My son is 3 years and 1/2, we moved here in Basel almost two years ago, when he couldn't yet speak his mother tongue (Italian).
As soon as we arrived here, we sent him to a bilingual kindergarten (German/Italian) in order to let him learn some German. It seems it's not working. Now he speaks quite good Italian, but no German, and it seems he doesn't want to learn (When I try to show him a cartoon in German he refuses).
Now I see that it's becoming a problem. At the playground, he wants to make friends and play (he's extremely sociable), but he cannot speak, he makes up a non-existent language and after a while gives up.
What's your experience? How long does it take for a child so young to learn a second language?
I am moving him to another kindergarten, where they speak only german. I'll probably solve the problem soon, but I'd like to know about your experiences.
Thank you
I think thats the best solution. My GF went through a silimar scenario when she was a child.
I am all for immersion and one language school. My son (turns 4 next month) spends one day in a swiss krippe and one morning in a swiss spielgruppe. He has resisted speaking german and tells me that he cannot speak german. however he managed to ask my german teacher for a more drink the other day and understands what is said to him. I think kindie in August will put pay to his " I don't know german mummy"
I think it is common to try and stay with the dominant language but give a very short while and we will be struggling to get them to speak their mother tongue.
caz
You say he doesn't want to learn German. Does this really mean he refuses to SPEAK German? Does he understand when spoken to in that language?
Has someone perhaps laughed at your son when he tried something in German? Or just corrected him? This might make him prefer Italian, which he speaks more fluently and presumably the others at the Kindergarten understand him anyway.
Perhaps once he catches on that he'll have to use German to make contact with other children, he'll try it. I hope so. 3 1/2 is still quite young and children vary enormously in their learning of their mother tongue, let alone a second language.
It is simple. Keep on it. Children always do better if they know more than one language. If he is exposed to enough people that he wants to know and situations where the one language is all that works, he will get there eventually. Please, don't deprive your son of the benefit of knowing more than one language. BTW, German and Italian are not similar like French and Italian so it may be a bit harder at first. I envy your son. Don't quit now.
Many years ago I spoke to a member of the Arts Council in the UK. He was a father of 3 children - and as part of his job he had to move countries - frequently.
The end result was a 3 year old that had english speaking parents - but had spent 3 years split between France and Mexico. The end result was a head full of words - but very little understanding of which words were for which language.
The end result was stunted spoken language development for around 12 months. However, once the child had figured out which words should be lumped together, the spoken language skills followed very quickly. And by 4 years old the child was happy jumping into whichever language was spoken.
The father was obviously very pleased that his entire family were up to speed on at least 3 languages - and when I spoke to him, they were in the process of moving to Japan!!!
I'd be inclined to go easy on him, myself, (I'm not saying that you are hard) he's still quite small and children manage language very differently. I'm afraid that insisting too much on German now might put him off altogether, learning the language must be a pleasent experience for him. If he goes to public school he'll learn German then, once he is perfectly fluent in Italian.
At that age it is still very important that there are clear lines for them when to use each language otherwise the get confused and also lack the motivation to pick up the other language.
I would say that moving him out of the Italian/German kindergarten will be a big help. Then it will be clear for him, school means German and home means Italian.
At the same time he is very young to worrying about it being an issue. My daughter did not starting talking English until she was about 7. She knew I understood Swiss German so she did not feel the need to. It was only when she spent a few weeks in Ireland with her English speaking cousins that she suddenly started to talk English. Now she is almost at the point were she really does not care which language she speaks.
So don't worry I'm sure it will turn out right in now time at all.
Jim.
What is the relationship like between your son and the German speaking teacher ?
One piece of interesting information I found out recently from a podcast on developmental delays affecting language, is that for bilingual children they will delay in both languages, so if you detect a problem in one, you don't have to test both - conversely, if a child is fluent in one language, then you can asssume that they do not have a developmental delay, but it's more likely a social reason - lack of experience, timidity or shyness, lack of incentive...
The thing is, it also depends on your mother tongue - my third child is learning swiss-german at preschool, but we don't expect him to speak it at home because at home we all speak English....but his teachers tell me he speaks plenty of German, and I take that as reassurance...
There's really nothing I can do to 'help' him speak the foreign language, because my fluency would be so poor and all I'd do is set a bad example for him...so we leave it alone!
At 3.5, if he is immersed, he cannot help but learn the language. But you can't force him to speak it - there are only three areas of control that toddlers/preschoolers have - eating, eliminating and talking...we control everything else in their life...but we can't make them eat, we can't make them use the toilet and we can't make them talk...
i wouldn't worry too much about it at three years old. he'll pick it up.
my son came here at nine and didn't speak a word of french. he (like your son) is very social and learned french quickly because he knew it was the only way he could really enjoy playing with the other kids.
keep doing what you are doing- he's getting the input from school in german and as he finds that he needs to speak it at school he'll become more comfortable with using what he knows, and he'll be using it with his school mates in no time.
Hi my son is 4 and we are in the same situation. We are here for 1 year now, and he is attending a spielgruppe 3x per week. He says he does not understand german and he cant speak it. BUt the teacher says that he understands what has been told to him, and even sometimes talks german to her. But at home he refuses to speak it, also on the playgrounds even he wants to play with other kids, but as soon as he realizes the kids are not speaking hungarian he says:"They dont speak like we" and thats the end of the story.
We had some talks in this topic to other hungarian parents and they said that as soon as they start the normal kindergarden(our son will do it in August) they will speak it after a few months. We have been also informed that for those kids who dont speak german, they will have 2 hours per week just teaching them the language.
So lets hope things turn quickly.
Sure it will. When both my children started in kindergarten about 40% of the kids could not speak German and after about 6 months it was hard to believe that such a situation ever existed!
It was also interesting to note that most of the German speaking kids thought it was normal to meet others who could not understand German...
In my daughter's case she spent a lot of time translating for the English speaking kids at the start...
Jim.