Bilingual Story Time...

So I was just doing one of my weekly story times and I had these two siblings in the class, they used to live in the area but moved to Peru and are back visiting for the summer, and they made my story time that much more amusing. Both children are bilingual (I know this for a fact) and the little girl was speaking to me in English the whole time, while her little brother would only answer me in Spanish. No matter what I said she'd answer in English and he'd answer in Spanish. It was too funny (I don't think it would have been if "Julia" or someone else was doing the classes, but since I speak bad Spanish it was to me).

At one point another boy started to talk in English to the boy and he would respond in Spanish, but the two were totally having a conversation. It was just amazing to watch for me, the other kids were confused I think.

Once I was done reading all of the stories it was time to do the craft and I could not get the girl's brother to come color. I actually had to walk up to her and say "¿Cómo se dice color?" because I could not think of the word for the life of me. She looked up and said "Pinta..." I walked over to him and was just like "Ven aqui... Pinta..." He laughed at me and said no. I gave up.

After story time was over I was telling the mother how her children did and how one spoke English and the other Spanish. She just looked at me and sighed. She started telling me that her son refuses to speak in English even though he understands. She asked me to go over and speak to him to see if he would switch languages, but he didn't. I told her that I understand Spanish a good chunk of the time and only answer in English, that kinda made her feel better.

But yeah, it was an interesting story time. I hardly ever have to try and speak Spanish at work, especially not to children. Lets see what happens next week.