English is a second language for one in seven school pupils in UK

[MmeLindt]

It is a Daily Mail article so slightly biased but it does raise some valid points.

I was particularly interested as we have recently moved to a French speaking area of Switzerland and put our children into local schools.

Particularly here around Geneva there is a high percentage of school children with French as a second language.

We have been offered extra French lessons to help the DC learn French faster. They are already speaking in sentences and are doing reasonably well in school.

I feel that this a lot of the "problem" in UK is that it is seen as a problem. Lots of people have said to us how fabulous it is for our children to be learning a third language (they are bilingual English/German). Ok, they speak 3 languages that are quite high up the hierarchy of desirable languages. I am sure we would not be congratulated on our children being bilingual croatian/polish/russian.

I feel that bilingualism is a great advantage for a child, and it should be seen as desirable and not stigmatised. There does need to be a nationwide system to help the children learn the local language as fast and as young as possible, perhaps even before schoolage is reached.

Any thoughts?

This HAS already happened, yes - but at the moment we have the whip hand on these countries and can insist that business be done in (British) English.

What I meant was that they will increasingly be able to call the shots as their markets strengthen and it will be up to us to work in their language. That's the bit I see taking 20 years - you are right, the trade is there - but when genuine partnership follows, we will certainly feel it ...

YEs, I know, and it probably heps that it is such a prestigious language so as to encourage my DD to want to carry on speaking it when she's surrounded by Italian only speakers. She's already started to get a bit funny about speaking English when we're out and about.

Actually, business is mostly done in Globish .

You have already explained, yes, but in such a way as not to compare like with like.

In my (comparatively) middle class life style, I would be supporting my daughter's LITERACY (not just "lingualism") in any language (though, in my case, this actually grew out of working class values of valuing education and its tools as the key to self-improvement, but there you go.) And, to do so, I would be purchasing books and other materials. I also think that I would be using the public library more extensively if I had fewer resources, the same as my parents did with me - but I can't possibly know that.

As a lot of people here know, I am actually a native English speaker. The true "like for like" comparison is, therefore, if I lived in France as a monolingual English speaker, how would i fare at making my daughter an English speaker? Well, if the state hadn't convinced me that that was a pointless goal (which is what the British state does, very effectively in fact) I would do exactly what I am doing now - I would speak to her exclusively in the "target language" (English); expose her to any other sources of English I could get within my limited budget (fellow native speakers in the area, public libraries, the occasional programme on TV, home-made cassettes and CDs that people in the "old country" could send me by post) and hope for the best.

This is, in fact, how most working class (or simply poor) native speakers the world over develop their language, regardless of the country they are in (it is still how many native English speakers in Britain learn English before compulsory education, which they start with an almost fully-formed command of the vocabulary and grammar of colloquial English.)

Would my daughter be functionally bilingual? Probably, yes, if I didn't get discouraged by social and government proaganda. Would she be biliterate? Almost certainly not - but, to maintain the like for like comparison, if I didn't take reading and writing seriously for a bilingual, then I probably wouldn't for a monolingual either, so there is nothing to suggest that this is a factor of bringing up a bilingual, more an indication of how I view literacy.

MIFLAW - I am that native English speaker in France speaking English exclusively to her daughter (and stepsons) and I am surrounded by people bringing up bilingual children and I can assure you that we do not "hope for the best." None of us begrudge the costs involved and most people I know can easily afford them but the reality is that they are there and if I suddenly could not afford bilingual schooling, frequent trips to the UK (with summer camps etc thrown in), books, DVDs, cinema etc (and to hang out with lots of affluent international families) my DD would have a harder time learning English to native standard.

I also know children with one or two Anglophone parents who are schooled in the French system and who perhaps do not have a SAHP to speak English to them, and their English isn't great. In fact, my (Francophone) DSSs are already doing better than those children in English at school.

