To feel a bit bad for the kid in our nursery who doesn't speak the language?

[toomuchtooold]

Not to out myself but I live somewhere where a few languages are spoken and there's a little kid at my girls' new nursery who doesn't share a language with anyone who works there. I know he's going to have to learn the local language before he goes to school, but it just seems quite harsh to put him in there, he's there for 10 hours a day, and as yet he can't even ask for the toilet?

Tell me your great stories of your kids who moved country and adapted and were really happy, please! He worries me a little...

Thanks for your responses everyone! It's encouraging to hear all the positive stories. The little boy certainly seems happy enough whenever I'm there (but they do tend to hold it together while they're in nursery, don't they?)

When I was at primary school a kid joined who could only speak Norweigen. Within less than a year he spoke perfect English and he didn't even seem to have any accent. Kids to seem to adapt fairly well.

socks

The New statesman made some points I wanted to make. I've got lots if experience of EAL here and abroad and while I'm massively in favour of giving children opportunity to become bilingual and of the importance of learning other languages especially by immersion, I am really aware that it isn't always straightforward. It can be really stressful for the child, especially if the parents have done nothing to prepare them for this new language (the previous story about the child not having the word for toilet being a prime example). Also it just isn't true that children become fluent so quickly. They do generally start being functional in the language pretty fast in many cases but as TNS said it takes a couple of years to really be fluent and around 7 years to become fully fluent in the written language too. Children are very good at imitation and bluffing so it is easy to think they're fluent and understanding everything when this isn't actually the case.
Nevertheless it's a wonderful opportunity for a child.

He'll be fine :) As others have said, they learn so fast at that age! When I volunteered at a nursery we had a little girl, Pakistani I think, come to the nursery. She was a lovely smiley girl but painfully shy as well so didn't really talk much so we weren't sure just how much she was learning. We all learnt a few words such as "toilet" and "snack" in her language and we got by.

Literally after months of nods and very quietly spoken speaking in her own language and one or two words of English, she just came out with "I would like raisins for my snack today, please!"

I was dropped straight into French preschool speaking no French. I don't remember learning the language, but still speak it fluently (in my 30s now) and think it was a great gift from my parents.