How to teach Dutch to English Reception child

[blueberrycustard]

Hi - for a number of reasons we have decided to move to the Netherlands. Our timeline is to move in the next two to three years. Although I am Dutch, my dd speaks no Dutch (she does know Dutch nursery rhymes, can count to ten and knows some colours, but cannot have a conversation in Dutch). Given that I have about 2 years to get her Dutch sufficiently good to join a normal Dutch primary school what is the best approach? She attends a UK school full time and is quite tired when she comes home. I do have Dutch story books, but I am worried that it is much too unstructured if I just read to her in Dutch (too many gaps which will become a problem when she goes to a Dutch school). I have come across 'de Wereldschool' where I could purchase a unit for her age to teach Dutch but it is 430 euros just for the first unit. Has anybody else been in such a situation? How did you resolve it? Did it work? Any tips? I would like to start as soon as possible, but I am really worried that I will do it wrong and mess up her chance to get a good education ...

Do you have any friends in Holland who speak dutch? Do you know any dutch speaking children? I would get her to interact with dutch children as much as possible. Can you spend time in Holland for each holidays and get her into some sort of summer course - swimming lessons for a week in Holland for example.

Thanks Belgo - yes I have some friends but their children are much much older. Also, I have been living in the UK most of my life. We will definitely go on Holiday to the Netherlands next year as we also need to look for jobs/house etc. The problem is all my Dutch friends in the UK have moved away over the years (Australia, US and back to the Netherlands) - I have not been able to meet other Dutch people where I am. I know there is a Dutch pub in London on Monday evenings but it is too far from where I live plus I have no childcare and can hardly take my daughter with me as she needs to go to school the next day. A Summer course sounds a brilliant idea, I start googling? We will probably go to Utrecht (the city).

can you speak to her in english, and then repeat it in dutch? It will be difficult to begin with if you've never spoken to her in dutch but it can be done.

I know a couple of families who lived in the States, both with dutch fathers and none of the children could speak dutch before they moved to Belgium. They all picked up dutch very quickly, especially as the dads then started speaking to them in dutch at home.

Thanks, I will try that, I am just worried that I might confuse her and mess up her English and Dutch!

I don't think there is any right or wrong way to any approach, but it can take commitment. You could spend an hour each day speaking in dutch; or integrate it into your life - at the breakfast table for example teach her the words of the food etc.
There are many websites on the internet about bringing op bilingual children if you search.

or even get her into a dutch school for a week or so next summer, if that is possible.

I face an oppsosite problem in trying to get my girls to speak english - every time we go to Engladn I take them to Rainbows and get them into holiday play schemes.

OPOL method is the only way forward. I never implemented at an early age with my children and regretted it but its never too late.

Just speak dutch to her for all casual conversations and build up from there. Its very difficult at that age because of phonics/reading/homework etc... you get sucked into intelligent conversation with her in english and are worried she might regress if you don't keep up.

Fear not, be consistent. even if she replies in english, continue the conversation. might help translating some concepts in english as mentioned above but stick to your guns. just slowly elaborate and take a step back from time to time to quickly translate in english before resuming the conversation. tone, body language, context...there are many things from which she will take clues.

When you go home and visit family you will be amazed at how much she will have taken in and am pretty sure she will be able to have conversations with family and friends if she has no other choice. Once totally immersed, she will catch up very quickly.

Am certainly no expert but it works with my kids. 2 native languages + english + local language. They soak it all up but only do become proficient at any one when there is an emotional component to the use of any language.
make her relate.

I wouldn't worry about it too much, you don't say how old your daughter is, but if you mention nursery rhymes, she must be a toddler, or thereabouts, at that age it is easy-peasy learning a new language, just by osmosis.

I grew up between both countries back and forth as a kid and couldn't speak either language when I arrived, but am bilingual now
(fluent in both).

If you are planning on staying long-term in Holland, I would be more concerned in keeping up her English there.

I brought up my son bilingual too by the way (we live in Holland).

Hi, thank you all for the advice. There is so much to think about at the moment, it seems such a big move! My dd is 4.5 and she is at a great primary school here, she loves it, learns so much.

