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?

Very true. In Singapore, I believe, as an expat you CAN get a place in a state school but only if they happen to have an empty slot--usually they do not.

User when you've had as much experience as I've had, you just want to cut the crap.
I would add that my dh is a non native speaker and my dcs attended school in his home country for the first couple of years. They were at a bilingual school and I bent over backwards to make sure they could keep up with the language of that country (English is the language we speak as a family). My dh's family all go to English or French schools in his country and they would never expect the school to sort it. My dh went to a French school and his mum actually took lessons at the French cultural institute to keep up with his schoolwork.

Different countries have very different cultures about the respective roles of school and parents. In the UK there is a quite pervasive culture of schools trying to do everything (and failing and/or exhausting the teaching profession).

What an interesting thread this is.

One thing I would add though, is that weaknesses in vocabulary and cultural knowledge are also common among kids who do not speak another language at home. A lot of this is to do with class. Kids who do not get read to or talked to much, do not get taken for educational experiences, cartoons and computer games are constantly on etc.

In the US, some districts which have been in the business of providing vocabulary enrichment classes for "English language learners" (as ESL is called there), have experimented with including monolingual children from deprived homes in such sessions, and have found that it hugely benefits their academic abilities and reading comprehension as well. I will see if I can find the article.

She doesn’t make those mistakes in English Tambien - sure some people make those grammatical errors in their native language, but highly intelligent, educated people don’t tend to. I was trying to prove the point that language is more complicated than the OP suggested, not expecting perfection!

Kokeshi - it is quite well documented that bilingual children (even from birth and from educated homes) and deprived monolingual children benefit from the same forms of language development enrichment inputs. It all comes down to hearing less language.

ravenmum (good name by the way!) it didn't look to me like they were that concerned about their German level in the ESU2 - it was much more stuff about concentration, reasoning, a bit about number - and every single one of the bilingual kids got the go-ahead to go straight into school. I must admit though, I don't really know what the reasoning is with the Vorschule and the holding back and stuff - one of the kids' friends started Vorschule last year instead of school even though she was (to my eyes) one of the most mature kids in the year. Another one of their colleagues got held back in Kindergarten (his mum told me) because she and her DH wanted to give him more time to develop his gross motor skills. I find myself nodding along in these conversations while thinking Christ on a bike, I could read and write at your age...

I know Germans who grew up monolingual and discovered that their use of an article was "wrong"

DH is a Swiss German speaker. He has a TON of these, because they only started speaking standard German when they went to school at 7. Even here in Baden, I use "wegen" with the dative to try and pretend I fit in

ESL Children do oftwn need extra support for various reasons. I think it’s good that schools acknowledge this and put the time and resources into providing additional support.

For example with written homework, as a parent who has English as a first language I can help my child with spelling, grammar, punctuation etc. Parents who themselves are still learning English or have conversational English might not be able to do this. I can also easily help my child with her reading but again it’s not always easy for parents with a different first language.

Children who are learning to read and write in 2 different languages will obviously need a little more time as they are learning 2 sets of grammar rules, spellings and in some cases different alphabets.

My DD has friends who speak different languages at home and can speak perfectly fluent English. The difference is in the reading and writing. ESL Children do get that extra time and support, particularly in the early years.

I have learned four languages in my life and I am fluent in only two.There is no way even when talented in languages that anyone could learn a language and correct grammar in 6 months.I often hear parents saying ' oh he was fluent after six months' when speaking of their child.They themselves however cannot speak /write the language so can only be poor judges of fluency anyway.Children reach playground fluency quite quickly which very often masks inadequacies overall in speech and language.That is where the problems start in the classroom.In many other languages ie. German, writing is so much more difficult than speaking it so much so that even natives have their problems.English has 'the' in German there are 16 words for 'the'. learning the language is for me an ongoing process even after over 20 years.

I haven't read the whole thread, but do have some experience of supporting EAL families. As pp have said, the classification is not just about the child, but the whole family. Very often the child speaks English, but the parents do not. They can't help with homework or read newsletters from school. The families also often come to this country in difficult circumstances, are very vulnerable and isolated, so much more complex needs than just not speaking the language

My DH was placed in an English school at the age of 8 50 years ago. He spoke no English at all, his parents spoke very little English. There was no support or extra teaching at all. Just sink or swim.
He still struggles a bit with vocabulary in spite of managing to get a couple of degrees and work in a professional career.
Frustratingly, his native language is still at the level of an average 8 to 12 year old, so he has to work hard to manage both languages.
He still counts and does mental arithmetic in his mother tongue.
It makes things interesting.
Our DC are bilingual.

I'm a governor at our local school and we know there's a big variation between EAL children with a high level of literacy at home and EAL with a low level of literacy at home. The former tend to pick up English well and make excellent progress (though their writing can still be behind even at the end of primary school). Many of the latter struggle with English, especially writing (as of course do some/many British children with a low level literacy background).

Perhaps you fell into the former group, OP, and that advantage made it was easier for you to pick up a new language?

The other thing is that different schooling systems don’t cover the same material at the same time. For example French schools only start seriously teaching children to read in CP when they are 6-7. Children in English schools are I think pushed into reading a lot earlier than that. My DD1 (8) is in French school in London - the level of material the class is asked to read is still very basic. So it is possible that the OP moving to France as an 8yo would be much further ahead on reading in English than her french peers - I would bet that gives some kind of advantage. No idea about Danish schooling however.

Nb how interesting to learn that the depth and breadth of your first language has an impact on your second too. Unto those who have shall be given, really isn’t it? So fascinating....

TBH we came to Germany and just put DS in a local school and expected him/the school to get on with it. This is quite a normal approach for people who have moved within Europe - it only tends to be quite wealthy families, IME, who put their children into international schools here. I think that in Asian countries as mentioned the expat children are quite often not allowed into the ordinary schools, for whatever reason (perhaps the perception is they would take up too many resources in the class.)