MIFLAW, that's what I'm doing in Italy, except for the mixing with the ex pats. However, I wouldn't say I'd just be hoping for the best, I will keep an eye on the situation and should my DD appear to be lagging in the minority language at any stage I would take appropriate action, aither by throwing money at the problem or by exploiting familial connections (more likely).

Really interesting thread - I'm bringing up bilingual kids in Brazil (they speak English at home and Portuguese at school/elsewhere) and although mine have loads of support in both languages (DH and I are also bilingual and have bilingual family here) I can really relate to some of the issues mentioned here. We see deficiencies all round - my eldest can read and write in Portuguese but can't write properly in English yet. But on the other hand his Portuguese vocab is definitely behind his English... It does recquire a constant commitment from us, and yes, investment in material stuff like books but mostly investment in parent-child time.

Also, I really see the "language desirablity" thing - people here seem to think DCs are genius' for knowing how to speak English at such a young age.. Errr, no, they learnt it from birth .

I am not suggesting that anyone here is just "hoping for the best" - I was trying to imagine what I would do if I was poor (or not middle class anyway), living in a country where my language was not widely spoken, yet still wanting to bring my child up bilingually.

I think a lot of people on this thread are confusing bilingualism with biliteracy and confusing parental effort with parental wealth. Of COURSE my daughter "would have a harder time learning English to native standard" if I couldn't pay for her to have DVDs, books, etc, because I would have a harder time providing her with a sufficient breadth of input. But having a harder time is not the same as money being a sine qua non. The basis of our modern capitalist society is that time is exchangeable for money - if you haven't got the money, for the same results you have to put in more time.

Native language is learnt by sustained exposure to native speakers. Wealth can add to the variety of opportunities for such exposure but it is not the be all and end all. You send your children to summer camps; a lot of poor Bengalis in London take theirs to Brick Lane on the bus. The cost and surroundings and nature of activities might be very different but the linguistic outcome is the same.

The real difference is that you speak a language with social cachet and, quite aside from money, have the confidence in your own standing in society to stand up for your rights to transmit your native language to your children. Many people lack these and so give up. I would contend that, while this has a lot to do with wealth, it has very little to do with what they spend it on.

Incidentally I am not a stay at home parent either. I work full time. Then I come home and spend every minute I have with my child speaking to her in French.

Bilingualism and biliteracy are not separable. Literacy is a pre-requisite in modern society for having sufficient command of a language to learn it to a functional standard and to operate in it in adult society. Adult "bilingualism" (I don't want to use that term) without adult biliteracy is only marginally advantageous.

And parental investment in bilingualism in time and/or money are not alternative strategies, they are complementary strategies. I could speak English to my daughter all day every day (ie no financial investment) and if she never saw a book, a DVD, a film or had a trip to the UK, her English would never get very good; I could buy her all the English books and DVDs in the world but if I never spoke to her her English wouldn't progress much.

To be completely fair to you, MIFLAW, I think you haven't got enough experience of bilingualism yet to have formed solid opinions on strategies for bilingual upbringing.

Surely the key point is that middle class children with supportive home backgrounds have no real problem with being schooled in a 2nd language.

In contrast, children from impoverished homes where parents have little education will struggle - at least in our current school system. Language is not really the issue - and to be honest nor is money per se - social class is.

For example, I was educated in a school with lots of girls whose parents had recently emigrated to Britain from India - they didn't have much money, but they certainly made sure that their daughters did well in school! I'm pretty sure they all also made sure they were extremely literate in their home languages too.

"bilingual schooling, frequent trips to the UK (with summer camps etc thrown in), books, DVDs, cinema etc (and to hang out with lots of affluent international families) my DD would have a harder time learning English to native standard."

Anna, well we have books and dd watches English tv programmes, but we can't afford the rest, and don't hang out with affluent expats. I can assure you that my dd's spoken English is fine, and she is learning to read and write. You don't need expensive gismos, just a bit of time.

