OPOL and a single parent?

[DrinkFeckArseGirls]

I speak to DD in my native language and when she goes to nursery they obviously speak in English to her (not everyone is a native speaker though). She's 16 months and has few more words in my language than in English but it seems to be evening up. What I am worried about is how to go about controlling her standard of English in the future. How can I ascertain that she is read to enough. Should I do it? If so, I'm worried than in a couple of years time she'll refuse to use my language when she knows English can be used everywhere including at home. Plus I wouldn't like her to pick up my rather heavy accent the mistakes I make. Hmmm.

No linguists at hand?

As a mother of bilingual children I suggest that you keep books in both languages at home and just read which ever take her fancy. Do not worry about your mistakes and accent. Your child's language will be influenced by everyone around her and many of them will not be speaking perfect English either, particularly the other children. She will learn just as we all do and particularly at school her mistakes will be smoothed out and altered.

Thanks CharmedLife. We have loads of books, especially in English and she seems to be really interested by words on the paper. She touches the words and likes to hold up a newspaper and look at the text more than at the pictures. Yes, I know she's not about to start reading but I do feel bad when it's an English writing and I stop myself from saying it out loud not to confuse her between the 2 languages.

Your DD will learn to speak fluent english even if you don't speak it to her yourself. She will hear it everywhere outside of home and also in home from tv, radio, when you have english speaking friends around (maybe if she ever sees her english(?)-speaking father?), etc so her english will be perfect by the time she goes to school. I don't know how commonly spoken is your native language in UK but if you start speaking english to her you really do risk her not being interested in speaking your language even to yourself later in life. You don't want that purely because even if your english is fluent, you may find it difficult to express yourself exactly the way you want to, as your native language is (usually) your "emotional" language. Also if you have relatives (grandparents, etc) who don't speak english, your dd will not be able to have a proper relationship with them. It really isn't the learning of english you need to be worried about but your native language (especially if it's not a commonly spoken language in UK)

I don't think you will confuse her just because you occasionally help her with a piece of homework or hear her read in English when she is of school age and consequently has been spending at least 4 years speaking your language with you. As long as you get as much of your own language in as you possible can. So I wouldn't worry about the future; she will be older then.