Is mother tongue input only at home really enough? Homework/reading help?

[Giuliettatoday]

Hi there,

new problems, new thoughts...

Both dh and I speak German (our mother tongue) only at home with our children and live in the UK. Our children attend a state school.

So far we've always sticked to the home/community language rule, as advised by speech therapists and as is mostly advised elsewhere.

Now there are two problems: Our middle son (6) has selective mutism and refused to speak English at school for a long time. It's improved a lot, he speaks freely with his friends, however, with the teachers it's still one-word-answers. While this is a big success, I still believe that being bilingual is a big part of the problem.

According to the teacher, he will read a book to her, but not talk about it with her, apart from giving one-word-answers.

If we read a book at home, even an Oxford Reading Tree one from school, he reads it in English but we talk about it in German. Ds initiates the conversation about it in German and has a lot to say about it, even without me asking any questions. I feel that somehow he doesn't get enough practice to actually speak English and broaden his active use of English vocabulary.

On the other hand I know from families in similar situations (however without the selective mutism problem) that English normally becomes the (much!) stronger language anyway.

At this point I'm panicking though that my son might fall behind in literacy. According to the teacher, he has the potential, also to write, but as it is he's behind. He seems to have difficulties forming ideas in English and then putting them down. But often it's lack of ideas, or inability to express himself in English. Sometimes it feels that he has to switch on his brain for English while German just comes out naturally.

Also, ds3 has started nursery, and the nursery nurse advised me to sometimes talk English with him. I disagreed as it contradicts all advice I've ever received.

However, I'm not sure about the homework thing. Would you, in my case, talk in English about a book (from school that is)? Give prompts for writing in English to ease the "switching" between languages? On the other hand, dss German is not perfect either.

Well I might not be the best person to advise because I'm very inconsistent with my approach . I mainly talk German to the children, but English comes in sometimes. Dh is English, so it's a different situation here.

But my thoughts on reading your post were - do your ds's watch English TV at home? Or listen to English story tapes? Maybe that could be some English language input without you actually having to be inconsistent?

(Wo kommt Ihr denn her uebrigens? Und wo wohnt Ihr jetzt?)

Thanks for your message.
My children used to watch many different English Videos/DVDs when they were younger, they still do, but with school and other activities - and also because I wanted to limit watching videos/DVD/TV, there is very little time so nowadays they usually only watch on weekends. As particularly ds 1 and ds2 make lots of grammatical errors in German a mono-lingual German child would not make, I'm also very keen to keep up the German input, so there's German DVDs/story tapes as well. But of course also English ones. I'd say, 50/50 roughly.

DS 3 watched a lot less. He's much, much better in German than ds1 &2 were at his age, but there's not much English yet apart from single words, which he picks up rapidly on a daily basis - still it's not easy for me to remain calm and I keep thinking about how to get the balance right.

Still, I think I should let them listen to English storytapes a bit more at the moment, thanks for that advice. Manchmal sieht man den Wald vor Baeumen nicht ;-)

Ich will jetzt nicht genau die Städte nennen, aus denen wir kommen, weil ich meine, man koennte mich dann evtl. erkennen. . Aber soviel sei gesagt, ich bin aus Niedersachsen, seit bald 10 Jahren in London, davon die letzten drei im Borough Richmond-u.-T. Wo bist du her und wo jetzt?

Hmmm. I suppose the question is if you did speak English with him, whether he would speak English with you?

I'm English, dh is German, we live in Germany and are (well, I am) very strict about OPOL. dh and I speak German to each other, so dses are really only getting English input from me (and some English friends etc.), but atm I rate the consistency higher. (My children are younger than yours, though - and ds2 is only just born ) I read and read and read in English to ds1, and that has a big impact on his English. So yes, story tapes and TV (hi em ), but also lots and lots of reading to him, incl quite complex stuff.

Any chance of organising him a penpal?

I'm a speech and language therapist dealing with a population that is predominantly bilingual. I alsogrew up abroad using a minority language in a bilingual situation and have also lived abroad speaking a minority language with my children. My sisters also have bilingual children having married foreigners.

It is fine to discuss English books and homework in German. It's the way we all operate with our mother tongue.

Ignore your nursery nurse,I can tell you categorically that she is talking throguh her arse.

Hi,

as with Berolina the advice I can give you is a bit limited as my DCs are younger.