Takver - how can you claim that it is a class issue and not a financial issue when the two are so closely correlated?

Both "social class" (in the English sense of "cultural baggage") and "economic class", which are intimately tied up with one another, that define a family's ability to support bilingual education.

Portofino - your family is English-speaking at home, right? So your bilingual configuration is home English - outside French?

My DD (who is slightly younger than yours) lives in a French speaking country and a French speaking family. So I need to buy resources to supplement the English she is getting (which is almost certainly less than your DD does as a matter of course).

Each bilingual family is different and each child will have a different balance between languages at different stages of his/her life.

Because I have known a lot of extremely low income but highly educated people who have had no problem supporting their dcs in bilingualism

But it quite rare for people to be highly-educated and extremely poor, and such people usually want to improve their children's economic prospects quite rapidly and invest disproportionately in their education by whatever means available.

The issue in the OP is not so much the highly-educated now impoverished displaced but rather economic migrants. Which is more usual scenario.

I do take your point - but I think it is worth being aware that it is not income per se, but a very wide range of cultural and educational factors that are important. I happen to move in rather odd circles both now (in west Wales) and in the past (in southern Spain) where there are a lot of people who have chosen to "drop out of the system" if you like to put it that way, and who have generally low incomes but often high levels of education.
Anyway, have to go off to school now, will be back later!

I've certainly never claimed or thought that money alone is necessary to ensure children become fully functioning bilingual adults.

At my DD's school there is, every year apparently, a small number of very disappointed monolingual families who don't grasp that writing a cheque to the school is insufficient to ensure their children become bilingual.

But Anna, you did speak as if paid language courses and new shop bought books were necessities for language learning. And for those of us who can't afford/get hold of that sort of thing, that sounds unduly pessimistic. My dd has never had a paid lesson in writing Swedish in her life, indeed she has never had any kind of lesson in writing Swedish: she has taught herself from a combination of being able to write English and having experience of speaking Swedish to me.

In fact, I think biliteracy is far easier to learn on your own without support than spoken bilingualism. I taught myself to read Spanish as a child and I couldn't even speak Spanish and had never been to Spain or met a Spaniard.

For spoken bilingualism I think you probably do need to hear more than one person. (but that might not be at all expensive to arrange if you are living in a large community of compatriots)

Of course my belonging to the educated middle class helps because it makes it easier for me to defend the value of anything I happen to do (including speaking a small minority language to my children).

But I am not spending lots of money, for the simple reason that we haven't got lots of money. Dcs have to live without tutors and holiday camps. They do fine. And dd is 12, so I should have noticed by now if she had difficulites reading or writing Swedish.

And for the cost of books, it depends on which the minority language is. If you lived in Sweden, you could easily support a child's English for free, using public libraries. Where I live, there are large sections of Urdu, both in the adult and children's library.

I am not saying that money makes no difference, but we didn't even have a TV when dd was little (so no DVDs) and most of our books came out of charity shops of, and we made plentiful use of the local library for English.

"Bilingualism and biliteracy are not separable. Literacy is a pre-requisite in modern society for having sufficient command of a language to learn it to a functional standard and to operate in it in adult society."

I really think you need to define what you are talking about, Anna. You joined this thread apparently taking a stance on all experiences of bilingualism - yet this remark clearly excludes cultures where the language is rarely written down (Australian aboriginal languages); languages where significant proportions of native speakers are illiterate or partially literate (certain Indian languages, for example); languages where literacy is as culturally determined as the spoken language (varieties of French, mainland v Taiwanese Chinese scripts); languages where literacy is contextual (different scripts and language forms for religious use in Russian and Arabic.)

"Adult "bilingualism" (I don't want to use that term) without adult biliteracy is only marginally advantageous." Advantageous to whom and for what? For white-collar jobs, maybe; for speaking to your extended family, not so.

The viewpoint you now seem to be representing is that "proper" and "worthwhile" bilingualism is in two high-status languages for use in middle-class, professional contexts.

