Child refusing to speak English

Help… My 4yo daughter is just starting to show the first signs of refusing to speak English…

Historically when talking at dad she would speak English and talking at mum she would speak Chinese.

Her Chinese is much better than her English, it is to be expected as she gets much more exposure to it, mainly because she spends all day with mum and is going to a local kindergarten. Also I am spending 2~3 weeks a month overseas… which does not help. Mum tries with the English but it seems the more and more time she is spending at school the less she is interested in English… I suspect some of it is because she has a larger vocabulary in Chinese…

Recently, she came home from school and said to mum that the other kids won’t play with her if she speaks English… in just the last few days when I ask her a question sometimes she tells mum the answer in Chinese.

We are thinking to try to make the home an English only environment ? and I am going to read a bedtime story nightly when I am here. But if anyone has more ideas or tips they would be greatly received… I think it stresses me more than my daughter.

Wow, sorry to hear that Connel. She’s a terrific girl and I’m sure it’s nothing serious. But I can see how it would concern you. We’d be happy to get together with you from time to time so our girls can play, and I’ll tell Emily to speak English with her.

Btw, Emily has a new friend in school recently, a girl (Kathryn/Catherine) whose mom is Taiwanese and dad is Canadian and I understand they enjoy playing together. Emily gets along fine with all the 100% Taiwanese kids, but I think she appreciates that she has something in common with this girl (lighter hair and an English speaking dad). I think it’s good for both of them to spend time together. Too bad you don’t live closer so your girl could join the same school.

Anyway, I’m serious about getting together. We’ve been very busy lately, but should hook up one of these days.

Isn’t that just so typical and sad. Bad news is, it only gets worse. Whenever I get a new student (avg. age 19), I carefully get them to understand that what they need is less study, more practice. Then I help them see the link between practice and lack of environment so they understand how much of an uphill battle they have to take on if they hope to ever be comfortable, much less fluent, with English.

Then I’ll give them a “suppose”. Suppose you discover that another student in this class lives in your area. You decide to take the MRT home together. What language is your MRT converation in?

Guess what their answer is 100% of the time. Face is microscopically quantifiable in the people of this land. Your little girl already understands this. To speak English is to risk making a mistake. Making a mistake is a loss of face. Losing face is the biggest taboo imaginable. So it is instilled in them as soon as they can understand embarrassment. The other kids are laughing at her to bring her down to their level. You see it in classes all the time.

Oh if only they could look at one of the most revered iconographs in Chinese history and realize that their education system is all yang.

I struggle with thoughts like these whenever I turn my mind to possibly siring a child in Taiwan. Never mind the racism the child will be subjected to (remember Durin’s kid getting shot with a BB gun???), but do I want my kid to be surrounded by this culture of fear of flying?

I guess, if it happened, I would be so proactive in trying to help my kid understand that those who choose to mock, belittle and bully are lesser humans and not worth your thought energy, or something like that.

Good luck Connel.

[quote=“Mother Theresa”]Wow, sorry to hear that Connel. She’s a terrific girl and I’m sure it’s nothing serious. But I can see how it would concern you. We’d be happy to get together with you from time to time so our girls can play, and I’ll tell Emily to speak English with her.

Btw, Emily has a new friend in school recently, a girl (Kathryn/Catherine) whose mom is Taiwanese and dad is Canadian and I understand they enjoy playing together. Emily gets along fine with all the 100% Taiwanese kids, but I think she appreciates that she has something in common with this girl (lighter hair and an English speaking dad). I think it’s good for both of them to spend time together. Too bad you don’t live closer so your girl could join the same school.

Anyway, I’m serious about getting together. We’ve been very busy lately, but should hook up one of these days.[/quote]

I don’t think it is too serious at the moment, I just want to nip it in the bud before it becomes a bigger issue, so I am interested how others have dealt with it as I am sure it is a fairly common problem.

Definitely should get together at some point, I’m heading back overseas again tomorrow for the next 2 weeks (perfect timing) :frowning: so potentially Vicky will contact Gina (?)

