Creative Ideas To Teach Kids Mother-tongue Outside India?

Hello All,
I am really interested in enabling my 2+ yr old being able to converse with me and the grandparents in my native language fluently. We are in the US.

I have always spoken to him only in my native tongue. But as days go by, he is using more and more English words - I know this is natural - I have seen almost every one of the kids in my friends and family circle use only English. They can understand the home language but I personally don't know any kid who will speak it - maybe they exist - but I don't know them - so I can't get any parenting help for how to go about facilitating this.

Things I am trying:
1. Songs in my native language. He likes some of them and tries to sing along when the words aren't too hard.
2. Story books - my son loves books but these native language books are not a hit because it has too much words and pictures aren't as catchy as our collection of English books from the local library. I recently discovered Tulika books which have picture books - waiting for their shipment for a few months now. :-D
3. Even when I read an English book, I don't "read" - I narrate the story in my language pointing to pictures. And we read a LOT.

Do you have any other ideas for me? Maybe any lessons learned or comments or difficulties regarding this from your experience?

One other relevant aspect. Husband is from another state and he consistently speaks to kid in his language - and this is a conscious decision we made. Our kid definitely understands all three - we know that because kid will answer correctly (and sometime even funny/witty answers) to everything. Initially hubby and I were speaking to each other in English - then we realized that means kid hears lot more English during time with parents. So we are trying to learn each others languages (via immersion nothing formal) and speak to each other with our own languages. It's working out sometimes - but there are quite a few things we can only convey in English to each other so we do that.

Also, I myself am more fluent and mostly think in English, having studied in national schools mostly - where kids were from different Indian states studied together - so have spent more time speaking English only. So at the same time I also need to build my mother-tongue skills and am looking for ways to improve myself. This is discussion for another thread though

Our pediatrician likes that we are not resorting to English from a young age and at least trying - her only advice for us was - be consistent and make sure kid responds in your language. Paraphrasing her: I allowed my kids to respond in English and then after that there is no turning back. Doctor's college daughter now regrets parents not stressing more for them to speak. Her kid is taking courses in Univ to learn their native language.

Also when our child responds in English - I don't believe in negative feedback - so I clarify what he means - so he will try and translate it to me. And when he gets the right word or two in our language - I do a little joyful jump and dance. And he seems to be liking this positive feedback so far. But his go-to choice of word is becoming mostly English.

Any online resources/forums to help in this journey would also be very useful.

Thank you, all.

 

Bumping this thread up to see if anyone has any suggestions?

I just received a big set of books from Tulika (Tulika Books) A couple of them are good - but a couple of them were terrible - with so many typos. Still need to go through the other. They seem to have taken books from one regional language - and then used some translation software to get other Indian languages - so there are lots of typos. Sad to see that a new-age publisher didn't do the basic step of proof-reading books in every language - before sending it out to print!

 

Thanks a lot for your reply, @Rihana.

Interesting that Tulika books is 15 years old and I just got to know about them excitedly a few months ago! Their intentions are great - but sadly their implementation is so bad. :-( I've started reading it to my kid - once again just like what I used to do with English - making up my own story in our native tongue. The only plus for these books are that the characters and situations look closer to home. So in a way I am happy I got so many of them.
For anyone interested, they have free International shipping now.

I feel a heaviness - after reading your reply and mulling over it the last couple of days. I'm hoping I can re-channel this heaviness in to working towards this instead - let me see if I can. Maybe I will use this thread to share what I learn and my experience in this journey.

My native tongue is Tamil. I too have been so impressed my how many families volunteer one day of their weekend (such a precious resource in these busy times) to either teach and somehow drag their kids out of being able to sleep-in on a weekend and get to these classes. But here is what I noticed - three issues:
(1) the classes *start* at 3 yrs old - by this time a lot of kids (not all) are already speaking to their friends in English. I even sat in one of the classes with my toddler (he isn't 3 so I couldn't officially register for it) - since I was curious and took permission from the volunteer teacher.
(2) I feel like the lesson is not at the intellectual level of the kids - it is at their "language" level - so it takes a LOT from the teacher to keep them to simply sit and even listen. For example - between 1 yr old and 18 months old children like "picture" books where they is single word in a page describing or identifying a picture. After that they start wanting more - there needs to be a "story". And then soon after the story needs a more sophisticated plot! But in the language book - the concepts are not sophisticated enough to keep their attention and the kids start talking between themselves about more fun stuff.
(3) Teacher ends up speaking in English quite a bit to ensure all the kids in the class are understanding. So this defeats the goal of "immersion" - one of the key factors that makes one learn a language.

I am full of praise and adoration for what these parents, volunteers, teachers and young children - are doing. I feel bad criticizing their efforts with my points above - but want to frankly share what may be missing. Of course the right thing for me to do - would be to volunteer myself and attempt at helping sort these out in some small way.

Superb thread - this is the type of discussion that makes IL stand out. So honest and frank. Thank you for asking it then and answering now.

 

Wow! What a pleasant surprise it must have been for you. Thank you very much for sharing your story - as well as something you've noticed in your friend's circle too! Very happy to hear.

I hope I can "encourage" without "pressurizing" - what a fine line it is walk upon!