'they'll be fluent by Christmas...'

[lozzyblue]

Ok so this has been said to me countless times but I just wonder how it can actually be true?!

My dd (age 4) started at a local Belgian school in September and her teacher tells me she has started to speak some words to her in class but it's now approaching the end of November and I cannot imagine how any child could be fluent (or even close) in that short time?

I understand every child is different and will pick things up at a different pace but am interested to hear others experiences!

What is it with the days of the week? DD1 also knows them perfectly in Romanian but can't seem to keep them in her head in English at all. She also uses lots of Romanian words for things especially that she's encountered at school and therefore only in Romanian. I have to confess that I've been a bit lazy about reinforcing the English but my parents were here recently and I realised that it's starting to be a problem where she can't adequately explain herself in English .

We came here when DD1 was 2.5 and DS was only 6 months and they used to always play together in Romanian - it was like their language of play. But we went back to the UK for 3 months when they were 5 and 3 and they went to a preschool and completely stopped speaking Romanian to each other. They've never got it back (obviously they speak it but not so much to each other) although I've noticed that they both use Romanian with DD2.

It's a school vocab thing I think. They use it day in day out. As opposed to a mention that you might do something on a Wednesday. It can work the other way - for example dd didn't know the french word for traffic lights.

I'm just picking up on something Belgo said. I've talked to several parents who don't speak French at home who have their children mornings only in maternelle. Their children do indeed have in general far more difficulty in settling in and moreover in their lack of language acquisition, it does seem far more advantageous to attend full time when you don't have a parent speaking French at home, a few hours a morning in French is just not enough. At many of the bilingual schools in our area too, there really isn't the more ideal set-up for learning French either - many have very few French speakers and a great number of children who don't speak English either, meaning that the only real exposure to French is through the teacher, among the children either English or German / Finnish / Swedish etc is spoken, so again it's only part time exposure to French, so it's no surprise I've yet to meet a child from certain "bilingual" schools who actually speak French fluently, some only understand and don't speak French at all, despite several years at "bilingual" school. So really the quickest way to pick up French in Greater Brussels at least is to go full time at French maternelle and perhaps after school activities in French too.

natation - Leuven has a huge number of foriegners from all backgrounds from university academics to asylum seekers. The one thing they have in common is their children needing to learn flemish fluently for their education, and Leuven has been very proactive in encouraging children to go full time to school, and very cheap/free after school care for children who meet the criteria. This summer they had free child care specifically for children needing to learn flemish, all mainly based on volunteers. I wish I could volunteer but my flemish is too heavily accented to be of much use!

Thanks ladies for your responses. It's so interesting to read all of your experiences

I have just been reading with dd in bed, about 'ectoor, the hedgehog who fancies a 'ombooorgerrr. I said "the word is hamburger" Dd said "Actually mummy, I would prefer to say it like that." Despite only learning basic english phonics, she is very good at decoding words. She has surprised me a little with "walked" and "patient". So, in fact the way she has been taught in French seems to work very well with Englsh too....

Our experience was that after around 6 months DD1 (then aged around 7) was fully functional in Dutch (we were in NL).

However it wasnt an arithmetic progression it was definitely geometric. It was when her vocabulary reached a point where she could substitute that she really blossomed.

We spoke exclusively English at home. Our thinking was that DD didnt need to learn our poor Dutch pronunciation, she needed to learn good(ish) English pronunciation.

I wont pretend it was easy. We did suffer crises of conscience (I had got the prospectus for the British School after 4 months). However DD got there, to the point where her teachers had forgotten that she was English (except when DH & I rocked up for parents evening).

Are you a mathematician GnomeDePlume? I don't come across many other people who talk about arithmetic versus geometric!

only an accountant Longtime.

"only"? I should have been an accountant. It would have so suited me.

I'm a maths tutor instead.