Question for bilingual families - how necessary are bilingual schools really?

[Brangelina]

I've just been to a presentation for a bilingual preschool/school as I'm toying with the idea of sending my DD there next year. DD (2.6) is bilingual English/Italian although English is her minority language at present as I'm the only influence (DP and nursery both Italian), hence my interest in perhaps consolidating her English by increasing exposure to it. It was just an idea as I wasn't entirely convinced it was necessary (plus it's v. expensive), particularly as we travel quite frequently to the UK to visit relatives or they come to us.

However, at the presentation this morning I was told that the OPOL method where only one parent speaks the language is insufficient once past the early years as the child doesn't get to develop the language beyond a purely social context and would have problems expressing themselves in the future in an academic or work context. Is this true or total bolleaux? Has anyone any direct experience with themselves or older DCs?

I wouldn't say it would be completely necessary in your situation, especially since English is such a strong language interntionally and you are travelling home frequently. If you didn't send DD to that school I would think that you will need to keep an eye on how her written language is coming along as she gets older, assuming you will be staying in Italy long term.
I was in a bilingual school in the wales until I was about ten yrs old, then spent five years abroad (learning and using a new language). My English didn't suffer since after return to the UK at age 16 I continued my education in English only. I feel that my written welsh suffered though, and I always triple check my spelling and grammar before being sure it is ok! This is despite it being my family language throughout the time I was abroad. But other people have had very different experiences. Moondog, for example - let's see if she comes along...

My DD is starting school this year and we did think about an international school but we honestly cannot afford it. It is incredibly expensive and as we have 2 DCs so it is just out of our reach.

I can see their reasoning, as DD (almost 6yo) is struggling to keep up her English. She speaks German all the time and will only speak English when I remind her. Saying that, I am making a concentrated effort at the moment to expose her to more English (sat dish for watching BBC, English books, looking for English speaking playmates...) and she sees a lot of my parents. It seems to be working, after just a few weeks she is speaking more and more English, even without being promted.

I hope a normal school will be ok as long as we put a bit of extra work into reading and writing English at home.

prompted

my dd has never been to an international school

she has been to state school and a spell in a private school in england

she is now in an austrian college

she sometimes struggles for a while with the written work but is passing everything at the mo

ds is four not in kindergarten yet i talk english most of the time
and dh talks german to him
he swops on his own between languages

i think in the long term the written work is the one to concentrate on

but i will be corrected no doubt

Brangelina

Personally, I do believe that if you want to develop a properly bilingual child who is equally operational (not just chatty fluent) in both languages, a bilingual school is incredibly helpful.

OPOL is not sufficent beyond the very early years and, without a bilingual school, you will have to work extremely hard as the minority language parent to ensure your DD's written English develops as well as her written Italian throughout her school career.

Here in Paris the British Council offers English lessons for bilingual English-French children who are in the French school system and not in a bilingual school. That is cheaper - though still not free - than a bilingual school. Does the BC have an office in Milan that does that?

Brangelina

My understanding is that your situation in Italy is totally symmetrical to mine in France - you speak Italian with your partner and your DD is going to spend the whole of her childhood in Italy?

So hard when talking about bilingualism because there are so many possible configurations. Swapping between countries is another kettle of fish IMO (one I did myself).

Yes Anna It's just that. Also my partner doesn't speak English so the community language at home is Italian. DD does quite well in both and swaps and translates with relative ease. Her Italian is much better grammatically than her English but she's getting there.

The problem is I really can't afford to send her to an international school, well perhaps I could for, say, 2 of the 3 years of pre school and then put her in an Italian state school but that would be a huge stretch. Plus, on a practical level, both international schools here are quite out of the way and would mean we'd probably have to get a second car, which will add further to the expense (and I absolutely hate driving).

Like Kindersurprise I was going to teach her to read and write English at home, ideally before she started Italian elementary at 6, not to get a head start as such but to give her time to absorb one before embarking on the other. Would it not be enough if I helped her with her homework in English? That way she can get used to explaining concepts, adding a subtracting etc. in both languages, no?

Also, when she's a bit older I was hoping to pop her on a plane to the UK for the summer holidays so wouldn't that help no end with extending her fluency?

Just looked at the BC website and courses for 4yo cost 700 euros for 45 hours .

And it's not just for bilingual children....

