Teaching second language that is not native

[MagicStarrz]

We have a 4 year old. We are a one language household. DH only speaks English. I only speak English but understand a second language language that my parents and family also speak. They don't speak this language with our DC and don't spend enough time with our DC to teach it to them.

We would like to teach DC a second language but not that language as I don't speak it and it's not a language that it is easily accessible or easy to obtain materials in whereas, for example French and Spanish, you can change Netflix language to these languages. I learned French to gcse level and feel like it would be easiest to teach this as I have some knowledge of it.

To get to the point, have any of you taught a second language to a child and if so, how did you choose which language (if not a language you already know) and how did you go about it. I'm not averse to get a tutor or send them to a class when they get a bit older.

What’s your motivation for this out of interest?

Unless you are fluent you can’t really teach a language very well!

The only people I know who have done this have either:
Had a full time nanny who they ask to only speak the other language to their child. They also sent the child to a Saturday school to learn the language;
Sent their child to immersion school where, for example, they spend half the day talking and writing in English and half the day talking and writing in Japanese.

This isnt really something that works with a tutor once a week.

I agree that it’s very difficult to ‘teach’ to fluency if you’re not a native speaker and even then, your child might soak fluently but not be able to, for example, write fluently. For what it’s worth though, I decided that I wanted DS to be comfortable with other languages, mainly French, even though both DH and I were only ever going to speak English to him. We sent him to a bilingual nursery (French/English + some Mandarin) and he goes to a French club after school one day. We also try to spend 2/3 weeks in France a year, if not more. His French is very basic but I hope that exposing him to languages at a young age will help in the long run.

being bi-lingual is often thought of as being able to speak and write 2 languages equally.
But there are many levels of bi-lingual. Lots of people understand another language well, but don't speak it well, maybe they grew up with a grandparent speaking that language for example.

So I think it is a red herring to say you can't become fluent, or you will never be able to read an write it properly.

There are many advantages in being exposed ot another language as a child, not least it make is MUCH easier to learn another language as an adult.

I have a dh who is Dutch. We started being a bi-lingual family, he only ever spoke to the kids in Dutch, but that broke down for a variety of reasons, when they were aged 2-7, so our oldest 2 had some passive Dutch. But every year we go to Holland and the kids are in a Ducth speaking environment for that week, very little or no English spoken except directly to me, I speak Ducth with everyone else.

I have noticed that it has given them a lot of confidence in non English speaking settings. In France they are not scared to walk into a shop, point smile, hand over money and say thank you (their one word of French at the time). I am sure that is because they are used to being in a context where they don't understand everything, and they know it is OK.

My middle one has actively taught themselves 3 other languages.

I would say give them lots of exposure to the language, but even families who are bi-lingual struggle ot get their kids second language up to the same level as their eventual school language.

That sounds like a good way to do it @mynameiscalypso

Yes I agree it would be difficult to teach fluency without a lot of input but you can learn a reasonable amount of language in a couple of hours a week. I learned French in a class or two a week and granted this is only to gcse level and in no way fluency it is a starting point that DC could then build on later if they wanted.

@steppemum Thank you for your reply. I completely agree with you. I understand a second, native language, but don't speak it. Mainly as I was embarrassed as a child but I understand a lot considering my parents didn't speak it at home often. I know gcse level French and I also taught myself another language (reading and writing) to a basic level at university. I don't think this is valueless because I'm not fluent.

Even if it means DC can have a casual conversation with a native speaker or get by on holiday or do a gcse / a level at some point.

I have a lot of friends from other countries and I think it's amazing when they can speak a second language so well. I'd like to be able to try to offer this to DC at a young age so they have the benefit when they're older.

If you only have GCSE French don’t do it, you will have very limited grammar and vocab and probably not a great accent. I’m fluent in French but didn’t pass it on to my DD as I was focussing on the English (we’re in a third country with a different language) as that is my mother tongue and the language I have all the childhood terms of endearment.

raising a child bilingual is a huge endeavour, mine is now but it took a lot of consistency and effort to get where we are. I have a colleague who is supposedly bilingual in the same languages I am/my DD is and his written English is not at all good. Speaking is just one aspect, as mentioned by PPs.

That said, exposure to more than one language from an early age is always beneficial, whatever the language. If you’re going to go down the route of French I would buy in the support. So French childcare, French nursery etc. Why don’t you want to brush up on your language? It would be equally beneficial for neural pathways etc., even if spoken only in one country in the world.

Where do you travel? Do they speak a language there that is accessible at school? Honestly, learning a language is useful, but I think this is what school and intercultural experiences and travel are for. I wouldn’t waste time now banging mandarin into her brain.

Let her explore languages at school, travel, go on school trips (my dc has been to France and Germany with school), and enjoy it. I learned Spanish in school, up to university level. It’s been really lovely for travel and I go to a Spanish speaking country nearly every year. It’s great, but it comes with time and experience and she’s too little for that at 4.