AIBU to consider a bilingual nursery for my child?

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Hello everyone

I fully expect to get some comments telling me I’m a pretentious monster but also hoping for some personal experiences and balance! If I get a verdict that I am indeed going full PFB, so be it

I plan to start sending my son to nursery around 7 months old, when I return to work. We’re in West London and prices for nurseries are astronomical. For reference, it doesn’t seem unusual to be quoted £1800+ pcm for five days a week.

I’ve found two nurseries nearby that are bilingual - one is French and English, the other Mandarin and English. From when the kids are small, they talk to them, do circle time etc in both languages. The french one is £1600 pcm for five days, Mandarin is at the expensive end even for nurseries around me, at £1800 pcm. It’s also pretty inconvenient to get to by public transport - the french one is very convenient.

I always struggled with learning languages, DH has always found it easy and speaks three with fluency (so annoying!). I remember, when I was struggling as a teenager with lots of bilingual friends, I wished my parents had had me taught another language. And I figure nurseries are SO expensive, I may as well see if we can get the added benefit of the basics of another language.

On the other hand, he’s a tiny baby. And I don’t want to put pressure on him too. I just want him to be happy and have the best start in life.

Is it silly to consider sending a 7 month old to a bilingual nursery? What about when he’s 2 or 3?

I would.
There are a lot of benefits to speaking a second language. I'd go for whichever will be continued in the school they will likely go to. The younger they are, the easier it is. But I'd definitely go for something that will continue being taught or spoken to them until at least end of primary years.
Or I suppose if you'd be happy to get a tutor for said language then that works too!

(Unless French or Mandadin is one your husband speaks!).

I sent mine to a Welsh medium nursery - in all honesty it was bilingual rather than fully Welsh (and then school which was full welsh medium) - part of the reason was because I wanted them to go to a Welsh medium school and neither of us spoke Welsh

If I didn't need to send them to nursery at 7 months I wouldn't - but thats not you were asking, the decision to send them to nursery is already made (and for a good reason) so your choice is which one

Bilingualism is a major advantage at an early age and helps with learning other languages

If he doesn't keep it up he will forget (apparently my aunt was fluent in Swahili when she was 3 or 4 as an adult although she could remember some it was no where near - however I suspect if she immersed herself in the language it would come back. f

@shylatte

I really disagree that it will be fruitless unless your DH speaks it at home. Lots of children acquire English language by attending nursery and exclusively speak another language at home.

Do you mean children living in the UK, though? Because if so then they encounter English absolutely everywhere outside their home (and probably some in it, depending on the media their family consumes). And the communication in nursery will be completely in English. That isn't really comparable to a child that encounters the language only at nursery, and only some of the time there.

I'm sending my son to English Spanish nursery. We weren't looking for bilingual but it's close and nice and staff are great. I'm not expecting him to speak Spanish but I'm persuaded that there are some benefits in terms of brain development and plasticity etc.

@Hardbackwriter, yes, in the UK. Many newcomer children have no exposure to English other than their childcare setting. Their parents may not speak a word of English, and the family/friends might not either. For many their world of English language only really opens up fully when they start school. Before that it was an early years setting, and that in itself was enough to give them a basic command of the language.

For those of you who say if the language isn't spoken at home, the child will forget it, how do you think the first person in a family learns a language and manages to remember it?

I'm the first English speaker in my family, and it was done by having 2 lessons a week totalling 3 hours weekly as is standard here.
Any practicing outside those hours was done by watching films, reading books/comics/newspapers, things that can definitely be done with a 4 year old once they leave nursery for school, and even during nursery when at home. Peppa pig, etc is definitely avaliable dubbed in French.

A friend sent her son to a French speaking school from kindergarten (also in London). He is now bilingual, but they don't speak it at home.

We are a bilingual family and I do think it's a good idea.

In Wales so we sent kids to nursery and then school in a language we speak very little of. They are fluent now. I would only go for it if the nursery is good and convenient. So not mandarin one.

[quote shylatte]@Hardbackwriter, yes, in the UK. Many newcomer children have no exposure to English other than their childcare setting. Their parents may not speak a word of English, and the family/friends might not either. For many their world of English language only really opens up fully when they start school. Before that it was an early years setting, and that in itself was enough to give them a basic command of the language.[/quote]
But this is completely different. English is the overwhelmingly dominant community language in the UK. Children are very astute and quick to pick up these things. There is huge motivation for them to learn English, which is constantly reinforced and encouraged by the society around them.

When you are raising bilingual children, the main long-term concern is always the minority language, especially when the majority language is as globally dominant as English. It is actually far more likely that a child in that situation would eventually reject and lose the ability to speak fluently in the home language (although unlikely that they would lose the ability to understand) than that they would fail to learn English. Even if they never spoke or understood a word of English before starting English-language education in the UK.

Also it doesn't matter if the child forgets it - it keeps the neural pathways open in the brain which makes picking it and other languages up in the future significantly easier.

I sent by two DS to a nursery that had French lessons. They were 2yrs when they started. I can speak French but am not fluent but I backed it up at home with lots of children's French programmes, books and what have you. Their father's parents lived in France and we went there often so they got used to seeing me speak French in an everyday setting.

