English second language

[Thaimum]

Hello! I was wondering if anyone has been in my situation that would be able to help. I am half Thai half English, I had my daughter when I was at uni, all of my family ate out in Thailand, my child has been living out there and I am lookin to bring her back now that I am out of uni but she doesn’t speak English and I’m worried about her going to school and feeling overwhelmed are there any special schools or any special help in schools that will be able to help her. She is a bright girl but language is a barrier. She will be five when I bring her to live with me.
Any insight would be very helpful.
Thanks in advanced

Our school has a bunch of EAL teachers separate to the class teachers who spend one to one time with the children

There may also be other Thai speakers in the class to help initially, however children tend to be fluent in 6 months or so anyway.

Where do you live OP? If you’re in London, schools will be very used to children arriving with no English. She will pick it up very quickly, I used to volunteer in a primary school in Lambeth and was amazed how fast the non-English speakers became fluent. The school I helped in gave ESL students additional support with reading and writing.

Hi, Thankyou for the messages, I live in Plymouth

She won’t need any special school or anything like that. She’ll just go to a normal, mainstream primary.

She should get a lot of support to start off with, eg one to one or small group help with basic English as well as things such as a ‘buddy’ to look after. Some schools also have a set of cards so that if a child doesn’t speak English, they can show a picture of a toilet to the teacher if they need to go.

It’d be helpful if you taught her a bit beforehand, eg greetings, numbers, colours, names of food that she’s likely to find at school etc.

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Generally, children develop very good everyday English within two years but it takes quite a few more to develop genuine academic fluency on par with English peers.

To be honest, I’d be more worried about her being reunited with you in a new country if she’s been looked after by relatives in Thailand. It’s bound to be difficult for her on all sorts of levels. However, little kids are quite adaptable so she should settle in school quite quickly.

I work in a school with a high proportion of EAL pupils (my class last year had six children arrive with no English in one class in one year) and they pick it up so quickly. When I worked in Y1 (with five-year-olds), there were two new children in my class with no English. They're in Y5 now, and you couldn't tell.

If you have several local schools that you could reasonably manage a school run to (and they have spaces) I would look for one that has lots of new EAL arrivals, as they're more likely to have the provision. For example, my school has two HLTAs who take groups of new arrivals to teach them English - a school only a few new EAL arrivals might not have that. There's also a greater chance of there being another child who speaks Thai, which is invaluable in the early days for emergency translation help, and to help them integrate with a friendship group.

One important thing will be to keep up the Thai at home. It's really important for children to keep speaking their mother tongue. Lots of the children in my school have lessons in their native language on a Saturday. One of my boys was recently trying to explain something to a new arrival in their home language. When he couldn't remember the word, he said "I've got English round my mouth!" which is apparently a saying in his native lanuage meaning he knows too many English words now and is starting to forget to say them in his first language!