Not to understand why primary children aren't fluent in English after a year

[Claraetal]

I don't understand why primary school aged children, who arrive in reception not being able to speak English, are still considered as "English as Second Language" (ESL) for pretty much their whole time in primary school as far as I can tell. The teachers talk about them as if not being to speak, read, write English perfectly is a permanent state and I don't get it. Surely by year 1 they should be at the same level as everyone else. Let me try to explain why I am not insane... :)

I myself was moved to France with my parents as an 8 year old for a year. My parents are English and English speaking as were all of my friends before I moved. I was sent to an entirely French school at the start of the school year. It was a little tough but by Christmas I could speak French and some time between then and the end of the school year I was pretty much indistinguishable from the other kids.

As another and maybe better example, I spent some time in Denmark this year. There I spoke to English speaking families whose primary school aged kids had been sent to normal Danish language schools. They said the same thing. That is that after 6 months or so their children were pretty much fluent and after a year they couldn't really be told apart from their class mates. In these cases their parents couldn't speak a word of Danish on arrival and were still pretty terrible after a year.

I get it if the class or school doesn't have English as the majority language. In that case you are lacking the total immersion effect. But I am talking about our local schools where English is the only language commonly heard in the playground. I don't buy the story that it is because their parents don't speak English or that they don't speak English at home as that was exactly the same for me with French and also for all the ex-pat families in Denmark.

So what is going on?

Welsh School is completely different. You don't have a child being exposed, in reception, to a class full of native Welsh speakers. You have (in most counties, anyway) a child being introduced to 20 other children who speak no Welsh at all, 5 who are already fluently bilingual and 5 who know a bit of Welsh. And a teacher who speaks Welsh (but may or may not be first language Welsh themselves). The playground is likely to be mostly English speaking for quite some time. So progress starts off slowly.

As for other schools - it is uncommon nowadays for a Somali (for example) child to go to a school where they are the only speaker of Somali. And where there is another child who speaks there first language, it is unsurprising that they will gravitate towards one another and socialise in their own language. This will slow things down too. However, it is encouraged by schools nowadays as it make the whole school experience more welcoming and comfortable for the child, even if it slows their second language learning a little.

I am wondering if the results would be different in a different country.
Same here in Germany. The studies here say it has a lot do do with other factors related to being a foreigner - children born from foreign stock are more likely to be poorer or their parents less well educated, and those two factors play a very significant role in their monolingual peers' educational achievements, too.

Maybe schools get extra funding based on ESL numbers so it's in their interest to keep them marked as ESL even after the child no longer needs extra support.

We had a child this year arrive with no English at all. We received no support or extra money whatsoever with this child. It was completely down to the teacher to try to provide an education for him along with the other 29 children in the class. As it happens he has done well and is the same level as some of the other children in the class but his barrier to learning is his language - by next year I expect he will be the same level as most of the children. Every year we have to provide a scaled score of the language ability of EAL children.

We lived in Switzerland for a few years. My daughter attended kindergarten in German for two years and primary school in German for one year and still was very definitely not fluent.

I now work in an English as an Additional Language Department in an international school. Most of our students come with some English, but they tend to need quite intensive support for 2-3 years and are then termed ‘transitional’ with us checking in on them periodically for another 1-2 years.

A child becoming entirely fluent, to the level of a native speaker, within a year would be doing incredibly well.

You don't do it, because you have a knack for languages smile Some people never learn to stop translating, though, especially if they are only abroad a short time, or not at all.

obviously not everyone gets to this level, and obviously some people continue to translate, the point was that the person I quoted said that you can never do this, that you always think in your mother tongue etc.

Even I can do it, even though I am not bi-lingual

A native speaker accent will cover up a multitude of difficulties to the layman. And children pick up accents very very quickly (in a way that adults really don’t). So your EAL child may well sound like a native speaker but their vocab difficulties will remain and as BertieBotts neatly outlined, these difficulties may persist or only emerge as the curriculum becomes more sophisticated and in-depth. So for those French parents who were surprised that you weren’t a native speaker, of course they were. You probably sounded exactly the same as their kids. Doesn’t mean your language skills were the same in all areas.

That's how I understand it as well Ajas. English doesn't suddenly become their first language when they can speak it fluently.

@Claraetal

I'm confused how you could possibly have picked up native-level French / Danish if your ONLY exposure to it was at school?
You need to integrate to really get to that level. So even if you are speaking your native language at home, if you are spending lots of outside of school time doing activities in the secondary language, with lots of friends etc, watching tv and reading in that language, then that is how it's going to happen.
Being in school for 6 hours a day is only going to give you a certain level of fluency.

It's interesting. A friend of mine moved over from Italy in his thirties, not speaking a word of English. His English is so amazing now, he makes up PUNS for Christ's sake!

I assumed it was also to do with the support they have at home. Some ESL children in my DCs school have parents who speak little or no English despite having been here many years, and therefore it must be impossible for them to help with homework or read the set books with their children. The grammar homework my DCs bring home is hard enough for me to understand! Often ESL children will be the ones who get extra reading time in class.

My Dd started learning Welsh in year 4, when we moved from another country, it took her 3 years to be on par with native Welsh speakers and is now in Welsh medium high school.
If she had been in a Welsh medium primary school I do thhink she would have learned even faster.
Entering in Reception age I can well see how a child would be fluent in just a year, as they are so young and like a sponge.
However ESL will always be something that will describe them as English (or Welsh in Dd's case) isn't their first language and never will be. Even though for GCSE Dd will be doing the same Welsh exam as the native speakers.

