au pair with poor English - any experience?

[Louandben]

I am expecting baby no2 in June and DH works long hours and family not close by. We have a friend of the family, a Spanish girl, who has experience with children and wants I come and be an au pair for a couple of months. While I could really do with help with ds, who will be almost 3, I am concerned about how poor her English seems on the phone. Will ds end up being very frustrated when she can't understand him? Has anyone dealt with a similar situation? Did your children and the au pair/nanny manage to communicate ok or was it a nightmare?

many au-pairs have poor english when they start - their primary motive for being au-pairs is to improve their english, which they will very quickly once they are living with an english speaking family.

Au-pairs shouldn't be left in sole charge of pre-schoolers so she will always have you there to help if she doesn't understand what your ds is saying.

Won't be a problem.

Our first aupair couldn't speak English and it was very stressful. We knew about this up front, but thought that was the whole point of the au pair programme. Despite 3 lessons a week, she was very slow to pick up the language and basically hung out with other Polish people.

On the phone, it can be very difficult to speak English. My current au pair didn't sound good on the phone, but when she arrived her English was very good face-to-face.

The children are never fazed by the standard of the aupair's English.

I wouldn't worry too much about a Spanish aupair, because at the end of the day, you can get a dictionary out and string together something. This is much harder with Eastern Europeans because their languages are so hard for us.

Telephone is much harder than face-to-face speech. She may be better in person.

i have this with my new spanish au pair

she came here yesterday and speaks almost no english

I am starting a new job next week and she is going to be doing school runs and looking after my 4 year old. I am feeling very nervous about it all

She is going to start english lessons next week and will go every morning. I am hoping that she is a fast learner!

Agree, the phone is probably accentuating the problem. My ap said she rehearsed our first conversation (less than a minute), for ages, then locked herself in the bathroom to ring me as she was so scared! Her English sounded terrible, but was in fact fine.

Advantage of Spanish speakers is that the words will be similarish. I find that even if I say the English word, my French (and Spanish speaking) ap could understand, as their word for the same thing wasn't that different.

Didn't bother either of the kids (3 and 1 at the start). In fact, the 3 yr old will probably help the ap, I know the kids across the road helped their Spanish ap telling her the word for things like kettle, hoover etc.

I think your DS will probably want you more than anything, so is this girl prepared to do housework etc? I'd get this really clear before she comes, as this is where you'll find the help most useful. Luckily I think housework transcends language barriers!

It's meeting people of different nationalities and having to use English as the lingua franca that really helps their English along. I had a Polish au pair, like Science Teacher, who only ever spoke to other Polish people and her English didn't improve either (and was poor to start with). They meet at the English lessons.