Vicky does have 1 friend who we meet infrequently that has a duaghter same age who can only speak English… will have to get them together more as well…

I think I have managed to avoid that point, but not by much and only through spending a lot of time with my kids, son 4 and daughter 7. They have at times said they didn’t want to speak English and considering the ease at which they can speak Mandarin who can blame them. It is simply a matter of creating enough of an English environment on a consistent daily basis for her. In my case I am able to spend min. 2-3hrs a day with both of them and ask them to only use English with me and try to get them also to speak English with each other while we are together (perhaps successful at that 50% of the time). If you don’t have the time you either have your wife play that role 100% of the time they are together, I would suggest she will get enough Mandarin at school and everywhere else for this to not matter so much or put her into one of those English bushibans.

I think of it as my responsibility to ensure that they are fluent/native in English when they reach adulthood considering half of the blood coursing through their veins is mine and they will never be 100% accepted in this culture as local. Hell my daughter wasn’t recognised as having any rights to citizenship at her birth 7 years ago and although the law has changed the natives perceptions haven’t. While they are a fair way from native English speaking right now I believe they have the basic building blocks in place for that to happen in a reasonably short period of time in an English speaking environment.

Good luck in your efforts, “you can make it!”

It’s a phase.

:astonished: :astonished: :astonished:

I thought you looked a little pale last time I saw you.

This is your main problem. It’s hard enough when you are the only point of contact for english and are around all the time.

I haven’t been in the same situation as you with being away for periods of time but i would think you would want to be insistent about speaking only english to her, regardless of how she responds. read to her as much as possible and do other fun things in english. speak english to your wife as much as possible when your daughter is around. if possible try to take a good vacation back home where it’s an english environment. get some dvd’s of english programs.

This is your main problem. It’s hard enough when you are the only point of contact for English and are around all the time.

[/quote]
I agree with TG, but I’m less optimistic than he is. You can try the nice English speaking vacation, insisting on speaking English and reading her books when you’re home, but IMO, this will amount to pissing in the ocean to raise the tide. Two to three weeks out of every four is a lot of time when you are her only exposure to English, and two to three weeks is an eternity as far as how much language a child of that age can learn (or in the case of English for her, forget). If my work situation were like yours, unless my wife were near-native in English, I’d be hesitant to ask her to switch to English. It would be fine to do the “minority language” only at home if you were around enough to make it obvious that your language is the stronger model (kids always seem to figure that out), but if it is just your wife and she is only good but not near-native, then your child will likely end up speaking somewhat Chinglishy English and she and your wife might experience some distancing. Worse, your wife may find that she just can’t stick to the plan. IMO, parents should think carefully about what the family’s “language policy” will be, and avoid establishing any policy if either parent is unsure of their ability to implement it.

If you’re serious about raising a bilingual child, you’ve got to put the time and effort into it (not that you’re slacking off in that job that keeps you away). If I found myself in your situation, I’d make it a priority to rearrange my life so that I could be home a lot more; I’m sure you’ve already thought about that. In the meantime, I’d be on Skype with a high quality webcam every night with my kid.

I know a stay-at-home mother whose children (mostly home until they were about 4 or 5, but with mostly bilingual friends) went through a phase of preferring Chinese over English. I think it really started when they started going to school (Chinese) and they wanted to fit in. I think you’ve got some pretty good suggestions already. Speak only English to her, but I don’t think you need to insist that she respond to you in English. One of my students took an annual trip to the States with her parents. I think she was 3-1/2 when she surprised everyone by switching to English while on that month long trip. When they returned to Taiwan, she just continued speaking English (along with the Mandarin of course).

My wife keeps telling my daughter I can only understand Chinese with other people and not her. My daughter accepts this as reality (be it she is only 3 and 1/2 though). Since she likes to play and talk to me, she has in her view no choice but to speak in English.

