Advice needed, please

[katelyle]

My brother moved to England with his family from Spain two years ago. He is English, but bilingual, his wife is Spanish and speaks OK but not brilliant English. They have two children, dn, who went into year 4 and who now speaks excellent, but quite heavily accented English, but who is obviously doing fine, as she has just passed the 11+. My concern is for my nephew, who was 5 when they moved. He was a late talker in any language, and his English is still no more than adequate. I thought this was because he spoke Spanish at home (they do still keep a very "Spanish" way of life as far as they can - late lunch, late bed times and so on) However, they recently had visitors from Spain, and it turns out that he can barely speak Spanish any more although he understands it. I am very concerned that there doesn't seem to be any language that he can speak perfectly. His parents just think that it will come, but it doesn't seem to me to be right that he can't express himself fully in either language. Is this a common occurence, and can people reassure me that he will, sooner or later, end up completely bilingual and I'm worrying about nothing?

Hi,
At 5+ he should be articulate enough to be understood most of the time.If not they should seek advice.
It is commom for childen to favor the language spoken at school as they want to fit rather than being different from other kids. So not surprised he speaks less spanish, now that they are in the UK.
Altough I'm not convinced about the one parent/one language theory, I think this is one of the classic situations where mum should stick to spanish and dad to english.

Hi slim22 - thanks for your reply. I think one of the problems is that my brother and sil think they do this - mum speaking Spanish, dad speaking English, but my brother doesn't realize that he's speaking Spanish most of the time - he speaks it when I'm there and genuinely thinks he's speaking English until I pull him up on it! My nephew is 7 now and has been at an English school for two years. Would you expect him to be speaking near "native speaker" now? I'm just concerned at him having no language that he can fully express himself in - it seems to me that it must be incredibly frustrating for him.

I think your nephew should have reasonable English after 2 years at school. My DDs were nearly 5 and 7 when we moved back to France and 2 years on their French is as good as their English.

It is very important that your brother speaks proper English to his children though, and encourages (even insists that) his children respond in English, so that they can improve, because it sounds like the only real English they are hearing is at school which is probably slowing their language acquisition.

It might also be that your DN doesn't want to learn English because he remembers, and preferred, his life in Spain. In which case things will probably improve as he gets bigger. Is he happy here?

kate - it may be an idea to get the eal team for the lea involved. I work in a school with a language unit, and we aim to get the children integrated into mainstream (secondary) as soon as possible. It may well be that the eal team will be able to give him some support in school (bilingual assistant for example).

Thank you, ejt - could you tell me how we would do that? And could you tell me (impossible question, I know!) whether you would expect a bright child (he's predicted 3s in his SATS) to be speaking perfect English after 2 years in an English school? His reading and writing seems to be fine - well, at level 3, but his spoken English is still very heavily accented occasionally difficult to understand (and I'm his aunt, not another 7 year old!) He loves his English school by the way, and seems to be very happy, so I don't think it's a case of not wanting to.

if his reading and writing are fine i think the verbal language will improve eventually. you say he's happy and likes his school so im sure he'll be ok. Some boys are not very verbal anyway. I think being read to regularly is very important. (I live in Spain, my dd1, born here, is 3.5 yo and started nursery at 2 yo. it's only now that her Spanish has really taken off, we speak english at home)

kate - if you get in touch with the schools' service of your lea, they'll be able to put you in touch with the emas / eal people - they're called different things in different places.

tbh though, if his reading and writing are fine for his age group, and he is a bright child, the spoken language will come. We've had students in our language unit who have been integrated into school life after 4 months or so - but we've also had students who have come to us in year 9, and have remained in the unit until they've left in year 11!

If he is happy in his school, and has English-speaking friends, then the spoken language will come sooner or later.

Good luck.