I have been looking (internet) for schools in Utrecht (where I would prefer to live as I have friends there and as it is so central re jobs) and Hilversum (there is an international school there).

Any advice about good primary schools in the Netherlands (ideally Utrecht or Hilversum)? What really concerns me is that it seems that in the Netherlands, they have teacher A on Monday and Tuesday, teacher B on Wed, teacher C on Thu and Fri, due all the job sharing. So it all comes down to how well the teachers get on with each other and properly plan and inform each other about pupils. Given that my dd's Dutch is very limited, I am worried that this will negatively impact on her education. Hence, the possibility of the international school in Hilversum, but may be it would be more difficult to make friends with Dutch children in that case ...

I know nothing about the Netherlands or the International School of Hilversum, but I'd be a bit wary of placing my chid in an international school at such a young age, unless I knew we'd be moving on ot another country after only 2 or 3 years.

4.5 is an age where children socialise alot and where they are not so limited by homework and have plenty of spare time to do non school activities. If you put your 4.5 year old in an international school, it will be harder to integrate into local activities, you will probably get such into the activities of expat children which usually cost considerably more than activites children do who in local schools Your daughter would constantly have to cope with making and losing friends as the school population of an international school is natually always on the move. There are so many reasons to choose the local schooling system over an international one, when a child is so young.

As a Dutch speaker, you must have quite an advantage over non Dutch speakers when searching for a school. You will know yourself that the Dutch system offers lots of choice of teaching methods within local education.

But if Hilversum is your choice, to me it's always better to live closer to whichever school is chosen, but Utrecht is something like 45 minutes commute to Hilversum, surely that is not ideal in the long-term? Of course I'm saying that knowing that our children's commute to school is 300 metres to primary and 1.2kms to secondary, so there must be some bias there. Our children are eligible for an international education in some very expensive schools in the Brussels area, I chose local as I wanted the children to integrate and not have a long commute to school.

I think you're worrying about "nothing" tbh. We are a British couple living in Limburg and speak solely English with our son. When he starts going to kinderopvang he'll start and by the time he starts school he'll know "enough". At the age of your daughter they pick it up in literally weeks - in under a term she'd be fluent. Don't forget of course, from you she'll get correct pronounciation, grammar and context etc. There are some who argue that you should only ever speak your mother tongue with your child.

As for how to proceed 'now', I would suggest that starting a couple of nights a week you say "We are going to speak Dutch until daddy gets home". As for next summer, how about a trip to Duinrell? Loads of kids, no pressure.

Btw, we will not be using an international school as I wish my son to have friends in his street rather than "in the expat neighbourhood across town" which I think you need to consider when looking at the "English" schools.

PS Blueberrycustard, our 10 year old started in French school with not a jot of French. 2 1/4 years later, passed the primary school leaving exam and got 10% higher marks in French than the average and is now doing just fine in French secondary. We used to speak just English in the house, but now the younger children especially prefer French, I speak back to them in French if that is the language of the moment. There is never any confusion between the languages. So please do not worry at all about language confusion or acquisition of language either, at 4 1/2 it should be a breeze.

You could use the Rosetta Stone materials with her here
but mainly I think you just need to speak to her in Dutch. As another poster said, say it in English, and then translate it into Dutch. If she can learn to understand it a bit before you move, it will help her to speak it more quickly.

Thanks very much. Maybe I worry too much. I just don't want to disadvantage her, because it is me wanting to go back to the Netherlands, she is neutral about the whole thing. DH is supportive, but also doesn't speak Dutch. I have already started trying to speak more Dutch to dd. At the moment I feel really ill with a bad chest infection and anti-biotics with lots of side effects, but once this is over I really want to make this my priority. Thanks very much for the encouragement and pointing out the disadvantages of considering an international school which I hadn't fully considered yet.

He blueberry, a bit late to this...

Dh and I moved to NL when DS1 was born. We don't speak Dutch but both DSs go to kinderopvang two days a week, and I think that will be sufficient for them to learn enough Dutch to be happy when they go to school. DS1 certainly speaks a lot of Dutch!

My friend arrived here when her sons were 8 and 4 and they just started school. The 8 year old went to a school to learn Dutch for one year but the 4 year old just started primary. Both are now fluent and really learnt it very fast, though they only speak English at home.

