And think about us in Romandie, where we have to learn High German, which is actually totally useless when we cross the Röstigraben since the locals hate it and insist on dialects, which we can’t understand!
In Vaud kids start learning English two years after German, but have a way better level by the end of compulsory school!
I guess you could go the other way and teach 100% in English at schools and in a few generations Switzerland might become an English speaking country…
English is taught in Ticino?
Teachers have noticed that students’ German skills have deteriorated abysmally in the past 15 years here in my area. The fact is that German-speaking students do not like to learn French. It would be interesting to see the outcome if primary school French lessons were replaced with German and math. I personally feel there would be little difference in the aquired French skills whereas both German and math skills would be improved.
As a teacher in a bilingual school, I have learned that it is not as simple as it seems. Some kids struggle with the second language, and that can affect their grades in subjects taught in that language. Not every child picks up languages at the same pace, even if they start early.
Good point. We once had our kids in a German “Auslandsschule” that was bilingual. Classes were usually tought in the mother tongue of the teacher. Except for math which was always tought in German for that reason.
I haven’t met yet a single person in TI speaking French, but a lot switch to German when they see I struggle with Italian. This fact was always puzzling me as I thought these languages are really close. Nearly every French speaker will tell you they understand Italian, but it doesn’t work the other way around.
Here isa discussion on similarities and differences French Italian
Which is why it is good to start as early as possible so that everybody has time to reach a good level.
Kids struggle with various subjects. Some kids are not native speakers. Heck when I started school, I didn’t even speak the language it was taught at all. The earlier you start, the earlier you can start to learn.
Some children never reach a good level, no matter how early they start. They might already be struggling with their first language. It is not necessarily speakers of a language other than German or French who have difficulties learning either French or German as their third language.
In theory, one would think that kids will learn both languages with ease if at a school that is 50% German and 50% French starting at Kindergarten. In reality, this is not always the case
Both of our kids are in local German school and they have french classes. Initially, we pushed them, sent them to camps in the French part, travelled to France, etc. Ultimately, when we realised they bring in 5.5 and 6s and are unable to even make a full sentence correctly, we decided its a waste of time. Now maths, German and English.
I think you need to start even earlier than kindergarten and have it immersive. I guess an alternative is to speak 100% French at home and have the KG 100% German.
What I’m doing with my kids is doing 50% French / 50% English spoken at home. Teaching reading/writing in English only at home. Then KG is 100% German. Though the younger one might do an extra year in a bi-lingual KG before she goes to KG proper.
This way, hopefully they will be quite good with languages by the time they start school.
Phil, with all respect you do realise that not everyone is bilingual in French and English?
Your situation is not that common among the rest of us.
And they don’t have to be perfectly bilingual, it would suffice if they keep their mother tongue and German/Swiss German as primary languages. Mother tongue because there are numerous studies showing how important it is and how we should cultivate it not push it down the bottom of list. They will speak French as a foreign language, some with more success than others. I still believe it is wrong to eliminate the French lessons from the primary school curriculum though.
Interestingly at the barracks where my son is based the recruit school consists of 250 recruits, 48 of them are french speaking, 5 are Italian speaking and the rest are Swiss Germans.
They provide translations from french to German or German to french where necessary if they are all doing things together but there is nothing for the Italian speakers. Mostly they are divided into their language groups and the Italians are pushed in with the french speakers despite barely speaking a word of it and just have to muddle through as best they can.
I assume your wife is a native French speaker? Or at least one of you speaks French at mother tongue level.
There are books and ‘experts’ on the subject. There are many folk who tell you what happened with their own children and imply that if you follow their excellent example the same will happen with yours.
OK. So I read books and sometimes listened to other (proud) parents. But my children obviously didn‘t read the right books and didn‘t listen. So it didn‘t work out like that at all. My elder daughter decided that adults spoke English and children spoke Swiss German. So to our surprise she spoke English to me and SG to her younger sister.
As Carlasmom says, some children do, some don‘t. Some children switch between two (or three) languages easily. Some muddle them for years and may even have to be sent to an environment where only one language is used.
We all the learn the words we hear or read so I knit in English but crochet in German. And children learning from one source may have similar limitations.
It’s all much more complex than we think.
Well, this alternative strategy (if not doing 50/50 at KG) is that you speak a language at home and send kids to school where they learn in a different language.
Definitely not a waste of time if you ask me. It will come. What we did besides that were private lessons because we have a friend that used to teach French so she was more than a teacher and kids looked up to her (actually the older one, the younger didn’t really benefit from them). Too bad our friend has moved countries in the meantime, it would have been so good to continue with those lessons…
That’s what we did and our son is now totally bilingual in English and French plus he learned enough German at school to have an adequate level in that as well. Good enough to hold meetings in German if he needs to at work,
As a foreigner in a country with a language different form your family language, this happens naturally.
In Biel if you speak German at home and want to send your children to school in French or vice versa, this is frowned upon. If you decide to do this you cannot switch to the other language at a later point