Posted by Saul Weber on Thu, Dec 05, 2024

When I started Kindergarten in September 1956 I spoke no English. My parents came here after the war, I only spoke Yiddish. The teacher I had when I started school apparently spoke it. When I got to the First Grade I had an old teacher who was Irish. Sometimes when I got excited or something was happening involving the teacher I started to speak Yiddish = = my mother had to go to school because the teacher thought I was cursing. It was in the First Grade that I started to speak English.

Has anyone else experienced not being able to speak English when you started school.

Reference ID: bx92720

Posted by Milton Rosen on Thu, Dec 05, 2024

I had the exact same experience in Kindergarten. The teacher asked my mother where I was born. I spoke Yiddish at home for a number of years to better communicate with my parents. At one point They spoke Yiddish to me and I answered in English. The irony is that my mother was born in the Bronx but my grandparents returned to Poland with my 1 year old mother and she came back when a teenager. She did not speak a word of English but was an American citizen.

Reference ID: bx92722