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Q&A When a bilingual / multilingual child goes to school

In this section, you can find Q&As about bilingual children attending nursery or school.

A crucial point in a bilingual child’s life is when they start attending nursery or school in the majority language. At this stage, there is a tendency for the school language to take over and become the child’s dominant language. The child may start to use less of the family language and may even stop responding to it. Because this is such an important phase, it is important that parents know how to prepare for it and how to tackle the potential challenges. However, the nursery or school choice can also be a supporting factor for a child’s multilingual language development.

Q&A: How will having different school languages affect the sibling relationship?

by Rita Rosenback | Oct 4, 2018 | Coaches, Q&A When a bilingual / multilingual child goes to school, Rita R, School-aged children, Siblings

Question Hello, We are a trilingual family and our situation is quite complicated. My husband is Japanese, I am Taiwanese/Australian. We have two children a 4-year-old boy and a 7-year-old girl. I speak native Mandarin and English and conversational Japanese,...

Q&A: How does a third language through daycare affect a child’s minority language?

by Rita Rosenback | Dec 3, 2017 | Babies, Coaches, Q&A The trilingual+ child, Q&A When a bilingual / multilingual child goes to school, Rita R

Question Dear Rita and all the Family Language Coaches, Let me begin by thanking you for providing such a fantastic resource for multilingual families! I would really appreciate your input on developing a family language strategy for my 15-month-old son. I was born in...

Q&A: About choosing the language for day care, stuttering and mixing languages

by Rita Rosenback | Oct 8, 2017 | Babies, Challenges, Coaches, Language development, Q&A When a bilingual / multilingual child goes to school, Rita R

Question Hello, I am Macedonian living in Finland and my spouse is Finnish. I speak quite good English but at home we speak Finnish almost all the time. We have 2,5 months old baby for whose future I'd like her to speak Macedonian and Finnish and to...

Q&A: When to introduce a family language to a child who will attend a trilingual school?

by Rita Rosenback | Oct 1, 2017 | Babies, Coaches, Language development, Q&A The trilingual+ child, Q&A When a bilingual / multilingual child goes to school, Rita R, School-aged children

Question Hi I live in Hong Kong where almost everyone is trilingual speaking Cantonese, Mandarin and English. The school I will send my baby, who is five months now, is a trilingual school that will begin at the age of two (Cantonese, Mandarin and English). My...

Q&A: English-only or dual-language school for a trilingual child?

by Rita Rosenback | Aug 27, 2017 | Coaches, Q&A The trilingual+ child, Q&A When a bilingual / multilingual child goes to school, Rita R, School-aged children

Question Hello, We have two pre-schoolers (4 and 1.5 years old respectively) who are growing up as trilinguals. I am Korean, and my husband is Persian. We are also fortunate that we live with our mother-in-law who speaks only Farsi and helps raise our children...

Q&A: How to motivate a school-aged child to speak the family’s minority language?

by Mary-Pat O'Malley-Keighran | Aug 13, 2017 | Coaches, Language development, Mary-Pat O'Malley-Keighran, Q&A How to motivate a bilingual / multilingual child to speak a family language, Q&A When a bilingual / multilingual child goes to school, School-aged children

Question Hi, I have an 8-year-old son who had speech problems when he was little. He did not really start talking until maybe two. I was forced to choose a language for his speech therapy classes, I chose English. My problem now is that he understands Spanish...

Q&A: Family language or a third language for a bilingual child’s education?

by Rita Rosenback | Jul 6, 2017 | Babies, Coaches, Literacy, Q&A The trilingual+ child, Q&A When a bilingual / multilingual child goes to school, Rita R

Question Hello I would like to ask for your thoughts on our idea to place our 4-and-a-half-year-old in an English-speaking school. We are a French family of four and after living in francophone countries, we moved to Lithuania last Sept. My son enrolled in the...

Q&A: Is a dual-language school a good choice for a bilingual child to become trilingual?

by Ute Limacher-Riebold | Jun 25, 2017 | Coaches, Non-native language, Q&A The trilingual+ child, Q&A When a bilingual / multilingual child goes to school, School-aged children, Ute Limacher-Riebold

Question Hello! My wife and I are native Russian speakers living in the United States. Our son is turning five in a few months and will start school. Our home language is 100% Russian. Our son speaks Russian at or slightly below the level of his peers in Russia...

Q&A: How to choose a child’s school and parents’ common language in a family on the move?

by Rita Rosenback | Jun 22, 2017 | Coaches, Q&A Choosing the right family language strategy, Q&A The trilingual+ child, Q&A When a bilingual / multilingual child goes to school, Rita R, School-aged children

Question Hello! I am currently pregnant with my first child (boy) and due to give birth in two months. I come from Pakistan and my husband is German. My mother tongue is Urdu whilst my husband's is German. English is the common language at home with my husband...

Q&A: How to maintain a family language once a bilingual child gets immersed in the majority language?

by Rita Rosenback | Jun 11, 2017 | Coaches, Q&A When a bilingual / multilingual child goes to school, Rita R

Question Hello We are a family who lives in Catalonia, Spain, we speak to our 2-year-old son in French because before he was even born we already spoke in French since we met up in Switzerland, even though any of us is French, we feel totally confident with it....

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