I live near Utrecht (other side to Hilversum) so send me a private message if you want to get in touch!

Btw the international school is an ordinary school with an international 'bit'. It's not like the private schools in Amsterdam... There's a long waiting list though, so you'll probably have to consider a different school anyway.

I would definately chose a local school, over the International school, in Holland it's the norm to go to the nearest local primary school, great for neighbourhood community, your child to grow up with local
friends - my 19 year-old still has friends from "peuterspeelzaal" days (pre-school)and you to get to know the local mums and dads, and there's always lots of play-dates after school (till 3 pm, wednesdays till midday)

As for the teacher turnover during the week you mentioned, my son went to a Montesorri (sp?) and they had the same teacher for 3 years, which is great!

By the way, you won't be the only expat there by a long shot, here in Amsterdam we have 176 nationalities whose kids all go to school

Here are some websites:

www.kijkoponderwijs.nl/voorzieningen-en-praktische-zaken/artikelen/item/74-aanmelding-en-plaatsing-in-primair-onderwijs-.html

www.expatica.com/nl/education/pre_school/Introducing-Preschool-and-School-in-the-Netherlands_16409.html

Thank you all very much. I will look up those websites. At the moment, I am organising Sinterklaas for dd (she has learnt lots of songs in a really short time), she puts her shoe every night and I am busy baking pepernoten, borstplaat, taai taai and banket letter ... Thanks to Google I managed to find really good recipes, but boy, lots of work though! We are not going to do lots of presents, but it is just to give her encouragement to really try to learn Dutch. She has also watched a bit of the Dutch Jeugdjournaal but was a bit difficult on the laptop (very small) but she got the key message and did enjoy it. Maybe, I will manage to teach her reasonable Dutch before we make the move, I am a bit more hopeful. Now I have to sort out if we would be able to get a mortgage in the Netherlands ... different problem altogether!

As others have said, your DD will pick up Dutch just fine even once she gets to NL. Making the language a part of her life before you go will certainly speed thing up a bit but don't worry about it too much.

Doing certain activities in Dutch is a good idea but there needs to be an understandable (from her POV) reason for it. Maybe cooking together from a Dutch recipe? Pepernoten of speculaas would be ideal.

There's loads of good stuff on the KRO Kindertijd site, here.

Also, How about Dutch Dora? We don't watch it but AFAIK it integrates quite a lot of English. I recently got DD this book, Not for her to learn English (she's bilingual already), I just liked the way it integrates the two languages.

Putting kinderradio on in the background would help her soak up the language too.

Hi, thanks very much. I went to the KRO website but when I clicked on the Zeppelin link I got the message that I was 'not allowed access from my geographic location'. Thanks anyway.

I have recently written a little top tips guide for teaching your child a second language which you can check out at (Diglot Books - Top Tips)

www.diglotbooks.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=18&Itemid=20&lang=en

There are lots of fun ways for you to introduce Dutch to your daughter, and you will be amazed how quickly she picks it up.

Hi,

Just read this thread - if you're around in the Marlow (Buckinghamshire ) area, I'm running a Dutch Club for children (at the moment for 2-4 year olds & 5-7) every fortnight on Saturday mornings. Its aim is to reinforce the Dutch language spoken at home (usually there's 1 Dutch speaking parent, the other parent is English), whilst at the same time having fun with other children. For more info, please contact me or look at my website www.discoverdutch.co.uk

Try Juffrow Blom too, it's a computer game, so makes learning dutch more fun

Thanks for all the advice. I have sent you an email Duchie2.

Hi Blueberrycustard - I just wanted to say that we moved from UK to NL when DD1 was 6. She went straight into the local primary school speaking not one word of Dutch. For many reasons we didnt want to send her to International or British schools. It took her 6 months to be truly bilingual from a standing start (we are British).

It was stressful but the school was great. Our younger DCs followed in their turn and became bilingual themselves.

We moved back to the UK a while ago. DD1 has kept up her Dutch and is considering going back to NL to go to university.

What I really wanted to say was 'dont worry' children are great at working out which language they need.