French speaking nursery, English speaking parents - how long for 2.8 year old to be fluent?

[Rantmum]

To any MNers with a similar experience - we are moving to a French speaking area and ds will start nursery there. My ds will be 2.8 when he starts nursery and I was planning to put him in for 5 days, but on reflection wonder if this will be too much for him at this age. DH and I speak very poor french although we intend to take classes to brush up, so I had thought that maybe a daily dose of immersion at this age will ensure that he is fluent by the time "real" school starts - any thoughts? Will 3 days initially be enough under these circumstances?

mozhe - I know, classes are (too) big here. My daughter is going to be in a class of 15 max in petite section but the school is "hors contrat" in petite section and they only go 2h45 each morning. No choice about only going some days though. Still, I'm quite zen about it, it's a lovely school and the directrice is adorable.

Franca - French école maternelle is a three-year programme to prepare children for school at 6. They do actually learn a lot over the three years (including 2 languages at my daughter's school).

It's a lot more rigorous than Belgian maternelle, but apart from that I have no real points of comparison.

Yes, that's the same as Italy, it's learning through play, not formal education (your dd is going to a private one, isn't she?). It's a rather wonderful institution (sorry can't come up with a different name) and it's free. You don't know how much I miss it.

Yes, my daughter is going to a private maternelle because I want her to go to a bilingual school - basically the fees you pay go towards the English part (which is not covered by the French national curriculum) and the French part is free. And the buildings are a lot nicer than in a state school, and it's on a lovely park where the children play outdoors surrounded by trees, which is pretty unheard of in a Parisian state school.

State schools are totally free but a bit grim. Catholic schools are fee-paying but the fees are tiny and means-tested so anyone can go there - IF they agree to their child being brought up a Catholic, which is a no-no for us anyway.

I'm in no position for arguing the case for French state ecole maternelle. I'm quite a fan of Italian ones, which are on average very good, even if sometimes based in tatty buildings. As for the size of the classes I bilieve that it's quite easy to find reception classes (for 4 and a half yrs old) of about 25/30 pupils in England.

My daughter will be in a class of max 15 in petite section (year of her 3rd birthday), with half days only. After that it reverts to standard French thing of up to 30 children all day... far too many, but unfortunately there is no way around it as far as the school is concerned. The only good thing is that the English classes are streamed and since they are paid for privately the classes are much smaller...

Sounds good. he'll have a fantastic time.

she obviously

Franca - how are you going to teach your children to read and write Italian?

I think it depends on the child. My dd went to a Spanish speaking nursery from about 3 she went 5 mornings a week. She was there for just over a year. She was very aware that it wasn't her language and basically became very introverted. I was really shocked as I thought that she would soak it up at that age.
An other northern european child who started at the same time is now fluent and Spanish is her prefered language. Both her parents speak Spanish and they also speak to her in their own differing mother tongues.

I switched dd to an international school where she now has daily Spanish lessons and her Spanish is much improved, although she is still reluctant to speak in Spanish. My dd is quite reserved when not in her own circle.

I think it also depends to some extent on the culture of the parents and their willingness to embrace the local customs etc. I know of one British couple who were out here for nearly 3 years and never bothered to learn a word of Italian and were quite dismissive of the culture. They surprisingly enough put their 3yo (at the time) in a state scuola materna, so Italian only, and in those 2 1/2 years the little girl got by with the barest minimum of Italian. Nothing to do with her being introverted, she was a gobby little thing, she'd just picked up form her parents that it was "inferior" and there was no need. Lots of her classmates did end up learning English though (albeit with slight Geordie inflections).

Having said that, a French friend of mine was out here for a year, placed her 2 DCs (2 and 3) in an Italian nursery 5 days a week and they were fluent in something like 3 months. Mind you, she's a bit like me, picks up languages quite easily herself and embraces other cultures with enthusiasm, so maybe this rubbed off on her children and helped with their receptiveness to the language.

Rantmum, my dd was 2 when she started attending German kindergarten 5xweek from 9-3pm. This may be very different though because there is no formal education there of any kind, they just play - indoors or outdoors and that was it.

