Non English kids

[fyimate]

Am I wrong in getting annoyed at non English parents for NOT teaching their kids English (even though they -the parent- can speak it)?
I've seen my DD confused by other kids because they dont speak English when playing with her, and then I hear the parent speaking another language to the child even though they (the parent) can speak English.
Why dont they teach their kids English?
It annoys me more because of the amount of money taxpayers have to fork out in translators which appears to be avoidable?

Many children whose parents came here in the sixties didn't learn their parents language. They spoke englihs at home and in school. Many now regret it.

We have plenty of children at DCs school who come here speaking almost no english and they very soon pick it up. Far more quickly than adults.

How old are these children

Eve - ah, ok. That makes sense!

OP - another thought, when parents have been practising OPOL, it can be difficult to switch to another language. Dh and I did OPOL (me with English). Last year we moved to London for 1 year and I tried to switch to Danish as was worried about the children losing their Danish (they are quite young) but it was harder than I imagined - felt very false and the children just looked at me like because it felt so unnatural.

(Although Dh was brought bi-lingual and his parents used to mix and match each others' languages, and still do, so just depends on how you start out I think)

ruddynorah and miso

That's interesting - there's a whole generation of lost Gaelic speakers in Scotland because parents who were bilingual and fluent in Gaelic were discouraged from speaking it to their children. It was thought that Gaelic would "hold them back" and they would be seen as peasants etc - English was the language of modern, educated people. Basically people were taught to despise their own mother tongue.

Children were also belted for using Gaelic at school, but that's a whole other thread...

is the op a troll?

I hadn't heard of OPOL before - it definitely makes sense to hear one language from one person (especially if the parent isn't totally bilingual).

I think perhaps there is a politeness issue if it's something said by the parent though - perhaps if possible they could also quickly translate what they were saying for the benefit of those who don't understand their language? Even if it was something trivial I can see how some people would feel a bit excluded if they didn't understand.

I don;t think the OP is completely wrong, although as many others have said it's hardly an issue for children as they will earn the language anyway.

My parents are educated middle class types who see it as a matter of personal pride when they go abroad in Europe that they will speak the native language to whoever they meet. They openly distain any holidaymaker who does not do this.

Yet they also think that people who come from abroad to here - not for a holiday, but to live and work - should NOT be asked to speak English as this is racist, cultural imperialism etc.

That to me is a double standard, but they are so 'liberal' that they think anything but English is better and more worthy than English.

I'd say that wherever you go in this world, and for whatever reason, knowing at least a smattering of the language is always going to make your life easier.

It's up to parents what language they teach their children, and it's more than important they know their own, so YABU. Very divisive to do that to a family already suffering the trauma of resettlement. Can lead to untold problems with alienation from both cultures.

Schools should be total English immersion however with no language but English in the classroom. Should be a school rule.

It is really difficult to speak to your child in a language that is not your own! No matter how fluent you are, it just doesn't come naturally. DD1's first language was Romanian. I tried hard to keep it up when we left, but it wasn't natural to me to speak it to her, so it just got dropped. Now she doesn't remember any of it at all, although I do use it to tell her off with, if I don't want anyone else to understand!

i thought the title said "neon english kids"

you are wrong.
Parents should speak to their children in their own first language, or risk compromising their linguistic development. Children growing up in the uk will have no problem picking up English later on, and very unlikely to require translators etc.
I am English speaking but bringing my kids up in Italy, whenever parents hear me speaking English at the park or whatever they are really positive and comment how lucky my DCs are to be speaking English, (it's considered high status here). They then encourage their kids to try a bit of english and often other languages too. Everyone has fun and no confusion results .

Am I the only one shocked by this attitude that 'it's ok, the school will teach the children English'?

I don't really feel it's school's responsibility to teach children a language from scratch. I think the parents should make sure their child has a basic understanding of the language before school.

They probably will have a basic understanding - from TV, toddler groups, playing with English speaking children in the park, absorbing it from the culture around them. It's very difficult to teach a child a language that isn't your own.

If they start at four it's very quick, if you have total immersion, ie no talking to friends in the classroom in own language, always asking for water, the loo, help in English etc. There should be a small charge for ESL at state school and my own view is that if there's difficulty there should be a home tutor. But it's ok to leave it to reception, I think.

Especially if most parents are sensible and do a little bit of hello, my name is, counting to ten. Not much but a tiny bit goes a long way.

Story - in Reception, the school doesn't need to 'teach' them English - they just learn. Very quickly.
And mostly, ESOL parents DO teach their children English, or at least expose them to it in a way they pick it up, before they start school.
Lots of hares sent running by this mad thread.

I thought threat title was

"Neon English kids"

It's not a mad thread, it's interesting, especially if you don't have much experience of it. I can see how someone with no experience of two-language living might imagine that it's a bigger problem in the classroom than it actually is.

Actually I have to say, if they are older than reception then yes, the parents should step up to the plate to ensure their children have a decent command of English.

My father grew up in an Irish speaking family in an English speaking area of Ireland.

His perception of life was that adults spoke normally at home but babbled rubbish to each other out in public.

When he went to school it became apparent that he would have to learn to speak the same rubbish which he managed just fine and was bilingual for his whole life.

Why are you shocked, StrictlyTory? If children are in the UK from birth/early childhood, they will almost certainly have been exposed to English at nursery, play groups, in parks etc and so will have picked some up. And if they are in English-speaking schools from reception onwards then they really will learn it very fast - at that age, schools don't have to do very much to help, they just absorb it. It is only when older children arrive at schools with no English that they need much extra help.

But expecting parents whose first language is not English to teach their children English goes against all the research into language acquisition - consistency, and exposure to native speakers is what works best, so parents should speak their own native language with children, and let them learn English (or other languages) from the wider community. That's what I did with my DCs while living overseas, and it works fine.

I have a friend whose children were bilingual from birth (parents from two different countries) and who started school in a third language at age 6, knowing nothing of that language, and they are now happily trilingual. But I also know plenty of people who have tried to 'teach' their children a second language in a more formal way, and got absolutely nowhere.

Yes, sorry, it is interesting. But there are lots of assumptions / erroneous assertions being made and then everyone gets indignant about an something that is erroneous. That's mad.

DD's French state preschool offers French As A Foreign Language class free of charge to foreign students. More than half of their year started school with very little French. There doesn't seem to be any resentment about it.

I just don't think it's fair on a teacher to have a lot of children who speak no English. If the parents don't, I think it's their responsibility to pay someone to at least teach their child the basics before school.

If we move abraod and DS goes to a local school I would never expect a teacher to teach my child a whole new language from scratch when they have a whole class of native speakers. I would make arrangments for DS to have a basic command of the language before starting.

Do many teachers have lots of children who speak no English though? I wasn't aware it was a major problem.

Well if 1 in 6 school age children do not speak English as a first language I would say that was a pretty major problem, yes.