The 'weak' language

[Pitchounette]

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I would definitely agree with pitchounette's advice to violeta - use the weaker language at home. Makes sense.

If you get the chance, yes, make the language that isn't that of the country you are living in your home/family language (provided of course you aren't in a third country).

Having said that, we speak French as a family/couple and live in France, but my daughter's English is doing pretty well so far. Maybe that will change when she starts school, though.

My dd1 does this - she is educated in Gaelic though we speak English at home, adn I have heard her talking to her friends in gaelic and putting in English words - though tbh all gaelic speakers seem to do this - for almost all it is the second language. At school they encourage the children to repeat the whoel sentence in proper gaelic if they put in and English word, and it has made a difference to her fluency, but I wonder if that is good for school but not so good for home?

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Thanks for advice, Pitchounette and others. Much appreciated!

In all of your experience, has it made any difference for your child if he/she hears one of the languages not spoken by a native speaker? Not that we'll be able to avoid this as we'll have to choose Spanish or English as the family language, which will be the second language for one of us, but I'm just curious!

Pitchounette: We use Spanish when we're in Spain and English when we're here in the UK, so we're actually pretty used to speaking together in the two languages. Makes no difference to us really.

Pitchounette I've read through most of this thread. I think you said somewhere that you'd be interested in hearing from someone whose children are older. Mine are now secondary school age. I'd rather speak by e-mail than on MN (will explain why when/if we correspond by e-mail). If you'd like to CAT me or I'll CAT you?

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Pitchounette I have just e-mailed you.

I have friends who use, like us, the OPOL approach, but also stick to their own languages when speaking to each other - she will speak to him in English, he will answer in German. They are both virtually bilingual, though - I couldn't imagine doing this with dh, as my German is near-native but his English considerably weaker. So atm it does mean, overall, that ds is getting more exposure to German. However, my friend's ds also prefers one language atm (English).

(Just to clarify, to me it would seem very odd speaking to dh in a language he is weak in - even if he answered in German - almost as if I was hbaving to 'teach' him too. Perfectly aware that we might have to reconsider this if ds actually starts falling behind in his English)

I am entering this thread very late, but wanted to share a few experiences.

My DD is 5 and speaks both German and English very well, rarely mixes the languages. She speaks more German as she goes to a German Kindergarten and we speak German at home. DS is 3 and also speaks more German than English, he has just started Kindergarten. Both children started speaking a bit late. DH speaks German, I speak English with her.

I have noticed that when we are at home in UK or my parents are here that both DD and DS come on in leaps and bounds. We are lucky in that my parents are retired so come and visit 2 or 3 times a year.

Fruitscone
My experience is similar to yours, our DCs are being brought up in a German dominated environment, but it works. Our DCs have had no other contact to English speakers and are in German Kita so it is all up to me.

I know that the OPOL theory is a very popular one, we are a bit more relaxed about it, and do mix the languages a bit (but not in the one sentence!)

I sometimes speak German with the children and my DH occasionally speaks English. I know a lot of people frown on this but I want the DCs to have a relaxed feeling towards the languages and not to feel pressured. Most of the time I do speak English but sometimes I slip into German as I feel almost more comfortable using German. I really have to force myself to speak English with them.

I have read a really good book on bilingualism, I will have a look and see if I can find it.

I'm also joining this thread late, but it's interesting.

If anyone knows good books about bilingualism NOT about OPOL, but rather two parents of same mother tongue living in a foreign country, I'd love to know.
However I can only read in German or English, my French is far too rusty.

Both dh and I speak German (mother tongue) but live in the UK, and the children attend an english school.

Sometimes I think they have two weak languages.

Is it true that the strong language is defined by which language you do maths in and calculate?

Is there a definition at all?

I feel the English influence is extremely strong and they pick up English a lot quicker, however there are things they'll never know as well as a mono-lingual English child.

Their German is certainly the language they understand better, but not necessarily speak better. If they make a mistake in German, it "sticks" for years and they will use the wrong form over and over again, no matter what I do. Ds1 can now even read in German, but this doesn't seem to make a difference.

Both dc 1 and 2 struggle with writing even in English anyway so I haven't made them learn to write in German so far, although ds2 is quite interested and we've started doing some German workbooks. Time is very limited after school and after school clubs, so it's difficult.

What strikes me is that I know some adults who have grown up in the UK with German parents, and some of them speak no German at all and can only understand bits and pieces, or they can speak German but with an extremely strong accent and lots of mistakes. Among them people with German mothers (the person who stayed at home at that time when they were young) or even two German parents.
It's worrying so I'm desperate to get it right, however I also don't want the children to be disadvantaged at their (English) school, so obviously I don't want to ban English books etc.

Giulietta - the language you do maths in and calculate is the language you learnt maths in. That may or may not be your stronger language - there are far too many variables in any one person's existence to determine which of the languages they learn in early childhood will be their dominant language as adults.

How old are your children and do they have any educational activities in German?

Anna,

my children are 8, 6 and 3. For ds3 German is still by far stronger, but he starts nurseyr tomorrow.
Ds2 refused to speak English for a long time (selective mutism), but this has become better. But I think due to this fact his English is not as good as it would otherwise be.
Ds1 seems to be slightly better in English, but there are some weaknesses there. According to the speach therapist he's at the lower end of average (but based on an assessment normally used for mono-lingual English children).

They don't have any structured educational activities in German, because sadly the German Saturday school clashes with other classes. It might be possible to organise something with other German families in the area, but we haven't seriously thought about it yet.

