Bilingual toddler - learning with a childminder?

[Hitchyhero]

My son is almost two. For the past year we've been doing the one parent one language method. He's not a big talker yet but he's definatly taking in both languages and can identify the words we say.

When he reaches 2, he will be going to a childminer for 30 hours a week. Im wondering if its a good idea for 1 day a week to put him with a childminder that will speak the language that his dad speaks. I suppose this way he will get exposed to the language more.

Has anyone done this?

Personally, I feel like one day a week with a different person might feel disruptive or he might find it difficult to settle in. I’d probably just try to maximise the exposure to that language at home.

Personally I don't think it will have much of an impact. I used to live abroad in a country where expats often had parents with different languages and also a different language spoken in school/nursery. Parents found that one parent one language was sufficient to give the child fluency in both languages although they often preferred one (usually English as they get older because of films/music etc).

When kids learned a language outside of the home they tended to be less efficient in picking it up and really had to be immersed full time (probably because their teacher/childminder can't be as receptive to picking up their early attempts at language so they get less positive feedback.)

If you continue doing one child, one language they will develop their "other" language to a good level. It probably won't be to the same level of fluency as the language spoken in school and they may well speak with an accent (this is the case for almost all the children I knew) but they will be able to communicate well on social occasions.

I think all kind of exposure to one language a parent speaks is good. A childminder the child sees on a regular basis is similar to a family member talking in his second language. Is the childminder a native speaker and how would it work with other children in her setting? A former colleague had always an au-pair in his language to counteract the exposure to his wife's language at home. The children took the extra person talking German without any issues.

We are Germans, DD only heard German at home until she was around 2 but was at nursery 4 days a week for English. English became her main lanuage but we found that exposure like books, TV, CDs and obviously us talking to her meant she had a huge passive knowledge of understanding. It took her until she wsa 4.5 to actually speak more than just single words though. For that she needed to be in an envrionment where the language is used on a normal level, for us during holiday back in Germany where she had to use it for being able to play with other children. Without the exposure at home she wouldn't have been able to do so.