I provided solely ESL for five years at a British international school abroad and spent several more years as an LSA providing SEN and ESL support in England. Obviously the children in England pick up the language far more quickly but many still require support through primary. Whether the family can and do speak English at home does seem to make a difference.
However the main difference I find in England is the parents of children who arrive here speaking little or no English just take for granted that the school will sort it. I have never known parents to hire a tutor to support their kids at home. At the international school, however, most parents took an active interest in their children's progress and did what they could to help. I find the situation here very frustrating. Every year we would get at least two or three children who didn't speak a word of English. Often they'd moved here as their parents worked for a multi national company. I think these companies should be forking out for the extra expense it costs to educate these children.

Also a lot depends on what your first and second languages are and one's natural aptitude for languages!

English to Dutch for example = fairly easy!

French to Dutch = altogether much harder!

People at international schools have the cash to pay for extra tuition; your average foreigner on the street does not. And may be less well educated and aware of how to help their children. If their child was born in the UK it's normal to assume that she won't need lessons. And if you're seconded to another country at short notice and are not familiar with moving abroad you won't have the time or wherewithal to arrange for lessons.

I was talking to a colleague the other day about languages - she speaks three languages fluently. Language A is her mother’s first language and she spoke it with her at home as a child. Language B is her father’s first language and she grew up in that country, speaking that language at school. Language C (English) she spoke at home with her father as a child, and she moved to England in her late teens. Her English is accentless and I also speak language A and she speaks that without an obvious accent too, however I have always thought of her as being from country B as that’s where she grew up - but she was writing a note to a friend from back home the other day and said “I’ve just realised I’ve been getting articles wrong in language B this whole time” - whether a word takes the masculine, feminine or neutral version of “the” or “a”. She said it just wasn’t hardwired in her brain- she is a highly intelligent woman, who grew up speaking that language at school and she has a fundamental gap in her use of the language. It really shows that just going to school for a year isn’t enough to make it so you’re indistinguishable from native speakers!

I know Germans who grew up monolingual and discovered that their use of an article was "wrong", as the article is different in their local dialect to the standard one.

Even quite educated expats can fail to provide additional language support to their SL DCs when they move country and attend state schools. The culture in state schools does not generally encourage parents to supplement their DCs’ learning with extra tuition in the way the culture in international schools does.

What you are describing here is the same that happens for any other subjects. Some parents spend more time supporting their dcs than others, they are more involved etc... and therefore their children do better. It’s not restricted to learning a new language.

Fwiw the idea that people arriving here just expect the school to sort it out.
That seems to be in opposition with the fact that we also know children who are bilingual/from another country actually do BETTER than their English counterparts, esp boys.
See thatbarticle for example

So how can it be that at the same time, those children are struggling and will find it hard to be like native speakers AND outperform British kids?
How is it that we know being bilingual is also associated with a higher IQ?

I know about the difficulties talked about on this thread. One of my dcs struggled to speak English as a young child (so reception, Y1) despite having an English dad, being born in the U.K. and having spent time in a nursery and CM since he was a baby. But it seems to me that there is so much emphasis on children with ESL struggling that we forget they can also be just as good if not better at English than their English peers.

Elspeth do you really think that native speakers don’t do that sort of mistakes too?
I mean it’s obvious that in England some people make grammatical errors, can’t spell etc... why would it be different for bilingual children? Why expecting them to be perfect?

If their child was born in the UK it's normal to assume that she won't need lessons.
Actually I would disagree with that. It’s not because you’re born in a country that you will be fluent in that language, esp if said language is never spoken at home.
In the same way, it’s not because your ubare not norm in a country that you can’t be fluent in the language (see tenstories of all the pp who are living abroad and whose children are stronger in what should be their minority language)

ESL is where English is the child's second language - nothing can change that.

Another issue is the child's language development will be situational.

A reception aged child's language will not be fluent. Their language will be appropriate for their setting. They have learnt how to speak in their every day setting.

They can understand basic instructions and can ask to play and can understand when they are being told off and will be able to converse in regard to meals, toilet, home time etc.

But they would not understand nor be able to translate
'We're thinking of moving, what's your opinion on it?
'Tell the waitress what you would like to order for your lunch'
'What would you like for your birthday and why would you like it?'

Conversational language is something which takes years to develop.

It is different from 'X do you need to go to the toilet?' and 'X sit still on the carpet'

What I actually think is that in the international school, parents were made aware that their dcs had to achieve a certain level of English if they were to stay in the school whereas you don't have to worry about that in a British state school.
In the last few years, we've had a couple of multinationals locate in our area. Great for the local economy etc. However as a result there have been many children joining schools knowing little English. It does place a strain on schools and I really believe these companies should be contributing. I know non UK nationals living here whose children are placed in international schools by the company.

MissEliza - you state more bluntly what I was trying to say diplomatically

Often they'd moved here as their parents worked for a multi national company. I think these companies should be forking out for the extra expense it costs to educate these children.

It's an interesting point. If an expat takes their child to Sweden or Korea it would be assumed automatically that they would put them in an IS, but in an English speaking country like the UK, people just put their kids into the local schools which are English speaking already. Perhaps in the case of wealthy expats, they should indeed be making some sort of financial contribution to the schools to make up for this....

There are countries that won’t enrol the DC of expats in their state school system.