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.
Question We are a French-German couple living in Germany, and expecting our first child for January. Our family language will be French (we met in this language) and my husband is fluent. We are quite clear on using the OPOL system, so I will speak French to the...
Question My husband and I are Russians but currently leave in England. Both of us use Russian at home, and since we have been in UK for over 10 years, we are fluent in English. We have a small baby and wish our baby to speak both languages. We are not going to place...
Question Hi there, I am hoping you can give me some advice. I am from England however I live in Brazil and I have a son Josh who will be four in July. My husband is Brazilian and our home language is English. Josh has for the past four months been attending a private...
Question Hi, firstly I wanted to thank-you for your blog, it brings me so much reassurance about bringing up my daughter and teaching her French. She soon turns 3 and is doing better and better in French. She's a little chatter box so because she likes talking so much...
Question What is your position/opinion on a family with a father half Norwegian, half American, a Portuguese mother who studied in France, with 2 year old twin boys living in Portugal, to have the kids in a French school from 3 years old on? I speak Portuguese with...
Question I live in New Zealand where I am attempting to pass on French to my two children as a non-native speaker. The children are 3.5 and 1.5 years. At this stage there is some passive understanding of the language only. I would like to hire a live-in language...
Question I would like some advice on how to continue the language acquisition process for my son. He is 22 months old. We live in an area which is part Dutch, part French but English is the common language used. Although I have some knowledge in both Dutch and French,...