We live in Germany, I am from UK, DH is German. DD is 5.5 yo and DS 3yo.

Although my DD is almost the same age as your DS, she is not reading yet as she is not at school. I have started to teach her some letters at home.

I am not so consequent with OPOL, we mix and match, although we do insist on only one language in a sentence DD speaks German fluently and English almost as well. She speaks more German than English.

We let them watch some English TV (just got the Sat dish set up yesterday!! ) and they chose their own book for storytime before bed. The biggest improvement in their language skills comes after a visit with Granny and Granddad.

Do your children have contact with English speaking adults outside of school? Scouts or something? Where your DS might feel less selfconscious (sp?) than when speaking with teachers.

Do you know any other bilingual families? I felt it helped DD when another bilingual girl started in Kindergarten. She realised that other families are also bilingual and she seemed to be more comfortable speaking English with me in Kindergarten.

Once DD starts writing, I can offer you a bilingual penpal!

I'm English, dh is Australian, we live in France and ds1 age 4 goes to French school. So we're in the same config. as you. We speak mostly English at home, but a little French as well. We tend to repeat the instructions that he hears in school in French ("assieds toi!" "chacun son tour" "calme toi" and so on) as he responds better to them in French than in English. He watches English dvds but French TV.

He doesn't seem to have any problem switching between the 2 languages, he translates things for people. He understands the concept of different languages, although I would say that his english is much better than his French.

I have heard about some kids protesting about bilingual situations either by selective mutism or simply by refusing to speak one of the two languages. I think it rather depends on the child. Some handle it fine.

My instinct is keep speaking German to him. I think it must be stressful when Mummy refuses to speak her language. Remember what Mother Tongue means!

Yes, you definitely need to do your son's English homework with him in English. This is what all the advice I have read/heard/received here in France says. Children in bilingual schools should do their French homework in French with their parents and their English homework in English with their parents; obviously where the child lives in a bilingual French-English family this is easy (each parent does homework in his own language) but in other families compromises on OPOL have to be made in order to maintain continuity with a child's education.

In fact, it is recommended in the case of French-English families with SAHM English mother-tongue mothers that they read to their children in both languages right from the start (before school) to ensure their child is used to hearing them speak both languages in preparation for homework later on.

So I read Babar in French - my daughter seems totally unfazed by this.

On the nursery nurse thing - don't listen to her, you should only speak German to your DS3. But you can and should read him English stories in English.

I disagree with some of what you say Anna.
It is fine to discuss your child's homework in another tongue (ie mother tongue).

On a purely anecdotal level,I have seen my sister do it with all four of her French/Welsh children. I am seeing my other sister do it with Korean stuff for her children. I will be discussing English hopmework in Welsh (our mother tongue) when the time comes.

It's too weird to switch to a different language in what can be a stressful situation (ie doing homework)

I think that it is important to distinguish between families where the OPOL method is strictly adhered to and families like ours where we mix and match languages.

My DCs are used to me speaking German (and without boasting, I do speak German very well) so would not be fazed by me reading in German or discussing homework in German. Guiletta only speaks German to her children, they might not take well to her suddenly speaking English.

Saying that, I will definately be leaving the German language homework for DH. DD corrected me for the first time recently because I used the wrong case in German.

It is really interesting to read about the experiences of other families. We intended being strict with the OPOL method but I find it very difficult to stick to English. . Is there anyone else who is almost more comfortable speaking in the non-native language? I find it strange sometimes that I instinctively speak German rather than Englsih.

I knew you would, Moondog . It's a very interesting topic worth of discussion.

Where two languages co-exist for a child with no particular difficulties - ie they are growing up bilingual (in whatever circumstances) with ease, I don't think there is a particular issue with a mother talking about homework in her mother-tongue with her child where the homework is in another language.

However, not all children grow up bilingual with ease - in fact, it is remarkably frequent to encounter difficulties (just like the OP). The bilingual schools here in Paris, and schools like the one I went to in my own childhood, have huge experience of bilingual teaching (not just of bilingual children) and all recommend the path I outlined below, to prevent confusion between languages.

Incidentally, Moondog, what is your feeling about children in bilingual schools learning to read? Simultaneously or sequentially for the two languages?

