Sorry, I’m not looking to produce eloquence in a child necessarily. I’m hoping to raise a child that might become eloquent in youth and hopefully by adulthood. Children should not be saddled with unreasonable expectations.
Maoman’s a houseboy?
Honestly, after five years of working with rather eccentric families (eccentric because they’re rich enough to not be ‘crazy’ 
), I’ve only seen a few kids who confused languages. One was a kid whose mother spoke to him in four different languages (French, Mandarin, English, and Taiwanese - in order of their proficiency) who as a five-year-old would put all three languages in one sentence from time to time, like asking “You have un crayon ma?” when asking for a pencil. Another was a girl who when asking where her name was (only three years old so she was still working on name recognition), asked “This is me de ma?”. She was being raised by her Filipina nanny who spoke Tagalog, Mandarin, and English with her.
Moral of the story: Don’t mix languages on your kids, a!
[quote=“ImaniOU”]I’ve only seen a few kids who confused languages. One was a kid whose mother spoke to him in four different languages (French, Mandarin, English, and Taiwanese - in order of their proficiency) who as a five-year-old would put all three languages in one sentence from time to time, like asking “You have un crayon ma?” when asking for a pencil. Another was a girl who when asking where her name was (only three years old so she was still working on name recognition), asked “This is me de ma?”. She was being raised by her Filipina nanny who spoke Tagalog, Mandarin, and English with her.
Moral of the story: Don’t mix languages on your kids, a![/quote]
My theory is that if you require kids to clearly distinguish languages, they’ll learn to, while if you speak a sloppy mix they’ll learn that. I wouldn’t worry if there’s some spontaneous mixing in the early years. 
Wo xiang mixing the languages coolifies them. 
Most of the parents here are foreign fathers with Taiwanese wives so I assume that the children would be hearing Chinese most of the time with a few hours with the father in English. I’m curious what will happen to my children as a foreign wife?
Right now my kids think, speak and dream in English. They can understand some Chinese but English is what they hear all day long, for the first five years of their lives English is it. Then they go to Chinese school. Will they start to drop their English? They will still have lots of foreign friends to speak English with and I still will work with them in English as well not to mention summers home. I can’t wait to see what happens.
i’ve thought of this too - aside from the environment that they are in, which includes what they hear (and hearing language is a great way to gain proficiency), i’m partial to reading.
i read voraciously when i was young, and it helped me gain in so many ways. by their reading “works of elegance”, you may very well promote such ideals in your kids. i’ve seen a lot of kids become proficient/fluent in a language by going to school, watching TV and listening to blowhards, but getting interested in “works of elegance” gives kids the idea that such a level exists (even subconsciously).
OK, I get it now. Good questions. However, best to ask the grown ups who once were in the same position your child will be in, as opposed to asking the soon to be/parents who are in the same position as you. 
I’m a bit late replying so forgive me for commenting on posts a few pages back, but not without first commending ImaniOU for her excellent post. What she said, 100%.
With due thought, and to further answer Maoman’s questions, I still think that a unilingual family atmosphere is desireable when immersed in another language to create a balance, or better, to tip the scale. Especialy since we are not talking about fluency here, but eloquence.
As ImaniOU and Tigerman suggested, spending time immersed by the English language in another country makes a world of difference. I could not agree more. On the same token, the same could be said about growing up in Taiwan with a Chinese parent.
This said, I need to clarify my comments from earlier in this thread. I still think that if a child is to live in Taiwan, English only, at home, is the only way to you can even aspire for your child to think in English. However I now realise that Maoman’s questions aren’t simplified to living in Taiwan and open to more feasible options the like suggested by ImaniOU, Tigerman, and others.
Eloquence, simply put, is thoughts well orchestrated with words through a language. Any bilingual person would understand that the less you think in a language, the less eloquent you become.
It’s simple really. If you speak two languages at home, while the child is immersed in one of the two languages, the child’s thought process will be in Chinese. What that means is that English thought process is on the back burner waiting for stimulation. Either through the English parent or the English school. Meanwhile the Chinese thought process not only gets constant stimuation, but it also works for itself. “Talking to yourself” is an excellent way to become eloquent, you should know.
If one of the parent isn’t fluent in English, I would not worry to much about the child copying mistakes so much. What I would worry about more is having kiddo pointing out mom’s gammar error at 6 years old.