Dc are all very different about how they acquire foreign languages. She spent a year not speaking German but soaking it up - but then she was younger than your ds. After one year, she began using the language. I think it took 2 years before she was being taken for a German dc

I would echo SSSsandy2. When I was a child I knew many children, in Luxembourg, who had been exposed to multiple (3 or 4) languages since early childhood. Some sailed through and learnt lots of languages well and others struggled for years and never really learnt any one language properly until they went on to University in a monolingual environment.

It is important to remember that in Luxembourg, French is not the ambiant language. So an English child attending a French nursery will only hear French at nursery and not around and about in the shops, playground etc. This definitely has an impact on how quickly children pick up a language.

My own daughter, to whom I speak English (I am a SAHM so with her all day) and to whom her father speaks French, hears a lot more French than my sister's children, in the same parental configuration, since we live in Paris and my sister lives in Amsterdam (previously Madrid). Her children's French is not very good at all.

Can I just point out that I am not like the parents in Brangelina's post. I myself am a language teacher. My dd when at school would not speak in any language, when we first moved her to the international school she used sign language, which was absolutely heartbreaking.

I don't know how we are going to teach them how to read and write in Italian Anna . There are no Italian schools here where we live. And even if we were living in London I don't think we'd send them to the Italian school there.
It's rather easy to learn how to read in Italian, Italian doesn't have as many sounds as English. We'll see. Ds started reception in Janaury and he's starting to get the idea of key words etc. I don't push him, as I'm not used to the idea of "learning" to read and write at such a young age. But since we are in this country, I'd better just get on with it.
I also haven't given up hoping to go back to Italy, as I miss it a lot (regardless of the fact, that I'd probably start moaning about it after 2 days )

Franca - I can speak Italian too and yes, you are right, I hadn't thought about it but Italian is a lot easier to read and write than English (or French). You could probably do it at home once your children have learnt to read and write in English - they say here at the bilingual school not to learn to read/write in the two languages simultaneously but to wait until the ambiant language (French here) is properly acquired. For me that's quite hard as it will mean my daughter won't learn to read English until she is 7. I learnt at 4 and I loved reading and was way ahead of my peers.

Do you have Italian friends where you live?

Yes, that's what I've been told as well, I have a friend who's specialised in bilinguism. But your dd will probably pick up reading in English very quickly and in the meantime she'll read french books .

Yes, there is a colleague of dh who's Italian (his wife too). But they don't have children, so lead a rather differnt life than ourselves.

I wasn't getting at anyone Amapoleon, sorry if you thought that was aimed at you. I was just stating another possible reason for a child not absorbing a 2nd language. I was just a bit shocked at that particular incident as it is such a shame, although I've heard similar stories from friends in Tuscany who have British neighbours, but on the whole I should imagine it is pretty rare nowadays.

Some children do take longer, some take far less time. Quite possibly children who are exposed to a multilingual culture at home have fewer problems with other languages, but then maybe not. You never can tell but IMO the experience of a foreign language setting is always a positive one.

That's not much, just one other Italian couple... must be really tough.

Anna - I had thought of teaching my DD to read English first mainly because, as Franca pointed out, Italian is much easier and much more phonetic. Also, I'm the only reader in my family and DD's books are 90% in English so to me it made sense to start her on that before she had to get to grips with Italian.

Ideally I'd like her to learn to read quite young so that she could just plonk herself down with a book while I got on with something else so hanging on till she starts school at 6 seems a long time to wait.

But we do have a couple of very good English friends . What I find tough is the fact that the town is small, and that I really had a close group of friends at home, which I miss on a daily basis

Brangelina - I have to say I am sorely tempted to do it myself too . If I teach her myself, she'll learn to read at 4 (obviously, she's my daughter ) and I'll have peace and quite and intellectual development for her for ever more. Whereas at French school she'll only learn at 6... and in any case lots and lots of French children's books are (bad) translations from English as the output of children's literature is much less prolific than in English.

How old is your DD?

Franca - yes, it's pretty hard to recreate the circle of friends that you have been through childhood and university with, who know your parents, everything about you. I miss that too...

I seriously don't understand why English people seem so anxoius for this reading thing. I learnt to read at 6, this didn't prevent me to become an avid reader, learn Latin and ancient greek (at very high levels), without anyone worrying about my "reading" age. sorry, I don't wish to sound controversial, but there are plenty of things that can stimulate children intellects before reading.