Would an English-speaking language preschool be best for toddlers who only speak English at home? If the family moves to Taiwan, they’ll be surrounded by Chinese language everywhere (including nanny), so they can easily pick it up just by living there, right? Whereas if they went to a local preschool, they’ll pick up Chinese just like that, but English on the other hand would be harder for them to keep up because they’ll only speak it at home. Does that sound about right?
As for English-speaking preschool, Smart Start seems a good one. Are there others? Looking for Tianmu or 101 locations preferably.
How long do you plan on staying? Any Chinese they learn will be forgotten in a year or two once they return home if they’re young children. What language do you want the child to be proficient in reading and writing? They’ll learn this at school. If they go to an English school you won’t be able to teach them literacy in Chinese. In my experience children will pick up some language outside of school but if you want them to become bilingual you’ll need to send them to a Chinese school. Speaking English at home will be enough to retain their English speaking and listening, but you’ll have to work quite hard to teach and keep up their English literacy.
I guess you have to consider who will be teaching your child at the Engrish school, how they will be teaching them, and who your child will be communicating in English with. I could well be wrong, but I’m going to try to keep English input at home and Chinese at school.
I don’t live in Taiwan - only considering a move in the next couple of years, but I live in a non-English speaking country and have a 7-year old.
For toddlers, the English they get at home will be perfectly sufficient for many years to come, in my opinion.
Our kid has been in bilingual environments and immersive foreign language environments - and of course we’ve encountered many other children in the same situation, foreign and local. To cut a long story short, at that age, even in a bilingual environment, the learning of the foreign language was often pretty poor. We were fortunate that our kid was in a foreign-language only kindergarten for 4 months before going to the bilingual one - she could really benefit from knowing both languages. But lots of kids never really learnt the other language properly.
And that’s even in a bilingual kindy, not monolingual English schooling and relying on the kids to pick up Chinese at the playground.
The nanny could make a difference, but I really think you should go for the full Chinese option. It’s a great opportunity and gives the kid a good awareness of language in general, which can help with English later on too.
Now our kid is in grade 2 in a bilingual school, neither of the languages being English. Her English is fine and she can read and write in English, too. We’ll probably switch to a bilingual school with one language being English around grade 5, but I wouldn’t worry (yet) about your toddler’s English if you speak it at home.
I’m not convinced your little one will pick up Chinese just by living there. I think that’s a bit of a myth. The kids really work at it when they’re at school or pre-school, due to the number of hours they’re learning. They don’t get that just listening to the local kids talking at the park. That said, the amount of time spent with the nanny could make a big difference.
It is a myth that kids will pick up Chinese just by living here. I know many expat kids who don’t really speak any Chinese at all despite having been born here. In fact, I would say MOST expat kids don’t speak Chinese, or only speak very little. Really, the only way they are going to learn it really well is to send them to Chinese school OR have a nanny/teacher in your home speaking only Chinese several hours a day. Our youngest is in Chinese preschool and we plan on keeping him in Chinese school for several years. He’s only 3 but he’s already making headway on his older brother who has been in international school and only gets an hour of Chinese instruction a day, plus whatever he picks up from friends on the playground.
[quote]I am a native English speaker and my son (3) will be going to an all Chinese speaking school.
Maybe he can help me improve my Chinese one day.[/quote]
Exactly. I’ve been here 8 years and am perfect testament to not being able to ‘just pick up’ Chinese. It’s a difficult language to transition to from English. Our son will have English as a ‘first’ language, but that’s just to give him a head start. Once he goes to school, he’s going to need all the Chinese he can get, so we have him in day care in Chinese, and my wife will bring along the Chinese alongside the English, which, granted, is not possible for all expats. Since I’m planning on staying here forever, I think both languages are important for little Mason.
I sent my boy to Bilingual Kindy. So morning times were English and afternoons Chinese.
Outside of Kindy, it was only me speaking English with him with everyone else speaking Chinese to him. Actually he was doing pretty good in Taiwanese, too, up until he was 4y/o when I had to change babysitter and the new one only spoke Mandarin.
Now he is in Grade 4, his Chinese is on par with his classmates in speaking, reading and writing, and while I do notice a few of the common mistakes sometimes in his English, we still don’t have any problems speaking English together and I am sure he will continue to improve the more we converse. After Kindy finished and he started Chinese school, he still attended English class 2 X 3hrs/wk but now in Grade 4 with more full school days, he still attends English class 2 X 2hrs/wk. He still goes to English classes as he still needs to learn to read and write. He is leaps and bounds above his classmates in speaking and picks up the reading and writing stuff quicker. And the English he learns in elementary school, he says is so basic, and sometimes he can’t understand his Chinese school’s English Teacher’s English.
With the kindy, sure it is important on who is teaching your kid English, not so much on the qualifications of the teacher, but rather if they are a good person. I feel Kindy here is just glorified daycare. I need somewhere to take him while I am working. I chose bilingual not so much for him being drilled vocab and sentence patterns, but the teacher will talk and play games and sing songs in class, just as they would in daycare at home. Having things theme based at kindy is just a bonus as he gets to learn about more topics. Sometimes it is funny when he pops out a question about something and then through questioning I work out that it was about a topic he learnt in kindy and while we were out doing something, it somehow related to that and it brought back that memory to him.
I am really amazed sometimes how he can be talking with me and some of his Taiwan friends at the same time, switching between English with me and Mandarin with his friends. But then when we are out somewhere, he hates being translater and always makes me try and speak Mandarin first. Little bugger.
Nice post, TaipeiSean. Having met your son and knowing he’s well-adjusted and a good kid, it’s good to see that the basic plan I have for my son is similar to yours and that it works. Thanks
Ours speaks English and Chinese and Taiwanese. He speaks mostly English at home and Chinese at the nanny’s. He doesn’t seem to have any difficulty using either, but then again, he’s only 2-and-a-half so its ALL fairly rudimentary. He’ll almost certainly be going into a Chinese learning environment when the time comes and I’m not too worried about him losing his English.
I’ve heard that often, there’ll come a stage when they refuse to speak one language or the other – normally its English – but that they later outgrow this and are happy enough to switch back and forth as required.
Someone, and I’m naming no names, has taught him to say “don’t give me crap!” and he says it all the damn time. Wasn’t me, either.
[quote=“sandman”]Ours speaks English and Chinese and Taiwanese. He speaks mostly English at home and Chinese at the nanny’s. He doesn’t seem to have any difficulty using either, but then again, he’s only 2-and-a-half so its ALL fairly rudimentary. He’ll almost certainly be going into a Chinese learning environment when the time comes and I’m not too worried about him losing his English.
I’ve heard that often, there’ll come a stage when they refuse to speak one language or the other – normally its English – but that they later outgrow this and are happy enough to switch back and forth as required.
Someone, and I’m naming no names, has taught him to say “don’t give me crap!” and he says it all the damn time. Wasn’t me, either.[/quote]
He has an additional burden, since his sainted Ma is the only fluent English speaker at home.