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?

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True, Pitchounette, you do have to understand about persons and singulars/plurals to spell French. But then the principle is easy enough to explain as there are similar rules in English, just that in English you hear the difference between 'I go' and he goes. Anyway, in many European countries you are supposed to be studying a foreign language (including grammar) at (monolingual) school by the time you're 10, so it's probably not too much for the age group.

Brange, how are you getting along?

I was mulling this over the other day, now dd is back at school after the holidays. You know when she was at German school year 1, she was reluctant to speak English at all and I have to say that being at the bilingual school completely turned that around in a very short amount of time. Being with OTHER English speakers (teachers, staff, in particular the children)made her more motivated to want to speak English.

What has also been good is the fact they have a good English library and we devour the books in there reading tons of them. Don't know how accessible good English children's books are where you live.

All in all her vocabulary has improved enormously since she's been attending that school and she generally now prefers to speak English rather than German. Previously she'd also speak German to me (like your dd speaking Italian to you) which got on my nerves sometimes because I wanted her to practice English more.

She still happily reads and writes German but I would like the German teaching to be more dynamic. In fact I think I will have a word with the German teacher about that and see if she can't crank it up a gear or two.

Do you know anyone with dc at that bilingual school or the English one?

Hi SSSandy. We're going with the local Italian school atm purely because of the economic factor, the other schools are hugely expensive plus DP is reluctant to pay. I just hope we get a place as state school places in Monza are nigh impossible apparently - every time I tell people I'm applying for the local one they say "are you mad, you'll never get in" - I just hope that everyone thinks like this so won't bother applying

I am torn in that I really liked the monolingual international school (not the bilingual one so much) but there would also be huge logistical problems as they only operate until 3pm and don't to after school for littlies, so there would be the additional expense and hassle of finding a babysitter to pick DD up and look after her for 3 hours until one of us gets home. Either that or I become a SAHM, but then we wouldn't be able to afford the school fees. I may yet have to send her there if we don't get lucky with the state option, although stingy DP is warming to the idea of a Catholic one

Why oh why did I move out of Milan I wonder?

I would send her to the sisters myself. How old/nutty are they? Can you hang about and check out the lay of the land?

What's this weird system then that you can't get a place in a STATE school? Never heard of that one before.

I wouldn't for an instant contemplate getting into debt to send dd to the bilingual school here, it is just not worth it. However I'd be in a real pickle if I had no other option that a normal German one because she hated, totally hated the whole system.

Can you see a way of getting a job at one of those English schools? If you work there (I think even non-teaching posts like admin/library), you get a reduction in fees. Maybe see if they have anything advertised on their website, if you could imagine doing that.

Doesn't your dh have some technical gadgets and things you could flog to pay the fees? You could lump them in a pile saying you just want to see what they'd get on ebay, you know out of interest. That should put the wind up him and loosen his grip on the purse-strings.

So what's the strategy for getting into these Italian state schools then? How do they decide who they take?

Think it's nigh on impossible to find a perfect (or as near as, i.e. all ticks all boxes) for bilinguals.
Internationals can be expensive and with sometimes little focus on the local language. Also often only in larger cities.
Local schools offer nothing for the foreign language.
Friend of mine's dh works for a multinational & her dc go to a school run by the company. 60% English tuition, 40% German. Great facilities, teachers, curriculum etc and yet my friend says the dc find it hard to make friends where they live (even after 4 yrs) as they never went to the local schools, sports club etc and so she's forever in the car ferrying them to schoolfriends within a 50km radius.

There is a new international school in our area and I admit to being a bit of a friend who can afford to send her 4 children there.

That said, they'd learn little German and ds1 is the only one of our 3 who is bilingual in that he functions in both languages. On days when I'm fed up of the German system and the constant battle with it I wish we could afford to send them to the International but it's over a 1000 per child per month...

Dd is still struggling and ds2 still approaches German as if it were a foreign language he's reluctant to use.

Places are limited in Italian state kindergarten as it's not mandatory. From primary age upwards (6+) places are guaranteed. The only problem is that there is no alternative childcare from ages 3-6 as the baby nurseries ony take children up to 3, and I have to put her somewhere.

SSSAndy I can't get a job in one of these schools alas, mainly because I'm either not qualified for teaching or overqualified for the admin side. Also, the pay is peanuts, so I wouldn't be able to pay my mortgage, let alone the school fees.

I heard that one of my ex colleagues from work (who doesn't speak English) is going to send her DD to the International school. Am and a bit as she is an uber competitive mum who is going to tell me her DD's English is better than my DD's in a year's time. She already regales the world with stories about how intelligent her DD is, so I can just imagine comments flying next year. I must say I'm also quite relieved my DD is not going to be in her class as I'm sure there would be endless comparison.