Difficulties are often due to parents who are not confident with their choices or assertive enough about their identity. This is a big problem with immigrants who arrive in countries with what is perceived as a 'low status' language and who are desperate to 'get on' and leave old ways bewhind them. Not so much with white Europeans who arrive in a new country speaking a high status language.

I've seen it a lot with Turkish families in Eastern France, which is a huge shame as I have read many studies which demonstrate time and again that the complexities of Turkish grammar equip Turkish speaking children with astonishing meta-linguistic skills at a very early age. Having lived in Turkey on and off for three years and tussle with the fiendish syntax myself, I can well understand this.

Those that are 1000% confident that they are doing the right thing struggle less.
My father was one of these. It never struck him as anything but absolutely right and natural that he should speak anything but Welsh to his three little girls,despite living 10 000 miles away from Wales on a tiny coral island. Neither did we experience any wobbles or negative feelings. In PNG we were no big deal anyway as it is the most linguistically diverse country in the world (700+ languages I think) and most people were at least trilingual.

I think the sequential/simultaneous question is interesting. I am very interested in reading/writing and most children here would learn how to read in Welsh and then in English. However,they are so exposed to English that most have learnt how to do so independently by the time formal lessons come by.

Salts use a cog. neuro. model of language processing that maps input (reading and aural comprehension) through semantic filtering to output (writing and oral expression).

Most individual adults come out with a pretty even balance although with stroke patients (and others who have suffered neurological trauma of some sort) you get all sorts of weird and wonderfu lstuff going on.

It is fascinating to map a bi/tri lingual person's different routes onto this model. For example,although I speak fluent Welsh and do a lot of written work in it,my processing of written Welsh is poor in comparison to my English.Thus,if I am training/doing a presentation, I will write my notes in English but speak in Welsh.

However,as I learnt French the old fashioned way (lots of reading and writing) my ability to process written French is far superior to my aural processing of spoken French.

Thus,if I watched a subtitled French film,my eyes would stray to the subtitles (assuming both dialogue and subtitles are in French) whereas if I watched a subtitled Welsh film (assuming both dialogue and subtitles in Welsh) I would NEVER look at the subtitles.

Sorry,this is all getting a little covoluted.
I'm sure I lost you way back!

Mooncup, that was fascinating reading.

I did not know that Turkish is such a complex language. Interesting, as it is a low prestige language here in Germany and there are some families who don´t even teach their children Turkish. It is a shame as they are denying their children not just a part of their own heritage, but also an opportunity to develope their language skills.

btw, I was just thinking about the German word for mixing languages, "Kauderwelsch" and wondering where it originates. lol, perhaps from "kauen", to chew and the welsh. The welsh languages does look difficult to learn, there seems to be a distinct lack of vowels.

Exactly the sort of thing I mean Kinder.
Thus those children then often flounder in both mother tongue and the language of the country they live in, which leads unenlightened people to think that bilingualism is something that doesn't work.

Interestingly, the only people who generally feel like this are monolinguals who fail to grasp that monolingualism is the norm not the exception!

Welsh is full of vowels (like any language is-phonologically speaking it is impossible to have verbal output that consists of long strings of consonants. Vowels are needed to loop them together.Ig we use a necklace analogy,consonants are the beads but vowels are the string that attaches them.

The only difference is that in Welsh,vowels are represented by letters that an English speaker associates with consonant sounds.
You have to remember that letters are nothing more than symbols for sounds and the rule system changes from language to language. It only seems difficult because one is trying to read a foreign language using the rule system from one's own language.

That is why I can't understand why learning the International Phonetic Alphabet isn't a must when learning a foreign language to a level higher than say, GCSE. It eliminates all confusion of this sort.

Salts use it a lot,along with a system called diacritics which in a very precise shorthand tells you EVERYTHING you need to know,even down to miniscule tongue movements.

I write my diary in it sometimes to keep up to speed.

NB Lmao at you calling me Mooncup. It's Moondog!

kinder, when ds1 was first born I actually spoke German to him for the first few months. My German is all but native level and I am a Germanist by training. It's always been important to me, living in German, to not just be identified by my English (although of course everyone is mad about 'Native Speakers' and job-wise I'm firmly in that niche ). So for a while pre-children I really lost contact with English and did indeed feel more natural in German. I'm so glad I gave myself a Ruck and started speaking English to ds1, though. Now I always break off and correct myself if I strt a sentence to him in German, and hate it when dh tries out his (not brilliant) English on the children...

