If you're in Paris , go DULALA!

I had posted previously about a brilliant association here in Paris organizing language playgroups for multilingual families: it was called the Association des Familles Multilingues. It recently changed name, website and enlarged its scope: it's now called D'Une Langue A L'Autre (DULALA), if you are based in Paris or simply French-spoken, take a look at their sleek website! I recently joined their Research Committee and it's great fun to interact with the founder, Anna Stevanato, a fellow Italian woman who's a linguist and specialised on bilingualism, as well as the other members.

It's exciting to see how much has changed here in Paris in the last 5 years, that is ever since I started wondering about multilingualism: not only parents have now access to a plethora of information on the web as well as associations such as the Cafe Bilingue and DULALA, but the general media is also finally recognizing the changing demographics of France's capital and are investigating on the matter. If you understand French, listen to this (very French indeed!) podcast from Europe1, one the top French news radios, entitled: "Je veux que mon enfant soit bilingue!"

Learning through playing

One of the tools that we, as parents of multilingual children, have to foster and strenghten the minority language in our household, is to set up play groups with families who speak the language we need to reinforce.

Setting up a playgroup can greatly vary in difficulty depending upon the location: large, cosmopolitan cities might provide more opportunities than smaller urban centers, however on the internet we can find all sorts of websites helping us locating families near us with the same lingusitic needs.

Anna Stevanato Le Marchand, a fellow Italian mum here in Paris, has recently founded an organization to help multilingual parents in this direction: the Association des Familles Multilingues organizes playgroups in Italian, Spanish and English for kids aged 2 to 7.

German and Russian playgroups are also in the planning. The objective is to have kids strenghten and practice their second language in a playful atmosphere and outside the family environment. The results and the progress are often outstanding!

Creativity...within the lines...(or why Jackson Pollock could have never been French)

This weekend I had my periodical clash with the Parisian (and I choose voluntarily to avoid a generalization to the French) mentality. We took the kids to a lovely parc where each summer they hold a fun Summer Festival, geared toward young families: contemporary art installations are displayed throughout the park, a DJ provides ambience through the day, fresh fruits are distributed for free, and a series of activities engage parents and children in what it is supposed to be an initiation to art and creativity, one of these being a huge pre-print wall paper, which kids and parents are invited to color.

Milo and Zeno simply love to draw and ran toward the FlyingColorWall, as it is called. A few minutes later Milo comes back visibly upset, crying with huge tears, claiming a guy scolded him. As I did not witnessed the scene, I imagined perhaps some older kids just pushed him away, so I minimized the affair and invited him to join me again to the wall. He was scared to go back! So I took my time and eventually convinced him that there was no reason to be scared, and we both joined the wall again. Few seconds later a young man from the staff dealing with the festival organization, came up to me and told me that he had tried to explain to Milo that he was not supposed to draw wherever he wanted, but he had to color the existing drawings. I took a deep breath, and calmly addressed the young man:

" I understand this is a coloriage, but my son is only 3 and he was just drawing a little airplane in a corner there, don't you think you are exaggerating?"

" But drawing is not the objective here!" replies snobbily the young man.
"And making children cry is?" I defy him.
"But if everyone begins coloring all over the place..."
"..then you should not allow children to color this wall, I thought this was to initiate kids to color and art and expressing themself, not some sort of boot camp!"

The conversation continued purposelessly until I had to mention that I work for one of the main sponsors of the festival, and I did not find his attitude very constructive. He suddenly disappeared.

Perhaps we just stumbled across the wrong guy. Perhaps I keep being too pre-conceived about things here. Or perhaps I am simply an over-protecting Italian mum! But I found the episode alarming, filled with a conceptual contradiction which I will never get used to. I eventually explained Milo that we were supposed to color inside the drawing, which he eventually did. But I also made a point to tell him that his drawings were really lovely and I found them more interesting than the pre-print ones. And that we are not at all always obliged to color (especially to color!) within pre-set lines...

A love & hate relationship

Yesteday I ranted about Paris, today I want to render justice to the people and the things we love here: there ARE sympathetic shop keepers indeed, the pharmacist and the boulanger in our neighborhood are extremely friendly; our neighbours in our building have also been very nice, and they all have spontaneusly offered at one point to look after Milo should the birth occur at night; I have made some tue friends among my French colleagues at work...I have to be objective!

Last night it was the Fete de la Musique: like every year on June 21, France celebrates the summer solstice allowing musicians to perform in the streets of all its towns! The performances in Paris range from pop concerts with over 25 artists at La Defense to a little band performing at the brasserie around the corner. The athmosphere is just irresistible! We took a small tour around the neighborhood (can't walk much these days, unfortunately! We are at - 20 days to the due date and although I haven't gained much, a mere 10 kg, I have a limited distance range!) and enjoyed the small band at the brasserie...Milo was enthusiastic, and, for one night, like him several other toddlers were out and about with their parents...the city was envelopped in a sort of village-festival type of aura! On days like this, we love Paris!