Brangelina: after 2 years at the international my friends' dc's English is still ropey tbh
Your dd will have much more natural & fluent English if you keep speaking it to her.

Read my gripes about my dc's English being far ahead of their German despite going to:

German playgroup
kindergarten
different sports from 2yr old to 10
music lessons
regular visits to and from friends (each has only one English-speaking friend here)
Consistent OPOL

We've stuck with the local schools and though it's only now that ds1 is starting at secondary school that he's doing written English, his verbal skills are so strong that he's flying through it and concentrating only on spellings (hopeless in both langs)

I held back on the written side but having seen what the boys (10 & 8) can write in letters to cousins and stories & comics, I'm not too concerned. Reckon with a bit of judicious and interesting workbooks we'll be fine as they get older.

Local schools/kindergarten have given all of them a solid network of friends here.

Nod sympathetically at the other woman and murmur about how fortunate you are not to have to pay for English schooling as your dd is getting it all at home in a natural environment for free

We are an English speaking family living in France - 3DDs 10, 9 and 6. 10 yr old started in UK education so learnt to read and write in the UK but the other two started education in France.

On moving here (we're deep in the countryside), my biggest worry was keeping up their English as I just am not a teacher and have nowhere near the patience required to teach my own. So I've set up a not-for-profit association and with some other local(ish) families we've employed teachers to teach 2 hours a week based on the UK curriculum using UK materials (we get Weds off school). Our DDs are allowed to do their English homework when their French classmates are learning English to limit the extra work. They all love it and I know that they are keeping up with their UK peers. Plus, I'm guessing it will be harder to motivate a teenager, so they're getting all the basics before they refuse to do it anymoree!

If you can find a few other families in the same situation, it might be possible to do something similar?

OMG at finky's friend spending 50-50,000 p.a on school fees for an international school. I think they do work for transient families but if you live here, I don't think they are such a good alternative. There's a bit of snob value involved when German families choose to send their kids to the internationals but I don't think they give value for money really. When I see the ruffianly bunch of older kids at our British Int, I really don't feel tempted to send dd there.

Francemum what an excellent idea. How well organised you must be though! I feel a bit faint at the thought of tackling all that German bureaucracy involved in setting something like that up - maybe Admylin has the nerves for it! I keep trying to get her to do something like this but she is proving resistant and just sends off more applications overseas when I bring it up.

finknottle I'm thinking too you must be doing one heck of an exceptional job with your dc if despite all that exposure to German, their English is still the stronger language.

What's your trick?

Yes Finknottle, what's your trick?

Francemum I'd love to set up a similar group, something like that has been in the back of my mind for ages, but like SSSandy I'm daunted by Italian bureacracy (which I'm sure is even worse than German bureacracy with the added joy of slowness and inefficiency).

Brange, I was thinking you needed primary school (which was why I wondered how they could not have enough state school places to go round) but actually you need some kind of preschool. What will you do then if you don't get a place? Do they have carers there who will look after dc at their home?

my experience with english is that everyone in theentire world can speak it. except for a few pockets of people in th euk.
generally, you travel anywhere reound the workd, and english will be the language that will enable you to communicate witheveryoe. and i mean everyone.
older people, remnants ofempire.
youger people, hollywood

Great thread. My Ds is only 4 and This has been bugging me. Reading avidly.

From my own experience (french, then arabic, then english), agree with the fact that you need to give them a couple of years to master first language before starting any formal teaching of second language.

They need to have a minimum grasp of grammar and sentence structuring before you can move on to teach the same in the other language.

Also, no point starting too early. Definitely not before 7 or 8. Too tedious, not fun.

What you can do in the meantime is play word games with stories and songs and rhymes to give them a sense of "rhythmically" & use age appropriate props such as Kumon booklets (the french "cahiers de vacances") which can be good fun if you sit down with them.

Also agree english grammar is the easiest to master.
Started around 11 years old. In a couple of years, I think I mastered all there is to know for an average person while I was still just figuring out the subtlety of french and arabic grammar.

Bottom line is don't you worry about english. Even if you try and shield them, they'll learn.

I talk a lot Dh is the strong silent type...

Luck mostly. I remember when the boys were 4 & 2 I was worried about them speaking so much German. They only spoke Eng to me & spoke 70% Ger / 30% Eng with each other - understandable when ds1 grew up thinking you "play with other children in German"; that's all he knew from playgroup, tumbletots, friends and then kindergarten.

I used to go to them sometimes and play with them because then they switched to Eng and I wanted them to keep it up. Didn't force it at all. When dd came along they were 5 & 3 and they spoke to her in English copying me I suppose. I'd ask them to pass the lego/teddy/carrot stick and they'd talk to her in English which then developed into them not bothering to switch to German to speak to each other when they spoke only Eng to me & dd.