My children do sometimes play with other German children and spend about 6-8 weeks a year in Germany, but unfortunately there is rarely an opportunity to mix with German children.

Their German is not too bad, it's certainly the language they express their emotions in, obviously because it's the family language.

But I can clearly see that they have limits in both languages and am not sure how to tackle this in the long run.

Something that very clearly happens in some bilingual children is that they compartmentalise their use of language, depending on the experiences they have in each language. So, for example, your children might be fluent in domestic/home German (eg expressing emotions) and fluent in mathematical English, and unable to talk about maths in German or emotions in English. Do you think this is the case? A bilingual speech therapist would be able to diagnose this, if it was so. Monolingual speech therapists shouldn't be let near bilingual children, IMO .

I do think that all bilingual children need some form of structured educational activity from a young age in both languages. I am lucky in Paris in that provision of bilingual French-English education is good and I have choices. Do you think you have exhausted all possible avenues? In your position I might make the German Saturday school my first priority...

I have a slightly different situation but would welcome any thoughts / ideas.
My dd2 (5) has just started French Immersion Kindergarten at school. She goes half days and will (unless we are not happy with it) continue in French through her entire school career. We are in Canada (ontario) where French Immersion is very popular.

She is incredibly keen and comes home everyday telling me what she has learnt and tries to 'make up' what she hasn't learnt yet. eg. "mama, puis je (pointing) le drink"

I am not sure wether it's best to correct her and try to fill the gaps or keep French as the 'language of school'
Thanks

hellish - I presume your family is monolingual English?

I think you should be speaking only English with your daughter, unless you are specifically helping her with homework.

If I understand you correctly, your daughter is going to have all her schooling in French?

Hi, a fascinating thread. Guilietta - dp and I are English speaking and living in Spain. Dd is 4 and goes to a state school where the schooling is in Catalan. She went to a Catalan nursery from 10 months. We always speak to her in English and our social life is mainly in English so she speaks English very well. She does make mistakes that are obviously influenced by Catalan, but I assume this is just part of the process of growing up bilingual.

Like you. we've recently realised that we are going to have to teach her to read and write in English if her English is going to stay strong - a big task. I wouldn't worry about your kids being disadvantaged at school - they are going to naturally have excellent English. We don't know exactly how good dds Catalan is as she speaks it better than us, but she already has a 'best friend' who speaks only Catalan, so she obviously makes herself understood.

Yes Anna that's right, it's very common here (as French is official language along with English). Starting at age 7 they will have 1hour of English per day, but all the rest (and all subjects) will be in French.

Yes we are an English speaking family,from UK, I speak French (not native standard) so will be able to help with homework and oral reinforcement at home.
She will be learning to read and write first in French.

Hellish - isn't it great when they're so keen to learn and use a new language? We spent some time in Denmark this summer and dd really wanted to speak Danish. Sadly we only knew two words!

Our concern is that dd doesn't understand Spanish very well. Catalonia is supposed to be bilingual, but the schools aren't. She gets 1 hour a week in Spanish, and all but one of her classmates are from Catalan-speaking families. We feel sad that she's missing out on the chance to be trilingual.

Anna, the compartmentalising is really interesting. I assumed that when the boys started school they'd only do maths in German as they'd only ever learned it in German and at school. Both of them did sums and number work from day 1 in English as well; in their heads, aloud with me as homework and when they're on their own at home and in school. I could have understood their doing German at school and Eng at home but ds1 told me once his teacher overheard him and said he should try and do it in German.
I did wonder if they'd switch to German when they got to harder things like multiplication or division but they just carried on.
They do still (aged 10 and 8) both make the mistake of swapping the numbers; 63 for 36 as in German 36 is "6 and 30" so you say the second number first which still gets me sometimes. They do usually catch themselves. Fascinating - to me anyway

Anna, we haven't made the German Saturday School our first priority as ds1 goes to an excellent music class on the Saturday that can't be moved.
Also, from what I've heard at least, many children at the German Sat. school seem to be from families with one English speaking parent.

However, I have to admit I haven't explored all the options. One would be to organise some private German tuition together with other German families (there are some in the area in a similar situation) on another afternoon.

We haven't thought it through yet and I'm not sure how to do it - i.e. if we would hire someone or if we mums could do it. Also, there's the problem of catering for different age groups and levels.

Also, I'm aware there is the "Deutsche Fernschule" where your child can do "distance learning" and if you followed it religiously the child could join the German school system at any point with no problems. However, it's a huge financial and time commitment (I think about an hour a day), and at the moment I feel I can't do it. It's hard enough to get my children to write in English and ds1 has SEN...

Regarding speech therapists: I don't think it's possible to find a specialised bilingual one on the NHS... My children didn't even get much speech therapy by a mono-lingual one. Loads of assessments, parent information sessions and reports, but hardly any actual speech therapy.

compartmentalise - I didn't know there was a name for it. But you don't know a good English or German book by any chance?

The best book by far that I read was the one I recommended to Pitchounette earlier in this thread. Of course, since I'm in France, it also interested me to have the French perspective. But I ought to go back and have another look at WHSmith in Paris, where I know they have a section on bilingualism, and if I find something good in English I'll post.

Obviously all families are different and have different priorities and there is nothing wrong with that. My first priority for my daughter (who is only 2.10) is that she should be bilingual, and all other structured activities come second to that at the moment. But of course she could turn out to reveal other talents that need nurturing more urgently

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