The bottom line is, bringing up middle class children costs money, however many languages they speak. That actually seems to be a lot closer to the view you are espousing than anything to do with the genuine concerns of bilingualism.

As for my experience - you are right, I have not been attempting to bring up a bilingual child for long. But the reason I chose to attempt to do so is that I have an immense amount of knowledge and experience in language learning and teaching and the nature of bilingualism to have an idea on "strategies for bilingualism". I will have to test them - as, presumably, you will. But I resent the implication that my ideas have no basis in fact, theory or experience.

Here are the facts. There are thousands of Bengali adults (to pick a group at random) of my age in this country who come from relatively humble backgrounds. It is nlikely that the majority had "bilingual schooling, frequent trips to [Bangladesh](with summer camps etc thrown in), books, [videos], cinema etc (and to hang out with lots of affluent international families)" and, at that time, support in schools was even poorer than now. Yet many of these adults are functionally bilingual in English and Bengali and act as interpreters for their non-English speaking relatives. How on earth did they manage it?

"I could speak English to my daughter all day every day (ie no financial investment) and if she never saw a book, a DVD, a film or had a trip to the UK, her English would never get very good" - why was bilingualism so prevalent in Europe before the invention of the printing press? I suppose languages were easier back in the old days. Fewer words to learn ...

I am actually commenting on the article in the OP which is about managing bilingualism in the context of developed world upbringings.

It is an interesting article - in true DM fashion it elides from hard fact (x% of children have English as a 2nd language on school entry) through possible consequence (schools being unfairly condemned by inspectors) to their desired political outcome (less immigration).

I would say that the Welsh experience is an effective counterbalance to the statement that having an intake of children who do not speak the language of schooling is necessarily a reason for schools to perform badly.

Clearly early patterns of achievement will be different, and the schools need to concentrate heavily on language learning in the early years, but by age 11 they certainly don't appear to do worse than English medium schools (we don't have KS1 SATS in Wales).

In some ways Welsh ought to be a harder language to 'impose' on children than English because not only is it less ubiquitous in the outside world, it is also extremely geographically variable (so for example, if my dd takes a book from the library, it is likely to include a lot of North Walian words that she will never have heard, even in school). Also I would say that many of the parents are not particularly supportive of their children's bilingualism because they don't necessarily see Welsh as being a key factor in future success (not my view!).

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the problems of inner city schools are just that - problems of inner city schools - and not problems caused by bilingualism.

"I am actually commenting on the article in the OP which is about managing bilingualism in the context of developed world upbringings." Well, not really.

"Adult "bilingualism" (I don't want to use that term) without adult biliteracy is only marginally advantageous." I think people whose level of spoken English allows them to buy food and drink, access health care and travel by public transport would challenge that. I think they would find it VERY advantageous.

What you are talking about is a middle class response to a fairly static set of facts and representing that as the sole reasonable response.

To learn a language to native levels, the learner requires consistent, accurate modelling by a range of native speakers; ideally, access to one or more cultures experienced through that language; and, where biliteracy is desired, access to age-appropriate and motivating reading materials, with the guidance of a competent reader. Where these needs are beyond you, you choose to respond to these needs by buying things - you provide some native speaker input via DVD, you send your children to summer camp, you purchase books to help with literacy, you pay for private bilingual schooling ... This is all perfectly valid and, to some degree or other, I would guess fairly common on MN.

However, I - and, it seems, the majority of people on this thread - would say that an equally valid strategy would be to provide native speaker input via visits to large local communities and extended family in the same country, in some contexts via religious organisations (eg mosque); to borrow books from the public library or to pool resources and buy them with other parents in the same boat; and to provide cheap or free supplementary schooling through voluntary parental organisation
or, again, through church, synagogue or mosque (also aids cultural development.)

You have convincingly explained why your children's bilingualism costs you a packet. You have not given a single example of where those costs are unavoidable.