Ellie's Language Lesson

When our new friends here learn that Ellie and Reni were born in Albania, their first question is, "Do they still speak Albanian?"

Due to their age at the time of adoption, they weren't even verbal.  And from what we have learned, most children adopted internationally usually forget most of their first language within the first six months in their new country.  Difficulties with speech and language can occur when a child has partially learned a first language, then has that language learning interrupted and subsequently starts language learning all over again with a set of new sounds, rhythms and vocabulary.

However, children between the ages of four and eight are at the best stage to acquire a second language.  That is Reni and Ellie ages exactly.  We've noticed that in spite of hearing Albanian on a limited basis (basically only Fri/Sat/Sundays) they are picking up vocabulary.  We would be thrilled for them to have more immersion experience, and perhaps someday that might come.  Their educational needs for the moment (Ellie's attention challenges and Reni's mobility) make Albanian school difficult for now.

Last night we pulled Ellie into a simple language exercise with Vera.  She is holding a 'gameboard' with images depicting six emotions.  Vera moves a photo of Ellie, Reni, or myself and places it on an emotion.  She then makes a true or false statement about the person and emotion and Ellie says "po" (yes) or "jo" (no).  This is only one phase of the overall exercise, but the point of this phase is to gauge comprehension (we have not yet moved to mimicry).