As far as speaking instinctively goes, German definitely has that 'instinctive' status with me too - in labour, for example, I uttered a colourful bilingual mix of complaints and curses

That's interesting Berol re instinctiveness.

I was reading about North Korean spies who often masquerade as Japanese it seems.

In the case of one,they couldn't catch her out as her Japanese was faultless. So,they fiddled with her showere (she was in custody)so that it suddenly turned icy cold in the middle of her showere.

She was sufficiently well trained to utter curses in Japanese,not Korean.

They caught her out eventually on some other grounds.

What's with the 'showere' stuff.

To get back to the OP - there are plenty of children in a situation where both languages are high status - German-English like the OP, French-English like the children in my daughter's school, and other Western European language combinations like those at my childhood school - who encounter difficulties on the path to bilingualism, and compartmentalisation can be a way of helping children at a critical part of the language acquisition process.

Anecdotally, I used to have part of my school curriculum in French and I found it very difficult to discuss that part of my curriculum with my parents in English. I needed to do it in French. As an adult I am fully bilingual and can switch between English and French on any topic at any time. You grow out of the need to compartmentalise but it is useful/helpful when you are young.

On the simultaneous vs. sequential learning of reading, I think there are probably differences between the situation in a bilingual community in Wales where everyone from an early age will be coming into daily contact with the spoken and written word in both languages, in and out of school and situations where there is only partial bilingualism (at home and/or at school but not in the wider community). Certainly here in Paris all the bilingual schools are adamant that sequential (first French, then English) is the only "safe" way to go to avoid confusion in spelling and pronunciation.

moondog
Sorry, I had just been reading the mooncup thread and was obviously still thinking about it. but

Another new thing learnt, about the Welsh alphabet.

It is a shame that the international phonetic language is not taught in school, I struggle with that too. We are learning French at the moment and it would be much easier to learn if I knew how the words should be pronounced.

Berolina
I curse bilingually too. Actually trilinguaglly, as I curse in Bavarian as well.

Anna
I have started teaching my DD to read, in English as she won't start German school until next year when she will be 6. Does she need to be fluent then before starting local school?

kindersurprise - I really empathise with what you are doing .

My daughter is 2.11. In her French-English bilingual school she won't learn to read in French for another three years (though she will have done an awful lot of ground work) - in theory she should be able to read by Christmas 2010, just after her sixth birthday. And she will learn to read in English exactly one year later.

I could change her to another bilingual school where theoretically this timetable would be speeded up by one year. But the other school is a long way from us so not very practical .

I am sorely tempted to teach her to read in English myself, but I would need to be sure that she would really master reading by age 5 in order to avoid confusion when she starts reading at school in French. And the school she goes to does not recommend this (even though I would not be the first or last mother to do this).

I suppose I will think again next September. I could read fluently at 4.3 so I tend to assume my daughter will be ready earlier than the school timetable, but I don't want to muck her reading/writing up long-term.

I can't help thinking that kids pick up on these things when the parents turn them into "issues". All the cases I've encountered of children refusing to speak one or other languages had parents who really really really wanted their kids to be bilingual. It's like eating veggies, the children quickly turn veggies into a stick to beat you with once they work out that it's something you're very keen on them to do!

My instinct is to do what comes naturally to everyone and to speak whatever language seems natural in the context. With one of my friends in France, her daughter finally agreed to speak English after visiting her cousins in the US (after all, it was a "speak English or play by yourself" situation for her).

I'm however quite willing to accept that the laid-back attitude works for our family but not necessarily for everyone

DH and I are both English but living in Austria. Our German is terrible but slowly improving. We have a ds aged 7 in school here and I have just listened to him read his German book but I asked him questions about it in English. I haven't got the skills yet to ask in German and if I tried I think I'd confuse him. He speaks German very well, and we've been here for nearly 2 years. The only German I speak to him at home is when he helps me with my homework from my German course!!

Ds aged 5 is quite different and uses the one word answers to adults at Kindergarten but speaks to his friends more freely.

Deb

fatslag
I think you are on to something there. It was important for my DD to spend lots of time with UK relatives and friends so that she could see why we are bringing her up bilingually. It must be difficult if there is no reason (from the child's viewpoint) to learn both languages.