Brangelina - basically, while I think a good bilingual school would make your life easier from a language development perspective than a similarly good Italian school, if paying the fees and getting your DD to school is going to make your life hell - don't bother, do the stuff you are talking about. It isn't worth it if you are going to suffer financially and it's going to put a huge strain on you and DD just getting to school.

And what you save in fees/car will go a hell of a long way buying books and DVDs in English on Amazon and paying for plane fares.

The BC course for bilingual children in Paris is for five year olds and up only, and teaches the national curriculum reading/writing.

There are lots of separate courses for non native speakers to learn English ab initio.

Maybe I'll give them a ring then, their website isn't very informative.

I think my problem (after that comment in particular) is I'd feel just a tad guilty about not going for a bilingual school and giving DD more opportunities but then our quality of life would be higher if we sent her to a state school and we'd have the money for extracurricular activities like ballet, ski school, karate or whatever. And plane fares of course.

Now the only problem remaining is getting that place in the oh so handy state school round the corner....

Absolutely, you need to balance the opportunities you can give your DD and the overall standard of living your family enjoys by sending her to an Italian state school versus the opportunities at the bilingual school minus the loss of disposal income for other things.

Choices, huh? Oh-so-hard, and oh-so-many-variables

If she went to a state school would she have to attend lessons in English as a foreign language or could she learn a different foreign language instead?

Do you expect her to be as competent in English (oral, written) as she will be in Italian when she finishes school, or is it sufficient in your mind if her English is accent-free and she can communicate freely?

SSSandy2, at Italian elementary schools English is the only choice. Other languages are only introduced at secondary school stage. The English she'll learn at primary is close to useless, I've seen the stuff they teach and 11 year olds move up into secondary with only a few very basic phrases and limited vocab (not impressive after 5 years of learning).

Re the final aim aspect, I'd like her to have the choice of being able to further her education in either Italy or the UK (or further afield if so desired), so ideally all round proficiency.

Hard to compare across countries. Ask around maybe, what kind of reputation do those schools have there? Are they academically high achieving and are they really value for money?

I wouldn't pay much for the bilingual school we have really, I see it only as an interim solution but academically I am not satisfied with it.

Initially I sent dd to a German school (partly because I already knew that the bilingual schools don't have a great reputation in my town) and did English with her at home in the afternoons. The German approach to schooling doesn't suit her at all, she was desperately unhappy in that school which I think was probably one of the better ones. This may not apply to your dc and the Italian approach though.

I had no option really other than to move her and sent her to a bilingual school because I knew a) we would get a place for year 2, being in the English stream and b)it would be a different approach based on the national curriculum so whole new teaching style. Also having looked around, I wasn't convinced the monolingual English internationals were great and I am not convinced that she would have been any happier at a different German school. Didn't feel I had a choice in it really.

When I applied, a teacher at the bilingual school drew me aside and advised me against it. In her opinion, the bilingual schools disadvantage English speakers because they are held back in German (this I found to be true) and yet are not moved along very well in English either (this I find is also true). She told me they work for German families whose dc end up with more English than they ordinarily would have but English speaking dc achieve less than in an English school and less than in a German school.

Socially, I have found it is a nicer environment for my dd so I don't regret the move, however long-term I don't see it as a solution for us.

In fact I see NO solution.

Maybe the Italian bilinguals, being expensive, are under more pressure to achieve academic results. If so, they may be worth the money you need to pay. I think in your shoes I would at least consider the preschool to give her a grounding in learning in both languages.

I wanted my dd to avoid having to attend English as a foreign language lessons since it is her mother tongue. It would have just been boring and frustrating for her I felt. (They also teach a weird pronounciation)

Lol at the weird pronunciation. My Australian friend's ds kept getting marked down in English class at his primary because the teacher (who, incidentally, was a class teacher who'd been sent on a Berlitz course) couldn't understand his accent and he kept using phrases that weren't in her book. Alas I have no choice, DD will have to attend English classes whether I like it or not but things may change.

I personally wasn't impressed with the school I say this morning, I never heard any of the children actually speak more than the odd word of English. Plus they will accept non English speakers up to secondary stage, so I'm not quite sure what level of excellence they expect. They also do not differentiate between UK and US English when learning to read, it's all mixed in with a bit of both. Maybe it's just me but I think it important to separate the two out, I know in France, for instance, if you want to teach English as an agregé you must specialise in one or the other and ne'er the two must meet.