When it came to deciding GCSE options, I assumed they'd pick French. Nope. They both chose Spanish despite never learning it before.

My sons are now 21 and 22 and fluent in both French and Spanish.

TLDR: go for it OP!!

I personally wouldn’t be shelling out the extra £200 and an inconvenient journey for the Mandarin speaking nursery - how much extra is it for the French one compared to a non bilingual nursery?

I’m bilingual and fluent in several other languages and my children are trilingual (from natural settings, not education). I only looked at monolingual nurseries for them and have been happy with our choice. They need to have an authentic experience in the main culture they live in (songs, nursery rhymes) rather than have a diluted exposure to a language they will anyway forget. I don’t want to parent thinking about their CVs in a future we can’t predict, I want to think about their needs and happiness now.

We live in Luxembourg and My kid went to a French nursery from 14 months go 3. However it wad complète immersion the staff didn't even understand English. French was the first language she ever spoke. We don't speak french at home ever (but we can speak it) and she is 5.5 now and quite fluent and speaks without an accent. However she still has francophone friends that she meets on a regular basis

If you go to Sri Lanka you will see billboards around Colombo advertising English speaking nurseries and that isn't the only place it's common. That's because where it can make a big difference to your life chances people understand the benefits of early immersion.

The point is that you can't think about multilingualism in a vacuum. It's not just Languages A and B in, Languages A and B out like you are programming a computer. And children are not just little sponges who absorb everything indiscriminately. They can easily pick up on the significance of different languages in their communities.

In our case, English is the minority language and I always say we have it far easier than other immigrants who are trying to pass on different languages. As a global lingua franca, English has a prestige and ubiquity in many non-Anglophone countries that other languages just don't.

If you do decide to bring your child up as bilingual then make sure you factor in continuing the language later on. I know many “bilingual” families where the second (ie not native ) language is only spoken at a very elementary level, think to the level of a five year old. Bilingualism is a gift, but beyond early oral input it needs to be nurtured.

Unless you are willing and determined to invest in the child learning to read , ( and preferably write) the language, as well as continuing to develop oral skills beyond those of a small child by improving an enhanced vocabulary, complex grammatical structures and the ability to maintain a conversation about abstract ideas, your child’s ability as it gets older will mean the second language input you are buying will be largely wasted. Learning a language is like any skill, it needs to be practised and improved. I learned to play the cello as a child, I doubt if I could even play a scale now.

Yes of course jojoba the dominance/power of a language is going to impact the motivation for learning it. That doesn't mean it is by any means a waste of time (as some are claiming) or that the child will forget it. It would take work from the OP to maintain it, but it is certainly not futile.

Personally I think it's a great decision. Nothing to lose?

A different situation, but my DSis did that while living in Wales for childcare convenience reasons (both her and DH English, no Welsh language skills). The younger 2 then went through school through Welsh, she said they got really great support from local school over the years. Their DD was even on a TV quiz program! They no longer live there, but clearly look back very fondly on the experience.

That's very true viques I'm bilingual in Italian and had no problem getting in A in A Level Italian but after I left home (Italian parents living in England) I didn't hear/see it as often and my reading/writing skills have got weaker.

We went to Italy in half term so as well as younger kids books for the DC I stocked up on older kids novels (for myself!) to read for some practice.

@shylatte

Yes of course jojoba the dominance/power of a language is going to impact the motivation for learning it. That doesn't mean it is by any means a waste of time (as some are claiming) or that the child will forget it. It would take work from the OP to maintain it, but it is certainly not futile.

No, of course it's not futile and there are only benefits in my opinion, no downsides. It's just that it's a lot harder than many people think and the benefits of getting a few years of half-hearted early exposure with no follow up are hugely overstated in my opinion. It's still worthwhile and positive, but to actually get the most out of an opportunity like that you have to make a real commitment to it as a family rather than just expect your child to be the proverbial sponge.

So sure, why not choose a bilingual preschool? Only good can come of it. But OP might also want to think about how to really capitalise on the opportunity and what her family's goals and expectations are.

Do it. My son is being raised bilingual (I'm British, husband is German). Their brains are like sponges when they're little so even though you're not speaking French at home, hearing it when their so little already benefits their brains!
It's a great gift to give your child.

If you like the nursery then it certainly can't do any harm. My DD went to a nursery where native French speakers taught them French - it wasn't bilingual, though and DC didn't start there until 2 yo. Once she started school she did French club in Infants but it was only 1 hour per week. Once she started Juniors they started French lessons. The most noticeable thing is she has a pretty good accent.

If your husband speaks 3 languages, why doesn't he speak in them to the child? You don't need a bilingual nursery just for that if you already have a trilingual person in your household.

We are a bilingual (French/English) family. We considered a bilingual nursery in London but in the end chose an ordinary English one because I thought it was the better nursery and a better fit for our children. I would always chose the nursery you have the best feel about regardless of "extras", with proximity/convenience as a close second. We looked at some very fancy ones but the (excellent) one we chose in the end was an ordinary council/children's centre one. It's a great gift to be bilingual but a couple of years at a dual language nursery won't achieve this anyway.