Now to be eloquent, this is my opinion and I’m sticking to it like flies on shit. 
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:offtopic: though, yet 蘇達丙 (su1 da2 bing3) sounds very similar to a kind of cracker called 蘇打餅 (su1 da3 bing3). 
[/quote]
:offtopic: though, yet 蘇達丙 (su1 da2 bing3) sounds very similar to a kind of cracker called 蘇打餅 (su1 da3 bing3). [/quote]
A joke just isn’t as funny if you spell it out, ya know! Wanna hazard a guess on the other name?
Is eloquence really that important? Does one really need eloquence to get ahead in the world? Or even achieve the things you want in life? Cantonese is my worst out of three languages in terms of fluency. It didn’t stop me from wooing my wife or whispering sweet nothings in her ear.
I think that effective communication skills is something that is readily lacking in many and is important for getting ahead. But eloquence? Obviously, eloquence is not a mandatory requirement for the job of leading the most powerful nation on earth. I think the incumbent aptly proves this point.
[quote=“sjcma”]Is eloquence really that important? Does one really need eloquence to get ahead in the world? Or even achieve the things you want in life? Cantonese is my worst out of three languages in terms of fluency. It didn’t stop me from wooing my wife or whispering sweet nothings in her ear.
I think that effective communication skills is something that is readily lacking in many and is important for getting ahead. But eloquence? Obviously, eloquence is not a mandatory requirement for the job of leading the most powerful nation on earth. I think the incumbent aptly proves this point.[/quote]
I have a suspicion this could be as simple in this context as “What is toubling you at the moment” when addressing a child, possibly teenage at the point eloquence is needed and being able to extract the problem and help deal with it.
In a business sense, I agree with you sjcma.
There are different traits we hope to instill in our children - athleticism, musicality, an artistic sense, eloquence, etc. Some people (including me) would like their kids to be well-rounded, well-adjusted children. I think it’s natural for parents to promote some values over others, though. A little league coach would probably naturally want his kid to play baseball. A mother who loves painting might very well want her kids to develop their artistic sense as well.
Anyway, my original definition of LoE was the language that bilingual or trilingual people use when they want to communicate most effectively. Obviously being bilingual means you can communicate in either language, but in my experience, people are usually better at one or the other.
Just thank your lucky stars if she ends up eloquent in ANY language. Its a rare attribute. In Forumosa terms for example, I can think of only Fred Smith and Fox when he’s on a roll who even come close to eloquence.
Yes, yes, of course. :eh:
It goes without saying that there a million other things to worry about and hope for. This is just one of many things I’ve been thinking about.
Of course, parents will promote values which they think are important. I think this is related to something you wrote earlier:
You bring up an interesting point above for it is the typical immigrant experience for many in Canada. They see their own culture has having more value than the local one, and hence, do their darndest to have their children operate effectively in the local world, but not necessarily so immersed as to become fully integrated (i.e. think and act like the locals). So what you are saying may be provocative to some, but it is no different than many immigrants around the world. For me personally, I am considering moving my family from Canada to a Chinese speaking society and one important factor is wanting my kids to grow up in Chinese culture. And despite having lived in Canada since the age of 9, I still find myself being a semi-detached observer of this society. Yes, I vote, I pay my taxes, and enjoy living here, but I’m sure I do not have the same emotional attachment to this land as someone that was born locally.
I know I’m drifting off topic here, but I do have a point as it relates to LoE. Despite the fact that I spent half my childhood speaking soley Chinese, that I spoke no English at home when I was growing up, that I still speak no English right now to my siblings and at home with my family, and that I consider myself, on the whole, culturally Chinese, English is still my best language by a w-i-d-e w-i-d-e margin. Its unavoidable really. It is the language of the land in which I live and work.
You can, if you wanted to, create an English fortress by sending your daughter to a English school and have her assoicate mainly with English speaking people. It’s easier to do this in Taipei and Hong Kong, then say, doing the same in Chinese living in Toronto or Vancouver. But unless your goal is to have your daughter move to an English speaking country when she gets older, you’ll really be doing her a disservice by handicapping her against the locals when it’s time for her to get a job.
In my personal experience, English is my best language in everyday conversation. But when I’m at home talking to my wife about my day at work, things on TV, or the kids, Cantonese is by far most effective. I’d have to say context plays a big role.
