been suggested that we could put J in a creche or preschool to improve his Turkish but for various reasons that's not something we're considering at the moment. The boys hear Turkish a fair amount on Sundays and if we go to Turkish people's houses or people come to us. But that is not enough for them to learn Turkish. Sometimes L and I will speak Turkish at home and try and encourage the boys by speaking to them in Turkish. Generally if I'm out in public with the boys and there are other people around, I'll try and talk to them in Turkish. We also have books and songs in Turkish, a lot of the (limited) screen time they are allowed is in Turkish (thank goodness for Thomas the Tank Engine dubbed into Turkish!). They are also currently using an online program called DinoLingo which is designed to teach a second language through videos and animated stories. And one of the most useful things we are now doing is that the boys have an oyun ablası ("play big sister") who comes one morning a week. She looks after the boys, plays with them and speaks to them entirely in Turkish which allows me a couple of hours to get some admin work/language study/rest in. From next week, J will also start a twice weekly gymnastics lesson at a local sports centre. This will obviously be entirely in Turkish, which I think will be quite a learning curve for him and maybe not very easy to start with, but should be good for him.
And with all that, so far J is actually able to understand some basic Turkish. He'll speak some odd words and phrases but generally prefers not to speak in Turkish right now, which is very normal. S doesn't speak at all yet in any comprehensible language, although he understands a fair amount of English and I'm pretty sure he understands 'yapma!' in Turkish (which translates as 'don't do that!).
We understand that learning a language is a process, it takes time and children learn in their own time and we're grateful for the progress that they are making. But we are definitely conscious that TCKs do not automatically learn the language of the country they live in and that it will take time, effort and active work on our part to help J and S learn Turkish.
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