Her grammar is a little funky and her English is behind her Chinese (she asks my wife to translate words into English sometimes), but progress is being made. On the point of reading books, from personal experience this helps alot, espically storybooks with pictures, and my daughter love fairytales (gingerbread man, little read riding hood, three bears). Sidenote, it is also very cool and refreshing to try and see the world through their innocent pure eyes. My daughter is convinced the gingerbread man lives near us, and the wolf lives in B2 car park

Also exposure to people or situations where English is the language of the group speaking (even though your daughter may just be as an observer) seems to work wonders

My boy speaks both English and Chinese. I only speak English with him. The only other person who speaks English with him was his Morning Kindy Teacher and now his 3 days X 2 hrs a week English teacher and of course his classmates (in class). Everyone else speaks Chinese with him. His mom is not with us anymore (divorced and gone) so he also gets Chinese at his babysitter’s place. He was also getting Taiwanese from his first babysitter where he was there for about 2 years but since we changed babysitters, the new one doesn’t speak Taiwanese so it seems like most of that is gone. We also return back to Australia for 3 - 4 weeks every year and then it is all English with all my family and friends. I feel this is the big boost for him. While his grammar isn’t 100%, he is still, well you could say fluent. Every 7 year old makes grammar mistakes. And his Chinese, he goes to regular Taiwan elementary school, his teacher says no problem and he does get 100% on his Chinese tests sometimes. He can read and write so much already even though he is only in Year 1. He is 7 and a half years old. He even called my landlord the other night and explained to her how our bathroom fawcett was broken and shoots out water from everywhere when you turn it on. The landlord had a plumber around in 30 minutes. I was so amazed and proud of him.

Ha, when we go back to Australia and I want to tell him a secret and speak Chinese to him, he says angrily to me, “Don’t speak Chinese”.

I love my boy. He is so great and I am so proud of him…

[quote=“TaipeiSean”]

I love my boy. He is so great and I am so proud of him…[/quote]
Bullshit. Any kid without developmental problems put in the same situation as what your kid has been in would likely turn out the same way. The pat on the back goes to you for having gone to the effort to set up a strong bilingual environment for him and the discipline to maintain it. :bravo:

Thks for all the replies thus far. I am over in China right now. Prior to leaving I spent a few days chatting a lot more than usual, my wife has also been talking in English with her while I am away. This seems to be helping and she is responding but I understand it is a long-term uphill struggle.

Apart from night time story/reading books I am wondering what are the best materials to use to improve her vocabulary ?? simply using childrens picture books ? at the moment I see this as the biggest challenge… in kindergarten/daily use her Chinese vocabulary is obviously growing fast. I am not sure how we try to match that in English. Not being fluent in Chinese (i know enough to hold a conversation), I feel I rely on my wife’s skill again to initially teach her the English word for something she is talking about in Chinese… That leads to the Chinglish pronounciation worry…

We also thought about a tutor who could spend a couple hrs a week with her… or some other type of after school activity which could be fun but done in English. Does anyone know of any/many activities done in English ?

TYPA offers tons of classes, sports and activities in English.

My kids also learn tons of vocabulary from books. We often go to the library and our shelves are overflowing with kids books. They read the same books over and over again for a week or two until they completely understand it then move on. This is where the library comes in handy.

Also easy DVDs for preschoolers like Dora and Blues Clues.

Back when Herman was just starting to learn to speak, we used to have a bunch of kids learning English CDs. They like to watch even if they don’t understand because they have puppets and stuff. So one day I’m sitting with him on my lap and he is babbling on and on not making sentences yet. Except once he stopped, looked at me, and in plain, clear English, said, “Yes. I do.” and then went back to babbling. It was so astonishing and so funny.

[quote=“Jive Turkey”][quote=“TaipeiSean”]

I love my boy. He is so great and I am so proud of him…[/quote]
Bullshit. Any kid without developmental problems put in the same situation as what your kid has been in would likely turn out the same way. The pat on the back goes to you for having gone to the effort to set up a strong bilingual environment for him and the discipline to maintain it. :bravo:[/quote]

I don’t understand the “bullshit” comment. Thanks for the pat on the back though and I will repeat…

I love my boy. He is so great and I am so proud of him

Just as I am sure you all love your kid/s and think they are so great and are so proud of him/her/them…

Check him out at 4y/o
au.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5A7JYEJMeg

Check him out at 6/yo
au.youtube.com/watch?v=uy_OSdITQn4

Check him out at 7y/o
au.youtube.com/watch?v=Bua6HDtOOqA

Might not be spectacular to some, but is just fantastic to me… :smiley:

I’ll chime in with one suggestion…

English television programs.

Leave them on all the time.

We don’t you just video yourself reading a bedtime story?

Good idea.

Video the pages with the pictures and words on them with your voice coming from off camera. At the beginning and end present your person and “night” “night” etc…