Yes, context plays a huge role, but that’s true for any language, even if you are one of unfortunate monolingual people out there. If you don’t have the experience or education to talk about mp3 player specs, then no matter how much time you spent immersed in a language, you’ll never simply develop an eloquence in that area without getting either the education or experience. Perhaps that’s the problem with bilingual people who don’t excel at either language. Perhaps they spent their time learning one home language and the other one only at school so they have no meaningful language experiences to connect either one to all aspects of their life. It’s tough to get a balance, even with regular attendance in a bilingual school unless your daughter is being taught by only native speakers in each language (going back to not wanting a photocopy of a photocopy of a language).
Why? Remember, we’re not talking about fluency here. Both my wife and I would be very disappointed if our children weren’t fluent in both languages. But since the education system here is so abysmal, I think we would be doing them a disservice if we didn’t send her to an international school. I believe that a fluent Mandarin speaker, having English as their LoE, with a western education would not be handicapped against the locals - if anything, they’d have an advantage over them.
Why? Remember, we’re not talking about fluency here. Both my wife and I would be very disappointed if our children weren’t fluent in both languages. But since the education system here is so abysmal, I think we would be doing them a disservice if we didn’t send her to an international school. I believe that a fluent Mandarin speaker, having English as their LoE, with a western education would not be handicapped against the locals - if anything, they’d have an advantage over them.[/quote]
Your point is well taken. But it is a hypothetical situation nonetheless. I guess I’m still stuck at the issue of fluency. If your daughter grows up in an island of English, I am making the assumption that her fluency in Chinese will suffer. Perhaps not spoken fluency as she’ll have plenty of practice with mom and society, but most likely written fluency. Remember that written Chinese is half a language unto its own and not nearly as correlated to its spoken form as spoken English is to written English.
Perhaps your daughter will be a natural with languages. But if she’s like most people, do you think having her grow up in an 80% English environment will allow her to compete as effectively in Chinese with someone that’s been immersed in it 100% of the time for the same past 18 years? If her boss asks her to write a 5 page project proposal in Chinese, do you think that growing up in a 80% English environment will give her the edge over someone who studied in Chinese all the way through?
I guess your underlying assumption is that her Chinese will be at least as good as the locals. And if you add eloquence in English on top of that, her advantage will be obvious. However, I’m not sure that this underlying assumption is necessarily true.
A really interesting thread, and as like many on here as a parent of a mixed parentage child it is one that at least in general terms has also crossed my mind.
Maoman, in response to your original question, i applaud the fore thought that you are giving to a topic like this, the only real influence you as a parent can have is to provide the environment in which your child is more likely to attain eloquency in the language you require. Since you wish it to be english, then IMO you need to provide a predominantly english speaking environment, something you are unlikely to be able to provide here where the child will have a chinese speaking environment. Even if you send the child to a school like TES, the general environment is still chinese speaking. That is the language is likely to hear whilst around at friends houses, playing with other kids etc.
As others have also mentioned, eloquency without fluency is an unreasonable expectation, so fluency is the first requirement.
It is my belief, that a child is more likely to be truly bilingual if they learn and hear all the languages from the time they are born. Each parent should speak to the child in their own native language so that the child does not learn bad habits or incorrect ways of pronunciation etc. It is our intention for our child, that she will go to the local primary school to receive a proper grounding in chinese something i feel that schools like TES cannot and do not provide, whilst also receiving healthy doses of english language input and instruction. After completion of primary school, then we will either switch her to an english medium school here, or even contemplating sending her back to the UK to be schooled.
At the end of the day though, it is the child, even if done subconciously that will decide what language if any that they will become eloquent in, all you can do is to provide the influences to try and steer it down the choice you wish, but it may still not be enough.
Yes, and I think this is a very important point.
We put our boy in the local school system up to this year… so, he went to three years of Taiwanese kindy and six years of Taiwanese grade school and the first two years of Taiwanese middle school… I have him doing the 8th grade again now at his new international school where the language of instruction in English.
As indicated in a previous post, his Chinese is now at the same level as local kids, and his English is a bit behind native English speakers of the same age.
Thus, he has a very good base in Chinese (speaking, writing and reading), and he would not have that had he first went to an international school. I note that his Chinese proficiency is far above the top level offered at his new school, and English is easier to learn, IMO, especially when one has a good foundation in both speaking and reading English. He will learn to write English in the years to come.
By contrast, I don’t expect to ever learn to write competently in Chinese.