I'm going to see another tomorrow morning which is monolingual as in English only. It also costs a bit less, or so it seems.

I'm even more confused now . I think it may just be a case of leaving it to fate, if I don't get a place in the Italian state school then I'll have to go for one of the international ones as the only other choices here are private catholic ones with nuns [pure horror emoticon]

Brangelina - LOL at your horror at Catholic private schools, which are also the only option to state or private bilingual schools here in France.

My partner, being Jewish, is even more repulsed by the idea of his DC going to Catholic school that I, a mere atheist Anglican. However, his first cousin, also 100% Jewish but married to a lapsed Catholic, has recently swapped his family of four girls to - horror of horrors - an all girls Catholic school. And everyone is delighted with the ethos - as well as the academic rigour (which is notorious). To such an extent that when DP's cousin's wife suggested she give me some info about the school, I though - why not? Keep my options open for later

SSSandy2 - I understand your point about bilingual English-German children getting held back in German. My feeling, after four months of pre-school, is that probably my daughter's bilingual school won't do as much for her French as a monolingual French school would - and I'm not that at this stage it's teaching her any English (though in two years' time she will be streamed for English and only be with native speakers) and I am quite prepared for the idea that her English will never attain the level it would had we lived in England.

Ho hum. It's very hard to know what to do for the best in a bilingual upbringing.

Isn't it a nightmare? I have the feeling that whatever choice I make it will be the wrong one either for DD or our family as a whole. Also DP doesn't want to shell out loads of cash because he has his ds expensive games habit to maintain...

I went to a catholic high school myself in the UK and while it wasn't that bad I'd rather my DD wasn't exposed to the blanket brainwashing quite so early, especially when she's too young to have formed an opinion of her own. I'm not keen on adding to the already overflowing coffers of the Catholic Church either....

Message withdrawn

I don't want to discourage everyone. Sorry! Perhaps your schools are not comparable with the ones I know here.

Brangelina, if English is already dd's minority language, it will become increasingly harder to keep it up once she is in a monolingual Italian school environment. For that reason I would look into monolingual English pre-schools to give her a good start. From what you say about the English taught at that bilingual school, it doesn't sound great.

However, I think you may find it difficult to achieve the level of fluency in English you would like her to have if she is in an Italian school and then meeting with Italian speakers to play afterwards. There is just too little motivation for her to keep up the English.

You can, as Anna says, try getting sat tv, cultivate friendships with English speakers and so on but it can be a bit of an uphill battle. Once she is a teenager, I'd imagine she would find being an English speaker more interesting and maybe work harder at it.

Have no idea what Italian schools are like or how the teaching is generally. Perhaps your dd would be fine there. If you are happy with Italian universities too and it would be a distinct possibility that she would go on and study in Italy, I think I would go for a monolingual Italian education as the best preparation for that and then do what I can to keep her English up alongside. At some later stage, a year abroad might be all she needs to bring her English entirely up to scratch.

If you are fairly sure she would need to study in the UK later, your best preparation will be the monolingual English school I'd expect.

Good luck with it all! From what you say, changing to this bilingual school at a later stage shouldn't be a problem, should you choose to do that.

Pitchounette - that's what we do. My DDs (10 and 8) have an hour a week doing creative writing with an English girl, and it's great.

As well as that, they only ever watch British TV and we spend 4-6 weeks a year in the UK. But I still don't think it's enough - getting them to speak to me in English is like drawing blood sometimes, though they are perfectly capable! It just doesn't come quite so naturally.

There is no International school around here but we're thinking about the Anglo-American section of a local secondary school for DD1 in September (which is free - it's a state school) so I'm hoping that will help.

But I think it's inevitable that given our circumstances (which are similar to yours Brangelina, only French), my children won't be quite as fluent in English as they are in French.

Brangelina, I think there are many different ways to maintain your dd's English. Ime English grammar is taught quite well in Italian schools (just ime, obviously, though you can't really tell from my mn postings ). I mean, dh is not bilingual, but "somehow" managed to get a phd at lse and has published articles and books in English. And I know quite a few Italian people who went on and had a great academic career in the UK/Usa after having studied in Italy. Plus, the lovely thing about primry school is to have local friends...

and I've never heard of anyone not getting a place in a state primary here in Milan!