Following?

Since then all 3 only speak Eng with each other, even sometimes when dh is there doing something with just the children, they'll speak to each other Eng but Ger to dh.
Outside the home & at home with friends they switch dep on what they're saying.

We used to get only German TV so I had videos of Cbeebies and 3 yrs ago got sat TV which accounts partly for dd's fluency I reckon. They all have booktapes, comics, books, videos, dvds in both languages but listen to the Eng almost exclusively. They almost never watch German TV as the BBC is so much better. Ditto the Cbeebies website.

We're not a huge telly family but I'm a news junkie so the BBC is on the radio (internet) or the TV (sat). I love Radio4. BBC7 has Cbeebies radio now. What are v good for their vocab, are story tapes/CDs. Dd listens for hours while playing in her room, Charlotte's Web is the current fave.

Dh & I only speak English and I do think that makes a difference. He's absolutely fluent but only speaks German to the children. Downside of all this is that their German is no way as good as their English and tho' the boys' teachers tell me their vocab is not signif smaller than monolingual children, it's still makes their lang skills lower than they should be. Bugs me.

Finknottle - I doff my hat! I wish I could say the same.

Agree that you and your DH only speaking English is key, meaning that your home is an Englihs-only environment. I have to struggle to get my girls (10 & 8) to speak English at home because DH & I speak French to each other so our house is predominantly French-speaking. They read happily in English, only watch English TV, lived in England for 3 years from when they were 2 and 4 and now spend around 5 weeks a year in the UK, so they are fully bilingual, but sometimes won't speak English at home unless I refuse to listen! I have insisted that they talk to 18mo DS in English though and so far they do, but for how long...?!

FranceMum - where in France are you? I'd love my girls to do English in a group - they currently have a weekly lesson at home which they enjoy, but a group would be so much more sociable.

Castille, if they do now, it should stick.
What is that about the "tyranny of language" (?) which states/claims that the language you start speaking with someone is the one you stick with because changing feels wrong?

Any linguists around?

It really is habit with mine. Funny that it grew out of laziness as the boys couldn't be bothered to switch from one lang to the other!

Def agree about the parents' language tho' have had disagreements with other 'forrenners' about this.

I hope so, fink, I really do. But my girls used to speak to each other in English until their French became stronger, and what with them all hearing so much French at home I'm not hopeful

Bilingual school may be the only way to go for us I think!

FranceMum - great idea.

Ds1 and his friend (then aged 8/9) used to go though workbooks (I got in England) on Weds afternoons. We alternated houses and they'd have an hour's lesson with me/his mum, then play. Worked well as was regular.

Might do something similar with ds2 & dd. There are a few English-speakers here we're friendly with.

my dd still has english as her stonger language

and prefers reading in engish

ds is still very young but swops between the two german and english

we speak mostly English at home

Sorry, haven't read whole thread, but FWIW, I was brought up bilingual and have done the same with my children.

My mother is French, my father English. I grew up in France and went to a French school. At home we spoke French with my mother, English with dad. My sister, however, went to an English school. We are both completely bilingual and are both raising our children the same way. My DDs (13 and 10) are totally bilingual as I have always spoken to them in French. DH is English and speaks English to them. We live in the UK, they go to English schools. But like me, they read, write and speak French as well as English.

Sister's children live in France, speak English at home but go to French schools and are also completely bilingual.

So no, I'm not sure it makes any difference what you speak at school!

SmartARse, thanks for that insight, it is exactly what I wanted to hear. Can I ask, though if you noticed any difference with language levels between you and your sister seeing as you both went to different schools? Ditto between your DCs and your sister's?

SSSandy, there is no alternative childcare, unless I want to pay around 800 euros a month for "non EU" babysitter, however most speak neither Italian nor English well (or even at all) so I'm loath to go down that route. The other alternative is an English babysitter or Italian student, but the former is very expensive (around 1200 euros a month) and the latter is unreliable as will have lessons to go to. I can't afford a proper trained nanny and there are no childminders in Italy. It's all a bit crap really.

I can't remember any differences, Brangelina. At home we spoke a lot of Franglais, it must be said, and I think at times one of us would speak more of one language than another. But we are both now totally bilingual. I'm not even sure which language I think in - English usually, I think, but if it involves numbers then I think in French. Odd, moi?!

My brother is (obviously) also bilingual (in fact, he is trilingual but he's just a genius!). However, his 3-year old barely says a word in any language. DB married an Italian girl and they live in Munich. Brother speaks French and English to him, SIL speaks Italin and nephew goes to a German nursery ... so I don't think it's actually very surprising that he can't "talk" in any one language!