Maybe. But its also a matter of priority and I usually focus my kids to a max of 3 priorities. For me personally, in the German part, German is obviously critical. Math is a family must as I have very strong feelings towards people who are bad with numbers. And then its a choice between French and English. For me, English wins hands down for usability. Being top and excellent in 3 things is doable. Being pushed for excellence in 4 becomes questionable IMHO
Indeed, but theyâll be required to have a good French too in school around here. So they make it a priorityâŚat least currently. Tbh I like both languages but realise that English will win hands down.
Who frowns on this? I think this would be great to get kids learning a 2nd language.
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I find it funny that sometimes my daughter has better notes in English or French, which she only started learning in the 2nd and the 5th grades at school respectively, than the kids who are the native speakers in these languages.
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Maybe because our kids learn the grammar⌠
Which more or less also answers Philâs question.
The marks given are based on the contents of the school lessons. A native speaker will know much more and be much more fluent but knowledge of basic grammar is a different thing altogether.
My offspring used to get marked down in English. They didnât have to go to the lessons but took the tests. Their âanswersâ were correct but not what the teacher wanted. Bad luck kids! It taught them that life is not always fair.
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Weâve experienced a teacher who was a non-native speaker that kept getting stuff wrong in English, and who wouldnât take kindly to the native speaking kids picking her up on it. Valuable lesson for my son to zip it when you realise that someone doesnât want to be corrected.
The next English teacher was a cool guy who was open to discussing the language in class because there were 4 native speakers who had a mix of US and UK English. He was happy to be corrected so long as the kids could support the correction (sneaky-clever!).
There was then a native English speaker for the extra Cambridge English coaching lessons at school who repeatedly mixed up âyourâ and âyouâreâ, as well as other grammar boobs.
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Indeed.
My son learned very quickly to pick his battles wisely.
Some teachers were more receptive to correction than others and he always provided justification for his arguments which they appreciated.
He had one teacher who had spent enough time working in the US to know that his answers were correct even if they werenât the ones the others had learned from the book so didnât mark him wrong but most of the other teachers didnât deviate from the textbook answers.
He was mostly excused from the lessons but had to sit the tests and maintain and average of 5.5 with no mark lower than 5.
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School authorities.
Of course it is great to learn a second language. More than 20% of Bielâs population are foreigners. If you add more kids who donât speak the language, the classroom situation becomes challenging.
If ALL francophone families decide to send their kids to German schools and ALL German-speakers pick French schools for their kids, each and every child will need extra support.
If yours is the only child to do this, then the system can cope.
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To be fair, I donât think I know many parents who are happy with their childrenâs grades or the grading system, but such are the school standardisationâs pitfalls. They all (teachers and kids alike) have to comply with the requirements. I see it like this. Of course I also do question everything myself butâŚ
Thatâs interesting. We have friends in Fribourg canton who were allowed to put the children in German school without threats or penalties, since one of the parents is already a native French speaker. They did that, and the kids have done very well. The older one is also doing well in English.
Here, too, you are allowed to choose. Parents are just encouraged to choose the school in the same language they speak at home.
Adding more children who donât speak the language used in the classroom increases the workload of already overworked teachers.
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But this is what everyone else does anyway, isnât it? We speak a different language at home and they speak Swiss German and German at school. And it started in the creche and playgroups, not at KG. I can confidently say they speak all of them at a native speaker level already. And for some reason they had more support with German than the Swiss kids (but only in KG and during the 1-3rd grades). Which is a bit ironic, because IMHO the Swiss kids needed it too.
In our case, the extras are French and English (actually English was the first foreign language around here) because none of us is a native speaker of any of them⌠French is more important in school though, in the sense that it can be decisive in their academic pursuits here, at least up to the tertiary level. I am fine with them speaking French and English as foreign languages and not necessarily at a native level.
But you see it isnât. As per the above, this is âfrowned uponâ. And you are right, it is better to start earlier than KG.
And my eldest does get some extra support. He basically leaves the class for some time per week to have a German specific teacher. i.e. spending more time on language at the expense of other things. As per the the OP, they talk about going in the other direction: reducing time on languages to focus on other subjects.
Exactly, it is the same for my kids. They now speak all 3 languages fluent because of the immersion at a young age and being strict with which languages they should speak when. Of course, this meant that they were probably a bit behind in any single language for a while, but they are mostly caught up by age 2-3.
I actually wanted the kids to learn a 4th language at the same time with grandparents, but covid and then ill-health of grandparents meant it didnât pan out.
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This is in reply to Philâs comment
âBut you see it isnât. As per the above, this is âfrowned uponâ. And you are right, it is better to start earlier than KG.â
Biel is a bilingual town where both German and French are spoken. Parents can choose to enroll their children in schools that teach in either language. Additionally, there are two bilingual schools available, one public and the other private.
With 33.3% of the population being foreigners, there is a significant portion of children who donât speak French or German as their primary language. Many of these children donât receive the same level of support as those from affluent expat families in Zurich or Geneva.
These non-native speaking children attend public schools and receive extensive assistance with language and cultural integration. This presents a significant challenge for teachers in local schools.
As a result, itâs generally âfrowned uponâ when families, who speak one of the local languages used in schools, opt to send their children to schools that use the other language. It simply adds to the immense pressure on teachers. Does that make sense?
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It is a challenge indeed, but also an opportunity. In KG, my older oneâs teachers had great fun with those kids that were able to switch between several languages. I was very lucky to encounter reasonable teachers and quite open to multilingualism.
Itâs also a question of funding and resources. Providing extra support for kids who donât speak the language takes time and money.
They have no choice but to provide it for those who donât speak either french or German but itâs stretching their resources if they have to provide for extra kids just because their parents want them to learn another language, thatâs a choice by the parents not a necessity.
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In our KG, there are a number of non-native speakers and they take turns to work with the language teacher.
Itâs an opportunity to create employment for those who are supporting the kids as well as fostering a multi-lingual and more diverse environment.
As Switzerland relies a lot in foreign talent to work in companies here, there will always be a demand for this kind of language support. And the boost to the economy and tax revenues is more than enough to pay for it.
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Sorry to hear that, I hope theyâll be able to spend more time with your kids. Grandparents usually have much more patience with their grandchildren than they used to have with their kidsâŚ
It would be a loss not to benefit from grandparentâs love and by that I mean their knowledge too. Even if they wonât speak the 4th language perfectly (or not even nearly perfect), please donât let the quest for perfection somehow hinder this goal. Sometimes we seem to dismiss any progress because better is the enemy of good.
Thank you, BelgianMum, for spelling this out. It is what I meant when I wrote that there is immense pressure on teachers. There is definitely a lack of funding and resources.