I totally agree that monolingual children who do not receive language support at home are likely to have the same issues as some EAL pupils.

Toomuch I dread to think what kind of German I am picking up because I've not been to a class yet and we are in a totally Badisch area.

TheKitchenWitch

I'm confused how you could possibly have picked up native-level French / Danish if your ONLY exposure to it was at school?

I was living in France so I would have been exposed to French, if only passively, all the time I wasn't at home. The same for the English children in Denmark. This also applies of course to children living in England unless their parents shelter them from hearing English when they are not at school...which is of course possible.

Out of interest, why is it called ESL when English might be your 4th language or you might just be bilingual? It seems an odd name.

I find it interesting that none has actually commented in the article in linked to showing that schools with children who have ESL are doing better. Which is actually saying about the opposite than what most people on this thread are saying...

Imo, what makes the difference is the socio economical environment. A child that speaks very well their first language will have little problem with learning the second.

I’m also wondering what is supposed to be the first language of a child that is raised bilingual (as in two languages at home).
Is the dominant language as they speak it when they start school?
Is it the language of the country, even if they don’t have as good handle on it?
Is the language spoken by the mother?
Can it change?

I personally would struggle to say what was the native language of my dcs when they started school. Or rather I would have said English was the dominant language for dc1 whereas French was the dominant language for dc2.
They were speaking French with each other at home too, and with me. English only with H.
So maybe French was their native tongue? How can you tell?

At the end of primary, they had both switch to English. But then, when parents are speaking English at home, it’s not unusual that children do switch to English at home too, even if it’s their native tongue.... So again, I would find it hard to have some hard rule about what is your native language....

There are some really interesting studies that have been done in the US that basically recommend to support BOTH languages (English and the home language).

And fwiw, I believe the handle you have in the langage, esp with children, is also strongly linked to how they see themselves. Aka do they see themselves as British, from xx country, a mix of both?

We tecord childfen as EAL but it doesn't attract any funding. It's used as a measure to see how children with English as an additional language are doing against the rest of the cohort. I see that your expect them to be doing just as well as anyone else after a few months and could stop tracking but you can't really show that without recording it. We also record proficiency

I’m also wondering what is supposed to be the first language of a child that is raised bilingual (as in two languages at home).

The EAL label would classed them the same as those who speaks no English. The form which we have to fill in asked either if an additional language is spoken at home, or that a parent isn't a native speaker. DC are EAL but speaks only English. DC1 says a handful of words of the other language, DC2 can't say a single word. But they are EAL in the official classification as given by the school.

I find it interesting that none has actually commented in the article in linked to showing that schools with children who have ESL are doing better. Which is actually saying about the opposite than what most people on this thread are saying...

It's not in the OP or the first article linked. But my guess would be because certain ethnic groups do a lot better than average. I remember reading about it relating to ethnic groups and university admissions, and also oxbridge admissions.

Sometimes I will teach an EAL child and they will absolutely be speaking English as well as a native speaker. However, when I collect in their books to mark their written in English is a far far lower standard. It isn't as easy conversational English.

It's not just the guides study hours that help esl kids. It's the exposure to the language outside the classroom, the use of the language in everyday and family situations is very important.

Working in esl for 22 years i can tell you that not every child is the same and not every situation is the same. You're perceived non fluency is just that, a perception.

I honestly don't get the point of your post. Just because you learnt French in a school year or Ahmed learns English in 2 or Giovanni in 3 l, isn't really of any concern. You'll never been a native French speaker just as they will never be native English and will always be esl students.

The personal stories have been really enlightening. Thank you. I would love to read some of the research about the time it takes a young child to become fluent in another language, if anyone can link to some. I feel the devil will be in the detail so it would be good to see it first hand.

Notwithstanding all the fascinating things I have learned from the comments, I still tend to believe that almost all children who arrive at age 4 in a new country, should be able to speak it at a level where they suffer no academic disadvantage after 12 months. This is assuming that the main language in the school is English and the parents don't actively hide them from hearing and speaking English when they are out of school. Maybe these are too big assumptions and if there is research to show otherwise I will change my mind of course :)

Making huge assumptions here now but I would think that your family op is middle class and well educated, you had the resources and home support to learn effectively. You are definitely making huge assumptions (aren't more than half of the country middle class in any case?) and I don't see why class comes into it. I didn't have French lessons and there was no French teaching at home.

I find it interesting that none has actually commented in the article in linked to showing that schools with children who have ESL are doing better.

That is interesting! It appears to align with the PISA figures a previous poster (baselessly) shared to try to show that EAL children led to worse outcomes. Because top of that list is Singapore, where the vast majority of children are taught most of the time in a language that isn’t their mother tongue.

Clara - I am not going to “link to research” but you are very welcome to come and take a look at my personal library of many thousands of volumes. You are extrapolating from anecdata and superficial observation to draw conclusions about a subject that many university researchers have spent, and are still spending, millions of hours and millions of £££, investigating. Maybe you should be a little more reserved in your opinions?

. I would love to read some of the research about the time it takes a young child to become fluent in another language, if anyone can link to some

The rule of thumb is 120 guided study hour per level but that can depend on many things. I have students who need less and students who need more. Students who practice outside of class are more advanced than those who use the language only in class and those who have relatives abroad in English speaking countries and who spend holidays with them and are in regular contact are even more advanced.

Children do learn oral and listening comprehension quicker than adults as a rule of thumb but adults learn reading and writing quicker than kids in my general experience.

The same applies to English speaking ppl here. I know ppl who've been here as long as I have and can speak only a basic Italian, then there's people like me who have never studied the language and have easily obtained the c2 (fluency) certificate